Chapter 5 - The Crack on the Ridge
Silas’s hand dropped instantly to the pistol holster at his hip. "Get down!" he shouted, shoving Eda behind him just as a spray of pine needles and bark exploded from the trunk of the tree beside them.
A rifle shot cracked across the clearing, the echo rolling down the canyon walls and dying out in the valley below.
Ruth screamed, dropping her saw and scrambling behind a snow-covered boulder where Mabel and Lena had already dived. Susanna and Joelle huddled together near the edge of the sled, wide-eyed and shaking.
Silas dropped to one knee, drawing his revolver, his eyes scanning the dense timberline up the ridge. The falling snow was thickening into a squall, reducing visibility to less than thirty yards.
"Who's up there?" Eda called out, crouching beside Silas, her hand gripping the handle of her dropped axe.
"Stay down!" Silas barked, his eyes darting from shadow to shadow among the pines.
Another shot rang out, but this time the bullet didn't hit the trees—it slammed into the wooden sled rail with a sickening thwack, splintering the dry pine.
"That wasn't a warning shot," Silas muttered, his face hard as iron. "That was aimed at the livestock."
"Clem?" Eda asked, her heart hammering against her ribs.
"No," Silas said, squinting through the swirling snow as a dark silhouette detached itself from the shadows fifty yards up the ridge, mounted a horse, and spurred the animal hard away from the clearing, disappearing into the whiteout. "Clem's too much of a coward to shoot a rifle in a snowstorm. That was professional work."
Silas stood up slowly, keeping his pistol drawn until the hoofbeats faded completely into the howl of the wind. He walked over to the sled and ran his fingers through the splintered wood where the second bullet had struck. He pulled out a flattened lead slug with the blade of his pocketknife, turning it over in his palm.
"What is it?" Eda asked, coming up behind him.
Silas held out his hand. The lead slug was marked with distinctive double-grooves—not standard army issue, and not the cheap cast bullets local hunters poured at home.
"Buffalo hunter's lead," Silas said, his voice grim. "Big caliber. Heavy powder charge."
"Why would a buffalo hunter be shooting at our logging sled?" Ruth called out from behind the boulder, her voice trembling as she helped Mabel to her feet.
Silas looked from the bullet to Eda, the pieces of the puzzle suddenly locking into a terrifyingly clear picture in his mind.
"He wasn't shooting at the sled," Silas said quietly. "He was shooting to scare us off the timber claim. Vance didn't just issue a ten-day deadline by coincidence. He knew the east pasture timber rights revert to the bank's silent partner if the mortgage defaults—and that partner has been trying to clear title on this whole watershed for two years."
Eda’s eyes flashed with sudden, cold realization. "Vance isn't just calling in a loan. He's trying to force you off the land so someone else can take the water rights before the spring thaw."
"And if we cut fifty cords of cedar and stack it by next Friday," Silas added, looking at her with a new, profound respect, "we break his timeline. We save the ranch."
"Then we don't stop cutting," Eda said, her voice ringing out across the clearing with absolute authority. She picked up her axe from the snow, wiping the blade clean against her woolen skirt, and turned back toward the downed pine.
Ruth, Mabel, Lena, Susanna, and Joelle looked at one another, then slowly stepped out from behind the boulder, picking up their tools without a single word of complaint. The fear in the air hadn't vanished, but it had transformed into something much more dangerous to their enemies: stubborn, unyielding survival.
Silas watched them pick up their saws, a slow, fierce pride rising in his chest that he hadn't felt in five long years. He holstered his pistol, walked over to the horses, and picked up his own crosscut handle.
May you like
"Alright," Silas said, stepping up beside Eda at the pine log. "If we're going to beat Vance's deadline, we've got thirty cords left to stack before sunrise tomorrow. Let's make some noise."
The saws bit into the wood, and the ring of iron and steel drowned out the wind as the snow fell thicker over the mountains, sealing them together in the heart of the winter storm.
