The flames leaped 30 ft into the air, casting a hellish light over the ranch. Eli stood at the window, his hand pressed against the glass. "The hay!" he whispered. "It's gone.
Without the hay, the herd would starve before January. The bank would foreclose on the loan. The ranch was effectively dead. The fire roared in the distance, a funeral p for their hopes. Pike hadn't just sent a warning this time.
He had started the countdown. Eli turned from the window. His face was no longer terrified. It was cold and clear, stripped of all doubt. Get the letters, Eli said.
Pack the saddle bags. We ride now. Winter did not wait for the calendar. It fell upon the high plains in late October. A sudden, brutal crushing of the autumn sky.
The clouds lowered themselves until they scraped the tops of the maces. Heavy and metallic, the color of a bruised gun barrel. The wind lost its bluster and gained a razor edge, finding every gap in a coat collar, every crack in a window frame. On the Concincaid ranch, survival stripped itself of all romance. It was a daily math of calories and warmth.
The cattle already thinned by the drought, huddled in the lee of the ravines, their coats shaggy and frosted with rhyme. Eli Concincaid stood by the corral fence, his breath pluming in the frigid air. He held his heavy coat revolver in his hand, the metal dull and cold beside him. Clara shivered, though she was wrapped in two wool shaws. "It is not about strength," Eli said, his voice low and steady against the wind.
It is about the line between your eye and the sight. You must stop shaking. Clara gripped the heavy pistol with both hands. Her knuckles were red and chapped. She was tired.
Her bones achd from the cold that seemed to live inside the marrow now, but she did not lower the gun. "I am trying," she said through gritted teeth. "Breathe out," Eli instructed. "Squeeze. Do not pull.
A pull jerks the barrel." Clara exhaled, watching the empty tin can perched on the fence post 20 yards away. She thought of the man in the mask who had put a rope around her neck. She thought of the way the world looked at her as if she were something to be discarded. She tightened her finger.
The gun roared, kicking back into her palms with a violence that shocked her every time. The can did not move. Dust kicked up 3 ft to the left. Again, Eli said. He did not sound disappointed.
He sounded like a man teaching someone how to stitch a wound. Grim necessary work. I hate this, Clara whispered, thumbing back the hammer. I know, Eli said. He stepped behind her, adjusting her elbows, his chest pressing briefly against her back.
For a moment, his warmth was the only real thing in the world. I hate that you need it, but the world has teeth. Clara, you must have them, too. She fired again. The can spun off the post, clattering into the frozen mud.
Eli nodded. Good. Reload. Do it until your hands stop shaking. They rode for the county seat 3 days later.
The journey to Cheyenne was usually a hard two-day ride, but with the weather turning and the horses weakened by poor feed. It took them three. The landscape was a study in desolation. The sage brush was brittle, snapping under the horse's hooves. They camped in hollows, sleeping back to back under a canvas tarp, taking turns to watch the dark horizon.
They were not just fighting the cold. They were hunted. Every shadow on a ridge looked like a rider. Every distant coyote howl sounded like a signal. When they finally rode into Cheyenne, the town felt like an assault on the senses.
It was bigger than Red Rock, louder and dirtier. Coal smoke hung low over the streets, mixing with the smell of unwashed bodies and manure. They stabled the horses and walked toward the courthouse. Clara brushed the travel dust from her skirt, but she knew it was feudal. She looked worn.
Her dress was mended. Her boots scuffed beside her. Eli looked like a scarecrow made of wire and leather. His eyes sunk deep in his head. They entered the office of the district attorney.
It was a warm room panled in dark wood that smelled of beeswax. A clerk sat behind a high desk, scribbling in a ledger. He did not look up when the bell above the door chimed. "Excuse me," Eli said, removing his hat. The clerk continued to write.
"We are here to see Mr. Thornne," Eli said louder. The clerk paused, dipping his pen. He looked up, his eyes sliding over Eli and landing on Clara. He took in her frayed shawl.
The wind burned flush on her cheeks, the way she stood slightly behind the man. He curled his lip. "Mr. Thorne is busy with respectable clients," the clerk said, returning to his paper. Deliveries go to the back alley.
Clara felt the heat rise in her neck, the familiar burn of shame. She started to turn away, the instinct to hide kicking in. Eli's hand slammed onto the desk. The inkwell jumped. My wife is not a delivery, Eli said.
His voice was not a shout. It was a landslide. She is Mrs. Eliqincaid, and you will look her in the eye when you speak to her. The clerk recoiled, his face paling.
The door to the inner office opened, and a man stepped out. Marcus Thorne was not what Clara expected. He was a man who looked like he had not slept in a week. His vest was unbuttoned, his sleeves rolled up, and his gray hair stood up in tufts as if he had been pulling at it. He held a pair of spectacles in one hand.
"What is the noise?" Thorne asked, his voice weary. "We have evidence of fraud and theft against Harland Pike," Eli said, turning to him. "And we have proof of judicial corruption in Red Rock." Thorne stopped wiping his glasses.
He looked at Eli. really looked at him, measuring the desperation and the resolve. Then he looked at Clara. Pike, Thorne muttered, "I have been trying to nail that coffin for 2 years. Come in in the office." Thorne listened as Clara laid out the story.
She spoke of the letters, the fence cutting, the intimidation. She showed him the pages from Sarah's stolen ledger. Thorne rubbed his temples. "It is a pattern. I know it is.
Pike moves cattle across the border, rebrands them, and sells them as legitimate stock. He uses the profits to buy water rights and squeeze out the small holders. But this, he tapped the ledger page. This is hearsay. It is a page without a book and your testimony.
He hesitated, looking at Clara with a sad kindness. Mrs. Conincaid, a jury will look at your history. Pike's lawyers will tear you apart. They will paint you as a woman of low morals with a grudge.