“I don’t see the county. I see trespassers.”
Eliza heard movement below. Men spreading out.
Creed spoke one last time.
“Burn him out.”
The cabin exploded into sound.
Bullets hammered the logs. Crockery shattered. A lantern burst against the wall, spilling flame before Jonas kicked it out. Eliza dropped behind the table with the revolver in both hands, heart slamming so hard her vision pulsed.
Jonas moved through the chaos like a man who had already died once and found the experience unimpressive.
He fired from one window, crossed to another, fired again. Outside, a horse screamed. A man shouted for his mother. Snow kicked up where bullets struck the drifts.
Then Eliza heard scratching at the back wall.
Not the door.
Lower.
The storage hatch.
“Jonas,” she whispered.
“I hear it.”
He could not leave the front. Two rifles were pinning him from the trees.
The scratching became a crack.
Someone prying the hatch.
Eliza crawled across the floor, splinters digging into her palms. She reached the hatch just as the latch broke.
A face appeared in the gap.
Deputy Pike.
His eyes widened when he saw the revolver.
Then he smiled.
“Look at you. Judge said you always were good at playing helpless.”
The old terror rose. The wagon. The camp. Men’s boots. Closed doors.
Eliza’s hands shook.
Pike lifted his pistol.
She fired first.
The blast threw her backward. Smoke filled her nose. Pike disappeared with a cry, falling away from the hatch into the snow.
Eliza stared at the smoking revolver.
The world narrowed.
Jonas was beside her suddenly. “Are you hit?”
She shook her head.
He looked through the broken hatch, then pulled it shut and shoved a crate against it.
“I shot him,” she whispered.
“He came in armed.”
“I shot him.”
“You lived.”
The words struck deeper than comfort.
You lived.
A hiss cut through the smoke.
Jonas’s head snapped up.
“Down!”
Something crashed through the roof gap and landed near the stove, wrapped in oilcloth with a sputtering fuse.
Dynamite.
Jonas seized Eliza and drove them both behind the stone hearth.
The explosion ripped the cabin open.
For a few moments there was no sound, only pressure, white light, and the sensation of the world breaking apart. Snow fell through the roof. Smoke rolled along the floor. The table was gone. One wall sagged inward.
Eliza opened her eyes to find Jonas half over her, his body shielding hers.
“Jonas.”
He did not answer.
Blood ran down his neck. A roof beam had struck his shoulder and pinned his right arm beneath it. Eliza shoved with everything in her. The beam shifted a fraction. Jonas groaned but did not cry out.
“Help me,” she said.
His eye opened.
Together they got him free.
He could barely stand.
The front door hung splintered from one hinge.
Through the smoke, Judge Alton Creed walked in with a pistol in his hand.
Two hired men followed, both pale, both armed.
Creed’s coat was torn. Snow clung to his hair. Without his polished courtroom calm, he looked smaller.
Meaner.
“There,” he said softly. “All this suffering because you could not be sensible.”
Jonas reached for the rifle with his left hand.
Creed aimed at Eliza. “Don’t.”
Jonas froze.
Creed smiled. “There is the truth of men like you, Vale. Always dangerous until someone finds what you love.”
Eliza’s chest tightened.
What you love.
Jonas’s face revealed nothing, but Creed had seen enough.
The judge turned to Eliza. “Where is the ledger?”
She lifted her chin.
Creed stepped close to Jonas and pressed the pistol barrel against his wounded shoulder.
Jonas’s body went rigid.
“Where?” Creed asked.
Eliza looked at Jonas.
His good eye said no.
His blood said hurry.
She took a shaking breath.
“It is not in the gorge anymore.”
Creed’s face changed. Greed leaned forward inside him.
“Where?”
“Bracken moved it before he drowned.”
“Eliza,” Jonas warned.
She ignored him.
“He hid it inside Saint Agnes Mine. Behind the second ore chute. He said nobody would search there because of the cave-in.”
One of Creed’s men spat. “That mine’s cursed.”
Creed did not look away from Eliza.
“Are you lying to me?”
She let fear tremble in her mouth because fear was useful.
“No.”
The judge studied her.
Then he smiled.
“You will draw me a map.”
“I will.”
“And after that?”
“You let Jonas live.”
Creed gave a small laugh.
It was worse than a shout.
“My dear girl, you have mistaken negotiation for prayer.”
He raised the pistol toward Jonas’s head.
A rifle shot cracked from outside.
Creed screamed.
The pistol flew from his hand, spinning into the ashes. Blood poured between his fingers.
The hired men turned, but a voice from the doorway stopped them cold.
“Drop the guns.”