And yet, as Jake loaded up, Isaac talked to me. “Only the strong survive, because the strong have no fear.”

Despite the very real fear and horror I was feeling, I had to give his words a second thought. They sounded so similar to my father’s.

Another gun blast made me jump out of my daze. This time Isaac lunged toward me just as Jake took his shot. The bullet whizzed somewhere overhead while I screamed and tried to fight off Isaac.

His hand went around my throat, and his open, bloody mouth went for my face.

Chapter Eleven

Isaac was going to eat me alive.

“Eve, don’t move!” Jake yelled, as if I could.

There was a thunk and suddenly Isaac lurched to the side, sputtering blood from his mouth which sprayed all over me. He didn’t fall over, and the grip on my neck barely loosened but it was enough for me to rip myself away from him. I scrambled out of his reach just as Jake pulled me up.

Isaac was moaning like a crazed animal, blood pouring from the back of his head. It was then that I noticed Jake hadn’t shot him—he’d thrown his gun at him instead.

I looked at him, openmouthed.

He gave me a grim smile. “No time to reload.”

He then went for the gun that was lying beside Isaac but Isaac wasn’t as hurt as he seemed. No, of course he wasn’t. Not with Tim’s flesh rolling through his system, putrefying his veins.

He sprang up and jumped on Jake. I never would have believed that skinny Isaac would be able to overtake such a muscular beast as Jake, but he did. They both fell to the floor, Jake’s mass shaking the cabin. He tried his best to fight off Isaac, and I remained frozen in place, trying to figure out what to do. If I tried to pull Isaac off of him, he’d only bat me away like a pesky fly.

I spun around and ran to the rifle I dropped early and picked it up, ever so wary of it accidently going off. I stepped right up to Isaac and aimed it at the back of his head. But at this range, with Jake’s own head right underneath his, his face growing red with strain as he tried to keep Isaac back, I’d kill both of them. Or I’d at least kill Jake.

I looked around and spied the axe resting against the wall near the fire. I gently but quickly placed the rifle on the ground, far away from Isaac and Jake, and ran over to the axe. It was heavy and cold and hard to wield between my two hands, but I had to try and make do with it.

I scampered back over to them, trying to raise the axe above my head, my eyes glued to the back of Isaac’s neck, which was now coated in a stream of sticky blood. This seemed impossible but there was no time to be realistic here. Realism would kill us all.

“Jake don’t move!” I yelled, my arms shaking, my wrists burning.

He grunted something in response but I was already in motion. I brought the axe down, feeling gravity take the weight the rest of the way, and somehow the sharp blade connected with Isaac’s neck. The sound was sick and thudding, like the way Uncle Pat used to slice through hardened meat.

Isaac roared and tried to get up but his movement merely put the blade in further. There was a crunch as it cut through the spine and then the roaring stopped. I let go of the axe in horror at what I had done and it stayed put, lodged deep inside. Not deep enough to slice his head clean off, but deep enough nonetheless.

“Grab the rifle and run to the horses,” Jake said to me as Isaac collapsed on top of him in a mess of blood and fluid.

I did as he asked, hearing the thump of Isaac and the thump of his decapitated head as Jake finished the job. He joined me moments later. With Sadie and Isaac’s horse gone from yesterday, there was only Jake, Tim and Hank’s horses. As much as I hated Hank and still feared him, I couldn’t leave his horse out here in the mountains.

I quickly attached him to Tim’s horse and started throwing the packs onto his back. Tim had pretty much finished the job of packing everything up. He must have gone back inside to get a few more things when he found Isaac inside, plotting his demise. As duplicitous as Tim had turned out to be, I had a soft spot for the charming old man and wished he hadn’t died in what must have been the most horrific way possible.

When I was done, I mounted his horse and Jake came jogging out of the cabin, absolutely covered in blood, the axe in his hands. Even though I had just witnessed it with my own eyes, it was still hard to comprehend.

He ran up to his horse and secured the axe to his saddlebags and jumped on. “Toss me the rifle.”

I did as he asked, wincing. But he caught it safely and brought his horse right beside me. He handed me a revolver. “This will be easier to shoot when you’re up there.” His eyes became dark. “We’ll have to ride hard, you understand. Isaac is dead, we both made sure of that, but there are others out there. I feel it, deep in my bones that we aren’t out of the worst of it. Are you ready?”

“More than I’ll ever be.”

He gave me a curt nod. “Then let’s get off this mountain.”

I quickly stuffed the revolver into the holster that ran across the front of Tim’s saddle and wheeled the horse around as Jake yelled at Trouble, kicking him a few times.

All three horses took off in a mad gallop, as if they knew they were leaving death behind. The frozen expanse of Donner Lake disappeared behind us.

*

When Jake said we had to ride hard, he sure wasn’t kidding. We rode as fast as we could through the rough terrain, past the twisting places where I had originally lost Avery. My heart lurched with sadness at the memory, but I had no choice but to put it aside for now. I could only hope that he was still alive and still Avery.

We were lucky the weather held up and the temperature kept climbing the further down the mountain we went. There was still snow, but it was hard-packed and easy to navigate. Our horses were frothing with foamy sweat, and despite twenty minutes where I had to beg Jake to let them walk and get water from a partly-frozen stream, they were pushed to the limit.

As was I. Jake was adamant that we keep going all through the day, until either we or the horses collapsed.

Well, I was the one to collapse first. It must have been the middle of the night, Jake lighting the way with the lantern dangling from his hand, and I, cold and delirious from the constant motion and lack of food. I felt my eyes closing, my consciousness slipping, and everything went away.

When I woke up I had no idea where I was. All I knew was that I was warm and somewhat comfortable. The world around me was still and silent except for the gentle crackle of a fire.

I heard someone breathe out heavily. I lifted up my head to see Jake sitting across the fire from me, knife in hand, skinning a raccoon.

“Glad to see you awake, Pine Nut,” he said in a low voice. He lowered his eyes to the task at hand and gave me a half shrug. “Was starting to think you might never wake up.”

I groaned and eased myself up on my elbows. I was lying beneath a few animal hides with a thin one beneath me. I looked around to see I was tucked under a lip of a rock face, a small shallow cave that had just enough room for me to sit up in. The fire was outside in the open with Jake situated on a short log.

“What happened?” I asked.

“You right fell off your horse, that’s what,” he said matter-of-factly. “I didn’t notice till you hit the ground. You were out.” He swallowed hard and ran his hand through his thick hair that gleamed in the firelight. “Gave me quite the fright.”

I scooted closer to the fire and sat cross-legged. “And here I thought you didn’t get frightened.”

He looked up and gave me a tight smile. “I said I got scared about different things. This,” he quickly pointed the knife at me before going back to skinning, “you. That’s what scares me.”

“I scare you?”

His lip twitched up into a smirk. “You’re terrifying.”

I opened my mouth and then shut it, unsure of what to say. Finally, awkwardly, I said, “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said quickly. He put the knife down and lifted up the pink raccoon carcass. “I haven’t felt scared in years. It’s a nice change.”

I watched him carefully as he sharpened a thick branch and stuck it through the raccoon, then placed the animal between two Y-shaped sticks, creating a spit. He worked with ease, despite the injury on his shoulder. I was watching that wound too, but so far it hadn’t bled through the gauze or his shirt. Patches of dried blood clung to his clothes and on his neck, but the rest of him looked clean. When I listened hard I could hear a stream babbling nearby.

“Where are we?”

“No idea. Somewhere near the first cabin we stayed at but not near enough.”

“Are the horses are okay?”

“Horses are fine.”

“You’re okay?”

He stared at me across the fire, and there was something in his dark eyes that burned even brighter. “I am now.”

He didn’t look away, not for a few heady seconds, so finally I had to. I lost my gaze to the flames and cleared my throat. “What was your wife’s name?”

I don’t know why I said it. I don’t know where it came from other than the question had come into my mind every time Jake had gotten this look in his eyes, a look that told me he had been through so much, seen through much, felt so much.

I kept my eyes focused on the fire but still saw him stiffen at the question. He was probably going to be mad.

I licked my lips and apologized again. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

“No, no,” he said with a sigh. “It’s fine. Her name was Marie. My son was Sam.”

“What did they look like? What were they like? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I don’t mind you asking,” he said gently. He rested his elbows on his knees and folded his large, calloused hands together and looked off into the night sky, at the few stars that were peeking over the tops of the trees. The moon was bright even when hidden by clouds.

He took in a deep breath. “I met Marie when I was eighteen. She was sixteen. I’d just left home, wanting to join the Rangers. Said my goodbyes to my folks, who were probably quite glad I was leaving, and moved to San Antonio. Met Marie the first night I’d been accepted into the Rangers. It was…customary, I suppose, to celebrate. I was taken to a brothel,” my eyebrows shot up, “and she was the woman I was given. She was only sixteen at the time and I could tell she was nervous around me—skittish. Turns out it was her first time. Wasn’t mine. She was a beautiful girl, really. Long, curly blonde hair, eyes as blue as cornflower. I was a goner.” He sounded wistful as he said that, and I felt an uncalled for yet vicious strain of jealousy run through me. “She’d been given to the brothel by her father just the week before. A low-life piece of hog’s ass is what he was. I guess I fell in love with her that night. I couldn’t stop going to see her. She’d never take any payment, and sometimes we never made love, we just talked about our hopes and dreams.”

Jake reached over and turned the raccoon over in the fire, trying to darken the other side. His arched brows were furrowed, eyes lost in thought. “It kept on that way for quite some time. But there were problems. Two of them. One was that I was jealous. I loved her. She was my woman. No one else owned her but me. Not the other men who came to see her, not the madam. It made me sick inside to know I had to share her. The other problem, the more noble problem, was that her daddy used to beat her and beat her bad. It didn’t stop when she got to the brothel, not by a long shot. I’m sure she thought that place would be the last place he’d ever go, but she underestimated her dear daddy. He’d show up there a few nights a week, drunk. He’d fuck a few whores then find Marie.”

I noticed I was holding my breath, my fingers gripping the edge of the animal hide as he talked. He went on, his voice lowering, a hard edge coming on. “He’d find her and smack her around. Sometimes he’d break a bottle over her head. Sometimes he’d touch her in ways the other men would. One day I found her passed out in the corner of her shit-filled room, blood all over her. I decided I couldn’t let her—us—live this way anymore. I asked to be transferred over to the Mexican border and I took her with me. It wasn’t easy but that’s what guns are for. We never looked back.”

“Wow,” I said breathlessly. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Our lives got better after that,” he said, still staring off into the distance. “A few months later we found out she was pregnant. It was a tough pregnancy and I was gone with the Rangers half the time. It was hard on us. My father had died by then, but I asked my mother to come down and help take care of Marie in my absence. She and I grew closer after that. Like Marie’s father, mine beat me and my ma too. Now that she was free of him, I felt like I was starting over with a new family.

“Finally, Sam was born and I was lucky to be home to witness it. My whole life changed at that moment, I can hardly explain it.” He grinned to himself and my heart did a backflip. “I’d always been a loner as a kid. The lone wolf, they’d call me back in school. I was happiest that way. But once Sam was born and I looked into his blue eyes and looked at Marie and my mother, I knew that somehow, despite everything I’d thought, the tough and dangerous life I’d wanted, I was meant to be a father. A family man. For a while there I even thought about quitting the Rangers. Marie, as you can imagine, was plumb excited about the idea. We thought since we were raising a few horses already that we could turn it into something more lucrative. Leave the violence behind. And I tried.” He paused and rubbed at his chin. “I tried, but there was this battle in Monterey that I had to fight in. One last thing, I’d told her, one last time. Anyway…you know the rest.”