Ambush at Shadow Valley

Beck and the men looked down at the large blocks of ice in the hole in the barn floor. The blocks had been wrapped in their insulated quilt covers, and in turn covered with a thick layer of fresh straw. A few yards away the center of the barn floor had been raked and swept and covered with blankets to keep down dust. A five-foot-long wooden workbench had been set up, Soto’s equipment and supplies sitting atop it.

‘‘That’s all we can do here,’’ Beck said as he and the others rolled their wet shirtsleeves down and buttoned their cuffs. Gesturing toward Soto, who stood bowed over two buckets of chipped ice and a bucket of the boiled, cooled water atop the workbench, he said quietly, ‘‘We best get out of here, so our genius can work.’’ A few feet from Soto, Clarimonde stood watching Soto intently, ready at any moment to turn her face away as if fearing he might look around at her.

‘‘Now we’re ready,’’ Soto said, hearing the barn door close behind Beck and the men. Clarimonde watched intently as he took two glass laboratory measuring beakers from one of the buckets of chipped ice and set them on the bench. One beaker contained what Clarimonde, not standing close enough to read the measurement on the side of the beaker, could only determine to be three fingers of sulfuric acid. The other beaker contained half as much nitric acid. Soto had set the beakers in one bucket of ice to cool before mixing them together.

‘‘Come closer and watch how I stir this together, very slowly, very carefully,’’ Soto said to her. ‘‘When I get everything mixed together, your job will be to keep everything stirring for the next two hours.’’

Clarimonde only nodded, stepping in closer. She watched him slowly pour the two acids together into a glass flask sitting half-submerged in the other bucket of ice. When the two were in the flask he stuck the glass thermometer in it and said, ‘‘This mix grows warm, but it will cool quickly. When it reaches the right temperature, we mix in the glycerin.’’

Clarimonde didn’t dare ask what that temperature would be and alert him that she might be trying to learn the process herself. Instead she kept a secretive eye on the thermometer. Moments later, when Soto raised it, read it and said, ‘‘There, that is cool enough,’’ Clarimonde could only note that the temperature was somewhere under the fifty degree mark. ‘‘Now,’’ he said, ‘‘I add the glycerin, slowly.’’

She watched as he added the heavy, syruplike glycerin to the acid mixture, committing every detail she could to memory, knowing that anything she missed she could never ask about. She had to learn the process on her own or not at all.

‘‘Now, we wait,’’ he said, after several minutes of blending the glycerin into the acid mixture. Carefully, he pulled the flask up out of the ice and set it on the bench. Putting the thermometer down into the flask, he stepped back, rubbing his hands together, and said with what she read as a cruel smile, ‘‘The complicated part is done. You’ll be doing most of the mixing now.’’

A half hour after he’d mixed in the glycerin, Soto stepped back to the bench and examined the milky mixture closely. ‘‘Pour the water into the funnel,’’ he said over his shoulder to Clarimonde.

‘‘Now, carefully pour the mixture into it,’’ Soto said, watching the milky substance of acids and glycerin without facing her. . . .

While the two worked deep into the night, on the front porch, Beck and the Tall Texan stared now and then at the light glowing through the cracks in the barn walls. The rest of the men had given up over the past two hours and gone inside to bed. After a while, Kirkpatrick sighed and took the last swig of rye from a whiskey bottle. ‘‘Does it always take this long to make nitro?’’

‘‘How would I know?’’ Beck replied, his eyes going back to the image of a silhouette passing back and forth through the light inside the barn. ‘‘How long has it been?’’

Kirkpatrick checked his pocket watch, then shoved it back down inside his vest pocket. ‘‘More than four hours. I didn’t know anything took this long to make.’’

Beck started to answer, but his attention went instead to the barn door opening and closing. The two stood up, watching the pale, grainy image of Clarimonde walk toward them in the moonlight.

‘‘Of course you can,’’ said Beck. Before he could turn to Kirkpatrick, the Tall Texan had already turned toward the door. ‘‘It’s going to be stout.’’

Beck noted a difference in her voice. It sounded stronger, more confident—the voice of a woman taking the reins, he thought. As Kirkpatrick stepped inside the house, he asked her, ‘‘How is it going out there?’’

‘‘It’s finished,’’ she said, a certain amount of relief coming to her voice. ‘‘Suelo said to tell you we’ll test some of it first thing in the morning.’’

‘‘I see,’’ Beck said, understanding that she was not going to take a chance at saying the wrong thing. Deciding not to push the matter, he said, ‘‘Then, I suppose we’ll see just how good you and Suelo Soto both are at this come morning.’’

The front door opened and closed, and Kirkpatrick stepped out, carrying a hot coffeepot, a rag wrapped around the handle. ‘‘Watch it, ma’am. This is hot,’’ he said, handing the pot to her carefully. ‘‘Take a good grip on the handle here.’’ He held the pot around for her to take from him.

Beck smiled, getting her message. He touched his fingers to his hat brim toward her and said, ‘‘Night, ma’am,’’ and he and Kirkpatrick watched her turn and walk away in the moonlight.

‘‘Yes, good news indeed,’’ said Beck. ‘‘I think I’ll turn in now, see what tomorrow brings us.’’

At dawn, Denver Modale, owner of the Big Diamond tent saloon, pulled his gallowses up over his thick shoulders and stepped out of the privy. He’d walked across the littered alleyway behind the big tent and started to step inside when a hand reached out of nowhere, grabbed his collar and slung him to the ground.

‘‘Whoa! Don’t shoot!’’ Modale cried out, looking up the open bore of Davis Dinsmore’s cocked Colt, two inches from his nose. ‘‘I’ve got no money on me! I swear I don’t!’’

‘‘Shut up, Denver, you pig! It’s not a robbery,’’ said Dinsmore, tipping his hat up enough for the saloon owner to get a better look at his beard-stubbled face.

‘‘Damn it, Davis,’’ Modale said, almost wishing it were a robber instead of his former brother-in-law. ‘‘Why’d you knock me down like this? Are you crazy?’’ He started to get back on his feet, but Dinsmore’s dirty boot pressed hard onto his chest, holding him down.

‘‘Not so fast, Denver,’’ said Dinsmore. ‘‘We want some information. I’m hoping you’re not going to make us beat it out of you.’’

‘‘Not if I can help it,’’ said Modale. ‘‘I’ve got nothing to hide and nobody to hide it from. Ask what you will.’’ Lying back beneath the Dinsmore boot, he saw Neil Deavers step into view. ‘‘Detective Deavers?’’ he asked, looking surprised and puzzled. ‘‘You’re working with Davis Dinsmore?’’

‘‘No, it’s just that—’’ Modale’s words turned to a grunt as Dinsmore raised his boot and stomped it down hard on his chest.

‘‘Enough?’’ Dinsmore gave Modale an evil look and said to Deavers, ‘‘If you knew this sumbitch like I do, you’d want me to kill him and do it slow, the things he did to my sister, Belle.’’

‘‘Back off, Davis. I’m warning you,’’ said Deavers. He stepped in between the two and reached a hand down to Modale, helping him to his feet.

‘‘That was all uncalled for, Davis,’’ said Modale, brushing himself off. ‘‘We’ve seen one another other times. You never acted like this!’’

‘‘It just dawned on me this morning how bad I hate your worthless guts, Denver Modale,’’ Dinsmore growled.

‘‘The fact of it is,’’ he said to Deavers, ‘‘I didn’t run out on his sister. She ran out on me. She comes from a long line of crazy—’’

‘‘That’s it. You’re dead!’’ said Dinsmore, cutting him off. He tried to shove his Colt around Deavers to pull the trigger.

‘‘Damn it, put it away!’’ Deavers shouted, clamping his hand down over the Colt to keep the hammer from being able to fall.

But Dinsmore took a breath and stood back, letting Deavers take the Colt, uncock it and shove it back down into his holster. ‘‘There, now leave it holstered!’’ He turned back to Modale. ‘‘We’re looking for Memphis Beck and some of his men. We tracked three of them near here on a handcar. We found the handcar on the siding near town. Have you seen any of them?’’

Modale ignored him and said to Deavers, ‘‘I have not seen Memphis Beck, and that’s the gospel truth.’’ He looked back and forth along the alleyway. Then he said in a lowered tone, ‘‘But I did see the Tall Texan and some others.’’

‘‘Two days ago, Kirkpatrick and Billy Todd Carver came to town, Billy Todd on a saddle, the Tall Texan holding down a buggy seat.’’ He looked back and forth again. ‘‘They met a funny-looking fellow with his head shaved and tattooed, and a woman who acted like she didn’t know last night from next Sunday morning.’’

‘‘Yep, two days,’’ said Modale. ‘‘They stood right at the bar, the tattooed fellow drinking shots of rye like the sky was falling. Kirkpatrick just watched him like they halfway had a mad-on.’’

‘‘Which way did they ride out?’’ Deavers asked, starting to wonder if maybe the gang was holed up nearby.

‘‘Up toward the hill trails,’’ said Modale, pointing toward a hill line in the distance. Looking past Deavers at Dinsmore, he said, ‘‘Now, see, I said all that without all the threatening and bullying, didn’t I?’’

‘‘You’ve been most helpful, Modale,’’ said Deavers, ‘‘and I appreciate it.’’ He turned to Dinsmore and said, ‘‘Come on, we’ll ride up along the high trails, see if we can get lucky and pick up some tracks.

‘‘Any time I can help, Detective Deavers, you let me know,’’ Modale said. ‘‘I see lots of strange folks come and go. Lately they’re hairless with tattooed heads,’’ he wheezed and laughed.

‘‘He’s not a detective, you dimwit!’’ Dinsmore growled at him, ignoring his words. ‘‘He’s a bounty hunter! We both are. We make our living facing bad men, not pouring whiskey and lighting cigars!’’

Deavers gave Dinsmore a shove to keep him from going after the saloon owner. ‘‘Come on, I think we might be onto something. One of the men with Kirkpatrick yesterday was most likely Billy Todd Carver, since Modale said they were both here in town together. We need to tighten down on Kirkpatrick and Carver. I’ve got a feeling they’ll lead us to the rest of the gang."