Beside him, Tomas reloaded his Springfield rifle with a smooth, calm movement, his dark eyes fixed on the distant trail.

"They are gone," Ethan said, his chest heaving as he caught his breath.

Tomas looked at him, his face grave and unsmiling. "They are gone for now, Ethan Cole. But a man like Vance Hargrove does not accept defeat from a rancher and a handful of Apaches. They will return before the sun reaches its highest point."

Tomas was right.

Vance Hargrove was not a man who allowed a minor defeat to derail a million-dollar corporate acquisition.

When Marcus Vance returned to the Black Rock headquarters covered in dust, bleeding from a superficial gravel wound on his temple, and carrying news of their humiliating repulse, Hargrove did not shout. He sat at his desk, his face turning a deep, dangerous shade of plum red.

He immediately dispatched couriers to three neighboring cattle syndicates that owed him financial favors, assembling a massive strike force of thirty-five heavily armed riders—every mercenary, regulator, and cutthroat on the company payroll within thirty miles.

Furthermore, Hargrove pulled two heavy brass mountain howitzers out of his supply barn—military surplus weapons bought legally from an army depot six months earlier—and loaded them onto heavy wooden wagons.

By eleven o'clock in the morning, the heat in Dry River Draw had become almost unbearable. The temperature soared past one hundred degrees, turning the air inside the canyon into a shimmering, suffocating furnace.

Ethan, Tomas, and the defenders remained at their posts along the high ridge, their canteens running low, their skin burned red by the relentless sun.

Down in the valley, the women had brought up buckets of cold water from the spring, passing them along the line to keep the defenders hydrated.

Then, the ground began to shake once more.

Ethan adjusted his hat and looked through his brass field telescope.

His heart sank.

Coming across the western plain was a massive, dark line of riders, moving at a slow, menacing walk. Behind them rolled two heavy wooden supply wagons, carrying the distinctive dark barrels of the mountain cannons.

"They brought artillery," Ethan said, his voice dropping into a somber whisper as he handed the telescope to Tomas.

Tomas looked through the glass, his jaw setting into a hard line. "They intend to blow the ridge to pieces before they charge."

Ten minutes later, the company force came to a halt eight hundred yards from the canyon entrance—well out of effective rifle range.

Hargrove himself rode at the front of the column, sitting comfortably in a dark leather carriage pulled by two white horses. Beside him, men were already unlimbering the two brass cannons, swinging the heavy wooden carriages around, and loading them with iron canister shot.

A rider holding a white flag attached to a lance rode forward fifty yards ahead of the main force.

"Ethan Cole!" the rider shouted through an iron megaphone. "Vance Hargrove offers one final terms of surrender! Leave the canyon now, leave the documents, and you will be allowed to ride back to Cedar Ridge unmolested! Refuse, and we will level this draw until not a single tree or shelter remains standing!"

Ethan stood up on the high rock, looking down at the massive force arrayed against them. He looked back at the green cottonwood trees, at the spring that had sustained life in this arid land for hundreds of years, and at the innocent families relying on him.

He picked up his Winchester, raised it high above his head, and fired a single shot straight into the air.

That was his answer.

"Commence firing!" Hargrove's voice boomed across the plain.

The two mountain cannons erupted in twin clouds of white smoke and orange flame.

Heavy iron canister shot slammed into the sandstone face of the ridge directly below Ethan's position. The impact was cataclysmic. Giant slabs of rock exploded into thousands of razor-sharp stone splinters, sending a massive cloud of dust and debris flying two hundred feet into the air.

Ethan was thrown backward by the shockwave, slamming hard against the flat granite deck behind his breastwork, his Winchester spinning out of his hands.

The sound was deafening, echoing off the canyon walls like continuous thunder as the cannons reloaded and fired again.

Solid iron balls slammed into the high cottonwood trees deep inside the draw, snapping century-old branches like toothpicks and sending showers of green leaves and splinters raining down onto the spring.

"Hold your positions!" Tomas shouted through the blinding dust, pulling Ethan behind a massive granite boulder as stone fragments rained down around them like iron hail. "Keep down!"

For twenty minutes, the company artillery pounded the ridge and the entrance of the draw, turning the blue sky into a choking nightmare of gray gunpowder smoke, fine red dust, and flying rock.

Under the cover of the artillery barrage, thirty armed mercenaries dismounted and began advancing toward the canyon entrance on foot, moving in a long, organized line, their rifles held at the ready.

They were no longer trying to rush the bottleneck on horseback. They were going to systematically clear the ridge with high-explosive artillery fire, then move in on foot to finish off any survivors.

Ethan pushed himself up onto his knees, his ears ringing violently, blood trickling from a small cut on his hairline. He looked over the boulder.

Through the swirling dust, he saw the long line of mercenaries closing the distance—now less than two hundred yards away.

"We can't hold the outer ridge!" Ethan shouted to Tomas over the roar of the cannons. "The artillery will tear us to pieces! We have to pull back to the inner spring!"

Tomas looked at his men, two of whom were bleeding from stone splinters. He knew Ethan was right. The high ridge was no longer a defensive asset; it had turned into an artillery target.