Chapter 1 - The Woman Beneath the Pine
The woman grabbed Harlan's sleeve and whispered, "Don't let them take me back."
Harlan Mercer dropped beside her and found a torn stagecoach ticket trapped beneath her frozen hand.
Three numbers had been written across the back.
14 — 7 — 3.
This was no accident.
He stared at the numbers for only a second before folding the ticket and sliding it into the inside pocket of his shirt.
The woman shivered violently beneath him.
"Easy," Harlan said.
Her eyes tried to focus on his face.
They were gray.
He knew those eyes.
He had studied them by lamplight for three months in a small photograph that had traveled nearly two thousand miles inside an envelope.
Clara Whitmore.
Twenty-seven years old.
A schoolteacher from Pennsylvania.
The woman who had answered his advertisement.
The woman who had written that she was not looking for romance from some dime novel, only a decent man who believed a wife should be treated as a partner.
The woman he had promised to meet at the stage stop outside Silver Creek.
Three months ago.
"Harlan?" she breathed.
His chest tightened.
"Yeah."
She stared at him another moment, almost as if his existence frightened her more than the cold.
"They said..."
Her lips trembled.
"What?"
"They said you were dead."
Harlan's hand stopped.
"Who said that?"
But Clara's eyes rolled shut.
"Clara."
No response.
He pressed his fingers against the side of her throat.
The pulse was there.
Weak.
Too fast.
He looked toward his horse.
"Buck."
The dark gelding lifted his head.
Harlan had spent seven winters in the Idaho mountains, and he knew exactly how quickly cold could kill.
He had seen men freeze standing against trees.
He had seen cattle collapse in storms so fierce their bodies disappeared beneath drifting snow before sunrise.
Clara's dress was wet.
Her coat was little better than rags.
One boot was missing.
The stocking around that foot was stiff with ice.
Bruises darkened her cheek and jaw.
Someone had hurt her.
That thought settled inside Harlan with a quietness far more dangerous than anger.
He pulled his heavy sheepskin coat off and wrapped it around her.
Clara stirred.
"Don't sleep," he ordered.
Her eyelids fluttered.
"Can't..."
"Yes, you can."
"Cold."
"I know."
He slipped one arm behind her shoulders and another beneath her knees.
When he lifted her, she made a broken sound.
Harlan froze.
"Where?"
"My ribs."
He shifted carefully.
"Can you breathe?"
"Mostly."
That was not an answer he liked.
He carried her toward Buck.
Every step through knee-deep snow felt too slow.
The cabin was almost four miles uphill.
Under normal conditions, forty minutes.
With a storm building?
Longer.
Far too long.
He secured Clara in front of the saddle and climbed behind her, using his body to shield her from the wind.
"Stay awake."
She gave a weak laugh.
"I spent three months trying to find you."
Harlan tightened his arm around her.
"And I spent three months waiting."
She opened her eyes.
"Three?"
"Every other Thursday."
Something changed in her expression.
Fear.
Not confusion.
Fear.
"Harlan..."
"What?"
"I came in June."
His jaw tightened.
It was September.
"You couldn't have."
"I did."
"The stage arrived."
"I know."
"You weren't on it."
"I was."
Harlan stared ahead.
Snow hissed through the pines.
"What happened?"
Clara struggled to turn toward him.
"A man boarded outside Blackwater."
"What man?"
"I don't know his real name."
"Then tell me the one he used."
Her breathing became shallow.
"Rusk."
Harlan's blood went cold.
He knew the name.
Everyone in Silver Creek did.
Caleb Rusk owned the freight office, half the warehouses near the rail spur, and enough debt notes to control families who had never met him.
He also owned the stage line connecting Blackwater to Silver Creek.
"You know him?" Clara whispered.
"I know of him."
"He told me you were dead."
Harlan's horse climbed higher.
"He showed me a newspaper clipping," Clara continued. "Your name. A mining accident."
"There was no accident."
"I know that now."
"How?"
"Because I saw you."
Harlan frowned.
"When?"
"Three weeks after I arrived."
His grip tightened.
"Where?"
"Silver Creek."
"I wasn't there three weeks after June."
"Yes, you were."
"No."
Clara stared at him.
"You rode past the hotel."
Harlan shook his head.
"I would've seen you."
"You didn't look up."
"Clara, I wasn't in town."
"I saw your face."
"Then you saw someone who looked like me."
Her expression became more frightened.
"No. I saw you."
Harlan did not answer.
The first hard gust of the coming storm swept through the timber.
Buck stumbled.
Harlan steadied him.
Clara whimpered.
"We need to get you inside."
"My bag."
"What?"
"My bag."
"Where?"
"Coach."
"The stagecoach?"
She nodded faintly.
"Ledger."
"What ledger?"
Her lips barely moved.
"The reason they wouldn't let me leave."
Harlan looked back toward the valley.
Already the snow was filling their tracks.
"Where's the coach?"
"Ravine."
"Which ravine?"
"Red Hollow."
That made no sense.
Red Hollow lay twelve miles east of the official stage road.
"What were you doing out there?"
"Escaping."
"From Rusk?"
Clara did not answer.
"Clara."
Her head sagged against his chest.
He touched her cheek.
Too cold.
"Harlan?"
"Here."
"If I don't..."
"Don't."
"You need to know."
"You can tell me at the cabin."
"The ledger has names."
"Whose names?"
"Men from Silver Creek."
Harlan felt something old awaken in him.
A soldier's instinct he thought he had buried when he left the cavalry five years earlier.
The instinct that told him someone had prepared the ground before the first shot was fired.
False newspaper story.
A diverted passenger.
A hidden woman.
A missing ledger.
And his name at the center of it.
"Why would Rusk care whether you married me?" he asked.
Clara's answer came so quietly he almost missed it.
"Because of your land."
Harlan looked toward the ridgeline.
His claim.
Forty acres of rough mountain soil no sane man would fight over.
Except Harlan had found something beneath it the previous spring.
Not gold.
Something more dependable.
A narrow pass that could connect the future railway extension directly to the northern timber camps.
Several businessmen had offered to buy.
He had refused every one.
Caleb Rusk among them.
Buck reached the final rise.
Harlan's cabin appeared through the trees.
Smoke rose from the chimney.
Harlan stiffened.
He had not left a fire burning.
He had left before dawn.
Six hours ago.
No smoke should have remained.
He stopped Buck.
Clara stirred against him.
"What is it?"
Harlan looked at his cabin.
Then at the fresh tracks leading to the door.
Horse tracks.
Two animals.
Maybe three.
"Someone's there."
Clara suddenly grabbed his wrist with surprising strength.
"No."
"Stay here."
"No, Harlan."
"I need to see who's inside."
Her eyes widened.
"You don't understand."
He carefully lowered her against a pine and wrapped the coat tighter around her.
"I understand enough."
He took his Winchester from the saddle scabbard.
Clara stared at the rifle.
"Harlan."
"What?"
"The man who kept me in Silver Creek..."
He waited.
"He wore your coat."
Harlan said nothing.
"My coat?"
"Brown cavalry coat. Brass buttons. Your name sewn inside."
His breath stopped.
That coat had disappeared from his cabin in May.
A month before Clara was due.
He had assumed a drifter had stolen it.
Now he knew better.
A floorboard creaked inside the cabin.
Harlan raised the rifle.
The door opened.
A man stepped onto the porch.
And Harlan found himself staring at his own face.
Not exactly.
But close enough to fool someone who had only ever seen him in a photograph.
Same height.
Same dark hair.
Same beard.
And over the stranger's shoulders hung Harlan's missing cavalry coat.
The man smiled.
"Been waiting for you, Mercer."
Harlan raised the rifle.
"Who are you?"
The stranger's smile widened.
Clara made a terrified sound behind him.
The man looked past Harlan toward her.
"There she is."
Harlan moved between them.
"You take another step, you're dead."
The stranger stopped.
"Rusk said you'd say that."
Harlan's finger tightened against the trigger.
"What does Rusk want?"
"Same thing he's wanted since May."
"My land?"
The stranger laughed.
"Your land?"
Then his expression changed.
Almost pitying.
"No, Mercer."
He slowly reached into his coat.
Harlan aimed at his chest.
"Hands where I can see them."
The stranger pulled out an envelope.
He tossed it into the snow.
It landed at Harlan's feet.
His own name was written across the front.
HARLAN MERCER.
The handwriting belonged to Clara.
Harlan looked at her.
She stared at the envelope.
"I never wrote that."
The stranger backed toward the doorway.
"Maybe you ought to read it."
Harlan bent just enough to pick it up without taking his eyes off him.
Inside was one sheet.
Only six words had been written across it.
YOUR BRIDE WAS NEVER THE TARGET.
Harlan read the sentence twice.
Then he looked up.
The porch was empty.
The cabin door stood open.
He moved toward it.
Clara whispered behind him.
"Harlan, don't."
He reached the doorway.
Inside, chairs had been overturned.
His desk drawers hung open.
Someone had searched everything.
Then Harlan saw his bedroom door.
Closed.
He had left it open.
A shadow moved beneath it.
He raised his rifle.
The handle began to turn.
May you like
Someone else was still inside.
And whoever it was whispered his name.
