“Lily told us.”
“His name is Noah Reed.”
Anna winced as Tess touched her ankle.
“He followed me from town.”
“Do you think he intended to hurt you?”
Anna hesitated.
“I thought he did.”
Colter noticed the wording.
“Thought?”
“He kept trying to make me leave.”
“Maybe because the place is falling apart,” Tess said.
Anna looked at the broken cellar doors.
“Yes.”
Her expression changed.
“I know that now.”
The riders used a length of rope and an old ladder found beside the cabin to bring Anna up slowly.
Her ankle appeared badly sprained but not broken.
When Lily reached her, the child threw both arms around her mother.
Anna held her so tightly that Colter had to look away.
There were reunions a stranger was allowed to witness.
There were others that felt almost sacred.
“I’m sorry,” Anna whispered into Lily’s hair.
“I’m so sorry.”
“I wasn’t scared.”
Lily was plainly still terrified.
Anna almost laughed through her tears.
“You ran barefoot through half the county.”
“My shoes came off.”
“That sounds like you.”
Lily pulled back.
“Are you mad?”
Anna touched her daughter’s muddy cheek.
“No.”
She kissed her forehead.
“I have never been prouder of you.”
Sometimes courage did not look fearless at all.
Sometimes it looked like a seven-year-old girl running through the woods with tears on her face because somebody she loved needed her.
Colter stood and offered Anna the brass tag.
Her face lost its color.
“Where did you find this?”
“Beside the trail.”
Anna took it carefully.
Her thumb moved over the engraved name.
“Thomas Mercer was my father.”
“So Lily said.”
“He disappeared twenty-seven years ago.”
Dale’s remark about mine tags returned to Colter.
“Was he a miner?”
Anna nodded.
“Black Ridge.”
Tess glanced toward the cellar.
“Did he disappear underground?”
“That’s what everyone assumed.”
Anna stared at the tag.
“But no one ever found him.”
Footsteps suddenly crashed through the brush behind the cabin.
One of the riders stepped in front of Lily.