THE MAN OUTSIDE HER DOOR WASN’T THERE TO SAVE HER. BY MORNING, MIRIAM VALE WOULD LEARN WHY HER DEAD HUSBAND HAD BEEN LYING TO HER FOR ELEVEN YEARS.
By the time the stranger knocked,
Miriam Vale had already decided exactly how she would kill him if he tried to come through the door.
She stood barefoot on the frozen cabin floor, Isaac’s old hunting knife clenched in both hands, while the Montana wind screamed around the walls like something alive.
Jonah stood beside her.
Ten years old.
Too thin.
Too serious.
Trying desperately to look like a man because there was no man left in the house.
Six-year-old Peter had slipped beneath the table, where he hugged his knees against his chest.
Another knock came.
Three slow blows.
THUD.
THUD.
THUD.
Miriam swallowed.
“Who is it?”
For several seconds, there was only wind.
Then a deep voice answered.
“Silas Crowe.”
Miriam’s grip tightened.
Of all the men who might have been standing on her porch, that was somehow worse.
Everyone in Red Ash Crossing knew Silas Crowe.
He owned more cattle than some counties possessed people.
His northern ranch stretched across miles of river valley, cottonwood country, and grazing land.
He was wealthy.
He was feared.
And according to nearly every story whispered around town, he had buried whatever kindness he once possessed beside his wife and child many winters earlier.
Miriam moved closer to the door.
“What do you want?”
Silence again.
Then:
“To come inside before your boys watch you freeze to death.”
Miriam felt Jonah glance toward her.
Heat rose into her face despite the cold.
“I don’t need anything from you.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“What was your question?”
“Whether I can come inside.”
“No.”
Silas sighed.
“All right.”
Miriam waited.
His footsteps retreated.
For one hopeful second, she believed he was leaving.
Then something heavy struck the porch.
A sack.
Another followed.
Then another.
Miriam hurried toward the window.
Through the frost, she could barely distinguish his dark shape moving between his horse and the porch.
“What are you doing?”
“Leaving flour.”
Another sack landed.
“Beans.”
Another.
“Cornmeal.”
A wrapped bundle followed.
“Salt pork.”
Miriam stared.
Peter crawled from beneath the table.
“Ma?”
She did not answer.
Silas continued.
“Coffee.
Dried apples.
Potatoes.
Lamp oil.
Sugar.”
Sugar.
Miriam had not seen sugar in nearly two months.
She threw open the door.
Snow exploded into the cabin.
Silas Crowe stood on the porch carrying a wooden crate.
He was larger than Miriam remembered from the few occasions she had seen him in town.
Perhaps forty years old.
Broad shoulders beneath a dark buffalo coat.
Snow clung to his beard and hat.
His face appeared carved rather than grown.
Hard lines.
Gray eyes.
A scar beside his left temple.
But nothing about his expression suggested mockery.
“You can’t leave those things here,” Miriam said.
