La fuga dei vigliacchi

While investigating stolen weapons trafficking, Tex and Kit Carson find a disturbing obsidian amulet. Then, in Presidio, while they are about to make a scoundrel implicated in the shady deal sing, the Indian Pablito throws a poisonous dart at the unfortunate man, transforming him into a dried-up mummy: that is the terrible death reserved for those who betray the secret of the Sierra Encantada. To solve the mystery all that remains is to turn to El Morisco, the scholar of arcane sciences who lives in Pilares, looked after by his trusty Eusebio. Green stones that shine in the darkness: this is the content of a secret compartment of the amulet found by Night Eagle. Their appearance is harmless but, as El Morisco explains, they cause sudden mummification. The mineral is used as an instrument of death by the followers of Tulac, an Indian leader known to Eusebius, the servant of the scholar of Pilares. Tulac wants to return Mexico to the descendants of the Aztecs: he is the terminus of the arms trafficking, organized by El Dorado and his desperados. To trap the bandidos, Tex and Kit Carson team up with the Rurales. On the Sierra Encantada, in a cave hidden in the monumental Valley of the Giants, the gruesome Lord of the Abyss stirs the lethal green stones into the boiling lava: his threat, however, is shattered by the lead of Kit Willer and Tiger Jack! With the assault of Tex and his companions on El Castillo, refuge of Tulac and his acolytes, the false idols of the Aztec revolt collapse into the dust.