A Hearth in the Blizzard

Nathan took the bail of the lantern between his teeth, caught the first wooden rung with his gloved hands, and began to climb.

The belfry was open to the four winds through slatted wooden louvers. As Nathan’s head cleared the trapdoor in the upper platform, the freezing wind hit him with full force, driving needles of fine snow into his eyes.

In the center of the platform, suspended from an immense beam of white oak by heavy iron straps, hung the bronze bell. It was three feet across at the mouth, green with verdigris and coated in a delicate skin of rime frost.

Nathan set the lantern on the plank floor. His breath puffed in violent white clouds.

He knelt beneath the mouth of the bell and looked up into the hollow bronze cone.

The heavy iron clapper—the 'iron tongue'—hung down through the center, suspended from an eye-bolt forged into the crown. And there, wrapped tightly against the upper curve of the iron shaft with layers of tarred sailmaker's canvas and copper wire, was a cylinder of galvanized tin roughly eight inches long.

It was placed so high inside the bell that no one looking up from the floor below could ever have seen it, shielded entirely by the thick lip of the bronze.

Nathan drew his pocketknife. His fingers were stiff with the wind, but he sawed through the copper wire with deliberate, savage strokes.

The wire parted. The canvas crackled as he peeled it away.

The tin cylinder came free in his hand.

It was heavy, sealed at both ends with plugs of lead that had been poured hot into the metal sleeves to make it completely impervious to water, air, and rot.

Nathan took a deep breath, clutching the cylinder against his chest, and looked down through the square trapdoor.

Fifty feet below, standing in the center aisle between the plain pine pews, Eleanor Pierce stood looking up, her face a pale oval in the gloom, waiting.

"Nathan?" her voice drifted up, small and clear.

"I have it," Nathan called down.

They did not go to the Crowley Ranch.

"Silas will not ride out to the ridge if he thinks he can take the deed here," Eleanor had told Nathan as they stood in the parsonage study, while Reverend Hale, still pale with shock, used an iron soldering tool to melt the lead plugs from the tin cylinder. "He wants an audience. He wants to sign the papers in front of the town clerk so that the record is sealed before the stagecoach leaves for the railway."

By eleven o'clock, the main street of Wind River was crowded as it had not been since the Fourth of July horse races.

Word had spread from the parsonage, through the livery, and into every kitchen along the creek that Nathan Crowley was in town, that he was at the town hall, and that Silas Rourke had summoned Sheriff Thomas Garrett and the county notary to witness the foreclosure of the Crowley estate.

The town hall was a drafty, two-story frame building that sat directly across the street from the Rourke Mercantile. Its main room was furnished with half a dozen benches, a raised pine platform for the circuit judge, and a potbellied stove that was currently cherry-red around its lower belly.

Eleanor sat on the front bench, her hands folded in her lap, wearing David’s clean wool coat. Beside her, Henry sat with his back straight, his boots barely touching the floor, while Samuel slept peacefully with his head resting in his mother’s lap, David’s buffalo robe tucked around his small knees.

Nathan stood by the window, his hat pulled low, his hands resting easily on his gun belt. He had not taken off his coat. He looked like an iron statue placed against the winter light.

At five minutes to twelve, the double doors of the town hall were pushed open.

Silas Rourke entered first.

He wore a new overcoat of heavy black broadcloth with an otter-fur collar, his gold watch-chain gleaming across his waistcoat. Behind him walked Sheriff Garrett—a tall, weary-looking man with a drooping gray mustache and a low-slung Winchester carbine—and Mr. Thaddeus Vance, the county clerk, carrying a leather portfolio under his arm.

A dozen men from the street crowded into the rear of the room, their boots clumping heavily, their breath smelling of tobacco and cheap whiskey. Walter Higgins was there, along with Pete Jenkins and half a dozen drovers who wanted to see if the biggest cattle outfit in the valley was about to be broken into scraps.

Silas walked directly to the judge’s bench. He did not look at Eleanor. He looked only at Nathan.

"Nathaniel," Silas said, his voice smooth, professional, and carrying that terrible, oiled confidence of a man who held all four aces in a high-stakes game. "You are prompt. I appreciate that. A gentleman should always meet his obligations with dignity."

Nathan did not move from the window. "It isn't twelve yet, Silas."