PART 4 — THE SECRET BENEATH THE MOUNTAIN

The first knock came just as Amily Ward pulled Harlon’s enormous flannel shirt over her shoulders.

Three sharp blows.

Not the gentle tapping of a traveler seeking shelter.

The sound of men who believed a door was something to be broken.

Amily froze.

The H๏τ spring beneath the cabin had stopped her trembling, but the warmth in her body vanished the moment she heard a familiar voice outside.

“Open up, mountain man!”

She knew that voice.

Silas Crowe.

The man who had attacked her stagecoach.

The man whose blood she had left on a stone when she fought her way free.

Amily backed away from the trapdoor.

Harlon had told her to stay inside. He had promised that the cabin was safe.

But now three armed riders stood outside, and she had no idea whether he knew they were coming.

Another knock.

“We know you’re in there, Ward!”

Amily’s heart pounded.

How had they discovered her name?

Then she remembered the leather satchel she had carried from the stagecoach. Inside it was the only thing her late father had left her: a small brᴀss key and a folded letter bearing the seal of the Colorado Land Registry.

She had never understood the letter.

But Silas Crowe had been willing to kill her for it.

The door suddenly opened.

Harlon stood in the doorway, his rifle resting against his shoulder.

Snow clung to his beard.

His pale eyes moved from one rider to the next.

“Evening,” he said.

Silas Crowe smiled.

“Step aside. We’re looking for a woman.”

“Then you’re looking in the wrong place.”

One of the riders laughed.

“We saw her tracks.”

Harlon glanced at the snow behind them.

“Tracks belong to whoever makes them.”

Silas took a step forward.

“You don’t understand. That woman stole something valuable.”

Harlon’s expression did not change.

“Then you should have kept a better watch over your belongings.”

The smile disappeared from Silas’s face.

“Move.”

“No.”

For several seconds, nobody spoke.

Then the youngest rider noticed the blood on Harlon’s sleeve.

His eyes narrowed.

“She’s inside.”

Harlon moved before the man finished speaking.

He shoved the door shut.

A sH๏τ cracked through the storm.

The cabin shook.

Amily screamed.

Harlon stumbled backward, one hand pressed against his shoulder.

“Get down!” he shouted.

Amily dropped behind the cedar chair.

The men outside began pounding on the door.

Harlon reached for the rifle again, but his wounded arm failed him.

Amily saw it.

And something inside her changed.

For years, she had learned to make herself smaller.

To apologize before anyone accused her.

To step aside when men entered a room.

But the man standing between her and those riders had never once asked her to become less than she was.

Now he was bleeding because of her.

Amily grabbed the iron poker beside the fireplace.

“Harlon.”

He turned.

“Stay back.”

“No.”

His pale eyes widened.

She had never spoken to him that way.

Amily stepped toward the door.

“I’m tired of running.”

Before Harlon could answer, a voice came from beneath the floor.

“Amily?”

She stopped.

The voice was female.

Old.

And unmistakably familiar.

A section of the stone wall beside the fireplace shifted.

A narrow door opened.

An elderly woman emerged, carrying a lantern.

Amily stared at her.

The woman had silver hair, a long wool coat, and a small scar beneath her left eye.

Amily knew that scar.

She had seen it in the only pH๏τograph her father had ever kept hidden.

“Mrs. Bell?” she whispered.

The elderly woman looked at her with tears in her eyes.

“Your father told me you might come.”

Amily could barely breathe.

“Who are you?”

The woman glanced at Harlon.

Then back at Amily.

“My name is Eleanor Bell. And your father was not the man those people told you he was.”

Outside, Silas Crowe shouted again.

“Burn the cabin if you have to!”

Eleanor’s face hardened.

“Then we have very little time.”

She reached into her coat and pulled out a small brᴀss key.

Amily looked down at the key in her own hand.

They were identical.

Two keys.

One secret.

Harlon moved toward the hidden doorway, keeping his injured shoulder pressed against the wall.

“Eleanor,” he said quietly. “Tell her.”

The old woman swallowed.

“Your father owned this mountain, Amily. Not the cabin. Not the trees.”

She pointed toward the floor.

“The land beneath them.”

Amily shook her head.

“That’s impossible.”

“Twenty years ago, your father discovered a vast underground spring. The water feeds every settlement on the eastern slope. He intended to build a public reservoir so no rancher, miner, or company could ever control it.”

Eleanor paused.

“But a man named Silas Crowe wanted the land for himself.”

Amily looked toward the door.

“Why would he need me?”

“Because your father placed the ownership papers in a vault beneath this cabin. The vault requires two keys.”

Eleanor held hers up.

“Mine.”

Amily stared at the brᴀss key in her palm.

“And mine?”

“Your father gave it to you before he died.”

The memory came rushing back.

A cold hospital room.

Her father’s trembling fingers.

A whispered promise she had never understood.

Never let them take the mountain, sweetheart.

Amily’s eyes filled with tears.

“He knew.”

Eleanor nodded.

“He knew Crowe would come for you eventually.”

A loud crash shook the cabin.

The door began to splinter.

Harlon raised his rifle with his good arm.

“Eleanor, take her downstairs.”

Amily looked at him.

“What about you?”

Harlon gave her a brief, grim smile.

“I’ve been standing between Crowe and this mountain for twelve years.”

Then he added:

“Tonight, he learns why.”

Eleanor pulled Amily through the hidden doorway.

The stone pᴀssage descended into darkness.

At the bottom stood a mᴀssive iron vault.

Two brᴀss keyholes gleamed beneath a layer of dust.

Amily inserted her key.

Eleanor inserted hers.

The lock turned.

Inside the vault lay a leather-bound ledger, a sealed document, and a faded pH๏τograph.

Amily picked up the pH๏τograph.

It showed a younger Harlon standing beside her father.

Both men were smiling.

On the back, in her father’s handwriting, were five words:

THE MOUNTAIN WILL REMEMBER US.

Amily turned toward Eleanor.

“What happened between them?”

Before the old woman could answer, a terrible crash echoed from above.

Then silence.

Amily’s blood ran cold.

“Harlon?”

No answer.

She rushed toward the stairs.

Eleanor grabbed her wrist.

“Wait.”

A second sound came from above.

A man’s voice.

Not Silas Crowe.

Not Harlon.

A voice Amily had not heard in twelve years.

“Amily Ward.”

The voice was calm.

Almost tender.

And it came from the cabin above.

“Your father was a good man.”

Amily stopped breathing.

Eleanor whispered:

“Oh, no.”

The voice continued.

“But he made one terrible mistake.”

A pause.

“He trusted Harlon.”

And then the voice said the words that shattered everything Amily believed about the man who had saved her.

“Because Harlon was the one who betrayed him.”