Smoke in the Pines
Ethan Cole had not visited the hunting cabin in almost four years.
It sat nine miles north of Cedar Ridge Ranch, where the pines thickened and the cattle trails disappeared into folds of gray granite. His father had built the cabin when Ethan was a boy, back when a man could ride for two days without seeing another fence.
Samuel Cole had called it a hunting cabin, though he had rarely hunted there. Mostly, it had been a place where he went when the ranch became too loud, when the cattle needed moving and the men argued over fences, or when his wife had died and the house felt too empty.
After Samuel died, Ethan kept the cabin standing more from habit than affection.
He replaced a roof board when storms tore one loose. He checked the chimney every autumn. Once every spring, he rode north to make sure no animals had taken shelter beneath the floorboards.
Otherwise, he left it alone.
That morning, however, he had ridden north because three calves were missing.
By noon he found their tracks near Cold Creek.
By one, he smelled wood smoke where no smoke should have been.
Ethan stopped his gelding beneath the trees.
The cabin chimney was breathing.
A thin ribbon of gray smoke curled above the roof and disappeared among the branches.
He sat still for several seconds.
There was no reason for a fire.
No ranch hand had permission to use the place. Hunters knew better than to cross his fence. The nearest neighbor was nearly twelve miles away.
Ethan slid from the saddle.
His boots touched the pine needles without a sound.
The mare-sized gelding behind him shook his head, sensing the tension in the reins.
“Easy, Red.”
Ethan tied the horse behind a cedar.
Then he walked toward the cabin.
The door, which he remembered leaving barred from the outside with a simple iron latch, stood closed.
A woman's boot print marked the mud beneath the porch.
Ethan crouched.
The print was fresh.
Small heel.
Worn leather.
Someone had entered recently.
He straightened and drew his revolver, keeping the barrel pointed toward the ground.
“Whoever is inside,” he called, “you can come out before I decide you are stealing my firewood.”
Silence.
Ethan waited.
The wind moved through the pines.
A raven called somewhere beyond the creek.
Nothing else.
He tried the door.
Locked.
His father had always kept a spare key beneath the third porch board.
Ethan found it exactly where Samuel had left it.
He unlocked the door.
The smell hit him first.
Wood smoke.
Coffee.
And something else.
Blood.
Ethan stepped inside.
The cabin looked almost exactly as it had four years earlier.
A table beneath the window.
Two wooden chairs.
A stone fireplace.
His father's old rifle mounted above the mantel.
But someone had been living there.
A blanket covered the bed.
A tin cup sat beside the fireplace.
A woman's coat hung from a peg.
And on the table lay a small revolver.
Ethan raised his gun.
“Miss?”
No answer.
He moved toward the bedroom.
The floorboard beneath his boot creaked.
Something shifted behind the door.
Ethan stopped.
“I'm coming in.”
The bedroom door burst open.
A woman stepped into the hallway with a rifle leveled at his chest.
She was perhaps thirty years old, though exhaustion made her look younger and older at the same time.
Her dark hair was tied loosely behind her neck. Dirt marked one cheek. A cut ran along her jaw.
But it was her eyes that stopped Ethan.
They were frightened.
Not weak.
Not helpless.
Frightened in the way of someone who had learned that fear could keep a person alive.
“Put it down,” Ethan said.
“You first.”
Ethan almost smiled.
“You're in my cabin.”
“I know.”
“You're trespassing.”
“I know that too.”
“You've been here long?”
The woman tightened her grip on the rifle.
“Long enough.”
Ethan looked at the bed.
There was blood on the blanket.
“Are you hurt?”
She said nothing.
“Is someone else here?”
“No.”
“Then why are you hiding?”
Her eyes flicked toward the window.
Ethan noticed it.
Fear.
Not of him.
Of someone outside.
He lowered his revolver slightly.
“Who are you?”
The woman swallowed.
“My name is Clara Bell.”
Ethan waited.
“And someone is coming for me.”
A branch snapped outside.
Both of them turned.
Clara's face went pale.
Ethan crossed the room and extinguished the lamp.
“Stay here.”
“You don't understand.”
“No,” Ethan said quietly. “But I understand that whoever you're afraid of just arrived.”
Outside, a horse whinnied.
Then another.
Three riders stopped beyond the trees.
A man's voice carried through the darkness.
“Clara!”
The woman closed her eyes.
Ethan looked at her.
“You know them?”
She whispered one word.
“Yes.”
Then she added:
“They're here to kill me.”
Two — The Stranger's Secret
Ethan had faced armed men before.
He had fought cattle thieves, rustlers, drunken ranchers, and once a posse that mistook him for someone else.
But he had never heard fear in a person's voice quite like he heard it in Clara Bell's.
He motioned toward the bedroom.
“Stay low.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Find out what they want.”
“You'll get yourself killed.”
Ethan glanced at her.
“I've been told that before.”
He moved to the window.
Three men waited among the trees.
One sat on a dark bay horse.
Another held a lantern.
The third was difficult to see.
The man with the lantern called again.
“Clara! We know you're in there.”
Ethan recognized the voice.
Silas Boone.
His father's former foreman.
Ethan's jaw tightened.
Silas had worked for Samuel Cole for nearly twenty years. He had taught Ethan how to rope cattle, shoot straight, and tell the difference between honest work and a man's excuse for laziness.
But Silas had disappeared six months after Samuel's death.
Ethan had not seen him since.
Now he was standing outside his cabin with two armed men.
“Clara,” Silas called, “you don't want trouble. Come out and we'll settle this.”