Inside the ranch house, the air was thick with the smell of sawdust and stale coffee. Eli Kincaid was fortifying the only home he had ever known. He drove long iron nails into thick oak planks, sealing the windows. Every blow of the hammer was a declaration of refusal. He moved the heavy dresser in front of the back door.
He overturned the kitchen table, creating a barricade facing the front entrance. Clara moved through the house with a silence that contrasted sharply with Eli's frantic industry. She was not panicking. Panic was a luxury for people who expected to be saved. Claraveale had learned long ago that no one was coming, so she prepared herself.
She laid out the ammunition on a clean towel spread across the floor behind the overturned table. Boxes of 44 caliber cartridges for the rifle. Heavy lead slugs for the shotgun. She counted them aloud, her voice steady. 40 rifle rounds, she said.
12 for the shotgun, six in your pistol, six in mine. Eli stopped hammering. He looked at her. His shirt was soaked with sweat despite the freezing temperature in the room. He looked at her hands.
They were not shaking. "You are too calm," Eli said. His voice was rough. "I have been in rooms where men wanted to hurt me before," Clara said, snapping the loading gate of the Winchester shut. "Fear makes your hands sweat.
Wet hands slip on the trigger. I will be afraid later, Eli. When we are alive. " She took the Black Ledger, the book that contained the secrets of Harlan Pike's empire, and wrapped it in oil cloth. She pried up a loose floorboard near the hearth, a hiding place she had discovered while scrubbing the floors weeks ago. She wedged the book deep into the crawl space and hammered the board back down.
"If they burn the house," Eli said, watching her, "the book goes too. " If they burn the house, Clara stood up, brushing dust from her knees, we will be dead, and the book will not matter. Outside, the wind carried the sound of voices. Not the chaotic shouting of a mob, but the low, organized murmur of men who knew they held all the cards. Eli moved to a slit he had left between the window boards. He peered out.
"They are here," he said. Harlan Pike sat on a massive black gelding 50 yards from the porch. He was dressed in a heavy buffalo hide coat, his silver hair perfectly combed beneath his hat. Flanking him were Silas Vance and the corrupt Sheriff Miller. Behind them, a posse of 20 men, some hired guns, some townsfolk who had been bullied or bought into believing they were serving justice.
Pike raised a gloved hand. The line of riders stopped. Kincaid Pike's voice carried easily over the distance. It was a rich baritone voice, the voice of a man who was used to being listened to in boardrooms and churches. There is no need for this ugliness.
Eli did not answer. He checked the sight on his rifle. I have a warrant for the woman. Pike called out. Surrender her.
Give me the item she stole from my safe. Do that and you keep your land. You have my word. Your word is worth nothing," Eli shouted back. "And the warrant is a lie. " "Think about it, son," Pike said, his tone shifting to a mock paternal disappointment.