Beneath the Burning Timber: The Wanted Outlaw Who Died to Save His Blood

"The children," Eleanor breathed. She didn't look at the window; she lunged toward the cradles.

She stripped the wolf-fur lap robe from the foot of Daniel’s bed and laid it across the table. With practiced, frantic precision born of frontier winters, she wrapped Emma first—tucking the heavy gray wool around the infant's shoulders, leaving only the small, sleeping face exposed to the air. Beside her, Noah woke, his eyes blinking against the pale yellow glow of the kerosene wick. He opened his mouth to cry, but Eleanor shoved the tip of her forefinger into his mouth, pressing gently against his gum until he instinctively began to suck, muffling the sound before it could leave his throat.

"The creek path is blocked," Elias said, his right hand gripping his Spencer carbine while his left pressed the blood-soaked rag into his torn ribs. "If they shot the hound in the draw, they’ll have two men coming down through the willow break to cut off the lane. The other two will take the ridge."

"We can't go north," Eleanor said, wrapping Noah tightly into the matching blanket. "And the road south leads straight into Pine Hollow. Danner has two deputies watching the bridge by the sawmill."

"There is an old timber flume," Elias said, his voice dropping into a harsh, rattling cadence. "Two miles west, behind the limestone cut. The logging company abandoned the trestles eight years ago when the river ran low. The timber is rotten, but a horse can walk the ditch if you lead her by the bit."

"We take the mare," she agreed instantly.

She didn't pack clothes. She didn't pack food. In the wilderness, survival was measured in ounces and seconds. She took the box of brass shotgun shells, shoving them into the deep pocket of her apron. She caught the leather elk-thong of the territorial ledger, tucking the heavy book securely beneath her left arm against her ribs, holding both wrapped babies against her chest with her right arm and the heavy crook of her shawl.

"Take the ten-gauge," she told Elias.

The giant shook his head once. "Can't work the twin hammers with my left side torn out. The Spencer’s got six rounds in the butt-stock tube. That’s enough to buy you sixty yards if they close in."

He reached out with a trembling hand, caught the iron latch of the back door that led toward the lean-to shed, and cracked it three inches.

The smell of burning pine pitch hit them before the sight did.

Up along the crest of the north pasture, where the dry bunchgrass met the cedar scrub, two tongues of red fire were licking up into the night sky. The wind, howling down off Black Tooth Ridge, was driving the sparks straight down the slope toward the hay-barn. Danner's regulators had not come merely to search; they were burning the pasture to push whatever was hiding in the homestead straight out into the open clearing of the south road.

"Now," Elias grunted.

They stepped out into the freezing sleet.

The cold bit into Eleanor's face like needles of glass. She held the twins tight against her breast, leaning forward to shield them from the biting wind with her own body. Behind her, Elias moved with a strange, staggering grace—huge, silent, his slouch hat pulled low, his carbine leveled in one hand like a pistol.

The plow mare, an old flea-bitten roan named Bess, was already stamping nervously in the lean-to stall, her nostrils flaring at the acrid tang of woodsmoke drifting through the wall boards. Eleanor did not bother with the bridle or the heavy stock saddle. She cut the hemp tether with Daniel's whittling knife, threw a folded saddle-blanket across the mare's spine, and knotted a soft lead-rope around the animal's lower jaw.

"Mount," Elias commanded softly.

"You're the one bleeding to death," Eleanor hissed.

"I can walk three miles on an empty gut and a hole in the meat," he rasped, his teeth bared in an involuntary grimace of agony as he caught the mare's mane and shoved Eleanor up onto the blanket. "You drop those babies in the brush and they freeze before dawn. Ride."

He slapped the roan's flank with his flat palm.

The mare lurched forward into the shadows behind the barn, her hooves sinking four inches into the freezing mud. Behind them, a roof timber of the hay-shed caught the fire, collapsing with a roar of orange flame that cast their long, monstrous shadows across the white limestone rocks of the creek trail.

From the burning draw, a man shouted. A high, wild rebel yell, followed by the sharp crack of a Winchester rifle.

The bullet clipped a branch of white birch three feet above Eleanor's head, showering her bonnet with cold bark and severed twigs.