Crowe shouted.
She plunged through the snow toward the creek.
Then she saw it.
A strip of leather buried beneath ice.
She pulled.
A saddle strap.
Another piece appeared.
Then something beneath the snow.
A man’s boot.
Hattie screamed.
Silas fought against his ropes.
Crowe cursed.
Vale stepped backward.
Hattie dropped beside the body.
“Papa!”
She dug furiously.
The man’s face appeared.
Frozen.
Bearded.
Dead.
Hattie stopped.
Silas bowed his head.
But then Hattie whispered:
“That’s not him.”
Everyone froze.
“What?” Vale said.
Hattie brushed snow from the man’s coat.
The brass buttons were identical to Papa’s.
The body was similar in size.
But the face—
It wasn’t Tom Pell.
Silas stared.
Then he understood.
“Who is that?”
Crowe went pale.
Vale turned toward him.
“Abel?”
The sheriff said nothing.
Silas began laughing.
Slowly.
“You fools.”
Vale drew his gun.
“What?”
“Tom survived.”
Crowe’s face drained.
“No.”
“That’s one of your men.”
“No!”
Hattie remembered the broken branch.
The missing saddle.
The strange tracks.
Her father hadn’t been dragged away.
Someone else had.
Papa had taken the dead man’s saddle.
Maybe his horse.
Tom Pell had escaped.
Hattie stood.
“He’s alive.”
Hope hit her so violently it hurt.
“Papa’s alive!”
A rifle cracked.
Crowe dropped.
Vale spun around.
Another shot struck the snow beside him.
“Drop it!”
The voice came from the ridge.
Hattie knew it.
She knew it before the rider appeared.
Before she saw the familiar shoulders.
Before the man dismounted.
“Papa!”
Tom Pell ran down the slope.
Hattie flew toward him.
He fell to his knees.
They collided in the snow.
Tom wrapped both arms around his daughter.
“Hattie.”
She sobbed against him.
“You didn’t come back!”
“I tried.”
“You promised!”
“I know.”
“You promised!”
“I know.”
Tom cried then.
For the first time in Hattie’s life, she saw her father weep.
“I’m sorry.”
Behind him came four mounted men.
Territorial marshals.
Tom had been ambushed at Cottonwood Bend.
He’d killed one attacker, been shot through the shoulder, and escaped on the man’s horse.
Unable to return north because Crowe’s men controlled the road, he rode west.
He nearly died twice.
Eventually, he reached Bannack.
There he told the marshal everything.
The silver.
Vale.
The fraudulent mortgages.
The sheriff.
But there was one thing Tom didn’t know.
“Your mother?” he asked.
Hattie’s face answered.
Tom closed his eyes.
Then he saw the bundle in her arms.
“Are they—?”
“Both alive.”
His knees nearly gave out.
He held Asa.
Then Mercy.
Then Hattie again.
“My brave girl.”
Silas watched from several yards away.
He smiled.
But Hattie noticed something.
Her father wasn’t looking at the twins the way she expected.
He looked relieved.
Overwhelmed.
But also—
Confused.
“Papa?”
