Her feet hurt, but they held her weight.
Silas checked the horses and helped her into the wagon.
They took the logging trail slowly, moving between dense pines and over snow-packed ground. The horses pulled steadily, their breath rising in clouds.
Clara watched the trees pass.
After an hour, she noticed tracks in the snow.
“Silas.”
He turned.
“What?”
“Those prints.”
He followed her gaze.
A set of boot tracks crossed the trail ahead, then turned into the trees.
Silas stopped the wagon.
He climbed down and examined them.
“Fresh?”
“Recent.”
He crouched beside one print.
“Could be Bell.”
Clara’s heart began to race.
“Is he following us?”
“Looks like someone came up the trail after the storm eased.”
“Could it be a hunter?”
“Could be.”
Silas studied the surrounding trees.
Then he returned to the wagon.
“We’ll keep moving, but we’ll stay alert.”
Clara gripped the edge of the seat.
The tracks continued for several yards before disappearing beneath windblown snow.
They reached the lower road shortly before noon.
A small settlement stood in the valley, consisting of a general store, a blacksmith’s shed, a telegraph office, and a handful of wooden houses clustered around a muddy street.
A sign above the general store read BELLWETHER SUPPLY.
Clara had expected a larger town.
Instead, the place looked like a collection of buildings that had been left behind by a railroad that never arrived.
Silas drove directly to the sheriff’s office.
It was a one-room building beside the telegraph station, with a stove smoking through a short chimney and a faded star painted on the door.
A broad man with graying hair sat at a desk inside.
He looked up when Silas entered.
“Mercer. You look like you’ve been fighting the mountain.”
“Lost the first round.”
The sheriff smiled faintly.
Then he saw Clara.
“Who’s this?”
“Clara. She’s been threatened by a man named Bell, the depot clerk from Red Creek. He claims her intended husband is alive and wants her to sign papers.”
The sheriff’s expression grew serious.
“Bell from the railway depot?”
“Yes.”
“Come in, Miss.”
Clara stepped inside.
The warmth of the stove touched her face, and she realized how exhausted she was.
The sheriff offered her a chair.
“Start at the beginning.”
She told him everything.
The telegram.
The letter.
The journey west.
The storm.
The knocks at the cabin door.
The demand that she return to Amos Reed.