The morning they came, the air went too quiet. Even the birds held their tongues. Three riders ghosted through thickening snow—wide-brimmed hats, low shoulders, eyes like winter steel. Joseph Quinn rode in front, handsome and polished the way a blade is handsome and polished.

“Silas Granger,” he called. “We come with claim.”

“You don’t,” Silas said.

“That woman inside is my wife. Those girls are mine by right.”

“She was never yours,” Silas said, unarmed, voice calm as a level. “And they sure as hell aren’t.”

Joseph’s jaw ticked. He drew a pistol. One of his men stepped forward and cracked Silas across the shoulder with a rifle butt. The blow dropped him to a knee; blood welled dark against the drift.

“Last chance,” Joseph said.

“Then shoot me,” Silas told him.

“Drop it,” a new voice rang from the trees, hard as a bell. Lanterns bobbed through the storm. Sheriff Mather rode out with two deputies, rifles leveled. Behind them stepped Marabel, cloak torn, face pale but set like a whetstone.