Clara stopped breathing for a moment.
“Gone?”
“That was the word they used. Said she escaped. Said she stole relief money and ran before dawn. Two weeks later, I found her scarf by the gorge.”
“Did you find her?”
“No.”
“But you think—”
“I think she saw what you saw. I think she spoke before she understood how expensive truth can be.”
The fire popped.
Clara whispered, “And they blamed you too.”
“When I pushed too hard, a man ended up dead outside the saloon. They said I shot him.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
She believed him before the word finished leaving his mouth.
“Why stay?” she asked. “Why not leave Ash Hollow behind?”
Rowan looked toward the dark window, beyond which the mountain pressed close and black.
“Because this land was my father’s. Because Crowe wanted it. Timber, water rights, a clean route through the pass. Leaving would have meant handing him the mountain along with my sister.”
Clara thought of the hidden ledger page.
“So I’m not the first person they framed.”
“No,” Rowan said. “But you may be the first one holding a page they forgot to burn.”
The next morning, they found boot tracks near the frozen creek.
Rowan crouched over them, face unreadable. Clara stood behind him with the rifle gripped in both hands, trying to breathe the way he had taught her.
“How many?” she asked.
“Three. Maybe four.”
“From town?”
“Likely.”
“Do we run?”
He looked up toward the cabin.
“Not yet.”
By noon, the first shot cracked through the trees.
It struck the chopping block three feet from Clara.
Rowan shoved her behind the woodpile and fired once into the air.
“You’re on private land!”
Roland Pike’s voice came back from the pines. “Send the girl down, Vale!”
Clara’s stomach turned.
Rowan muttered something dark.
“How many?” she whispered.
“Enough to be stupid in groups.”
The next minutes dissolved into smoke, noise, splintering bark, and snow kicked up by bullets. Rowan did not shoot to kill. He shot branches above heads, snow near boots, tree trunks close enough to frighten fools into remembering they had mothers.
Clara stayed low until she saw a young man circling behind the cabin with a rag-stuffed bottle in his hand.
Fire.
He meant to burn them out.
Her hands shook as she raised the rifle. She aimed for the tree beside him and pulled the trigger.
The shot exploded bark close enough to shower his face with splinters. He dropped the bottle and fell backward with a shout.
“I don’t want to kill you!” Clara yelled, surprising herself. “But I am frightened, and I am improving very quickly!”
There was a silence.
From somewhere near the creek, Rowan called, “That may be the least comforting warning ever spoken.”
“Did it work?”
The young man scrambled away from the bottle. “It worked!”
By dusk, Roland Pike’s little attack had failed. Two men limped downhill supporting a third between them. Roland vanished before Rowan could cut him off. The broken fire bottle lay harmless in the snow, but the message was clear.
Ash Hollow would not let them keep the truth quietly.
Inside the cabin, Rowan cleaned a shallow cut on Clara’s temple where flying bark had caught her. His hands were careful, but his mouth was tight with anger.
“You should have stayed behind the woodpile.”
“He had fire.”
“I saw.”
“Then why are you angry?”
“Because you could have been shot.”
“So could you.”
“That’s different.”
Clara pulled away from his hand.
“Because you’re allowed to risk your life and I’m supposed to hide under the table until men finish deciding what happens to me?”
His eyes flashed. “Because I know what I’m doing.”
“And I’m learning.”
“This was not practice.”
“No,” she said, voice breaking. “It was my life. They tied me up. They lied about me. They would have watched me freeze and gone home for supper. I am tired of surviving by making myself smaller. I will not do it in your cabin too.”
Rowan said nothing.
Clara wiped her eyes angrily.
“I know I’m not Miriam.”
His expression changed.
“I know that is part of why you helped me,” she said. “I am sorry nobody saved her. I am sorry she vanished before anyone stood beside her. But I am here, Rowan. I am alive. And I need you to stop treating my survival like something that belongs only to you.”
The words hung between them.
Then Rowan sat back as if she had struck him harder than any bullet.
“You’re right,” he said.
Clara had been ready to argue. The apology left her defenseless.
“I don’t know how to stand close to someone,” he admitted. “I have spent ten years watching from a distance. Protecting a person beside me is harder.”
“I don’t need easy.”
“No,” he said softly. “I suppose you never did.”
The next morning, the young man Clara had frightened returned alone with a white flour sack tied to a branch.