He glanced at the ground, straining to decipher the shadows in the snow. Were those tracks? Or just uneven ground beneath the layer of white?
They had to be tracks. The ice crystals looked churned in some places. And there seemed to be a straight line of them. A single animal, maybe a horse.
He lifted his focus to the trees and shrubs his team would have to travel through to follow the tracks. The trees were spaced far enough apart, the wagon might actually be able to fit. Perhaps this had once been a road.
The scent of smoke had grown stronger. He had to find out for sure whether or not Vincent went this way. There weren’t enough tracks for his brothers to have searched this route. They’d likely been moving too fast to see a single set of prints veer off or smell the smoke.
He guided the team off the main trail, the horses stepping higher through the new snow and the wagon lurching more over the uneven ground.
The tracks became clearer as they progressed—definitely a single horse, recently passed. The prints cut through the snow in a line too straight to be from a wandering animal. Someone had ridden this way with purpose.
Every step brought the scent thicker, cutting through the crisp mountain air with the unmistakable tang of burning wood.
The trail—if it could be called that—narrowed as the trees pressed closer. Branches scraped against the wagon’s sides, and twice he had to guide the team around fallen logs half-buried in snow.
The path was too rough now, too overgrown. He couldn’t risk breaking an axle or getting stuck.
He pulled the horses to a halt and sat listening. The forest pressed in around him, silent except for the wind sifting through pine needles and the creak of snow-laden branches. No voices. No sound of movement.
But that smoke meant someone was out here.
He set the brake and wrapped the reins around the brake handle, then reached for his walking sticks and the rifle from the bench beside him. He couldn’t manage both at once, but he didn’t dare proceed without a weapon. Hopefully, he could hold the gun in the same hand as one of the walking sticks.
His boots hit the snow, and the splint jammed into his flesh as his full weight came down on it. Sweat dampened his back despite the cold.
He sucked in a breath, though, and pressed forward. The snow covered his boots, dampening his trousers and forcing him to drag his splinted leg behind him.
Finally, the trees thinned ahead, revealing a dark shape against the snow—a structure of some kind, small and hunched. An old trapper’s cabin maybe, long since abandoned.
But smoke curled from a rusted stovepipe jutting through the roof, and a single horse stood tied to a post near the entrance.
His pulse hammered against his throat. Someone was definitely inside.
Vincent? Or just a traveler seeking shelter from the cold?
He edged closer, using the trees for cover. The horse lifted its head, and James tensed. Don’t nicker. Don’t make a sound.
Surprise might be his only advantage. That and his rifle.
Before he could make a plan, though, he had to know for sure who was inside that cabin.
CHAPTER 29
The stench of decay was almost worse than the numbing cold.
Rose forced her lungs to expand slowly, fighting the nausea that still churned in her middle from whatever Vincent had used to drug her earlier. The chemical taste coated her tongue, mixing with the stench of animal droppings that littered the corners of this wretched cabin. Moonlight filtered through holes in the roof and walls, creating pale pools on the filthy floor that did nothing to warm the space.
She kept her breathing slow and even, her gaze fixed on the feet in front of her while she watched him from the edges of her vision.
Small. Invisible. That’s what she needed to be right now. The old survival instinct—learned through years of living under his control—urged her to fade into the background, to become so quiet and unobtrusive he might forget she existed.
She hated that instinct. Hated the way it still rose up so automatically. But it was the safest way to be around Vincent.
The rope bit into her wrists where he’d tied her to the broken chair. At least he’d left her feet free—a mistake on his part, maybe, or simple arrogance. He’d always been stronger than her in many ways, but she didn’t have to let that remain true forever. She had strength of mind and determination.
The chair creaked beneath her with every tiny shift of weight, the wood so rotted it felt like it might collapse at any moment.
The tin stove in the center of the room worked, surprisingly enough. Vincent had coaxed a small fire to life inside it, though the warmth it threw barely reached her.
