Abigail Lawson’s trunk landed in the freezing mud before she did.
The old leather case struck the ground hard enough to snap one of its rusted buckles. Its lid opened an inch, exposing the corner of a folded blue dress and the worn leather cover of her father’s Bible before Abigail dropped to her knees and shoved it closed.
Behind her, the boarding house door slammed.
Snow drifted lazily through the main street of Oakhaven, Colorado, gathering on rooftops, wagon wheels, hitching rails, and the shoulders of men who had stopped pretending they were too busy to watch.
Mrs. Gable remained in the doorway.
The boarding-house keeper pulled her shawl tighter beneath her chin and looked down at Abigail with the cold expression of a woman convinced she was protecting civilization itself.
“Don’t come back, Miss Lawson.”
Abigail slowly stood.
Her fingers were already numb.
“Mrs. Gable, I paid through Saturday.”
“It is Saturday.”
“It’s Thursday.”
The older woman’s jaw tightened.
Several people on the boardwalk suddenly found the snow fascinating.
Mrs. Gable lowered her voice.
“We run a respectable establishment.”
Respectable.
Three weeks ago Abigail might have cried at the insult.
Today she nearly laughed.
There was something almost funny about hearing the word from a woman who had accepted Abigail’s rent for nineteen months, eaten pies Abigail baked at Christmas, and sat beside her at church every Sunday.
One rumor had changed everything.
Then another.
Then ten more.
Now Abigail Lawson had become something contagious.
She lifted the handle of her trunk.
Pain shot through her wrist.
She had not eaten since the previous afternoon.
“Where am I supposed to go?”
Mrs. Gable’s expression briefly softened.
Then she noticed three church women watching from across the street.
The softness disappeared.
“That isn’t my concern.”
The door closed.
This time Abigail heard the bolt slide into place.
For a moment she simply stood there.
Oakhaven had been her home since she was eleven.
Her father, Nathaniel Lawson, had brought her west after Abigail’s mother died of fever in Missouri. Nathaniel had spent sixteen years underground in Colorado mines, emerging every evening black with coal and silver dust but smiling whenever he saw his daughter waiting.
He had never been wealthy.
But he had been honest.
That mattered to him.
“A poor man can still leave his child a good name,” he used to say.
Nathaniel Lawson had died seven months earlier when part of the Crown Ridge mine collapsed.
Abigail had buried him on a windy hill outside town.
She thought his good name was all he had left her.
Then Josiah Mercer decided he wanted her.
It had begun politely.
Flowers appeared at the boarding house.
Then invitations.
Then a bracelet.
Abigail returned everything.
Mercer was thirty-eight, wealthy, handsome in the polished way newspapers preferred, and powerful enough that half the men in Oakhaven owed him money.
His father had founded Mercer Bank.
Josiah had expanded it.
Now he held mortgages on farms, mines, businesses, and houses across three counties.
He owned the Golden Star Saloon.
He owned a lumber company.
Two members of the town council worked for him.
The sheriff had borrowed money from him.
Everybody knew it.
Nobody said it.
When Mercer finally proposed marriage, he did not ask like a man unsure of the answer.
He placed a diamond ring on Abigail’s table in the boarding-house parlor.
“You won’t have to sew dresses anymore.”
Abigail pushed the ring back.
“I like sewing dresses.”
Mercer smiled.
“You misunderstand. I’m offering you a different life.”
“No.”
His smile remained.
But his eyes changed.
“You should consider carefully.”
“I already have.”
“You have no father now.”
“I’m aware.”
“No brothers.”
“No.”
“No property worth mentioning.”
She stood.
“If you came here expecting gratitude because you listed everything I lost, you’ll be disappointed.”
The smile vanished.
That had been twenty-one days ago.
Three days later someone produced letters supposedly written by Abigail to married men in Denver.
Then a miner claimed he had seen two strangers leaving her room after midnight.
Then a woman Abigail barely knew swore she had seen Abigail accepting money from a traveling salesman behind the livery stable.
None of it was true.
Truth did not matter.
Not when lies were delivered often enough by people paid well enough.
Within a week, women stopped speaking to her.
The seamstress who employed Abigail dismissed her.
The grocer refused her credit.
Children whispered when she passed.
At church, Reverend Pike preached a sermon about “fallen women” while glancing toward Abigail’s pew.
She never returned.
Now even the boarding house was gone.
Abigail stared down the street.
The mountains surrounding Oakhaven looked beautiful from a distance, white peaks rising against an impossibly blue sky.
Beauty lied too.
Winter in those mountains killed people.
There was already nearly a foot of snow.
By nightfall the temperature would fall far below freezing.
She had four dollars and seventeen cents.
No job.
No horse.
No relatives within eight hundred miles.
She picked up her trunk.
“Abigail.”
Her body went rigid.
She knew the voice.
Josiah Mercer stepped through the swinging doors of the Golden Star Saloon.
He wore a black wool coat, polished boots, and a gray hat that probably cost more than Abigail had earned in three months.
Two men followed him.
Caleb Dorn and Matthew Vick.
Mercer called them employees.
Everybody else called them whatever Mercer paid them to be.
Sheriff Yates came last.
That frightened Abigail more than the other three combined.
Mercer walked into the street.
“A tragic sight.”
Abigail said nothing.
“A beautiful young woman abandoned by the very community she once considered family.”
“Leave me alone.”
“I wish I could.”
“You have managed perfectly well whenever kindness was required.”
Dorn laughed.
Mercer did not.
He removed a folded document from inside his coat.
“There’s a legal matter we need to discuss.”
Abigail stared at the paper.
“No.”
Mercer unfolded it.
“Your father borrowed seven hundred dollars from Mercer Bank eleven months before his death.”
“My father never borrowed seven hundred dollars.”
“I have his signature.”
“You have a forgery.”
Sheriff Yates shifted uncomfortably.
Mercer raised the paper.
“Promissory note. Properly witnessed.”
Abigail took one step toward him.
“Let me see it.”
He extended the paper but did not release it.
Abigail recognized her father’s name.
Nathaniel Lawson.
The signature resembled his.
But only at first glance.
Her father made the final n in Lawson with a hard downward stroke.
This signature curled upward.
“That isn’t his handwriting.”
“Your opinion is understandable.”
“It’s the truth.”
“The law rarely operates on a daughter’s sentimental recollections.”
Abigail turned toward Sheriff Yates.
“You knew my father.”
The sheriff looked at the ground.
“Tom.”
His eyes finally lifted.
“Tell him.”
Yates cleared his throat.
“The note appears legal.”
“Appears?”
Mercer folded the document again.
“Your father died without satisfying the debt. Since he left no estate sufficient to cover it, his heir is responsible for any remaining lawful obligation.”
“I have nothing.”
Mercer’s smile returned.
“Yes. That presents a difficulty.”
Abigail suddenly understood why he had come personally.
Cold fear moved through her.
“What do you want?”
“A practical solution.”
Dorn smirked.
Mercer spoke almost gently.
“You require shelter. Employment. Protection.”
“I need protection from you.”
His eyes hardened.
“There is a room above my saloon.”
Silence spread across the street.
Nobody needed the meaning explained.
Abigail looked from Mercer to the sheriff.
“You’re standing here while he says this?”
Yates’s mouth tightened.
“Watch your accusations.”
“What accusation? I’m asking whether you still remember the badge on your chest.”
Mercer stepped closer.
“You have embarrassed yourself enough.”
“No.”
“Abigail—”
“I said no.”
Snow caught in his dark hair.
For the first time his calm expression broke.
“Nobody else is offering you anything.”
“I’d rather sleep outside.”
“You won’t survive the night.”
“Then I won’t survive it.”
His face became utterly still.
“That can be arranged.”
Abigail’s breath caught.
Mercer looked at Dorn.
“Take her.”
Dorn grabbed Abigail’s arm.
She twisted violently.
“Get your hands off me!”
Matthew Vick caught her from behind.
Abigail kicked backward and hit his shin.
He cursed.
Dorn twisted her wrist behind her back.
Pain burst up her arm.
“Stop fighting.”
“Let me go!”
Several townspeople had gathered now.
Men.
Women.
People who had known Abigail since childhood.
Not one moved.
Mercer followed as Dorn and Vick dragged Abigail toward the saloon.
Her shoes slipped in the snow.
She looked desperately toward the boardwalk.
“Please!”
Nobody answered.
Mercer’s voice came from behind her.
“Nobody wants you, Abigail.”
Dorn yanked harder.
“Nobody is coming.”
Then a sound split the winter air.
Click.
Metal sliding against metal.
Every person in the street knew that sound.
A Winchester being cocked.
Dorn stopped.
Vick released Abigail.
She stumbled to one knee.
The crowd slowly turned.
Across the street stood a man Abigail had seen perhaps five times in her life.
Gideon Cross.
He had emerged from Thompson’s General Store without anyone noticing.
That was remarkable because Gideon Cross was difficult not to notice.
He stood several inches above six feet, broad enough through the shoulders to make his bearskin coat look almost fitted.
Dark hair touched his collar.
A pale scar ran from beneath his left eye toward his jaw.
The Winchester rested casually against his hip.
Its barrel pointed directly at Josiah Mercer.
Gideon’s expression showed no anger.
That somehow made him more frightening.
Mercer swallowed.
“Cross.”
Gideon looked at Dorn.
“Let her go.”
Mercer recovered himself.
“This doesn’t concern you.”
Gideon’s gaze never left Dorn.
“I said let her go.”
Dorn removed his hands from Abigail.
Gideon lowered the rifle half an inch.
Mercer forced a laugh.
“She’s a debtor.”
Silence.
“Seven hundred dollars,” Mercer continued. “Lawful obligation.”
Gideon finally looked at him.
Mercer raised the document.
“Unless you happen to have seven hundred dollars in that mountain coat, you’re interfering with legal business.”
Gideon stared at him for several long seconds.
Then he slid the Winchester into his left hand.
His right hand disappeared beneath his coat.
Dorn reached toward his pistol.
“Don’t,” Sheriff Yates whispered.
Gideon pulled out a heavy leather pouch.
He tossed it.
The pouch struck the snowy street at Mercer’s feet.
The drawstring loosened.
Gold spilled across the white ground.
Coins.
Nuggets.
Enough that several people gasped.
Mercer stared.
Gideon spoke.
“Count it.”
Mercer did not move.
Gideon took one step closer.
“Count it.”
Sheriff Yates crouched instead.
He picked up several coins.
His face changed.
“Real?”
Mercer demanded.
Yates nodded.
Gideon looked at Abigail.
She had managed to stand.
Her hair hung loose around her face.
Snow clung to her dress.
A red mark circled her wrist where Dorn had grabbed her.
Gideon’s eyes paused there.
Then he looked back at Mercer.
“Debt paid.”
Mercer’s jaw clenched.
“You don’t know what you’re buying.”
Something dangerous moved behind Gideon’s eyes.
“I’m not buying anything.”
Mercer gave Abigail a contemptuous glance.
“They called her ruined.”
The crowd shifted.
“Unwanted,” Mercer added.
Gideon walked to Abigail’s trunk.
He lifted the heavy case in one hand.
Then he faced Mercer.
“She stays with me.”
Nobody spoke.
Gideon carried the trunk toward a massive chestnut horse tied near the general store.
Abigail remained where she was.
Gideon stopped.
He looked back.
“You coming?”
Her heart pounded.
Behind her stood Josiah Mercer.
Before her stood a mountain man people described in stories told beside winter fires.
Gideon Cross lived above the Divide.
He trapped wolves.
Hunted bears.
Once carried an injured prospector twelve miles through a blizzard.
He was said to have killed two men.
Some stories said five.
No one knew which stories were true because Gideon rarely spoke.
Abigail looked toward Mercer.
His hatred made the choice for her.
She followed Gideon.
He strapped her trunk behind the saddle.
Then he removed his bearskin coat.
“Put this on.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m not—”
Her teeth chattered.
Gideon held the coat open.
Abigail allowed him to wrap it around her shoulders.
Warmth engulfed her.
It smelled of pine smoke, leather, and mountain air.
He placed one boot into the stirrup.
Abigail stepped backward.
“Wait.”
Gideon paused.
She looked at the horse.
Then at him.
“You paid seven hundred dollars.”
“Yes.”
“What do you expect from me?”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
He studied her.
“To get on the horse before you freeze.”
“That isn’t what I mean.”
“I know.”
“Then answer me.”
Something almost like respect crossed his face.
“I expect nothing you don’t freely give.”
Abigail wanted to believe him.
She could not.
Not yet.
Gideon mounted.
He extended one hand.
Behind Abigail, Mercer called out.
“You’ll regret this, Cross!”
Gideon did not turn.
Abigail looked at his hand.
Then placed hers in it.
He lifted her easily behind him.
She gripped the saddle rather than his waist.
Gideon clicked his tongue.
The horse started forward.
Oakhaven slowly disappeared behind falling snow.
Abigail looked back once.
Josiah Mercer stood in the middle of the street.
Watching.
He was not angry anymore.
He was smiling.
And for reasons Abigail could not explain, that smile frightened her more than anything he had done.