Chapter 13 - Across the White Pass
The ride back to Gideon’s cabin took less than an hour.
It felt like five.
Snow began falling again.
Gideon rode hard.
Clara beside him.
Behind them came Bell, Talbot, and four marshals.
When the cabin appeared through the trees, it still stood.
Gideon exhaled.
Then heard the creek.
Too loud.
He dismounted.
Water surged beneath the ice.
“That’s wrong.”
Clara looked upstream.
“Dam?”
“Releasing.”
“How long?”
“Don’t know.”
They ran.
The temporary rail dam sat two miles north, beyond a narrow gorge.
They found it damaged.
One retaining brace had been cut.
Water forced through the gap.
Dodd stood near the spillway.
He saw them.
Ran.
Talbot followed.
Gideon examined the timbers.
“Can we stop it?”
Bell shook his head.
“Not permanently.”
“We don’t need permanent.”
Clara pointed toward stacked lumber.
“Brace?”
Gideon looked.
“Yes.”
For two hours they worked in freezing water.
Hands numb.
Clothing soaked.
They wedged new beams into the failing structure.
The pressure slowed.
Not stopped.
Enough.
Talbot returned alone.
“Dodd crossed the ridge.”
“Where?”
“White Pass.”
Gideon’s expression changed.
“That road leads to nowhere in winter.”
Bell said, “Leads to the old railway camp.”
Anna had mentioned Rusk storing records there.
Talbot understood.
“He’s going for evidence.”
Clara said, “Then Rusk may be there too.”
Gideon looked at the sky.
Storm coming.
White Pass was dangerous even in good weather.
Clara knew what he was thinking.
“Don’t.”
He sighed.
“You can barely feel your hands.”
“Neither can you.”
“That isn’t the argument you think it is.”
“Still going.”
Talbot interrupted.
“She has a point.”
Gideon glared.
“Whose side are you on?”
“Federal government.”
“Useless answer.”
They left two men at the dam and headed toward White Pass.
The trail climbed quickly.
Wind erased tracks.
Visibility dropped.
Clara leaned low over the mare.
Gideon stayed close.
Near the summit, they found Dodd’s horse.
Alone.
Saddle torn.
Tracks led toward an abandoned camp.
Inside one cabin, Dodd stood beside Rusk.
And Judge Walter Keene.
Keene looked nothing like Clara expected.
Older.
Heavy coat.
Silver hair.
The face of a respectable man.
That disturbed her more than Rusk ever had.
Respectability had hidden him.
Talbot entered first.
“Judge Keene.”
Keene smiled coldly.
“Marshal.”
“You’re under investigation for conspiracy, fraud, bribery, and obstruction.”
“My authority outranks yours.”
“Not today.”
Dodd reached toward his coat.
Bell aimed his rifle.
“Don’t.”
Dodd stopped.
Rusk looked at Clara.
“You should have stayed on that stagecoach.”
She met his gaze.
“I did.”
His brow furrowed.
“It brought me here.”
Something changed in Gideon’s face.
Pride.
Keene tried negotiation.
He blamed Rusk.
Rusk blamed Dodd.
Dodd blamed Keene.
Within minutes, loyalty collapsed.
Clara watched in astonishment.
Men who had seemed powerful became ordinary when they could no longer hide behind one another.
Talbot arrested them.
It should have ended there.
Then thunder rolled.
Not thunder.
Mountain.
Gideon looked outside.
“Move!”
Avalanche.
Snow broke from the ridge above the camp.
Everyone ran.
The first wave struck the far cabins.
Wood exploded.
Clara lost sight of Gideon.
She screamed his name.
White swallowed everything.
When the world stopped moving, she was half-buried beneath snow.
Her leg trapped.
“Gideon!”
No answer.
“Gideon!”
A hand broke through snow ten feet away.
She dug frantically.
Bell appeared.
Together they pulled.
Gideon emerged coughing.
Alive.
Clara threw herself against him.
He held her.
No hesitation now.
Rusk and Keene survived.
Dodd suffered a broken arm.
No one died.
By dusk, they descended from White Pass with prisoners secured between mounted marshals.
Clara looked back once.
The mountain had nearly buried them all.
Yet the storm also erased Rusk’s last escape.
When they reached Gideon’s cabin, Clara stood on the porch.
Exhausted.
Frozen.
Alive.
Gideon came beside her.
“You all right?”
“No.”
He looked concerned.
She smiled.
“But I think I will be.”
He understood.
Inside, Anna had made coffee.
Harlan had repaired the broken window.
Ruth had brought bread.
Someone had stacked new lumber near the burned barn.
Bitter Creek was rebuilding what Rusk destroyed.
Gideon looked around.
Then at Clara.
His house had never held so many people.
Never so much noise.
He used to think silence was the thing killing him.
Now he realized it had not been silence.
It had been believing he had to live inside it alone.
Clara touched his sleeve.
“Gideon?”
“Yes?”
“When all this is over…”
She hesitated.
His heart began beating harder.
“What?”
She looked toward the upstairs room.
The one with the lock.
“I don’t know where I’m supposed to go.”
Gideon’s expression softened.
“You don’t have to decide tonight.”
“What if I already know where I want to be?”
He went still.
Clara almost said it.
Then a rider approached.
Federal courier.
He brought a telegram.
Marshal Talbot read it.
Rusk’s ledgers had reached Washington investigators.
Judge Keene was officially removed from authority.
The Western Development Trust had been frozen.
Gideon’s property transfer voided pending final review.
Clara exhaled.
They had won.
Almost.
Talbot turned over a second page.
His expression changed.
“What?”
Gideon asked.
Talbot handed it to Clara.
A list of names.
Women from the bureau.
Dozens.
Some marked unknown location.
Some married.
Some missing.
Clara stared.
The victory suddenly felt incomplete.
Rusk had been stopped.
But the women he had scattered across the West were still out there.
May you like
And Clara knew exactly what she had to do next.
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