By early March, Bitter Creek had enough food to survive until the road reopened.
Bessie should have left immediately.
Instead, another storm delayed them three days.
Then Tom Jenkins's wife worsened.
Then a roof collapsed.
Each morning Amos asked the same question.
"Today?"
Each day Bessie answered, "Tomorrow."
He never complained.
But she saw his eyes drift toward the mountains.
His home.
Their home.
On the fifth evening, she found him repairing a broken trap near the cook tent.
"We leave at sunrise."
He looked up.
"You sure?"
"Yes."
"Good."
"You miss the cabin?"
"Yes."
She sat beside him.
"Me?"
Amos's hands stopped.
He looked at her.
"I've been sitting ten feet away from you for a month."
"That wasn't my question."
For a moment, he seemed almost frightened.
This man who had lived alone in winter wilderness.
This man Bitter Creek thought had killed bears with a knife.
Afraid of words.
Finally he said, "Yes."
Her heart warmed.
"Good."
"Good?"
"I miss you too."
He frowned.
"I'm right here."
Bessie laughed.
"You'll figure it out eventually."
The next morning, they loaded their horses.
Miners gathered.
This departure differed from the first.
Men brought gifts.
Coffee.
Flour.
New cookware.
Someone had ordered a Dutch oven months earlier; it had arrived just before winter and been forgotten in storage.
They gave it to Bessie.
Billy hugged her.
Emmett shook Amos's hand.
Tom's little boy gave Bessie a carved wooden bird.
Even Harvey Blain approached.
He couldn't meet her eyes.
"I owe you."
"Yes."
He seemed surprised.
She continued.
"You owe every man here."
Blain nodded.
"I know."
Dalton did not appear.
Bessie was relieved.
They rode out.
Three miles beyond camp, Amos stopped.
Tracks crossed the trail.
Fresh.
He dismounted.
Bessie watched his face.
"What?"
"Someone followed us."
"From camp?"
"Looks like."
"Who?"
Amos studied prints.
"One horse."
He mounted again.
"Stay close."
The trail climbed.
By afternoon, clouds thickened.
Bessie remembered the first journey.
She had been frightened then.
Now the mountains felt familiar.
Near a narrow ravine, a gunshot cracked.
Amos's horse screamed.
The animal stumbled.
Amos jumped free.
"Down!"
Bessie dropped behind a boulder.
Another shot.
Stone chips flew.
"Who's shooting?"
Amos crawled to cover.
"Don't know."
Then a voice echoed.
"Should've stayed cooking, Bessie!"
Her blood turned cold.
Dalton.
Amos's face changed.
Not fear.
Something far more dangerous.
"Stay here."
"No."
"Bessie."
"Partner."
His jaw tightened.
A third shot.
Dalton shouted from higher ground.
"You ruined everything!"
Bessie yelled back.
"You ruined your own life!"
"Men laughed because you were funny! Now they look at me like dirt!"
"Maybe because you're dirt!"
Amos almost smiled despite the circumstances.
Dalton fired again.
Amos studied the ridge.
"He's above us. Maybe eighty yards."
"You can hit him?"
"Probably."
Bessie's stomach tightened.
"Don't kill him unless you have to."
"He shot my horse."
"I know."
"He shot at my wife."
Something in his voice shook her.
Not anger alone.
Terror.
The thought of losing her.
She touched his arm.
"We'll get out."
Dalton began moving.
Amos heard it too.
"He's circling."
Bessie looked around.
The ravine narrowed behind them.
A fallen pine bridged part of the slope.
"Amos."
"What?"
"You said snow shelf on north slopes is unstable in spring."
His eyes followed hers.
Above Dalton's position lay a heavy cornice of snow.
"Yes."
"How unstable?"
Amos understood.
"Very."
He handed her the rifle.
"What are you doing?"
"Give him something to shoot at."
"No."
"Can you hit that dead pine above the shelf?"
She looked.
Seventy yards.
Maybe.
"You taught me."
"Bessie—"
"Go."
Amos moved low through rocks.
Dalton spotted him.
Gunfire followed.
Bessie raised the Winchester.
Breathed.
Slow.
She remembered Amos teaching her.
Don't fight the rifle.
Let it become still.
She aimed at the dead pine lodged beneath the snow shelf.
Fired.
Missed.
Dalton laughed somewhere above.
"Big woman can't shoot!"
Bessie worked the lever.
Aimed again.
This shot struck wood.
The pine shifted.
Snow cracked.
Dalton stopped laughing.
A deep sound rolled through the ridge.
Bessie froze.
"Amos!"
"Move!"
He ran.
The snow shelf broke.
Not a massive avalanche.
But enough.
A wall of powder, ice, branches, and rock slid across the slope.
Dalton screamed.
Bessie covered her head.
Snow blasted through the ravine.
Then silence.
Amos emerged coughing.
"Bessie!"
"I'm here!"
He reached her.
Held her face between his hands.
"You hurt?"
"No."
"You sure?"
"Yes."
He pulled her against him.
Hard.
For several seconds, neither cared about Dalton.
Then a groan came from downhill.
They found him partially buried.
Alive.
His leg twisted badly.
Gun gone.
Dalton stared at them with terror.
"Help."
Amos stood over him.
Bessie's old self—the woman humiliated hundreds of times—might have imagined leaving him.
Instead she saw simply a frightened man about to freeze.
"Dig."
Amos looked at her.
"Bessie."
"Dig."
They freed Dalton.
Splinted his leg.
Loaded him onto Bessie's horse.
Amos walked because his own animal couldn't continue.
Dalton said almost nothing.
Near dusk they reached Bitter Creek again.
The entire camp poured out.
When miners understood what happened, anger erupted.
Dalton was carried to a bunk.
Bessie turned to leave.
Billy caught her arm.
"You're going back out?"
"Yes."
"It's dark."
"We'll stay tonight."
Amos looked toward injured Dalton.
"Marshal gets him in spring."
Nobody disagreed.
That night, Bessie couldn't sleep.
She sat outside under the covered walkway.
Amos joined her.
"You saved him."
"So did you."
"I would've left him."
"No, you wouldn't."
He sat beside her.
"You think too highly of me."
"No."
She leaned into him.
"I think exactly enough."
Silence.
Then Amos said, "I love you."
Bessie stopped breathing.
He looked equally shocked by his own words.
"What?"
"I didn't plan to say it like that."
"How'd you plan?"
"I don't know."
"Amos."
"I thought maybe at the cabin."
"Amos."
"Maybe after dinner."
"Amos."
"What?"
She kissed him.
Not for Bitter Creek.
Not for a magistrate.
Not because anyone watched.
Because she wanted to.
His hand touched her cheek.
The kiss deepened.
When they separated, Bessie rested her forehead against his.
"You love me?"
"Yes."
"Since when?"
He considered.
"Maybe the beam."
She laughed softly.
"Romantic."
"Maybe before."
"When?"
"The stew?"
She hit his shoulder.
He smiled.
Then his expression became serious.
"I don't love you because you're strong."
Bessie waited.
"I love that you're strong. But that's not the same."
Her throat tightened.
"I love you because you make a place feel alive."
He struggled for words.
"You talk to me like I'm a man, not a story people tell. You argue. You laugh. You move my spoons."
She laughed through tears.
"And when you're not near me, everything feels quiet in the wrong way."
Bessie looked away because crying still embarrassed her.
Amos gently turned her face back.
"What?"
"Nobody ever..."
She swallowed.
"Nobody ever talked about me like I was something they could miss."
His face broke.
"Bessie."
She kissed him again.
This time there was no audience.
Only snow.
Firelight.
And two people who had married for survival discovering they had built something neither expected.