Page 106 of The Fire Line

He did not want to turn this into something else simply because something else was easier to carry.

“Walk back with you,” he said.

They crossed the yard together.

“Good night,” Jay said.

“Night.”

Harris remained where the paths divided until the lodge door closed behind him.

Then he returned to the cabin alone.

Nothing inside had changed. The blanket still lay across the couch, the narrow window framing the dark ridge beyond it. But the room did not feel quite the way it had before he left.

Harris sat in the dark.

Jay had followed him to the fence without a camera, without a question Harris was required to answer, and without trying to make what happened there into anything else.

Harris could still feel the warmth of his sleeve against his arm.

18

You Look Like You’re Doing Math

In the days after the fence line, Harris and Jay failed to establish rules and developed a pattern instead.

It began with practical texts that occasionally stopped being practical.

Jay: North pasture tomorrow still 6?

Harris read the message beside the feed-room door with one glove between his teeth and a coffee mug in his free hand.

Harris: Yup.

Three minutes later:

Jay: Compelling.

Nothing about that required an answer. Jay knew the time. The exchange had completed its useful purpose.

Harris put the phone in his pocket and made it almost to the barn before taking it out again.

Harris: Go to bed Navarro.

A black heart appeared almost immediately, stopping Harris in his tracks.

He had no idea whether the symbol required acknowledgment and, if so, what that acknowledgment would even look like. Sending one back seemed excessive. Ignoring it seemed safer, unless Jay had sent the thing specifically to see whether Harris would become confused by it.

Before he could make up his mind, another message arrived.

Jay: Sorry, wrong cowboy.

A laugh escaped before Harris could stop it.

Noah looked over from the yearling pen. “What?”

“Nothin’.”