Nathan stared at her. A slow, bemused expression crossed his weathered face. "A fox?"
"We let him believe the lie," Eleanor said, rising from her chair, her face alight with an intensity that took his breath away. "Tomorrow morning, I will ride to town alone before ten. I will go to his store. I will beg for credit. I will tell him that the ranch pantry is empty, that the hands are threatening to walk off, and that you spent the night drinking whiskey in your study."
Nathanâs brows shot up. "I don't drink whiskey."
"He doesn't know that!" she countered. "He wants you broken! We will give him a broken man! By eleven o'clock, the whole town will be waiting for your funeral. When Silas rides out here to deliver the coup de grĂące, he will be so blinded by his own triumph that he won't see the snare until it closes around his ankle."
Nathan stared at her for a long, endless moment. The wind rattled the windowpane beside them, throwing a spatter of dry sleet against the glass.
"You're a terrifying woman, Eleanor Pierce," he murmured, his voice thick with something that was no longer merely respect, but a deep, dangerous fascination.
"I am a mother whose children almost starved because of that man's high interest rates," she said softly, her chin steady. "There is nothing more dangerous on this earth."
The night before the deadline arrived like an iron curtain dropping over the valley.
The wind had died down completely, leaving an unnatural, ringing silence that was far more terrifying than the blizzard. The temperature plunged until the pine timbers of the house groaned in agony, the sap inside the wood freezing until it expanded and cracked like gunshots through the hallways.
Eleanor could not sleep.
She lay in the small bedroom behind the kitchen, wrapped in three heavy quilts. Beside her, Henry and Samuel were curled together, their breathing rhythmic and deep. On the floor beside the bed, the little wooden horse stood guard on the rag rug, its carved ears silhouette against the faint red glow of the Franklin stove.
At two o'clock in the morning, a sound shattered the silence.
It was not the popping of frozen logs. It was a high, thin screamâa child's voice, muffled by distance and snow, echoing from the direction of the outbuildings.
Eleanor was out of bed before her mind had fully processed the terror.
She did not wait to light a candle. She grabbed Davidâs buffalo coat, pulled it over her flannel nightgown, shoved her bare feet into her unlaced boots, and threw open the kitchen door.
Nathan was already in the hall.
He was bare-chested, wearing only his woolen trousers, with his Colt held ready in his right hand. His muscles were corded, glistening with sweat despite the freezing draft that had swept through the porch.
"Stay inside," he commanded, his voice a low bark.
"It was Henry!" she cried, looking back at the bed.
The blankets were thrown back. Samuel was still asleep, exhausted, but Henryâs place was cold and empty.
"He went to check on the filly," she gasped, her heart leaping into her throat with sickening violence. "He told me he wanted to make sure she had straw before the deep freeze!"
Nathan didn't waste a breath. He threw open the heavy oak front door and plunged out into the sub-zero night, Eleanor running right behind his heels.
The snow in the yard was knee-deep where it had drifted against the corral rails. The air was twenty-five below zero; the cold hit Eleanorâs bare legs above her boots like iron blades, but she didn't feel it. She saw only the lantern light flickering wildly through the broken door of the old tack room at the rear of the main barn.
"Henry!" she screamed.
They reached the door together. Nathan threw his shoulder against the timber, busting the cracked cedar latch off its screws, his revolver leveled into the gloom.
"Hold your fire!" a small voice whimpered from the shadows.
Henry was huddled behind an overturned grain barrel. His face was white with terror, his hands trembling violently.
The tack room was in total, violent ruin.
Every saddle had been dragged from its wooden peg and sliced open with a razor-sharp blade, the horsehair stuffing strewn across the dirt floor like dead grass. The tool chests had been dumped out, their drawers splintered. Every floorboard along the north wall had been torn up with a heavy crowbar, the rusty square-headed nails screeching as they were pulled from the stringers.
Nathan grabbed Henry by the collar of his coat, hauling him to his feet, checking him over with quick, frantic hands.
"Are you hit? Did they touch you?" Nathan demanded, his voice shaking with a rare, terrifying fury.
"N-no," Henry sobbed, clutching Nathanâs bare arm. "I saw a lantern from the window... I thought it was Zeb. When I opened the door, a man in a black mask threw me against the wall and ran out the back slip-gate!"