Caleb gave her a level look.
“It is.”
That almost-smile appeared again, then vanished.
She drank.
Caleb turned toward the window.
The pass would remain buried for days.
Maybe longer.
The nearest town, Mercy Creek, sat fourteen miles south and nearly two thousand feet lower. Even with snowshoes, taking her there before the trail settled would be dangerous.
Which meant she was staying.
His cabin suddenly felt smaller.
He hated that.
For eight years, Caleb had lived alone.
Eight years without visitors unless a trapper got lost or someone from Mercy Creek brought flour or cartridges.
Eight years without hearing another person breathe across the room.
He had made solitude into armor.
And armor, Caleb knew, only worked if no one got beneath it.
Behind him, the woman said, “There was something in my pocket.”
Caleb turned.
“What?”
“My dress.”
He crossed to the hearth, picked up the dry outer skirt, and searched carefully.
One pocket was empty.
The other held a handkerchief, two coins, and a small silver case.
He handed them over.
She opened the case.
Inside was a miniature portrait.
A man.
Perhaps thirty-five.
Dark hair.
Clean-shaven.
Formal coat.
Handsome in the way rich men paid photographers to make them appear honorable.
The woman stared.
Caleb saw her fingers tighten around the silver frame.
“Do you know him?”
“No.”
“Then why carry his picture?”
“I don’t know.”
Caleb noticed something engraved inside the lid.
“Turn it.”
She did.
Three words were etched into the silver.
To Evelyn. Always.
The woman stopped breathing.
“Evelyn,” Caleb said.
Her eyes lifted.
“That’s you?”
She touched the engraving.
“Maybe.”
Then her expression tightened.
Caleb saw another flash of pain cross her face.
She closed her eyes.
A fragmented whisper escaped her.
“Don’t…”
Caleb leaned forward.
“What?”
“Don’t let him…”
Her eyes snapped open.
“What did I say?”
“Don’t let him.”
“Him who?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked down at the portrait.
And suddenly threw it across the room.
The silver case struck the wall.
Caleb stared at her.
Evelyn stared too, as if shocked by her own hand.
“I don’t know why I did that.”
Caleb slowly picked up the case.
The man’s tiny painted face now had a crack running through it.
Caleb closed the lid.
“Maybe some part of you does.”
That night, Evelyn woke screaming.
Caleb came off his cot with the rifle already in his hands.
She was sitting upright by the fire, blankets twisted around her legs, hair loose across her shoulders.
“No!”
Caleb lowered the weapon.
“Evelyn.”
She did not appear to hear him.
“No, please!”
He crouched several feet away.
“You’re here. Cabin. Elk Ridge.”
Her eyes found him.
For one terrible second, they looked through him.
Then she returned.
She covered her mouth.
“I saw it.”
“The crash?”
She nodded rapidly.
“Someone was outside.”
Caleb became very still.
“What?”
“A man.”
“In the storm?”
“I think so.”
“Think harder.”
She flinched at his tone.
Caleb softened it.
“What did you see?”
She squeezed her eyes shut.
“The coach stopped.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said someone was outside.”
“Yes.”
“Driver?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the driver was shouting at him.”
Caleb felt something shift inside him.
The stagecoach had not simply lost the trail.
He had assumed an avalanche shoved it off the upper road.
But now he remembered something.
The horses.
He had found no horses.
He had thought their traces snapped and the animals wandered or were buried.
Maybe not.
“What did the man look like?”
“I can’t see his face.”
“Clothes?”
“Long coat.”
“Hat?”
“Yes.”
“Gun?”
Her eyes opened.
“Yes.”
Caleb sat back.
“Then it wasn’t an accident.”
Evelyn looked toward the door as though expecting someone to be standing outside.
