I built this valley. I own this earth. He reached into his saddle bag. He didn't pull a gun. He pulled a glass bottle with a rag stuffed in the neck.
Kerosene. He struck a match on his saddle horn. If I cannot have it, Pike screamed. No one will. He hurled the bottle.
It did not hit the house. It sailed over Eli's head and smashed against the dry weathered wood of the barn. The explosion of flame was instant. The dry timber seasoned by decades of wind and sun, caught like paper. A wall of fire roared up the side of the structure.
"The horses!" Clara screamed. The barn doors were closed. The animals were trapped inside. Eli did not hesitate.
He handed his rifle to Clara and ran toward the burning building. "Eli, no!" Clara cried, but he was already moving. Pike laughed, a high, thin sound. He spurred his horse, trying to break through the line of towns folk to escape.
"Stop him!" the marshall shouted. But Eli was focused on the barn. He reached the doors, the heat blistering his skin. He threw the latch and heaved the doors open.
Smoke billowed out, black and choking. The horses, terrified and screaming, bolted out of the inferno, nearly trampling him. Eli dove to the side, rolling in the dirt. The fire had climbed to the loft. The roof groaned.
Eli scrambled up. He looked back at the yard. Pike had not escaped. His horse had reared at the sudden roar of the fire, throwing him. He was scrambling in the dust, trying to reach his dropped pistol.
Eli walked toward him. He did not run. He walked with a terrifying, slow purpose. The heat of the burning barn was at his back, casting a long dancing shadow before him. Pike grabbed the gun.
He rolled onto his back, aiming at Eli. "Stop!" the marshall shouted, raising his rifle, but Eli was closer. He reached Pike before the man could fire. He kicked the gun out of Pike's hand.
The pistol spun away into the weeds. Eli reached down and grabbed Pike by the lapels of his expensive coat. He hauled the older man to his feet as if he were made of straw. Eli pulled back his fist. Every instinct in his blood, every memory of his father's rage, screamed at him to strike, to smash this man's face until it was nothing but ruin.
To kill the threat. Pike flinched, closing his eyes, waiting for the blow. Eli held the fist in the air. His arm trembled. The veins in his neck stood out like cords.
The fire roared behind him, consuming the labor of his life, the barn his father built. Eli looked at Pike's pathetic, fear-tisted face. He looked at the marshall. He looked at Clara, who stood on the porch, her hands pressed to her mouth. Eli lowered his hand.
He shoved Pike backward hard. Pike stumbled and fell into the dirt at the marshall's feet. "I am not you," Eli said. His voice was quiet, but in the sudden silence of the yard, everyone heard it. I do not kill for pride.
Take him. The marshall stepped forward and hauled Pike up, slapping cuffs on his wrists. Sheriff Miller was already being tied up by the blacksmith. It was over, but the cost was high. The barn was a skeleton of flame.
The roof collapsed with a crash that shook the ground, sending a geyser of sparks into the white sky. The winter feed was gone. The tack was gone. Eli stood watching it burn. His shoulders slumped.
The adrenaline that had held him upright drained away, leaving him swaying on his feet. Clara ran to him. She did not care about the marshall or the town's folk or the smoke. She ran to him and slammed into his chest, wrapping her arms around him so tightly it hurt. You are alive," she sobbed into his coat.
"You are alive!" Eli held her. He buried his face in her hair, which smelled of gunpowder and rose water. He shook. The tears came then, hot and fast, a release of the terror he had carried for weeks.
"We lost the barn," he whispered. "We lost the tools." "We kept the house," Clara said, pulling back to look at him. Her face was stre with soot and tears. We kept the land and we kept us.
She took his face in her hands just as he had done for her inside. I choose you, Eliqincaid, she said. With a barn or without it, rich or poor, I am still here. I am still here, Eli repeated. He leaned down and kissed her.
It was not a kiss of passion, but of desperation and relief. It was a seal on a contract written in blood and smoke. Behind them, the marshall was leading Pike away. The town's folk were beginning to form a bucket brigade from the creek, trying to keep the fire from spreading to the house. The community was returning tentatively to aid the man who had stood his ground.
The sun began to dip low in the west, turning the smoke-filled sky a bruised purple. Later, inside the house, the silence returned. The windows were still boarded, but the door was open to let out the smoke. They sat on the floor, leaning against the overturned table. They were too tired to move the furniture back.
Eli had wrapped Clara's hands in clean bandages where the recoil of the shotgun had split her skin. Pike is not the only one," Eli said quietly into the gloom. "The syndicate is big. They will send someone else. Maybe next year, maybe in 5 years."
"Let them come," Clara said. She rested her head on his shoulder. "We know how to fight now," Eli put his arm around her. The fear of his own blood, the fear of his father's legacy was gone. He had held fire in his hand, and he had chosen not to burn.
"Yes," Eli said. We know how to fight. The room grew dark. The only light coming from the dying embers of the barnfire outside, casting a warm, flickering glow on their faces. They sat together in the wreckage of their battle.
Holding on to the peace they had earned, fade to black. The smoke from the barn hung in the valley for 3 days. A gray shroud that refused to lift. It settled into the snow that had finally come, turning the pristine white drifts into a dirty, streaked slate. The winter of 1885 was not a season of rest.
It was a season of penance. The Concaid ranch had survived the siege, but it was a broken thing. The blackened skeleton of the barn stood like a rotten tooth against the sky. The supplies were dangerously low. The hay was gone, burned by Pike's malice, and the cattle were growing thin, their ribs showing through their winter coats like the rungs of a ladder.
Eli and Clara did not stop. Survival was a rhythm they knew by heart. Now they worked from the moment the sun greased the eastern horizon until long after the moon claimed the sky. They dismantled the ruins of the barn, salvaging what nails and timber had not been consumed. They rebuilt the corral.