“Hayes?”
“My father.”
Judson looked at her.
“You told me your father died when you were a child.”
“He did.”
She pointed toward the floor.
“On this mountain.”
The world seemed to tilt.
Judson looked down.
“My claim?”
“It was his first.”
Outside, Silas shouted, “Last chance!”
Winifred continued rapidly.
“My father and two partners discovered a silver vein twenty-nine years ago. One partner was Silas Vale’s father. The other was your father.”
Judson stared.
“My father?”
“They filed preliminary papers. Before the final survey, my father died in what everyone called an accident. Silas’s father disappeared. Your father ended up with the land.”
Judson’s voice dropped.
“You came here because of the claim.”
Winifred’s silence answered him.
Something broke behind his eyes.
“So that’s why you answered my advertisement.”
“At first.”
The words hit harder than the gunfire.
Judson looked away.
Of course.
Of course she hadn’t crossed half a continent for him.
He almost laughed at his own stupidity.
Winifred grabbed his arm.
“Judson.”
“You used me.”
“I came because I needed to know what happened to my father.”
“You married me for access to my land.”
“Yes.”
He pulled away.
At least she didn’t lie.
Then Gar spoke from the floor.
“You two can settle the romance after Silas kills us.”
Another bullet struck the cabin.
Judson moved instantly.
Whatever existed between him and Winifred could wait.
Survival could not.
“How many men?”
Gar hesitated.
Winifred lifted the skillet.
“Five!” he shouted. “Five besides Silas!”
Judson almost smiled.
“Good.”
He extinguished the lamps.
Darkness swallowed the cabin.
The attack began minutes later.
One man approached the rear.
Winifred heard his boots crunching through snow.
She pointed.
Judson fired through the wall.
A scream answered.
Another man rushed the porch.
Winifred fired the shotgun.
The blast threw him backward into the snow.
Judson looked at her.
“I thought you’d never fired at a man.”
“I haven’t.”
She pumped another shell into the chamber.
“I fired at the door.”
Despite everything, he grinned.
Then smoke curled beneath the rear wall.
“They’re burning us out.”
Judson swore.
Gar suddenly shouted.
“Untie me!”
“No.”
“You want to live?”
“No.”
Gar blinked.
Winifred clarified.
“Not enough to trust you.”
Flames climbed the back wall.
Judson grabbed blankets.
Then Gar yelled something neither expected.
“Trapdoor!”
Judson turned.
“What?”
“Under the table!”
“There isn’t a trapdoor.”
“Yes, there is.”
Gar’s eyes fixed on Winifred.
“Her father built it.”
Silence.
Winifred shoved the table aside.
Beneath the braided rug was an iron ring.
Judson had lived in the cabin eleven years.
He had never seen it.
He pulled.
A square section of floor rose.
Blackness waited below.
A tunnel.
Gar laughed.
“Old miners always build two ways out.”
