Cole’s cabin stood where the foothills folded into the first hard rise of the mountains, hidden between tall pines and a granite ridge overlooking the Blue Elk River.
Anna saw smoke-darkened logs, a stone chimney, a stable, and a woodshed stacked so neatly it looked like a wall built against winter itself.
She stared.
“You built this?”
“Most of it.”
“Alone?”
“Mostly.”
She climbed down from Jasper and nearly fell when her legs gave beneath her.
Cole caught her elbow.
Anna jerked away automatically.
“Sorry.”
Cole immediately released her.
“No need.”
Her face colored.
“I wasn’t…”
“I know.”
He did know.
That frightened her almost as much as being touched.
Inside, the cabin was unexpectedly orderly.
A large iron stove stood near one wall. Shelves held jars of dried berries, beans, flour, herbs, and coffee. Tools hung beside the back door. A rifle rested above the stone fireplace.
There was one bedroom on the ground floor and a sleeping loft reached by a ladder.
Cole pointed upward.
“Loft’s yours.”
Anna looked toward the bedroom.
“And you?”
“Down here.”
“But your bed—”
“Still mine. I’m not giving it away. I’ll sleep near the stove.”
She blinked.
Cole realized his attempt at humor had failed.
“You lock the loft hatch if you want.”
“There’s a lock?”
“No. But I can make one.”
By sunset he had.
That night Anna lay beneath two wool blankets listening to the quiet.
It was not peaceful at first.
Peace had its own frightening sound when a person had forgotten it existed.
Every pop from the fire made her tense.
Every creak of timber sounded like approaching footsteps.
At some point she slipped from the loft and climbed halfway down the ladder.
Cole was asleep in a bedroll beside the stove.
His revolver lay nearby but not in his hand.
Anna watched him.
A man had paid money for her.
A man had brought her into the wilderness.
A man had placed her above him in a loft with a door she could secure.
And he had not asked for a single thing.
She did not know how to understand him.
The following morning Cole woke to the smell of biscuits.
He sat up abruptly.
Anna stood near the stove wearing an apron she had found hanging beside the pantry.
“You have no lard,” she said.
Cole blinked.
“What?”
“No lard. I used bear fat.”
He stared toward the pan.
“Is that bad?”
“No.”
“It smells bad?”
“No.”
“Then why are you looking at me?”
“Haven’t woken up to breakfast since…”
He stopped.
Anna lowered her eyes.
“Since Ruth?”
Cole nodded.
They ate at the rough pine table.
Anna barely touched her food.
“You don’t like your own biscuits?” Cole asked.
“I do.”
“Then eat.”
She took another bite.
Cole watched her.
“You always eat like somebody’s about to take the plate?”
Her hand froze.
He instantly regretted the question.
After a moment she answered.
“Sometimes they did.”
Cole looked toward the window.
Outside, snow dusted the ridge.
Inside, anger began building behind his ribs.
He had always thought rage was loud.
Over the years he discovered the worst kind was silent.
“Not here,” he said.
Anna looked at him.
“What?”
“Nobody takes food off your plate here.”
She stared for several seconds before continuing to eat.
Days passed.
Then weeks.
Winter arrived early.
Snow sealed the upper trails.
Cole expected Anna to become restless.
Instead she worked.
Too much.
She swept floors already clean.
She reorganized jars.
She mended shirts Cole did not realize were torn.
She scrubbed a kettle until he could see his reflection in it.
One afternoon he found her outside splitting wood.
“What are you doing?”
“Working.”
“You’ve been working since before daylight.”
“I’m paying for food.”
“No, you aren’t.”
Her axe stopped.
“I have to.”
“Why?”
“Because people don’t keep useless things.”
Cole’s expression hardened.
“You’re not a thing.”
Anna looked away.
“Then useless people.”
“That isn’t better.”
“I don’t know what you want from me.”
“Nothing.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No. It isn’t.”
“Everyone wants something.”
Cole rested his hands on the axe handle.
“Then I want you to stop chopping my firewood badly.”
Anna’s head snapped up.
“Badly?”
“Terribly.”
“I split half that pile.”
“And half those pieces are crooked.”
“Wood burns crooked.”
He nearly smiled.
“It stacks badly.”
Anna seized the axe.
“I’ll show you badly.”
She swung.
The log split cleanly down the center.
Cole looked at it.
Anna raised one eyebrow.
“Crooked?”
“No.”
She attacked another log.
By the fifth, she was breathing hard.
By the tenth, Cole realized she was smiling.
Winter changed both of them.
Anna learned Cole spoke little because he preferred meaning over noise.
Cole learned Anna hummed while baking bread.
She loved strong coffee but hated beans.
She could identify bird calls better than he could.
She was afraid of horses but stubbornly refused to admit it.
He taught her to saddle Jasper.
She taught him to make apple preserves from the shriveled fruit he had stored in the cellar.
One evening she found an old wooden horse on a shelf.
Its legs were uneven.
One ear had broken off.
“Did you make this?”
Cole’s face changed.
“For Ruth.”
Anna touched it carefully.
“She liked horses?”
“She wanted one.”
“Did she get one?”
“No.”
“What happened to her?”
Cole sat near the stove.
For a long time he said nothing.
Then, quietly, he told her.
His father had owed money.
Not much.
Enough.
Men came during winter.
His father refused to give them the last horse because without it the family could not haul wood.
A fight started.
A lantern fell.
The cabin burned.
His father died outside.
His mother escaped but succumbed to pneumonia two weeks later.
Ruth survived the fire.
She did not survive the winter.
Cole had gone down to a settlement searching for medicine.
When he returned, she was gone.
“I was seventeen,” he said.
Anna sat opposite him.
“You blame yourself.”
“I should’ve left sooner.”
“You were a boy.”
“Old enough.”
“Not old enough to control winter.”
Cole looked at her sharply.
Anna met his gaze.
“My mother died too.”
He waited.
“She got sick after we came to Denver. Fever. I worked at a laundry. It wasn’t enough. A man named Victor Hale offered money.”
“The contract man?”
She nodded.
“He said respectable women could make good wages in hotels and ranch houses. He paid the doctor.”
Her mouth tightened.
“Mama died anyway.”
“And Hale demanded repayment.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Thirty-eight dollars.”
Cole almost laughed from disbelief.
“All this for thirty-eight dollars?”
“It became sixty. Then ninety. Food. Housing. Transportation. Fees.”
“Fees for what?”
“For owing fees.”
Cole’s jaw clenched.
“Jeb bought the contract?”
“Eventually.”
“What happened before him?”
Anna’s silence answered.
Cole turned away.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“I worked in three places. Hale sold the contract whenever someone offered enough.”
“Did they hurt you?”
Anna stared at the fire.
“Some.”
Cole stood.
He stepped toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To split wood.”
“There’s enough wood.”
“Not anymore.”
Outside, he buried the axe into logs until his shoulders burned.
Anna watched through the window.
She understood anger.
She did not understand anger on her behalf.
That was new.
By late December, the snow lay three feet deep.
One night Jasper whinnied sharply from the stable.
Cole woke immediately.
He grabbed his rifle.
Anna appeared at the loft opening.
“What is it?”
“Stay here.”
He stepped outside.
The temperature had dropped below zero.
Moonlight reflected from the snow.
Cole moved toward the stable.
Nothing.
Then he saw it.
Tracks.
Horse tracks.
Three animals.
They came down from the western trail and stopped within sight of the cabin.
Cole followed them with his eyes.
Whoever had ridden in had remained long enough to study the place.
Then they had turned back.
Inside the cabin Anna waited beside the stove.
Cole shut the door.
“Someone?”
“Yes.”
“Jeb?”
“Maybe.”
Her color disappeared.
Cole checked his revolver.
Anna wrapped her arms around herself.
“They found me.”
Cole looked at her.
“They found us.”
“No. Me.”
“Anna.”
“You could send me away.”
“No.”
“They’ll keep coming.”
“Probably.”
“You could get hurt.”
“Probably.”
“Why are you saying that so calmly?”
“Because panicking doesn’t improve the weather or the odds.”
She stared at him.
“I don’t want you to die because of me.”
Cole stepped closer.
“You listen carefully.”
Anna did.
“What those men do is their decision. What I do is mine. You don’t carry blame for choices other people make.”
Her eyes glistened.
“That include you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why do I feel guilty?”
“Because somebody spent a long time teaching you that everything was your fault.”
Anna lowered her head.
Cole added, “They were wrong.”
A tear escaped.
She wiped it away angrily.
“I hate crying.”
“So does Jasper.”
Anna laughed through the tears.
Cole’s mouth twitched.
Then the sound came.
A rifle shot.
The front window exploded.
Cole threw Anna to the floor.
A second bullet slammed into the wall.
“Stay down!”
Cole crawled toward the corner.
Outside, someone shouted.
“Mercer!”
Jeb Robinson.
“Send the woman out, and we forget this whole mess!”
Cole reached for the rifle.
Anna grabbed his sleeve.
“There are three.”
“Maybe four.”
“You can’t fight them.”
Cole opened the rifle’s action and checked the chamber.
“I’m not planning on fighting them.”
“What are you planning?”
He looked toward the shattered window.
“Convincing them they’ve made a terrible mistake.”