"What in the hell is this, Thomas?" Vance roared, his voice echoing off the chapel rafters like thunder. He marched down the center aisle, his heavy boots pounding against the pine floorboards. "What are you doing with this girl?"
Reverend Thomas shrank back against the altar, his face grey with terror. "Silas... they... they were just married—"
"Married?" Vance stopped ten feet from the altar, his red face turning purple with rage. He glared at Clara, then looked at Eli Thorne, who stood calmly beside her, his left hand resting lightly on the altar railing.
"You must be the half-breed Thorne was talking about," Vance sneered, his fingers twitching near his coat pocket. "I heard a stranger rode through the upper gate this morning. You think coming into my town and putting a brass ring on Abner Miller's girl changes anything? That land belongs to the Vance Timber Company!"
Eli didn't move. He didn't draw his gun. He simply stood there, his long body relaxed, watching Vance with those icy, yellow-green eyes.
"The land belongs to my wife," Eli said softly. The word wife rolled off his tongue with a heavy, dangerous weight. "And through her, it belongs to me. If you step onto Roaring Creek again, Vance, you aren't fighting an old blind man. You're fighting me."
Vance let out a harsh, barking laugh, though his eyes darted nervously to Eli’s right hip, taking in the worn leather holster and the low, professional hanging position of his revolver.
"You think you scare me, boy?" Vance spat. "I’ve got fifteen men sitting at the river crossing right now with enough dynamite to blow that cabin into the next county! By sunset, there won't be a stone left standing on Roaring Creek!"
"Then you’d better hurry back to them," Eli said quietly. "Because if I get to the river crossing first, your fifteen men are going to need fifteen pine boxes."
Vance’s two gunmen shifted their feet nervously. One of them, a man with a broken nose and a scarred lip, leaned in and whispered to Vance: "Boss... that's Eli Thorne. The one from the Lincoln County raid. I know him. He ain't bluffing."
Vance’s red face twitched. He looked at Eli, then at Clara’s pale, resolute face, and finally down at the golden wedding band gleaming on her finger.
"This ain't over, Thorne!" Vance snarled, stepping backward toward the church doors. "You hear me? You won't live to see the sunrise!"
Vance and his two men turned and stormed out of the chapel, slamming the heavy doors behind them.
Inside, the silence returned, thick and suffocating.
Eli turned to Reverend Thomas. "Keep my wife here in the church until I come back for her."
"No!" Clara said instantly. She stepped forward, grabbing Eli’s arm, her fingers digging deep into his leather coat. "No, Eli! I’m going with you!"
Eli looked down at her, his dark brows drawing together in a hard frown. "You're staying here, Clara. This isn't a place for a woman."
"It's my home!" she cried, her hazel eyes flashing with a fierce, brilliant anger that matched his own. "It's my father! Silas Vance is riding to burn my house, and I won't sit in a church bench like a coward while you fight my battle! I know every thicket, every ravine, and every old deer trail along Roaring Creek! You need me, Eli Thorne, whether your pride likes it or not!"
Eli stared at her. For three long seconds, he didn't speak. He looked at the fierce, unyielding set of her jaw, the dark hair falling around her face, and the golden ring shining on her finger.
Slowly, the corner of his thin mouth pulled up into a faint, dark smile.
"Get your shawl, Mrs. Thorne," Eli said softly. "Let's go defend our home."
The sun was high in the sky when they reached the high ridge overlooking the river crossing, but the valley below was veiled in thick white smoke.
Silas Vance’s men had already set fire to the dry timber along the lower bank. Flames leaped from pine to pine with a roaring, crackling fury, sending towering clouds of black soot into the afternoon sky. Through the haze, Clara could see four wagons pulled up near the narrow wooden bridge, and a dozen men moving through the brush with torches and rifles.
Eli reined the black stallion in behind a dense thicket of scrub oak, fifty yards above the road.
He dismounted quickly, pulling his long Henry rifle from its scabbard. He looked at Clara, his face cold, hard, and entirely focused on the battle ahead.
"Stay behind the horse, Clara," he commanded softly, levering a round into the rifle’s chamber with a sharp clack-clack. "If anyone comes up this trail who isn't me, you take the stallion and ride straight for the sheriff's post in Blackwood. Understand?"
"Eli..." she whispered, her heart hammering wildly against her ribs.
He didn't wait for her reply. He melted into the thick brush like a shadow, moving with a terrifying, silent speed that seemed impossible for a man of his size.
Within two minutes, the shooting began.
The sharp, echoing crack of Eli’s Henry rifle split the valley roar. Down near the bridge, a man carrying a kerosene can reeled backward, dropping the torch into the dirt. Before the echoes had even died away, a second shot rang out, and a rider on a grey horse fell from his saddle, shouting in pain.