Mara added, “We ran. Thought the river would hide us.”
“It almost did,” Matthew said.
Eliza met his gaze.
“That’s the problem.”
Silence settled between them.
Heavy.
Then—
Hoofbeats.
Far.
But coming.
Matthew’s head tilted slightly.
He didn’t need to look.
“They found you,” he said.
Eliza stood slowly.
“And now they’ve found you.”
Matthew reached for his rifle.
Not fast.
Not nervous.
Just… inevitable.
“I was already found a long time ago,” he said.
He stepped outside.
The valley stretched wide and open, nowhere to hide.
Five riders approached.
Same kind of men.
Same kind of confidence.
They spread out, circling slowly.
Matthew stood still.
Waited.
“Turn around,” he called out, voice steady. “You get to leave alive.”
They laughed.
One of them reached for his gun.
The shot came before the thought finished.
Clean.
Final.
The man hit the ground.
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The others broke formation immediately, horses spooked, retreating just far enough to stay alive.
But not gone.
Not finished.
Matthew lowered the rifle slowly.
Behind him, the girls stood in the doorway.
Watching.
Understanding.
“They’ll come back,” Mara said.
Matthew nodded.
“They always do.”
Eliza stepped forward.
“You don’t have to stay,” she said. “This is our fight.”
Matthew looked out across his land.
The place he had tried to turn into something quiet.
Something safe.
Then he looked back at them.
Three lives he had pulled from the river.
Three lives that now carried the storm with them.
“Some fights don’t ask permission,” he said.
The wind shifted.
Carrying the scent of dust and gunpowder.
Matthew adjusted his grip on the rifle.
“And some men…” he added quietly, “don’t get to walk away from what they’ve already started.”
The girls said nothing.
They didn’t need to.
Because they understood now.
He hadn’t just saved them.
He had chosen.
And that choice—
Would decide what happened next.