Chapter 3 - The Sheriff's Proposition
The air inside the cabin turned instantly glacial. Cole stepped back onto the threshold, his broad frame blocking the sheriff's line of sight toward Enola, though the damage was already done.
"Take your hand off your iron, Tom," Cole said, his voice dropping into a low, rumbling register that brooked no argument. "She’s not going anywhere."
Sheriff Miller blinked, looking between Cole's unyielding posture and the young Apache woman standing behind him. Age lines creaked across the lawman's forehead as he slowly withdrew his hand from his holster, letting out a heavy, exasperated sigh.
"Cole, have you lost your damn mind?" Miller muttered, running a gloved hand over his graying beard. "You've lived out here like a hermit for ten years, keeping your nose clean, and now you're sticking your neck out for a federal runaway? There's a fifty-dollar bounty on her head from the Indian agency down in Tucson. Every drifter with a rifle is going to be swarming this ridge by nightfall."
"I don't care about their bounty," Cole replied coldly. "And I don't care about the agency. She was hurt on my land, and she's staying right here."
Enola stepped forward from the shadow of the hearth, her hand sliding away from the hidden revolver. Her dark eyes flashed with quiet indignation. "I am not a runaway, Sheriff. I am looking for my younger brother, who was taken from our camp when the soldiers burned our homes. I haven't broken any laws."
Miller looked at her skeptically, then back at Cole. "It doesn't matter what you've done, miss. To the men riding up this mountain, you're just a paycheck. And Cole... you're standing in front of a firing squad."
"Then let them come try to take her," Cole said, his tone absolute.
Sheriff Miller stared at him for a long, grueling moment, recognizing the stubborn glare in the younger man's eyes. They had known each other back when Cole was still riding with the cattle outfits—before the blood and the whiskey and the quiet bitterness had driven Cole into self-imposed exile. Miller knew that when Cole Matthews dug his heels in, moving him was about as easy as shifting a mountain.
"You're a fool, Cole," Miller said, shaking his head as he walked over to the small table and pulled out a wooden chair, sitting down uninvited. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a crumpled leather pouch, tossing it onto the wood. "Fortunately for you, I'm an even bigger fool for riding up here instead of turning you in."
Cole frowned, crossing his arms. "What are you getting at, Tom?"
"I didn't come here to arrest her," Miller said, lowering his voice and leaning forward over the table. "Word reached my office yesterday evening about those two drifters who came knocking last night. Names are Vance and Miller—no relation to me, thankfully. They're bad news. Cutthroats who cleared out of Texas before the marshals caught up with them. They're not working for the law, Cole. They're working for land speculators out of Phoenix who want to clear out the remaining homesteads and tribal remnants along the creek valley."
Enola stepped closer, her expression sharpening. "Land speculators? My people were told the valley was federal territory."
"Federal territory is whatever the highest bidder says it is, miss," Miller replied grimly. He looked back at Cole. "Those speculators know that as long as there are witnesses—people like you living off the grid, or tribal members searching the ridges—their land grabs won't hold up in a territorial court. They want you gone, Cole. Both of you."
The revelation struck the room like a physical blow. The threat wasn't just a random encounter with violent drifters; it was part of a calculated campaign to terrorize the hills and drive out anyone standing in the way of greedy men with money and political connections.
Cole uncrossed his arms, his jaw tightening. "If they want me off this land, they'll have to drag me off piece by piece."
"They won't bother dragging you, Cole," Miller said bluntly. "They'll burn the cabin with you inside it and call it a hunting accident or an Indian raid. It's happened twice down near Silver Creek already."
The silence that followed was heavy and suffocating. Enola looked at Cole, seeing the way his shoulders tensed, the way his knuckles turned white against his denim trousers. He had fled society to escape violence, only to find that violence had finally hunted him down in his own sanctuary.
"So what's your solution, Tom?" Cole asked quietly. "You didn't ride up here just to give us a history lesson."
Sheriff Miller reached into his coat again, pulling out a folded piece of heavy parchment bearing a red wax seal. He slid it across the table toward Cole.
"There's an old stagecoach relay station abandoned four miles up past the ridge," Miller said. "Stone walls, defensible, hidden from the main trails. If you move her there tonight, under cover of darkness, you can hold out until I round up a federal marshal coming up from Tucson next Tuesday. It's our only play."
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Cole picked up the document, his eyes scanning the official letterhead, while Enola watched closely, realizing that their survival now depended on trusting a representative of the very government that had destroyed her family.
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