Getting on with it!
Rex liked a quick meeting, too. Tabetha kind of felt bad for him about that, because this one wasn’t going to be one. “They’re all going to Purty [Verdi Peak, Nevada]?” he asked Dallin. “Every one of the slave caravans?”
“Yes, sir. Those slaver basta — so-and-sos’ been sending caravans up from Elko, Jiggs, Tuscarora — all the western camps. Too well-guarded for anybody to take a slap at them, too.” The former slaver (failed) grinned. “Although there was that one squad that thought they’d go off for a night or two, go beating the bushes for refugees. We made it look like they ran into a grizzly.”
“Whatever it is they build there, my lord, it stinks of the cursed Dominion,” Desert Joe added. “The snakes cannot think as we do, but they know buildings, men, and monsters. The first two are on that mountain, and the reek of the third grows every day. The two two-legs we sent there to observe dare not get too close, but they report great activity. Perhaps it will be one of their cursed towers?”
“That’s a good guess.” Rex looked over the map. The peak was about forty miles southwest of Wells; from what Tabetha remembered of the area, it was forty miles away from anything else worth the walk, too. “The only thing is, it’s outside territory the Dominion’s claimed. They’ve already ripped off every hunk of land they can hold, and there’s nothing out here they want.”