You’ll Satisfy Us Both, The Mountain Men Whispered to the Terrified Virgin Mail Order Bride

Chapter 7

Everything happened at once.

Whitfield’s revolver came up and fired. The shot echoed through the chamber like a thunderclap, and the deputy’s lantern exploded, showering the room with burning oil. The light vanished, replaced by the orange glow of flames spreading across the floor.

“Down!” Ezra shouted.

Eleanor dropped to the ground. A bullet whizzed past her head, so close she felt the wind of its passing. She pressed her face against the stone, her hands covering her head.

More shots. The flames from the burning oil caught a pile of dry timber, and the fire spread, climbing the walls, throwing twisted shadows across the chamber. In the flickering light, Eleanor saw Silas tackle Dobbs, sending them both crashing into a stack of barrels. Silver ore spilled across the floor like a river of stone.

Ezra charged Vane.

The sheriff turned, his revolver raised, but Ezra was too fast. He drove his shoulder into Vane’s chest, and both men slammed into the wall. Vane’s gun discharged into the ceiling. Rock dust rained down. The two men grappled, their boots sliding across loose ore, their breath coming in grunts and curses.

Eleanor scrambled to her feet. The satchel of papers was still in her hand. She looked for an exit, a shadow, anywhere to hide the evidence before —

“Miss Cross.”

The voice came from behind her. She turned.

The deputy had recovered. He was on his feet, his face half-lit by the flames, a knife in his hand. The blade caught the firelight, gleaming like a promise. His eyes were fixed on the satchel.

“Give me the papers,” he said.

“No.”

He lunged.

Eleanor didn’t think. She moved. She dropped the satchel, grabbed a handful of loose silver ore from the floor, and threw it into his face. The deputy screamed, his hands flying to his eyes. She picked up the satchel and ran.

The back shaft. The marshal had said the back shaft. She searched the walls, desperate, looking for another tunnel, another passage —

There. A dark opening, half-hidden behind a collapsed cart. She ran toward it.

“Eleanor!”

Whitfield’s voice. She turned. The marshal was pinned behind a fallen beam, his revolver empty. Vane was standing over him, his own gun aimed at Whitfield’s head. Blood trickled from a cut on Vane’s lip, but his hand was steady.

“Give me the papers,” Vane said, “or I’ll put a bullet through the marshal’s skull.”

Eleanor stopped.

The flames crackled. The smoke thickened. Somewhere behind her, she could hear Silas and Dobbs struggling, the sounds of fists hitting flesh, of grunts and curses. The air was thick with dust and the smell of burning oil.

She looked at the satchel in her hands. Nathaniel’s evidence. Everything he had died for.

Then she looked at Whitfield.

The marshal met her eyes. His expression was unreadable. He gave a single, small nod.

She understood.

Eleanor reached into the satchel. She pulled out a single sheet of paper — the receipt from Summit Mining Company, the one that proved Vane was on their payroll. She held it up.

“This is all I need,” she said.

Vane’s eyes tracked the paper. “That’s not enough.”

“It’s enough to start an investigation. Enough to put you in front of a federal judge.” She folded the paper and tucked it into her coat. “And the rest is already hidden where you’ll never find it.”

Vane’s face darkened. He turned his gun from Whitfield toward Eleanor.

“You’re lying.”

“Try me.”

For a long moment, no one moved. The fire crackled. The smoke curled. The chamber filled with the smell of burning wood and silver dust. The shadows danced across the walls like spirits.

Then Vane smiled.

“Clever,” he said. “But you forgot something.”

“What?”

“You’re standing in a mine that’s about to collapse.”

He fired into the ceiling.

The shot struck a support beam. The beam cracked. The mountain above them groaned.

Eleanor ran.

She dove into the back shaft just as the ceiling came down. The sound was deafening — a roar that swallowed everything, that shook the earth, that filled the world with dust and darkness. She fell, rolled, hit something hard, and kept moving, crawling, scrambling through the narrow passage while the mountain collapsed behind her.

The tunnel seemed to go on forever. She crawled on her hands and knees, the satchel clutched against her chest, her breath coming in ragged gasps. The walls scraped her shoulders. The darkness pressed in from all sides.

And then she saw it.

Light. Faint, gray, filtering through a crack in the rock ahead.

She pushed toward it. The crack widened. She squeezed through, her coat tearing on sharp stone, and burst out into the open air.

She was on the far side of the mountain. The entrance to the back shaft was a small opening in a cliff face, hidden behind a curtain of frozen waterfall. The sky was clear. The stars were out. The cold air hit her lungs like a blessing.

She was alive.

She was alone.

And she was holding the only piece of evidence that could put Sheriff Hollis Vane away for good.