The blood curdling sound of distant gunfire echoed around the sunbaked desert as Uriah Moon travelled toward the towering mountains and mesas. He drew back on his long leathers and stopped the gelded mustang in its tracks. His icy blue eyes stared all around him for signs of the raging battle but all he could was shimmering heat haze. The vigilante rose in his stirrups and surveyed the surrounding area.
The constant noise of the incessant weapon firing was like listening to muffled thunderclaps off beyond the dunes. It did not take long for the vigilante to become aware that this was no storm he could hear. It was far more lethal than anything nature would muster.
Somewhere men were killing other men.
Uriah Moon frowned and stroked his long white beard thoughtfully as the sound continued.
The constant noise of rifles being fired continued to wash over him. Moon slowly lowered himself back on to his saddle and gathered up his loose reins until they were gripped firmly in his hands. The unnerving noise seemed to be coming from all around him as it echoed off the surrounding dunes. It was like being haunted by invisible pounding war drums.
There was a war being waged, Moon reasoned.
A war which he could hear but could see no sign of.
Uriah Moon steadied his skittish mount as he allowed the animal to turn full circle while his eyes continued their vain hunt for any sign of those firing their carbines.
After a few moments the vigilante wrapped his reins around his saddle horn, dismounted and dropped his upturned Stetson at the mustang’s hoofs. He filled its bowl with a full canteen of water and then refilled it in the fast flowing river water before screwing its stopper back on. As his quicksilver mind juggled with a thousand notions, Moon hung the canteen from the saddle horn and moved back to the drinking gelding.
The shooting persisted.
Moon could hear the rifle shots as they travelled around the desert sand and knew that the noise had to be coming from Fort Hook. That was the only place where such a battle could occur, he thought as he dragged his Winchester from its scabbard and cocked its mechanism. A spent casing flew out from its magazine and landed in the river but the vigilante paid it no heed.
His mind considered a thousand more courses of action.
Each one as perilous as the next.
As he retrieved his hat and placed it back on his mane of long colorless hair, Moon knew that whatever he did, it meant risking his neck. That was nothing new to the valiant vigilante as nowadays he seemed to be constantly dicing with death on a daily basis.
Moon hung the rifle from his left gun grip and then mounted the sturdy animal in one fluid action. As his long fingered hands steadied himself and gathered his reins, he thought about his ultimate destination.
The infamous Fort Hook was starting to live up to its bloody reputation. The thunderclaps sounded like a hundred bursting hearts to the expressionless vigilante.
Every fiber of his being warned him not to continue on to the famed fortress but the crumpled telegraph wire in his pocket presented him with no choice.
Colonel Ambrose Moon was the vigilantes only living kin and he had swallowed a lifetime of pride just to ask his cousin to come and help him.
Uriah Moon could not ignore the simple request even if it was a deadly one. His curiosity burned like an inferno inside his head. It would not be extinguished until he discovered the reason for his being summoned.
Moon knew that it must be very important for the cavalry officer to seek assistance from anyone let alone his mysterious cousin.
He had lived, fought and survived countless battles during his life and this was the first occasion that the colonel had ever sought help from the infamous vigilante.
It must be deadly serious, Moon thought. It must be something which the colonel imagined that only his estranged kinsman could actually achieve. If it had not been for the constant sound of echoing gunfire, the vigilante might have been flattered. As it was, Moon was just baffled.
Baffled by everything that had led him to this unholy place.
Droplets of cool refreshing water seeped down from his hat and felt good on his tanned face. Uriah Moon tilted his head back and listened to the distant gunfire again.
He stroked his long beard with his free hand and then looked at the rolling dunes to his right. The seasoned vigilante knew that to continue on his present course beside the fast flowing river might prove mighty unhealthy a few miles ahead.
Moon realized that he was a sitting duck out in the open beneath a tortuous sun. If anyone was to open up on the lone horseman, the vigilante was well aware that there was nowhere to take cover.
The thought did not sit well with him. If he was to continue on to Fort Hook, he needed to find a more secluded trail.
He focused on the massive mounds of sand and began to wonder how much cover they might offer him and his gelding. There was only one way to find out, he thought.
Moon tugged hard his long leathers and dragged his mustang to his left and faced the white sand dunes. Without a hint of mercy, he thrust his spurs into the flanks of his obedient horse and forced the animal to virtually attack the mountain of sand at full pace. Moon realized that the soft loose sand would be impossible to ascend unless he got his mount moving at incredible speed.
The vigilante was right. This was like attempting to climb a pole smothered in axel grease. Yet Moon would not accept failure as an option. His long white hair bounced up and down on his broad shoulders as he drove the gelded mustang at the steep sandy incline.
With the sound of the distant gunshots ringing in his ears like foreboding war drums, Uriah Moon gritted his teeth and charged.
As the mustang frantically ascended the dune, the vigilante lifted his weight off the back of his mount and balanced like a tightrope walker by his boots in his stirrups.
The desert sand was dry and loose. It fought the powerful horse every inch of the way, sending sand toppling from beneath its hoofs down the sheer side of the dune but the horse was like its master and refused to quit.
No rider astride a bucking bronco could have endured such a precarious passage up the white hot sand the way that Moon did so effortlessly. Rocking back and forth as well as from side to side the horseman hung on defiantly and kept his mount going by snarls of venomous cursing.
Blasphemous words of dubious origin spewed from the vigilante’s lips as he hung on for dear life. This was unlike any other ride that Moon had ever attempted before yet somehow he managed to remain atop of his muscular mount.
It was as if every sinew of his body had been shaken free of his bones by the climbing horse. Once again Moon shouted threatening encouragement at the gelding before using the tails of his long leathers to whip the animal’s shoulders.
Eventually the powerful mustang reached the top of the dry white dune where the elements had levelled its summit. Moon stopped the exhausted gelding and looked down at the sand path he had used to climb to this high point.
‘I won’t be doing that again in a hurry,’ He said before spitting the sand from his mouth. He then looked up at the sight which faced him. He narrowed his eyes as he spied something far ahead. Moon patted the neck of the snorting horse beneath him and sighed heavily. ‘Now what have we here, horse?’
Uriah Moon rested his hands on the horn of his saddle and glared at the vision which danced before his eyes. The shimmering heat haze mocked the vigilante as he stared into the distance across countless sand dunes at a sight which surprised the unblinking horseman.
It was a sight which few men had ever witnessed before unless they too were looking down from a high vantage point. Clouds of grey smoke hung in the blue sky far in the distance and created a ghostly cloud above the far off fortress. Now the sickening sound made sense, he thought.
Thunderclaps of rifle fire could still be heard.
The vigilante held his skittish mount in check as he observed the bright yellow flashes of gunfire amid the distant rising smoke. The lights danced off the smoke cloud like devilish sprites as the violent battle persisted.
‘How long is that damn fight going on, horse?’ Uriah Moon drawled as he opened one of his canteens and took a long cool swig of its contents. Quenching his thirst, Moon returned its stopper and screwed it back on to the body of the canteen before hanging it from the saddle horn.
Could this be why his illustrious kin had sent for him?
Did old Ambrose only require his cousin to die alongside the rest of his troopers? Moon smoothed his tethered down beard and shook his head. He doubted that even the highly decorated Ambrose would be so shallow.
There had to be another reason, Moon thought.
There had to be something far more to his cousin’s summons, Moon thought, but he could not think of anything no matter how hard he tried.
It was a troubled Moon who straightened up on his saddle, sighed heavily and glanced around the rolling sand dunes in search of a route to the fort that would keep him away from its marauding attackers.
The last thing that Uriah Moon desired was to get skewered with arrows and bullets before he had a chance to answer his cousins call and reach Fort Hook.
After careful consideration of the sun-bleached terrain below him, the studious vigilante had mapped out a potential route to the fort in his mind. Few, apart from ravenous vultures or black winged eagles floating on warm thermals could have had a better view of the land below his high vantage point than the horseman.
Moon took his tobacco pouch from his vest pocket and started to thoughtfully make himself a cigarette as his unblinking eyes continued to memorize the route he was about to undertake in order to reach Fort Hook. As he curled the gummed paper and raised it to his tongue the sound of the lethal rifles still impacted his ears.
He licked the edge of the paper and twisted it before putting it between his lips. As his fingers tightened the pouch drawstring he found a match and ignited it with a thumbnail.
Uriah Moon lifted the flame to his cigarette and filled his lungs with its acrid smoke. As the vigilante blew the flame out he gathered up his reins he continued to study the distant gun smoke.
There seemed to be no pause in the sound of the shooting.
He sucked the last of the smoke from the cigarette and then flicked it away as he gripped the long leathers. The vigilante carefully turned the mustang and tapped his encouraging spurs into the sides of the animal and started it descend down the dunes side.
Clouds of dust spilled into the bright sunshine as the mustang churned up the dune as it nervously slid further down the steep slope until it reached level ground.
Moon adjusted himself on his saddle and started to ride in the direction where he had last seen a vague sighting of the fortress amid the relentless flashes of torrid gunfire and grey smoke.
Few if any had ever ridden this way before, but that meant nothing to the horseman as he steered his mustang between the dunes and on toward the ever increasing sound of warfare. Yet even as the gelding progressed, its expressionless master felt no fear at what lay ahead.
Death had always been his constant companion. Moon knew it was pointless fretting about it because it could strike at any time and there was nothing anyone could do to avoid its ultimate wrath.
The vigilante allowed the horse to find its own pace through the hot canyons of sand.
Although Moon was in no hurry to reach the embattled Fort Hook he did shy away from his notorious goal. As far as Moon was concerned this was not a fight he wished to be any part of but his thoughts kept drifting to his cousin and why he had been sent for.
His curiosity was far greater than his sense of survival. Moon could not do anything but locate his last surviving kinsman and discover what had caused Colonel Ambrose to send for him of all people.
As the gelding trotted between the dunes, the sound of the rifles grew louder and louder. He was getting closer to the fort with every stride the gelding took.
Uriah Moon rode on.