Henry activated the detonators. He placed the two charges five meters apart in the center of the camp, then turned and sprinted into the darkness, counting the seconds in his head.
After twelve seconds, he summoned two granite blocks from his space, dove behind them, and pulled a thick oak table over his head for extra cover.
A man, roused by the sound of Henry's running footsteps, had just crawled from his sleeping bag when the world ended.
BOOM!
The two bombs detonated simultaneously, unleashing a shockwave of 6,900-meter-per-second heat and pressure that scoured the campsite clean.
Henry, a hundred meters away, felt the wave of heat wash over him as debris rained down on the oak table. The horses, tethered nearby, screamed in terror.
When the explosions subsided, he stored his cover and walked back into the blast zone.
The three bonfires had been extinguished. A few scattered logs still smoldered on the ground. The five lanterns were gone.
Not a single man was left standing. Most had died in their sleep. Only five were still groaning. Four of them were on the verge of death. The last, a hook-nosed Hispanic man, was still twitching. His entire left side was horrifically burned, the skin split and peeling back, his arm hanging at an unnatural angle. He was already delirious, his eyes unseeing.
"Who are you?" Henry asked, his voice cold. "Why did you come here to ambush me?" The man gave no response.
It was now 5:18 AM. Dawn was only minutes away. He had no time to waste trying to get a second gang.
He ignored the dying man and, using three new lanterns, began the grim task of searching the bodies. He brought the thirty-two he had killed earlier out from his storage and searched them as well.
By the time he was finished, another half hour had passed. The sky was bright, and the last of the five survivors had fallen silent.
He had gained 2 green pearls, 31 white, and 37 grey. Only one of the green pearls pulsed with a skill. A quick count confirmed it: all seventy of the outlaws were now dead.
Aside from the usual collection of knives, guns, and ammunition, he found one unique item. On the body of a man with a half-white beard, he found a wooden cylinder, about 30 centimeters long. He twisted it open.
Inside were two more pieces of a leather map, covered in the same strange pictographs as the piece he had taken from the assassin, Louis. He laid the three pieces out. They fit together perfectly, forming a single, complete map.
Though he couldn't read the text, he recognized one of the drawings immediately: a distinctive, monument-like butte. He knew where this map led.
Arizona.
He rolled the three pieces up, placed them back in the cylinder, and stored it away. He would study it later. It seemed this gang and the assassin Louis had been after the same prize, and they had believed he possessed the final piece.
Finally, he turned to the seventy horses. He didn't have enough space for them all. He made a quick, pragmatic decision. The hundred-odd dead horses he had collected were worthless; in this era, a dead horse wouldn't even sell for a dollar. He dumped their carcasses, then spent the next hour stripping them of their saddles. A good saddle was often worth more than the horse itself.
With the space cleared, he infused the seventy live horses with grey pearl husks and stored them away. He now had a personal cavalry of 190 warhorses.
It was 9:16 AM when he finally returned to his own camp. The group let out a cheer of relief.
"There were seventy outlaws waiting at The Gallows," he said, his voice calm and even. "I took care of them. Let's move out. Hank, you'll drive the main carriage. Charles, Owen, you're on scout."
The group mobilized and set off.
In the McKinley manor in Denver, Brendan had just received a telegram from his man on the Frisco town council, Barack.
Richard Mellon's party had not yet arrived.
Brendan was agitated. There were too many possibilities. They could have been ambushed by another gang. They could have run into Henry's party and started a fight. There could have been a rockslide, a flash flood.
He briefly considered the possibility that Henry's small group could have wiped out his thirty-seven elite guards, but he dismissed it. The stories of Henry's exploits were just words on paper; they couldn't compare to the proven skill of his own family's soldiers.
He was still convinced that the destruction at Dwyer Manor and the smelting plant had been the work of the Sinclair family's main forces. Henry, he believed, was nothing more than their lead attack dog.