One autumn evening, nearly a year after the bear trap, the frontiersman sat outside the cabin repairing a harness.
The daughter came from the stable.
She saw the piece of broken iron hanging from a nail beside the door.
Half of the trap.
“You kept it.”
“Your brother made me.”
“You could throw it away.”
“I thought about it.”
“Why keep it?”
The frontiersman looked at the rusted metal.
“For a long time I thought my life changed because I found him.”
The daughter sat beside him.
“It did.”
“Yes.”
“But?”
He looked toward the mountains.
“I think it changed because I stopped.”
She waited.
He continued.
“I could have kept riding.”
“Yes.”
“Nobody would have known.”
“You would.”
The frontiersman nodded.
“That was the problem.”
She leaned against him.
The broken trap moved slightly in the wind.
Iron that once existed to hold something until it died.
Now opened forever.
Chapter Seventeen — The Men Who Came at Dawn
Peace lasted long enough that they almost trusted it.
Almost.
In the autumn of 1868, three riders appeared at the cabin just after sunrise.
The frontiersman saw them first.
He was chopping wood.
The daughter was inside preparing food.
The riders approached slowly.
Two wore ordinary trail clothes.
The third wore a suit beneath his coat.
That worried the stranger more than guns would have.
Men in suits rarely rode that far into the mountains unless money or law traveled with them.
The frontiersman rested the axe against the stump.
The daughter appeared in the doorway.
Her eyes moved immediately to the riders.
The suited man dismounted.
“You the guide who testified in Prescott?”
The frontiersman said nothing.
The man removed a document.
“I represent a consortium that purchased several claims belonging to the cattle company.”
The daughter stepped outside.
The stranger asked, “What do you want?”
“Access.”
“To what?”
“The valley.”
“No.”
The suited man smiled.
“I haven't explained.”
“You don't need to.”
“Our claims are lawful.”
“So were the last man's.”
“That was different.”
“No.”
The man glanced at the daughter.
“This concerns property.”
She answered, “Then speak to people whose property it is.”
The lawyer—or whatever he was—looked irritated.
“The federal government does not recognize—”
The frontiersman stepped forward.
“Careful.”
The suited man stopped.
The stranger's voice remained calm.
“You came here expecting me to explain how to reach the valley.”
“Yes.”
“I won't.”
“We can pay.”
“No.”
“Five hundred dollars.”
The daughter looked at him.
That was more money than they had ever possessed.
The frontiersman did not hesitate.
“No.”
“A thousand.”
“No.”
The suited man studied him.
“Why?”
The frontiersman glanced toward the broken trap hanging beside the door.