Chapter 5 - The Midpoint Reckoning
The afternoon sun cut a low, blinding arc across the southern peaks, casting long blue shadows across the snowfields. Rowan was out by the woodpile, splitting dry pine with heavy, rhythmic strokes of his felling axe, when he heard the crunch of hoofs on crust far down the trail.
He stopped, the heavy blade resting in the frozen stump. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his flannel sleeve and listened.
It wasn't one horse. It was three.
Moving slowly, heavily burdened through the deep drifts, following the very freight road Mara had spoken of three nights ago.
Rowan dropped the axe, wiped his hands, and walked briskly back toward the cabin. He pushed the door open just as Mara looked up from the table, her face draining of all color.
"They're here," she whispered.
"How many?" Rowan asked, his hand dropping to the Colt revolver he had finally strapped to his hip that morning.
"Three, if Gilly brought help." Mara grabbed her daughter, tucking the infant securely inside her heavy wool shawl, and stepped toward the back pantry. "Rowan, you can't fight three men by yourself. Let me out the back window. I can make it to the creek timber before they reach the clearing."
Rowan caught her by the uninjured arm, stopping her in her tracks. His grip was firm, but his voice was remarkably steady.
"We stopped running three nights ago, Mara," he said, looking down into her wide, frightened eyes. "This is my land. And inside that cabin are my son and my home. We don't run."
Before Mara could answer, a loud, authoritative knock echoed off the splintered front door—not the frantic, drunken pounding of Silas Vance, but the deliberate, heavy rapping of men accustomed to authority.
"Open up in the name of the territorial marshal!" a gruff voice called out over the wind. "We have a warrant for property retrieval and an inquiry into a missing person!"
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Rowan looked at Mara. A heavy, irreversible shift hung in the winter air between them—a silent understanding that whatever happened when that door opened, neither of their lives would ever go back to the way they were before the storm.
Rowan let go of her arm, walked across the floorboards, and reached for the iron latch.
