You’ve got spirit, ma’am, he said softly. I’ll give you that. Most folks in these one-horse towns piss themselves when we ride in. But let me tell you something about the man we’re hunting. He isn’t some harmless drifter down on his luck. He’s a thief. He took something that belonged to the wrong people, and he killed a good man to get away with it. You harbor a killer, you become an accessory. You understand what happens to accessories out here in the territories.
I understand that you’re tracking a man through a storm and tracking mud all over my floor, Clara said, refusing to yield an inch. If he was here, he’s gone now. Check the alley if you’re so eager for a fight.
The leader stared at her for a long, agonizing moment, measuring her resolve. For a second, Clara feared he would draw his iron and push past her anyway, simply because he enjoyed the cruelty of it. But then he spat a stream of brown tobacco juice onto the floorboards near the door and shook his head.
All right, he muttered to his men outside. Let’s check the livery and the saloon. If he’s not there, we’ll circle back. Keep your eyes open, boys. He’s bleeding, so he won’t get far before he drops.
With a final, lingering glare at Clara, the scarred man backed out into the rain, pulling the heavy door shut behind him with a resounding thud. The sound of their horses splashing away down the muddy street faded slowly into the roar of the storm.
Clara stood frozen for several seconds, listening to the rain and the erratic beating of her own heart. Only when she was certain they were gone did she let out a long, shaky breath and turn toward the storage alcove.
You can come out now, she whispered. They’re gone. For the moment.
A rustle of canvas answered her, and then the cowboy emerged from the shadows. He leaned heavily against the counter, his face drained of what little color it had left. The dark stain on his flannel shirt had grown larger, soaking through his vest as well. He slid down the wooden panels until he was sitting on the floor, his breathing shallow and ragged.
We need to get that shirt off and look at that wound, Clara said, kneeling beside him without hesitation. She reached for the scissors on her worktable. Hold still.
Don’t, he murmured, catching her hand with trembling fingers. You shouldn’t have lied to them. If they find out you helped me, they’ll burn this place to the ground. They’re not just bounty hunters, ma’am. They’re the remnants of the Ironwood gang. They don’t leave witnesses.
I’ve lived through worse than a pack of cutthroats from Texas, Clara said, her hands steady as she began cutting away the soaked fabric around the bullet hole. Now hush up and let me work. You’re losing too much blood.
As the cloth fell away, revealing a ragged tear just above his hip where a lead ball had passed clean through the flesh, the cowboy winced sharply, biting down on his lower lip to keep from crying out. It was a clean wound, thankfully missing any vital organs, but it needed to be cleaned and tightly bound before infection or blood loss took him.
Clara fetched a basin of warm water from the stove, along with clean linen rags and a bottle of strong spirits she kept for medicinal purposes. Working with the practiced efficiency of someone who had tended to her own share of rough injuries over the years, she washed the wound, ignoring the sharp intake of breath the alcohol caused, and began wrapping a long strip of clean cotton firmly around his waist.
You’re awfully handy with a bandage for a seamstress, the cowboy muttered through clenched teeth, trying to distract himself from the pain.
You’d be surprised what you learn when you live out here alone, Clara replied, tying off the bandage with a sharp tug. People break things every day, cowboy. Bones, promises, hearts. You just patch them up the best you can and hope they hold together when the pressure comes back.
He looked up at her then, the harsh, defensive barrier in his eyes finally crumbling away entirely. In the warm lamplight, without the brim of his hat shadowing his features, Clara saw something else in his face. A strange, haunting familiarity. It wasn’t that she had seen him before in Mercy Ridge, but there was an echo in the lines around his eyes, a tilt of the jaw that stirred long-buried memories she had spent a decade trying to stitch shut.
Who are you, she asked softly, her hands resting on her knees as she knelt before him on the floor. And what did you take from them.
The cowboy closed his eyes for a moment, leaning his head back against the counter. The storm outside seemed to recede, leaving only the sound of their breathing and the crackle of the hearth.
My name is Julian, he said quietly. Julian Vance. And I didn’t take anything that wasn’t already mine to begin with. Those men, they work for a man named Richter. Ten years ago, Richter ran a mining operation up in the hills. My father worked it. Half the men in this county worked it, until the tunnel collapsed. Richter locked the shaft doors from the outside to save the equipment from flooding, and left thirty men to drown in the dark.
Clara felt the breath catch in her throat. The room seemed to tilt slightly around her. Ten years ago. The Blackwood collapse. The tragedy that had emptied the northern ridge and turned Mercy Ridge into a ghost town of widows and ruined lives.
My brother was in that shaft, Clara whispered, the words escaping before she could stop them. He was nineteen years old.
Julian opened his eyes and looked straight at her, a profound, aching sorrow reflecting in his gaze. I know, Clara. I remember your face. Even after all these years. Even with the gray in your hair.
Clara stumbled back to her feet, her hands flying to her mouth as the full weight of the revelation crashed down upon her. She stared down at the wounded man on her floor, seeing past the mud, the blood, and the years of dust and hardship. The boy who had left Mercy Ridge a decade ago, fleeing a town that blamed his father for the disaster, had finally come home.
Julian, she breathed, tears finally breaking over her lashes. You were just a boy. They said you ran off with the company payroll after the accident. They said you were the one who stole the safe and left the town to starve.
Richter wrote that story, Julian said bitterly, pressing a hand against his bandaged side as he tried to push himself up. He needed a scapegoat so the law wouldn’t look into why the rescue doors were chained shut from the outside. He took everything from us, Clara. My father, my home, my name. And tonight, I finally went back to his office in the hills to get the ledger. The paper with his own signature ordering those doors chained. I got it, too. That’s what they’re hunting me for. Not gold. Proof.
He reached inside his soaked coat and pulled out a heavy, oilskin-wrapped packet, stained with mud and a few drops of dark blood, holding it out toward her.
Clara stared at the packet, then down at the broken saddlebag strap lying on her worktable. The crooked stitches. The desperate, clumsy repair job done by a frightened boy trying to hold his world together before it all fell apart.
Before she could speak, a sudden, violent crash shattered the front window of the shop.
Glass exploded inward across the floorboards as a heavy object flew through the opening, followed instantly by the harsh, booming crack of a rifle shot that splintered the wood of the counter just inches from where Clara stood.
Get down, Julian shouted, lunging forward with a surge of adrenaline despite his wound, shoving Clara behind the heavy oak worktable as another shot ripped through the front door.
They’re back, and they’re not asking questions this time, Julian gritted out, pulling a heavy revolver from his holster with his right hand while pressing his left hard against his side to stem the bleeding. They mean to burn the whole place down.
Clara crawled toward the hearth, her hand closing around the heavy iron poker she had left behind earlier. Her heart pounded like a war drum in her ears, but the paralyzing fear had vanished, replaced by a cold, furious clarity. They had taken her brother ten years ago. They had ruined her family, branded an innocent boy as a thief, and now they had come to finish what they started in the dark.
They aren’t burning anything tonight, Clara said, her voice hard as iron.
She crawled swiftly toward the back storage alcove, knowing every inch of the floorboards, every hidden nail and drafty board of the old building. There was a second door, one the bounty hunters didn’t know about, leading out to the root cellar beneath the neighboring abandoned dry goods store.
Julian, she called out, firing a single, desperate glance back toward the counter where he had raised his weapon to cover the front entrance. Give me the ledger.
He blinked in surprise, then tossed the oilskin-wrapped packet across the floor toward her. She caught it deftly, sliding it securely into the deep pocket of her apron.
What are you doing, he yelled over the sound of heavy boots kicking against the splintered front door frame.
I’m doing what I’ve done for ten years, Clara called back, a fierce, defiant smile touching her lips as she pulled open the hidden floor hatch in the corner of the alcove. Mending what they broke. Now follow me, little brother. Let’s finish the stitching.
As the front door crashed open and the heavy footsteps of the armed men flooded into the burning shop, Clara dropped down into the dark cellar, pulling Julian in right behind her and slamming the heavy wooden hatch shut just as the first tongue of fire licked across the floor above them.