Elias moved through the cabin with the speed of a man who had spent years imagining exactly this moment.
He shuttered the final window, checked his revolver, lifted his rifle from its pegs above the hearth, and crossed to a loose floorboard beside the bed.
Eleanor watched as he pulled it free.
Inside lay ammunition, another revolver, two knives, and a small leather pouch.
“You’ve been expecting a war?”
“I’ve been expecting Mercer.”
“That sounds like the same thing.”
Elias handed her the second revolver.
Eleanor stared at it.
“I’ve never fired one.”
“Then tonight would be a poor time to begin.”
He took it back and replaced it with a knife.
“Stay away from the windows.”
The wounded trapper lay beside the hearth.
His name was Thomas Avery, a man Elias knew from the northern trails.
His wound was deep.
Eleanor knelt beside him as carefully as her recovering leg allowed.
“How many men?”
Avery struggled for breath.
“Eight… maybe nine.”
Elias’s jaw tightened.
“Mercer?”
“With them.”
“Why?”
Avery gave a weak laugh.
“You know why.”
He looked at Eleanor.
“Money’s only part.”
“What else?” she asked.
Avery coughed.
“Your notebooks.”
Eleanor blinked.
“My notebooks?”
“Mercer searched your things after the wreck. Didn’t find them.”
Her thoughts raced.
During the journey, Eleanor had kept two field journals. One contained botanical drawings.
The other contained observations.
Names.
Places.
Conversations overheard in Redwater.
She remembered something Silas had said to a man behind the boardinghouse two nights before they left.
Something about shipments.
Railroad payroll.
A stagecoach schedule.
At the time she had assumed he was discussing legitimate freight.
She had written the details absentmindedly.
Now Elias was staring at her.
“What exactly did you write?”
Eleanor told him.
Avery shut his eyes.
“That’s why.”
“Why what?”
“Mercer’s running a gang.”
Elias’s expression became dangerous.
“Since when?”
“Long enough.”
Avery explained between painful breaths.
Silas had stopped operating alone.
He robbed travelers, freight wagons, prospectors, and stagecoaches throughout the territory. Sometimes people survived.
Often they did not.
He changed towns constantly and used respectable merchants to sell stolen goods.
If Eleanor’s journal contained dates, names, or destinations, it might connect several robberies.
“It’s in my specimen case,” Eleanor whispered.
“The wreck?” Elias asked.
“Yes.”
“I searched it.”
“False bottom.”
Elias stared at her.
“My father taught me never to keep valuable papers where people expected valuable papers.”
For the first time that night, Elias looked impressed.
Then a horse snorted outside.
Everyone froze.
Avery whispered, “Too late.”
Elias lowered the lamps until only the hearth remained.
“Eleanor.”
She looked at him.
“Back room. Now.”
“I’m not hiding while—”
“You’re still healing.”
“And you’re one man.”
“I know this cabin.”
“So does Mercer now.”
Their eyes met.
Another horse shifted outside.
Then a voice carried through the night.
“Hart!”
Eleanor had never heard Silas shout before.
She recognized him instantly.
Every muscle in her body stiffened.
“Been a long time!”
Elias moved beside the door without answering.
Silas laughed.
“I heard you found something of mine.”
Eleanor’s stomach tightened.
Elias finally spoke.
“She isn’t yours.”
Silence.
Then Silas answered.
“Well, now. She really is alive.”
The words sounded amused.
That frightened Eleanor more than anger would have.
“You should’ve stayed dead, Miss Whitfield!”
Elias’s face became stone.
“Leave.”
Silas laughed again.
“I didn’t ride half the night to leave.”
A gunshot shattered the front window.
Eleanor ducked.
Elias fired through the wall.
Someone outside shouted.
Then the cabin erupted.
Bullets tore into logs.
Glass shattered.
A chair splintered.
Elias shoved Eleanor toward the floor.
“Cellar!”
“There’s a cellar?”
“Under the pantry.”
They crawled toward the rear of the cabin.
Elias lifted a trapdoor.
“Down.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll follow.”
“You said that like someone who isn’t going to follow.”
“Eleanor.”
“No.”
Another bullet punched through the wall.
Elias seized her shoulders.
“Listen to me. You survived the wagon. You survived the fever. You are not dying because of my fight.”
“Our fight.”
“It became mine three years ago.”
“And mine when Mercer cut my brake.”
For a second, they simply stared at each other.
Then something crashed outside.
Elias cursed.
“Fine.”
He pointed toward the cellar.
“But if I say run, you run.”
They descended.
The cellar was larger than Eleanor expected and contained winter vegetables, smoked meat, tools, and a narrow tunnel disappearing beneath the foundation.
“You dug an escape tunnel?”
“Nathan did.”
The name changed everything.
Elias touched the wall once.
“He said every good cabin needed two exits.”
They heard footsteps overhead.
Silas’s men had entered.
Elias led Eleanor through the tunnel.
Her leg protested every step.
She kept moving.
The tunnel emerged behind a fallen pine nearly fifty yards uphill from the cabin.
Snow reached Eleanor’s ankles.
Elias helped her out.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
It was a lie.
He knew it.
But there was no time to argue.
They moved into the trees.
Behind them came a shout.
Then flames.
Eleanor turned.
The cabin roof had caught fire.
“No.”
Elias stopped.
For the first time she saw pain break through his control.
That cabin had been his home.
Nathan’s home.
Three years of memory burned beneath the orange flames.
Silas stepped into view near the porch.
He held a torch.
“Come on, Hart!”
His voice carried through the valley.
“Come watch your brother’s house burn!”
Elias took one step back.
Eleanor grabbed his arm.
“That’s what he wants.”
Elias did not look at her.
“He burned Nathan’s things.”
“He wants you angry.”
“I am angry.”
“He wants you stupid.”
That made Elias look at her.
“Don’t give him both.”
The fire climbed higher.
Elias breathed once.
Then turned away.
They disappeared deeper into the forest.
For nearly an hour they moved through snow and darkness.
Eleanor’s leg worsened.
Eventually she stumbled.
Elias caught her.
“That’s enough.”
“No.”
“You’re shaking.”
“Cold.”
“Pain.”
“Both.”
He looked around.
An old trapping shed stood between the trees.
They took shelter.
Inside, Elias made a tiny fire shielded from view.
Only then did Eleanor realize blood was running through the bandage around her leg.
Elias saw it too.
His expression tightened.
“I told you—”
“Don’t.”
“You may have damaged the break.”
“But I’m alive.”
He knelt and carefully removed the bandage.
The intimacy of his touch felt different now.
Not because it was romantic.
Because she trusted him completely.
“Elias?”
“Yes?”
“Would you have gone back?”
“To the cabin?”
“To kill him.”
Silence.
“Yes.”
“If I hadn’t stopped you?”
“Yes.”
She looked at his bowed head.
“And would you have come back?”
His hands stopped moving.
“I don’t know.”
Eleanor’s chest tightened.
“That isn’t good enough.”
He looked up.
“For three years, killing Mercer was the only thing I wanted.”
“And now?”
His eyes remained on hers.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he returned to the bandage.
“Now things are complicated.”
Despite everything, Eleanor smiled faintly.
“I believe that is the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
His mouth moved.
Almost a smile.
Then a sound came from outside.
Elias extinguished the flame instantly.
They listened.
A horse.
One rider.
The door creaked.
Elias raised his revolver.
“Easy.”
A woman’s voice.
Elias frowned.
The door opened.
A gray-haired woman wearing a long riding coat stepped inside with both hands raised.
“Put that down, Hart.”
Elias did not.
“Who are you?”
“Margaret Bell.”
Eleanor recognized the name.
“Sheriff Bell?”
Margaret looked at her.
“His widow.”
Redwater’s sheriff had died six months earlier.
Officially, he had been killed by thieves.
Margaret closed the door.
“He wasn’t killed by thieves.”
Her eyes met Elias’s.
“Mercer killed him.”
Silence filled the shed.
Margaret continued.
“My husband spent a year building a case against Mercer’s gang. He hid copies of the evidence before he died.”
“Where?” Elias asked.
Margaret looked at Eleanor.
“He told me that if anything happened to him, I should find the Boston woman.”
Eleanor stared.
“Me?”
“Apparently you asked too many questions in Redwater.”
Eleanor remembered Sheriff Bell.
A quiet man who had questioned Silas about his route before she departed.
Margaret reached inside her coat and removed a folded paper.
“My husband believed Mercer was planning something bigger than wagon robberies.”
She handed the paper to Elias.
It was a map.
A red line followed the railroad through Blackpine Valley.
A date had been written beside it.
Three weeks away.
“What is this?” Eleanor asked.
Margaret’s face hardened.
“The territorial gold shipment.”
Elias looked at her.
“Mercer plans to rob it?”
“No.”
Margaret shook her head.
“He plans to bury the train under Raven Pass and take whatever survives.”
Eleanor felt sick.
“How many people?”
“Passengers. Guards. Railroad men.”
Margaret’s voice lowered.
“Possibly families.”
The problem was no longer revenge.
It was no longer Eleanor’s stolen inheritance.
Mercer intended to kill dozens.
Elias folded the map.
“We need the journal.”
Margaret nodded.
“And Bell’s evidence.”
“Where is it?”
“In Redwater.”
Eleanor looked between them.
“Mercer controls Redwater.”
“Some of it,” Margaret said.
“How do we get inside?”
Margaret smiled without humor.
“You don’t.”
She turned toward Eleanor.
“She does.”
Elias immediately said, “No.”
Margaret ignored him.
“Mercer believes Eleanor is injured, frightened, and running.”
“I am injured.”
“Yes.”
“Frightened too.”
“Good.”
Margaret stepped closer.
“Because frightened people are believable.”
Eleanor understood.
“You want me to let him find me.”
Elias stood.
“Absolutely not.”
Margaret looked at him.
“If Mercer thinks she escaped you, he may take her alive because he needs the journal.”
“He tried to kill her once.”
“And now he knows she wrote something dangerous.”
Elias stepped between them.
“No.”
Eleanor touched his arm.
“Elias.”
“No.”
She waited until he looked at her.
“If we run, he kills more people.”
“That isn’t your responsibility.”
“He made it mine.”
Elias’s eyes flashed.
“You nearly died once.”
“So did Nathan.”
That stopped him.
Eleanor regretted the words immediately.
But she did not take them back.
“I can’t bring your brother back,” she said quietly. “Neither can you.”
Elias looked away.
“But we can stop Silas from creating more graves.”
Margaret said nothing.
The shed seemed suddenly too small.
Finally Elias exhaled.
“If we do this, we do it my way.”
Eleanor nodded.
“Agreed.”
“No improvising.”
“I make no promises.”
His eyes narrowed.
She smiled.
He almost did too.
Outside, the eastern sky had begun to lighten.
Their home was burning behind them.
Mercer was hunting them.
And three weeks remained before a train full of innocent people entered Raven Pass.
Eleanor had come west to draw wildflowers.
Instead, she was about to become bait for a murderer.
And somehow, standing beside Elias Hart in a freezing trapping shed, she had never felt more certain about anything in her life.
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