The silence in the small one-room cabin stretched out, dense and trembling, suspended between the ticking of the brass mantel clock and the fierce, howling cadence of the winter storm outside.

The single match flickered out, plunging them back into blackness.

“Thomas, the tunnel is blocked,” Lillian said, her voice tight but remarkably calm. “Is there another way out?”

“The old ventilation shaft,” Thomas said, coughing up coal dust. “Judge Henderson built this mine twenty years ago. There should be an air vent that opens out onto the eastern slope of the ridge. But we’ll have to crawl for it.”

He struck another match, lighting a second lantern he had brought in his pack. By its pale yellow glow, Lillian saw the full extent of his injuries. His coat was torn, his forehead was bleeding, and his right arm hung awkwardly at his side.

“Your shoulder,” she said, stepping closer to examine him.

“Popped out when that timber hit me,” Thomas grunted, his jaw clenched tight against the agonizing pain. “I need you to pull it back into place, Lillian. I can’t climb out of here with one arm.”

Lillian looked at his shoulder, her heart pounding. She had never set a bone in her life, but looking into Thomas’s sweating, pain-racked face, she knew there was no choice.

“Tell me what to do,” she said firmly.

“Grasp my wrist with both hands,” Thomas instructed, leaning his back against a solid rock wall. “Brace your foot against my chest... and pull straight toward you. Hard. Don't stop until you hear it click.”

Lillian took a deep breath. She placed her boot against his chest, grabbed his wrist, and pulled with every ounce of strength in her body.

Thomas groaned—a terrible, low sound of agony—and his face went deathly pale. Lillian pulled harder, leaning back until her muscles burned.

CRACK-POP.

The joint snapped back into place. Thomas collapsed forward, gasping for air, sweat pouring down his face in the freezing subterranean chill.

“You did it,” he whispered, squeezing her hand with his good arm. “Good girl, Lillian. Good girl.”

She wrapped her arm around his waist, helping him to his feet. Together, leaning on each other, they navigated the pitch-black tunnels, following the faint, imperceptible draft of cool air flowing through the mountain.

After twenty minutes of agonizing crawling through narrow, low-ceilinged shafts, they saw it: a small circle of pale silver light above them.

The ventilation shaft.

Thomas climbed first, despite his pain, reaching down with his powerful arm to haul Lillian up through the narrow vertical shaft. They burst out onto the snow-covered slope of Blackwood Ridge, tumbling out into the freezing, beautiful mountain air.

The blizzard had passed. The storm clouds were breaking apart, revealing a dazzling expanse of bright blue sky and brilliant golden sunlight reflecting off the snow.

Down in the valley below, they saw Sheriff Ross riding up the trail leading a squad of armed deputies from town. The sheriff looked up, saw the two silhouettes standing atop the ridge against the clear sky, and raised his hat, letting out a loud, echoing cheer that carried across the canyon.

Thomas pulled Lillian close to his side, his arm wrapping tightly around her waist.

Lillian reached into her coat pocket, her fingers brushing against the cold leather of the territorial ledger. It was safe. The truth was saved. Her father’s memory was cleared.