Chapter One
Ten Months Later…
Nancy took a deep breath and sighed. She did it every morning before going forth to face the day. Her daddy used to do the same thing. He would say, “Filling my lungs with the air God gave me sets me up for whatever the day will bring.”
And, as always, he was right.
“I lift my eyes to the hills, from where my help comes; my help comes from the Lord.” She said the prayer every morning. It was Tommy’s favorite Psalm. The Bible was one of the first things she packed the day they left Miller Farm forever.
They no longer lived at Miller Farm. The bank foreclosed and sold the land and the quarry to Copper Basin Mining Co. for cents on the dollar. Calvin had mismanaged the quarry and mortgaged the ranch up to the hilt. He’d left Tommy and her less than broke—he’d left them ruined.
Tommy pulled her skirt and pointed to the door.
“You want to go outside and see the hills for yourself?”
He gave a firm shake of his head. She thought for a moment before coming up with a better translation.
“You want to go check on the hens?” That one got a nod. “All right, Tommy, but we must dress warmly first.”
It was their first winter in the Mount Lien log cabin. Nancy was shocked by how bitterly cold it was and how hard it was to keep the cramped space heated. She helped the boy don a jacket, overcoat, boots, hat, and gloves, and then added a scarf for good measure.
“Grab the bucket of chicken feed, Tommy, and let’s go.”
Tommy was strong for his age and robust. He took after her daddy in that regard. It was a blessing. To have a sickly child under their newly straightened circumstances would’ve worried her to pieces.
Calling their home a log cabin was a generous description.
It was actually an old shed that had once housed mining equipment, long abandoned and rundown.
She’d patched up the roof and nailed planks over the cracks before moving in here, hauling lumber up the slope by tying it to the mule’s saddle to drag.
She’d had to sell a good many of her precious possessions to fix up and furnish the cabin, but it had a wood-burning stove and a bed. Somewhere to cook and somewhere to lay their heads at night.
It was hopeless thinking too far ahead, because it only made her fret. She was a twenty-five-year-old widow living hand to mouth with her son in the Granite Mountains. This wasn’t the future she had wanted for Tommy.
They’d set up a henhouse in a disused mine shaft only a few yards away from the log cabin. The tunnel went a good thirty yards into the hillside before the tracks dipped down. She’d shored up the back of the shaft with rubble so the tunnel provided the chickens with a perfect shelter now.
Tommy could walk inside, but she had to stoop under the pit props and crawl. This close to sunrise, it was still dark. She lifted the lantern for Tommy to see the crates of hay and nestling hens. What had started as a hobby for her was now what kept them alive.
One by one, he placed the eggs into the basket gently. She had to bite back a groan as she counted. Fewer than thirty eggs. Winter was always a lean season for laying, but she couldn’t allow the hens to get broody until spring was in the air.
“We’ll keep four for ourselves and sell the rest.”
Tommy nodded. He loved riding on the mule with her and heading into town. They kept a pair of goats for milk and cheese, but again, the winter months were lean pickings when it came to milking.
She glanced over to the horizon. There was a storm coming. If it brought rain, then a spring thaw would set in soon after. But if those clouds were bringing snow, they would probably have to face another month of winter.
Blowing on her fingers to warm them, she harnessed her daddy’s old mule and lifted Tommy onto the saddle.
“Ready?”
He always was. No complaints or cries. Only smiles. She’d hoped he would start talking with Calvin gone, but it seemed as if Tommy wanted her to keep on speaking for him a wee while longer.
They started off down the narrow path, the trail half-hidden by snowfall. The mule’s steady gait rocked them. It was peaceful out here, but it got lonesome.
Tommy leaned against her when the trail dipped. He clutched the basket of eggs in his hands like the precious cargo it was. They would swap the eggs at the store for chicken feed and vegetables.
The local merchant, Manuel Yrissari, would put a sack of sprouting spuds or wilting cabbage greens aside for them instead of throwing them out. Daisy the mule was happy foraging with the goats on the forested mountainside, but the chickens had to have their corn.
She took off a glove using her teeth and checked Tommy’s cheeks with her finger.
Warm enough.
Daisy’s steady gait stumbled when her hoof twisted on a rock hidden by the snow. Tommy gasped and let go of the basket. The eggs could've landed on the snow, only they didn’t. They landed on the rocks.
All they could do was stare as the yellow yolks leaked out. Nothing could be salvaged from the mess.
Sniffing away the cold, Nancy slid down to retrieve the basket. Tommy’s lower lip quivered, but she knew how to stop any crying in its tracks.
“Bless this mess, Tommy. Remember? Your grandpa, Lucky Tom Miller, would always say that what matters is that we tried. And then he would ask what we could do to salvage this mess.”
That only made Tommy more upset. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. She mounted Daisy and gave him a hug. “What can we do to salvage this? I know. When we say our prayers before sleeping tonight, let’s ask for chicken feed. You know that the Lord always provides.”
That cheered Tommy up considerably. When they got back to the cabin, he helped her brush the snow away from the lean-to where the goats and Daisy were stabled.
There was still soup in the pan by the stove and enough bread for breakfast the next day. But she must feed the chickens. If she didn’t have eggs to swap and sell, the hens would go hungry and stop laying, and then her carefully laid plans would be upended.
In her heart, she was still Lucky Tom’s daughter, and she absolutely refused for that to happen.
Sure, Mr. Yrissari would still give her the old vegetables, but it hurt her pride to ask for free food. Some of her best memories were riding the wagon into Prescott with her daddy to buy supplies at the storefront.
Checking to see if Tommy was asleep, she got up and started dressing in warm clothes… and britches. What she planned to do was not the sort of enterprise that was possible while wearing petticoats and a skirt.
She’d never shown it to her son, but there was another mine shaft on the other side of the hill.
When she was young, her daddy used to take her up the mountain. It was such an adventure to poke her head into hollowed out crags and under low-hanging precipices while looking for bats and long forgotten bones.
That’s how she’d learned about the shed on Mount Lien and the old mine shafts full of spiderwebs where prospectors had once delved for mineral ore.
Why one prospector had burrowed down to the bedrock of a subterranean stream, she had no idea, but the two of them had managed to follow the tunnel and come out the other side.
“You don’t want to tell anyone about this place, Nan,” her father had said after looking around at the glittering quartz embedded in the boulder formation where the tunnel exited.
“Why, Daddy?” Even as a young child, she’d been full of questions about the workings of the world.
“This water is rich in minerals and as pure as snow. They’ll turn it into one of those fancy spas if anyone else finds out about it.”
Her daddy had always made sure to take only what he needed from the rocks and soil and then leave well alone. He’d told her that tunneling too much made the land unstable.
The tunnel they’d found that day was relatively close to the surface, but there was no need to worry about it collapsing because it was made from solid rock.
Nothing had been on the other side of the secret tunnel when she was a kid, but there sure was something there now.
A ranch house. And not just any old ranch house.
One with a well-stocked larder and too many sacks of corn in the barn for them to mind a few going missing every now and again. That was so much better than a spa.
This would be her third foray to the ranch since winter started.
She hated leaving Tommy, even for a short while, but there was nothing else to do. Chickens couldn’t scratch for seeds on the cold, hard ground. And if she wanted them to keep laying, there was only one alternative to begging—and that was stealing.
One day when I’m well off and comfy, Tommy and I will go back to the ranch house and repay them. But until then…
Her dreams ached with longing for all those things she’d taken for granted: home, livestock, and a plentiful larder.
And it wasn’t as if she didn’t have a plan to lift Tommy and her out of poverty.
The flock had increased substantially over the last three seasons.
By the time next winter rolled around, she’d never have to steal again.
“This is the last time I do this.” Her breath misted in the cold night air and looked smoky under the lantern light. “And I promise to pay them back.”
There was another reason she was doing this: Otis Dobbs. Ugh. It disgusted her to think about him, but he was like one of those summer flies that took a liking to somebody’s scent and then buzzed around them all day.
He was Calvin’s cousin and an old schoolyard friend. She’d never paid much attention to either of those two boys until her daddy agreed to help Monty Rhodes. It was only after she was married that Calvin had told her about Otis’s heart breaking when she’d chosen him.
“I didn’t choose you,” she’d told her husband in her usual forthright way. “My daddy did.”
Calvin had said no more on the subject after that.
She and Tommy had traveled to town only last week. They’d bumped into Mrs. Collins outside the hay makers, who’d told her that Otis was asking after her. “He said your one year of mourning would be up soon, Nancy dear. Said that it was time you got yourself another husband.”
She’d urged Daisy the mule to trot back up the mountain real fast after hearing that!
No one knew where she lived with her son, and for that she was grateful. No one could come up Mount Lien without them sticking out like a sore thumb on the silent, frozen landscape, and only hard rock and trees clung to the mountain behind them.
Tommy didn’t notice that she was still wearing her outdoor clothes when she tucked him into bed and told him a Bible story. He would understand the need for her to find grain for the chickens, but her son was far too young to grasp the necessity of stealing it.
Kissing Tommy, she made sure he was fast asleep and the stove fire damped down before she headed out.
She knew the way to the tunnel in the dark, but it was nice to have the lantern with her all the same.
The underground aquifer creaked as the ice solidified around her.
It could be hours, days, or weeks before the spring floods made the passage too dangerous.
The reminder of how dangerous this route could be was found in every water drip.
“Only one more sack of chicken feed, and then no more,” she promised herself.
The tunnel exited by a pile of boulders by the creek. She pinched out the lantern and trotted toward the barn. It was a treasure trove of all things chicken-related. Corn, barley, seed grains; this barn had it all.
As always, she found the lock hanging loose and the chain unconnected to the door handle.
She fingered the useless lock and smiled. “I mean, why even bother?” The ranch residents didn’t have guard dogs roaming outside or post a sentry. “Frankly, I’m surprised I’m the only thief here tonight.”
It was rather freeing being able to sneak around in her britches with the brown wool cap hiding her long hair. Hefting a whole sack of corn back up the tunnel with her was no joke, let alone having to worry about clinging skirt panels and petticoats.
She closed the barn door behind her and waited for her eyes to get used to the dark. The urgent need to get back to her son was dimmed for a short while as she enjoyed the comforting aroma of livestock feed and piles of hay in the loft.
This time next year, her chicken and egg business would be up and running.
They’d have enough money to move back into town and find a little place of their own.
She could attend church, and Tommy would go to Sunday School.
There would be food and delicious, hot beverages—maybe even some coal for the fire in winter.
But first, the corn.
Using her fingers to feel the size of the kernels in the sack, she worked her way to the neat stacks in the corner. It was the perfect place for a rattler to hibernate, so she looked around the barn for a pitchfork to poke around there first.
There might be one in the corner propped up against the plow. She crept over and reached out to take it.
Strong arms grabbed her from behind. She tried to scream, but a large hand muffled her mouth before the sound could come out.