He glanced toward the hatch.
“Can you manage the steps?”
She hesitated.
The hidden spring chamber was warm, but her body remained exhausted from the terrible journey. Her frozen clothes lay folded on a bench, and her injured palm still stung.
“I think so.”
Harlon nodded.
“Then move to the far side of the chamber. There's another stone bench, and the wall will shelter you if anything comes through the floor.”
She stared.
“Through the floor?”
He gave her a brief, reassuring look.
“I'm planning on keeping the floor where it is.”
Despite her fear, she almost laughed.
Then a voice thundered outside.
“LAST WARNING!”
Harlon's expression hardened.
He waited until Amily reached the bench, wrapped herself in the blanket, and nodded that she was settled.
Then he lowered the heavy wooden hatch.
The bearskin rug fell across the boards, concealing the iron ring beneath its thick fur.
For a moment, Amily was surrounded by the soft movement of steam and the distant gurgle of water flowing through the rock.
The hidden chamber wasn't completely sealed. A narrow ventilation opening near the upper wall allowed fresh air to circulate, and the warm water flowed through a natural channel toward the mountainside.
But the sudden separation from Harlon made her feel terribly alone.
She listened.
Heavy footsteps crossed the cabin.
The sound of a wooden chair being moved.
Then Harlon's voice reached her through the floor.
“You boys lost?”
A man laughed outside.
“Still got that sense of humor, Boone?”
Amily went cold.
Boone.
So the mountain man had a surname.
Harlon Boone.
The man outside continued.
“Silas Vale wants what belongs to him.”
Harlon answered immediately.
“Then Silas ought to stop trying to take things that never were his.”
A pause followed.
Amily pressed one hand against her chest.
Then the stranger spoke again.
“We know about the original survey. We know about the iron box. And we know you've been keeping records the company would rather have forgotten.”
Harlon didn't answer.
The silence stretched.
Finally, the man laughed.
“That got your attention.”
Amily heard boots moving across the porch.
Then another voice, younger and more nervous.
“Gideon, the storm's getting worse.”
“Shut up, Felix.”
Amily recognized the first name.
Gideon.
The man whose nose she had broken with a stone beside the stagecoach.