Chapter 2 - The Men Beyond the Broken Window
Cora had imagined many ways she might lose her home.
Foreclosure.
Starvation.
A roof collapse.
Maybe even Hyram Cole arriving with a wagon and enough hired men to throw her belongings into the snow.
She had not imagined being burned alive because she had given a blanket to the wrong stranger.
Another shot struck the logs above them.
Wood splintered.
Cora pressed herself against the floor.
“How many?” she whispered.
Boon listened.
“Three. Maybe four.”
“You can tell that?”
“Four horses.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“One man may be holding the horses.”
Despite everything, Cora almost laughed.
Almost.
Boon reached toward his side.
Pain crossed his face.
“You should not be moving.”
“Neither should bullets.”
He glanced toward her shotgun.
“Loaded?”
“Yes.”
“You know how to use it?”
Cora gave him a look.
“I have lived alone in Montana for eleven months.”
“Fair answer.”
Outside, the same man shouted.
“Tagot! Last chance!”
Cora whispered, “Why do they keep calling you that?”
“Because that’s my name.”
“You told me your name was Boon.”
“Boon Tagot.”
“That seems like information you could have included.”
Another bullet punched through the window frame.
Boon ignored it.
“Do you have another exit?”
“The door.”
“They’re watching it.”
“The window.”
“They’re shooting at it.”
“The chimney, if you’ve suddenly become six inches wide.”
Boon’s mouth twitched.
Cora realized with irritation that he found her funny.
The wind screamed through the broken window.
Snow blew across the rug.
Boon crawled toward the wall and looked outside through a crack between curtain and frame.
“Three men,” he said.
“You were right.”
“One behind the cottonwood. Two near the fence.”
“How pleased you must be.”
He turned.
“Is there a root cellar?”
Cora hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Inside entrance?”
“Under the pantry floor.”
“Where does it go?”
“It doesn’t go anywhere. It’s a cellar.”
Boon shut his eyes briefly.
Cora suddenly remembered.
“There is an old drainage opening.”
His eyes opened.
“Large enough to crawl through?”
“For you?”
She looked him up and down.
“Barely.”
Another voice outside called, “Widow Hayes! You don’t know who that man is!”
Cora’s blood chilled.
They knew her name.
Boon heard the change in her breathing.
“Cora.”
She looked at him.
“They were already coming for you.”
“How would you know?”
“Because they know who you are.”
The man outside shouted again.
“Send Tagot out and we ride away!”
Cora raised her voice.
“You shoot my window and expect me to believe you?”
Silence.
Boon stared at her.
“What?”
“You just told them exactly where you are.”
“They already knew exactly where I was.”
A different man laughed outside.
“Smart widow.”
Cora hated him immediately.
She lowered her voice.
“Can you crawl?”
“Yes.”
“That wasn’t convincing.”
“I can crawl.”
She dragged the pantry rug aside.
Beneath it was a square wooden hatch.
The root cellar smelled of earth, potatoes, and cold stone.
Cora climbed down first.
Boon followed awkwardly.
Halfway down the ladder, his arm trembled.
Cora caught his coat.
“Don’t fall on me.”
“I’ll try to arrange something more elegant.”
They reached the floor.
At the rear was a low opening once used to drain spring water beneath the cabin.
Caleb had widened it years earlier after a flood.
Cora pulled away stacked crates.
A black tunnel appeared.
Boon stared.
“You expect me to fit through that?”
“No. I expect you to remain here and get murdered politely.”
He almost smiled again.
Then came a crash upstairs.
The front door.
“They’re coming in.”
Cora went through first.
The tunnel was barely three feet high.
Cold mud soaked her skirt.
Boon crawled behind her.
Above them, boots crossed the cabin floor.
Cora heard furniture being overturned.
Her dishes breaking.
One man shouted.
“Cellar!”
Boon pushed Cora forward.
“Go.”
They reached the outside opening behind the woodshed.
Snow had partially buried it.
Cora dug with bare hands until light appeared.
She crawled out.
Boon followed.
The storm hid them.
Cora led him toward a stand of pines behind the property.
Twenty yards.
Thirty.
Then a gunshot sounded from the cabin.
“Found the tunnel!”
Cora ran.
Boon stumbled.
She caught him.
“You said you could walk.”
“I said crawl.”
“Convenient distinction.”
They reached the trees.
Boon leaned against a trunk, breathing hard.
Cora looked back.
A man emerged from behind the woodshed.
“Move,” she whispered.
They went deeper into the forest.
Cora knew the land.
Caleb had taught her every game trail and creek bed within five miles.
She led Boon down a narrow ravine.
Behind them came shouting.
The storm covered their footprints almost as quickly as they made them.
Boon eventually sank against a boulder.
“Give me a minute.”
“You don’t have one.”
His face had gone pale.
Cora opened his coat.
The bandage was stained.
Not badly.
But enough.
“You’ve reopened it.”
“I noticed.”
Cora tore a strip from the bottom of her petticoat.
Boon watched her.
“How many of those do you own?”
“At this rate, none by tomorrow.”
She tightened the bandage.
He winced.
“Who are those men?”
“Hyram’s.”
Cora stopped.
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I recognized one.”
She sat back.
“What does Hyram Cole want from you?”
Boon looked toward the valley below.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then:
“He wants something I carry.”
“What?”
“A document.”
“Where?”
Boon looked toward her cabin.
Cora closed her eyes.
“Please do not say your coat.”
“My saddlebag.”
“Where is your horse?”
“Near the pass.”
She stared at him.
“You crossed half a mountain with men shooting at you and left the thing they wanted on a horse?”
“I was busy getting shot.”
Cora stood.
“I liked you better unconscious.”
“I suspected you might.”
Behind them, a faint orange glow rose through the snow.
Cora turned.
Her heart stopped.
The cabin.
Smoke curled from the chimney.
But more smoke rose near the doorway.
“They’re burning it.”
She started running.
Boon grabbed her wrist.
“No.”
“That is my house!”
“They want you to do exactly that.”
“I don’t care!”
“I do.”
The words stopped her.
His grip loosened.
“They won’t burn the whole cabin,” he said. “Not in this snow. They’re forcing us out.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Hyram wants the property intact.”
Cora stared at him.
“You keep speaking as though you know what Hyram wants.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
Boon looked exhausted.
And suddenly very tired of hiding something.
But instead of answering, he pointed through the trees.
“We need shelter.”
“There’s an abandoned trapper cabin about two miles north.”
“Can you reach it?”
Cora gave him a cold look.
“I dragged you thirty yards through a blizzard.”
“Fair.”
They walked.
It took nearly two hours.
The trapper cabin was little more than three walls and a roof.
But the fireplace worked.
Cora found dry wood stacked beneath a tarp.
Boon collapsed near the hearth.
Cora stood opposite him.
She was finished accepting half-answers.
“Hyram Cole wants my property.”
“Yes.”
“Hyram Cole wants you dead.”
“Yes.”
“You were carrying something that threatens him.”
“Yes.”
“And you somehow know he wants my cabin intact.”
Boon said nothing.
Cora stepped closer.
“Who are you?”
He looked at her.
Then reached beneath his shirt.
From a leather cord around his neck, he removed a small brass key.
On it was an engraving.
T.L.C.S.
Cora recognized the letters.
Montana Land and Cattle Syndicate.
“What is that?”
“The master office key.”
Her stomach tightened.
“Why do you have it?”
“Because the syndicate belongs to my family.”
Cora stared.
Boon continued quietly.
“Hyram Cole is not the owner of the company taking your land.”
The fire cracked between them.
“I am.”
Cora did not move.
For a moment, all she could see was the Hudson’s Bay blanket she had wrapped around him.
All she could remember was sitting awake for three nights while the man who owned the company threatening her home slept beside her fire.
Her voice came out dangerously soft.
“You own the syndicate.”
“Controlling share.”
“You own the valley.”
“Most of it.”
“And you let Hyram Cole evict people.”
“No.”
“But he did.”
“I came here because I discovered something was wrong.”
Cora’s eyes burned.
“Something?”
Boon met her anger without flinching.
“Forty-three families have received notices like yours.”
The anger left her.
Forty-three.
He continued.
“And according to the company books, none of those notices should exist.”
Outside, the wind fell suddenly quiet.
Cora heard every word that followed.
“Hyram Cole has been stealing this valley from people who already legally own it.”
May you like
And Cora realized the fight for her cabin was larger than she had ever imagined.
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