"I had no choice."
Caleb raised his rifle.
"Who are they?"
Victor looked at the ledger.
"The men who own half this territory."
"Names."
Victor hesitated.
Then he said:
"Your uncle."
Caleb froze.
"I don't have an uncle."
"You did."
Victor's voice became quiet.
"Thomas Morgan."
Caleb remembered the name.
A brother his father had supposedly disowned.
A man Caleb had been told died in California.
Victor continued.
"He never died."
"He controls everything."
Rose looked at Caleb.
"And he wants the ledger."
Victor nodded.
"Because your mother didn't steal it."
"She copied it."
Caleb understood.
"Where's the original?"
Victor looked toward the western mountains.
"With Thomas Morgan."
Then the church door exploded inward.
Men rushed inside.
Gunfire erupted.
BLOOD ON THE SNOW
They escaped through the rear of the church.
Caleb pulled Rose behind a stone wall.
Victor returned fire.
Snow had begun falling.
Bullets tore through the trees.
"We can't stay here!" Caleb shouted.
Rose pointed toward the horses.
"Go!"
They ran.
One rider chased them into the mountains.
Caleb fired.
The rider fell.
But another appeared.
Then another.
Victor shouted:
"There's a cabin ahead!"
They reached it before dark.
The cabin belonged to an old trapper who had died years earlier.
Inside, Caleb barricaded the door.
Rose was shaking.
"You knew this would happen."
Caleb looked at her.
"I hoped it wouldn't."
She stared at him.
"You've spent twelve years alone."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Caleb looked into the fire.
"Because losing your mother destroyed something in me."
Rose sat beside him.
"You didn't lose her."
Caleb looked at her.
"Neither did you."
For the first time, father and daughter embraced.
Outside, wolves howled.
Inside, the family that had been separated for twelve years began to heal.
But Thomas Morgan was coming.
And he was bringing an army.
THE TRUTH ABOUT ELEANOR
The next morning, Victor finally confessed everything.
Eleanor had survived the fire.
Silas had found her unconscious near the river.
She had been badly injured.
She knew the men responsible would kill her if they discovered she was alive.
So she disappeared.
For twelve years, she had lived under another name.
She had watched Rose grow from a distance.
She had sent money through intermediaries.
She had protected her daughter.
But Eleanor had never stopped searching for the second ledger.
Until six months earlier.
Victor had received a letter.
Eleanor was alive.
She had discovered where Thomas Morgan kept the original evidence.
Then the letter stopped.
Rose stared at Victor.
"Where is she?"
Victor looked away.
"We don't know."
Caleb stood.
"We're finding her."
Victor shook his head.
"You don't understand."
"I understand perfectly."
Caleb picked up his rifle.
"I'm done burying people who aren't dead."
THE MORGAN FORTRESS
Thomas Morgan lived in a stone mansion overlooking the valley.
It had once been a military fort.
Now it was surrounded by armed men.
Caleb watched from a ridge.
Rose stood beside him.
"We can't attack that."
"No."
"Then what do we do?"
Caleb smiled faintly.
"We make them come to us."
He sent word throughout Wyoming.
Every rancher who had lost land.
Every farmer who had been threatened.
Every family ruined by Nathan Morgan's old schemes.
They came.
By sunrise, nearly two hundred riders had gathered.
The same men who had stood outside Caleb's ranch days earlier.
Silas rode at the front.
Caleb raised the ledger.
"This ends today."
The riders answered with a roar.
THE SIEGE
Thomas Morgan watched from the fortress balcony.