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saddle horn and leaned forward to ease muscles grown stiff from long hours of riding. His black Stetson was cocked back on fair hair. Under an open sheepskin jacket, he wore a faded blue bib-front shirt similar to what the troopers wore, although Matt wasn’t a soldier and never had been.
    He had done a considerable amount of scouting for the army, though, now and then over the past several years while he’d been drifting around the frontier, always eager to see what was over the next horizon. He was Smoke Jensen’s adopted brother, a respected gunhandler in his own right, and a young man with an adventuresome streak in his personality.
    This expedition had started out as a bit of a lark for Matt. He had been at Fort Griffin, a good distance west of here, when word came that a group of renegade Comanches had left the reservation in Indian Territory and were raiding across the north central region of Texas. The fort’s commanding officer had sent out a patrol right away, putting his second-in-command in charge, and Matt had signed on as a civilian scout. He was acquainted with Major Macmillan and liked the veteran officer. He and Macmillan had worked together before, so the whole thing seemed like a promising adventure to Matt.
    But the task had turned deadly grim over the past few days, as the patrol had come across two isolated ranches that had been attacked by the renegades. The places were burned out, and the people who lived there had all been tortured, killed, and mutilated.
    Families. Women and children. It was hard not to feel hate burning inside when you saw what had been done to those innocents and then had to bury what was left of them.
    No, Matt reflected as he sat his horse next to Macmillan and looked down into the thickly wooded valley in front of them. This wasn’t a lark anymore. It was a mission of vengeance now.
    â€œThis is marked on our maps as Dark Valley,” Macmillan said. “It’s easy to see why.”
    â€œYeah,” Matt agreed. Even though the sun was shining, an air of gloom hung over the narrow, steep-sided valley. It seemed almost like something kept the light from penetrating all the way to the bottom of the valley.
    The slopes were covered with live oaks, which retained their leaves all year long. That gave the valley a dark green, almost black cast.
    From behind Matt and Macmillan, Sergeant Houlihan said, “Why would anybody want to live in a place like this? ’Tis more of a fittin’ home for demons, I’m thinkin’.”
    The sergeant, a wizened, birdlike, but extremely tough little Irishman with a bushy mustache, was just expressing what Matt felt.
    Major Macmillan took off his hat and ran his fingers through his graying hair. He said, “According to what we’ve been told, there are several ranches in the valley. We have to warn the settlers about Black Moon and his band and encourage them to leave. They’ll be safer going into the nearest town for a while.”
    â€œYou’ll get some arguments,” Matt said. “Folks don’t want to leave their homes, especially when they know they might come back to find everything burned down and in ruins.”
    Macmillan put his hat back on and said, “They may change their minds when they hear about what we’ve found so far. At the very least, all the women and children should be sent to safety.”
    â€œI agree with you, Major. I just know how stubborn some of these Texans can be.”
    â€œStubborn is one thing,” Macmillan said as he hitched his horse into motion and started down the slope into the valley. “Foolhardy is another.”
    Matt rode after the major. His eyes never stopped moving as he cast his gaze back and forth over the rugged landscape around them. Behind him came Sergeant Houlihan and the twenty troopers who made up the patrol.
    After a few minutes, Matt nudged his horse up alongside Macmillan’s mount and said, “Better