Her lower lip trembled.
“He yelled for her not to go inside.”
That detail changed something.
Colter had expected a story of pursuit.
Instead, he heard warning.
“Then what happened?”
“Mom told me to stay outside.”
Lily pointed toward the cabin.
“She went in.”
Her eyes filled again.
“Then there was a big crash.”
Tess touched her shoulder.
“And the man?”
“He ran around the back.”
“Did he chase you?”
Lily thought about it.
“No.”
“Did he tell you to run?”
Another pause.
“He yelled for somebody to get help.”
Colter and Tess exchanged a glance.
Fear had filled in details the child had never actually seen.
Colter understood that feeling.
Adults did it too.
They simply used more complicated words when they did.
He walked toward the cabin.
“Anna?”
No answer came.
“Anna Mercer?”
A faint noise rose from beneath the porch.
Tess heard it too.
“There.”
They hurried around the side.
Behind the cabin, old wooden doors lay nearly flat against the ground, marking what had once been a cellar entrance.
One door had collapsed inward.
A heavy beam rested diagonally across the opening.
Colter dropped beside it.
“Anna?”
This time a voice answered.
Weak.
Breathless.
“Here.”
Lily cried out.
“Mommy!”
“Lily?”
The change in the trapped woman’s voice was immediate.
“Lily, are you all right?”
“I got help!”
Anna began crying.
Not loudly.
Just one broken sound of relief from somewhere beneath the earth.
Colter looked through the opening.
A woman lay several feet below on a dirt floor, half beneath splintered boards.
She appeared to be in her thirties.
Dust coated her dark hair.
One ankle bent awkwardly beneath her.
Beside her was a flashlight still shining.
“You’re going to be okay,” Tess called.
“I’m a paramedic.”
Anna closed her eyes.
“Thank God.”
“Did anything fall on your chest or head?”
“No.”
“Can you breathe normally?”
“Yes.”
“Any numbness?”
“My ankle hurts.”
“Then don’t move it.”
Colter and the riders shifted the beam carefully until there was enough room for Tess to descend.
She examined Anna while Colter kept Lily above.
“There was a man,” Anna said as Tess checked her pupils.
“I know,” Tess replied.
“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.”