Chapter 12 - The Iron Serpent
The descent from Black Ridge into the snow-choked belly of the valley felt like marching directly into the mouth of hell. A stinging sleet lashed Clara’s face, freezing the crimson stains that stiffened her tattered lace bodice. Behind her, Nathaniel leaned heavily on a hickory walking branch, each ragged breath rattling against his cracked ribs, yet his jaw remained set like carved granite. His Colt hung low at his hip, the brass frame catching the faint, sickly glow of the town’s gaslamps.
Below them lay the railyard of Black Ridge. Usually a quiet depot of timber wagons and coal hoppers, it had been transformed into an armed garrison. Hissing plumes of pure white steam billowed into the midnight sky from a gleaming, charcoal-black Baldwin locomotive—the Governor’s private transport, "The Sovereign." Polished brass boiler bands gleamed beneath the depot lanterns, and armed Pinkerton guards in heavy buffalo coats patrolled the perimeter with lever-action rifles cradled in their arms.
"There are at least thirty hired guns down there," Agnes murmured, wiping grease and snow from the heavy receiver of her Sharps rifle. Around them in the pine shadows crouched two dozen men—soot-stained coal diggers, burly timber fellers, and rail workers whose knuckles were permanently grayed by coal dust. "Sterling Bell didn't come here just to sign land deeds. He came to watch the eviction with his own eyes."
"He came to bury my father's ghost," Clara corrected, her voice low and colder than the blizzard howling through the gorge. She looked back at Willa, who was bundled safely in a miner's oversized wool blanket, her dark eyes wide and alert. "He thinks Nathaniel is dead, he thinks Vance finished me, and he believes Bartholomew holds the forged deeds to the entire ridge."
Nathaniel spat a mouthful of dark phlegm onto the snow. He reached out, his calloused, bandaged fingers brushing against Clara’s wrist with surprising gentleness. "Your uncle Bartholomew is inside the salon car. I saw the silhouette through the frosted glass. He’s pouring whiskey for the Governor."
"Then let's make sure they choke on it," Clara said.
A low rumble signaled the miners taking their positions around the depot roundhouse. At Agnes’s sharp whistle, the first charge blew—a stick of mining dynamite planted beneath the empty coal car at the western switch.
The explosion tore the night open. A fireball mushroomed upward, hurling shattered timber and iron rails into the snow. The Pinkerton guards shouted in panic, scurrying toward the western depot gate as whistles shrieked through the steam.
"Now!" Clara hissed.
May you like
Emerging from the tree line like vengeance cloaked in white, Clara, Nathaniel, and six armed miners vaulted the perimeter fence, plunging straight into the shadows beneath the towering iron serpent.
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