Chapter 45 - Midnight Shrewdness
Dusk fell over the canyon like a shroud of bruised purple. In the basement of the old telegraph office, Caleb, Clara, and six surviving mountain deputies gathered around a rough pine table lit by a single kerosene lantern.
"The yard is fortified with fifty private guards," Caleb traced the map with a blackened thumbnail. "Two watchtowers with Maxim guns mounted on swivel plates. A head-on charge is suicide."
"We don't charge," Clara replied, sliding an old surveyor’s ledger into the lantern light. "Beneath the depot lies the abandoned drainage flume from the 1872 flood. It empties directly into the inspection pit under track three—right beneath the armored munitions car."
Caleb looked up, studying her face. "The flume is narrow, Clara. It floods with freezing runoff this time of year. You’d be crawling in waist-deep mountain sludge."
"I spent three months digging through the mine collapse at Sector Four to pull you out of the rock," Clara whispered, meeting his gaze without flinching. "I am not afraid of dirty water, Caleb. I want the deed. I want the man who broke my family."
Caleb reached out, his calloused hand closing over hers. For a heartbeat, the war around them vanished, replaced by an unspoken understanding forged in blood and winter frost.
"We go at eleven," Caleb said. "Judge Vance will fire the signal flare from the clocktower to draw their perimeter guard toward the main gate. When the yard empties to defend the fence, we blow the munitions."
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"And Arthur?" Vance asked from the doorway, his shotgun resting across his arm.
Clara checked the cylinder of the small pearl-handled revolver she had taken from the governor's office. "Leave my father to me."
