## PART 2 FULL – Bessie pulled. At first, Amos moved only inches.
“I needed help before Bell started sniffing around…
“I needed help before Bell started sniffing around. I could’ve hired a hand.”
“You said you needed a wife.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
Amos was quiet.
Bessie looked away.
“Forget it.”
“No.”
His voice stopped her.
“When Ellie died, I spent seven years believing I had no right to want anyone again.”
Bessie said nothing.
“I ate alone. Worked alone. Slept alone. Told myself that was what I preferred.”
He paused.
“Then I walked into a cook tent and saw sixty fools laughing at the strongest person in the room.”
Bessie’s throat tightened.
Amos looked directly at her.
“I asked you because I knew you could survive here.”
A heartbeat passed.
“But I married you because I wanted you here.”
Bessie turned toward the stove so he would not see her face.
For the first time in years, she did not know what to say.
Then came the sound.
Three knocks.
Slow.
Heavy.
At the cabin door.
Both of them froze.
No one should have been there.
The pass was buried.
The storm had ended only hours earlier.
Amos reached automatically for the rifle beside the bed.
Pain stopped him.
Bessie took it instead.
Another knock.
Then a voice.
“Amos Vale!”
Bessie knew that voice.
Horace Bell.
Amos cursed under his breath.
Bessie checked the rifle chamber.
“Stay down.”
Bell called again.
“We know you’re inside!”
We.
Bessie moved toward the window.
Through a narrow gap in the frost, she saw horses.
Four.
And men.
Bell had not come alone.
Amos whispered, “Don’t open it.”
Bessie looked back at him.
“I wasn’t planning to serve coffee.”
Bell pounded again.
“Amos! We came because we heard about the storm!”
Bessie almost smiled.
“How neighborly.”
“He knows I’m hurt,” Amos said.
“How?”
No answer.
That silence told her enough.
Someone had been watching the cabin.
Someone had seen Amos caught in the storm.
Perhaps the accident had not been an accident at all.
Bessie’s hands tightened on the rifle.
Bell shouted through the door.
“We brought medicine!”
Bessie answered.
“Leave it outside.”
There was a pause.
Then Bell laughed.
“Mrs. Vale.”
He knew her.
Of course he did.
Everybody in Bitter Creek knew about the ridiculous marriage.
Bell continued.
“You don’t understand the situation.”
“I understand four armed men are standing outside my house.”
“We’re here to help.”
“You always bring rifles when helping?”
One of the men chuckled.
Bell did not.
“Amos has something that belongs to me.”
From the bed, Amos called out.
“You paid for nothing.”
“I offered fairly.”
“You offered theft with paperwork.”
Bell’s voice changed.
The friendliness disappeared.
“The pass won’t open for months.”
Bessie felt a chill unrelated to the weather.
“No law up here,” Bell continued.
“No sheriff.”
“No witnesses.”
Amos lifted his rifle despite the pain.
Bessie looked around the cabin.
One door.
Two small windows.
Four men outside.
Maybe more beyond sight.
They could not fight long.
Bell called again.
“Mrs. Vale, you’re new to these mountains. You owe that man nothing.”
Bessie’s jaw tightened.
“I married him.”
“Exactly. A foolish decision made quickly.”
Amos started to speak.
Bessie raised a hand.
Bell continued.
“Walk outside. I’ll take you back to Bitter Creek. I’ll give you five hundred dollars.”
Five hundred dollars.
At the mining camp, Bessie could have worked years without saving that much.
She looked toward Amos.
His face was pale.
He understood the temptation.
Bell sweetened it.
“One thousand.”
Bessie opened the door.
Amos stared at her.
Bell stood ten yards away wearing a buffalo coat.
Three men flanked him.
All carried rifles.
Bell smiled.
“There she is.”
Bessie stepped outside.
Behind her, she heard Amos shift painfully in the bed.
Bell reached into his coat.
“Smart woman.”
He produced a folded paper.
“Sign this as witness. Say Amos sold me the east ridge before the storm. Then you walk away rich.”
Bessie lowered her rifle.
Bell’s smile widened.
One of his men relaxed.
Bessie walked toward him.
Five steps.
Four.
Three.
Bell held out the paper.
“Good.”
Bessie took it.
Looked at the writing.
Then tore it in half.
Bell blinked.
Bessie tore it again.
And again.
Then stuffed the pieces into her mouth.
Chewed once.
Spat them at his boots.
Nobody moved.
Bell stared down.
Bessie raised the rifle.
“You offered the wrong woman food money.”
A shot cracked.
The bullet came from inside the cabin.
One of Bell’s men spun sideways and fell into the snow.
Amos.
Bessie fired at the second.
He dove behind a tree.
Bell shouted.
Chaos erupted.
Gunfire shattered the windows.
Bessie threw herself behind the woodpile as bullets tore splinters from the cabin wall.
Amos fired again.
A horse screamed.
Bell’s men scattered.
Bessie crawled through the snow and fired toward a muzzle flash.
Someone cursed.
Then Bell shouted:
“Burn them out!”
Bessie’s blood went cold.
A bottle smashed against the cabin roof.
Flame blossomed.
Then another.
Fire crawled across the dry shingles.
“Amos!”
Smoke poured through the ceiling.
Bessie ran.
Bullets struck the snow around her.
She crashed through the doorway.
Amos was dragging himself from the bed.
“Back wall,” he said.
“What?”
“Floorboard. Under the table.”
Bessie pulled up the board.
Beneath it was darkness.
A tunnel.
“You have a tunnel?”
“Trapper.”
She almost laughed.
Of course he had a tunnel.
Bessie grabbed blankets, food, ammunition, and the letters.
Smoke thickened.
The roof crackled.
She lowered Amos through the opening.
Then followed.
The tunnel was narrow.
For Amos, it was painful.
For Bessie, nearly impossible.
She crawled on elbows and knees, shoulders scraping dirt, body wedged between frozen walls.
Behind them, the cabin roared.
Bell’s men shouted above.
The tunnel sloped downward.
Then opened into a small stone chamber.
A second passage led toward the ridge.
Bessie stared.
“How far?”
“Hundred yards.”
They crawled.
By the time they emerged among rocks behind the cabin, night had fallen.
The house burned orange against the snow.
Bell’s men stood watching it.
One kicked at the doorway.
“No bodies!”
Bell turned sharply.
Bessie pulled Amos behind a boulder.
“We need to move.”
“Can’t.”
“You can.”
“Leg’s gone again.”
She looked.
Blood soaked the splint.
The journey had reopened the wound.
Bessie looked toward the trees.
They needed shelter.
Then Amos pointed uphill.
“There.”
At first she saw nothing.
Then moonlight touched a narrow opening between rocks.
“A mine?”
“Old prospect tunnel.”
“Safe?”
“No.”
“Good enough.”
She hauled him upward.
Again.
Just as she had during the storm.
Bell’s men spread through the woods behind them.
Lanterns bobbed between trees.
Dogs began barking.
Bessie stopped.
“Dogs?”
Amos cursed.
“They’ll find the blood.”
The mine entrance was still fifty yards away.
Bessie looked at the trail behind them.
Then at Amos.
Then toward the steep slope beside the ridge.
An idea came.
A terrible idea.
“What’s above that slope?”
Amos followed her gaze.
His expression changed.
“Snow shelf.”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
Bessie smiled grimly.
“Good.”
She dragged Amos into the mine.
Then returned outside alone.
She walked deliberately through fresh snow, leaving deep tracks toward the base of the ridge.
Then she climbed.
Twenty feet.
Thirty.
Forty.
The dogs grew louder.
Lanterns approached below.
Bell shouted.
“I see tracks!”
Bessie reached the snow shelf.
She raised the rifle.
The first dog appeared beneath her.
Then Bell.
Then two men.
Bell looked up.
Their eyes met.
For a moment, neither moved.
Bell smiled slowly.
“You’re trapped.”
Bessie pointed the rifle above his head.
“No.”
She fired.
The bullet struck the frozen cornice.
Nothing happened.
Bell laughed.
Then the mountain cracked.
A deep sound.
Like thunder underground.
Bell’s face changed.
Snow shifted.
The entire shelf broke loose.
Bessie jumped sideways behind a rock as thousands of pounds of snow collapsed into the ravine.
Bell screamed.
Men ran.
Dogs vanished beneath white.
Trees snapped.
Then silence.
Bessie lay against the rock, breathing hard.
Snow dust drifted through moonlight.
Below, the ravine was gone.
So were Bell and his men.
Bessie stumbled toward the mine.
“Amos!”
No answer.
She entered.
“Amos!”
A faint voice answered from deeper inside.
“Here.”
She followed it.
The tunnel narrowed, then opened into a chamber.
Amos sat against the wall.
Beside him lay an old lantern he had managed to light.
Bessie knelt.
“Bell’s gone.”
Amos looked at her.
“All of them?”
“I think so.”
His expression was unreadable.
“That’s bad.”
Bessie stared.
“Bad?”
“If Bell dies, his partners come.”
“Partners?”
Amos nodded.
“You thought he was doing this alone?”
Before Bessie could answer, the lantern flame shifted.
A draft.
From deeper inside the mine.
Bessie turned.
“There’s another opening?”
Amos looked toward the darkness.
“No.”
The draft came again.
This time carrying something else.
A sound.
Metal.
Clink.
Clink.
Bessie froze.
The same sound she had heard when she found Amos in the storm.
Clink.
Clink.
Something was moving deeper in the mine.
Amos’s face drained of color.
“That tunnel is sealed.”
Bessie raised the rifle.
“Apparently not.”
They listened.
Footsteps approached.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Then a light appeared around the bend.
A lantern.
Bessie aimed.
A figure emerged.
A woman.
Thin.
Dark-haired.
Older than the photograph, but unmistakable.
She carried a pistol in one hand.
Beside her stood a young woman of perhaps eighteen.
Amos stopped breathing.
The lantern trembled in his hand.
“No.”
The older woman stared at him.
Tears filled her eyes.
“Hello, Amos.”
Bessie looked from her to the photograph hidden inside her coat.
The woman stepped into the light.
Amos whispered the name like a prayer.
“Ellie?”
And from outside the mine, somewhere beneath the avalanche, a man began to laugh.
Horace Bell was still alive.
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