Half an hour later, Brendan McKinley was at the Mellon family's Denver estate, seeing off Richard's party. He had provided an escort of thirty-one of his best men to supplement Richard's own six guards.
No gentleman wished to spend a night in the wilderness of the West, so they were departing early.
Brendan wished he could have sent more men, but his own forces were stretched thin. Still, he reasoned, it should be enough. The journey was only a day, and few outlaw gangs had the strength to take on a force of this size and skill. Besides, what were the chances that Sean hadn't received his telegram and already sent men to meet them at Dead Man's Gulch?
Richard Mellon, for his part, was not concerned. In his native Pittsburgh, he rarely traveled with so many guards. He knew the West was full of bandits, but it was broad daylight. Like many men who have not personally experienced true violence, he could not feel its imminent threat. He was only twenty-five, a business prodigy educated at a prestigious Eastern university, but he knew very little about the frontier. That was precisely why he had come.
He was a firm believer in due diligence, and he was confident in his own skills with a pistol, a bow, and a horse.
In their hardtop carriage, Edith and Madeline Jones were watching the scenery pass by.
"My uncle will surely scold me when he finds out," Madeline said with a worried sigh. "Edith, you've truly put me in a difficult position."
Edith just smiled. "It's fine. If they find out, I'll tell everyone it was my idea. Besides, we'll only be gone for a few days. We just won't tell them."
"You know how hard it is for me to get a breath of fresh air. And when I'm in England for my studies, I'll be sure to send you and my future niece or nephew a wonderful Christmas gift."
"Besides," she added, a serious look on her face, "I want to be a writer. What can I possibly write if I've never seen the world? Decades ago, the 'Grand Tour' was a tradition for young English aristocrats. It's a shame that tradition has faded for our generation."
Madeline was speechless. As if the Grand Tour had ever been for women. But she had already come this far; there was no sense in arguing.
"There were many young gentlemen at the McKinley's dinner party last night," she said, changing the subject. "Did any of them seem… suitable?"
Edith shook her head. "No. I can't stand men who do nothing but boast at parties. And even if I did find someone I liked, what would be the use?"
Madeline looked at her younger cousin with the eyes of a woman who knew the world all too well. "Perhaps it would be of no use. Or perhaps, under the right circumstances, it would be of great use. At the very least, we must have a thorough understanding of all suitable candidates. Proper preparation can be a powerful tool at a critical moment."
"That is what happened with Richard and me."
"Of course, much of the time, these preparations come to nothing," she conceded. "But if there is even the slightest chance they might be useful, we must be prepared. Don't you think?"
Edith just nodded with a grin, though she already understood all of this. She had seen too many of her elders in happy—and, more often, unhappy—marriages to be as naive as other girls her age.
Two hours before the Mellons' departure, just as the sun was rising, Carlos and Pizarro had led their own company of seventy men out of Denver.
An hour after them, "Cross-Eye" Frank and his 127 outlaws followed.
Henry's party had been on the road for nearly four hours and had covered about thirty miles. They had stopped once to rest. In another thirteen miles, they would reach the most dangerous place on the entire road: Dead Man's Gulch.
The terrain was a complex maze of mountains, hills, and dense forests. A thousand men could hide there and never be found. The road itself was a winding, one-mile-long path through the bottom of the gulch, no more than ten meters wide at its broadest point.
To be ambushed there was to die. It was said that nearly twenty years ago, an army of over 500 soldiers had been completely annihilated in the gulch.
Any large company passing through would send out scouts to secure the high ground first, but even that was no guarantee of safety.
Henry planned to ride for another hour, then have the party rest again. He would send Charles and Owen back to the main group, and then he would scout ahead alone.
Since the first thirty miles had been quiet, he reasoned that most of the outlaws in the Frisco area had already been dealt with. The real danger would be on the second half of the journey, closer to Denver. Dead Man's Gulch was the most likely place for an ambush.
Charles and Owen were both fathers of six. If they were to die in a fair fight, that was the way of the world. But to knowingly send them into a death trap was something Henry would not do. He was the one with the get-out-of-death-free cards. He would go himself.
He would scout both the Gulch and the next landmark, a place called The Gallows, seven miles beyond it.
These men had followed him. They were on a private mission, his mission. He would do everything in his power to bring them back to their families alive. They were, after all, the foundation of the force he intended to build.