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"Say it."

"I won't go anywhere alone."

I held her eyes another second, trying to put enough into mine to last her until I came back.

Then Hutchins walked me out.

Biscuit understood at the Bronco.

She had watched the cuffs with her body low and one ear flat, but when Hutchins opened the rear door, she came apart. Barking sharp and furious, throwing herself toward the vehicle until Cash caught her by the collar. She twisted free once and hit the running board with both front paws, gray muzzle at the glass, demanding correction from a world that had made an obvious mistake.

"Biscuit," I said.

She froze.

"Stay."

The old command. Dad's command before it was mine.

She dropped off the Bronco, shaking with the effort of obedience. Cash got both hands on her collar. Josie stood behind him on the apron, smaller than I'd seen her in weeks.

The Bronco moved.

Biscuit broke loose again.

She ran beside us through the yard, barking at the tires, then behind us down the long gravel drive until distance and age took her speed. In the rear window, I watched her become a small mottled shape between the fence lines, still coming, still furious, until the cattle guard took us onto the county road and she stopped at the boundary she'd spent ten years knowing.

She stood there barking long after I could no longer hear her.

***

The holding cell had not gotten bigger in five years, and neither had I gotten smaller.

The bunk ran six inches short. The wool blanket had county property stamped across it in black and smelled of dust, bleach, and old cold. Fluorescent tubes hummed overhead without pause, flattening the room into one long hour. Across the bars, Hutchins's desk sat in procedural order. Behind him, the bottom drawer held the first lie I'd let become law.

Now he had a second file open on top.

Processing took twenty-three minutes.

Bootlaces. Belt. Wallet. Questions answered. Rights read. Signature at the bottom. Hutchins did it all himself and did it correctly, which made hating him impossible and the cell no easier to enter.

When the door shut, I sat on the bunk and began the count.

Forty hours until the leading edge, less if the system kept moving fast.

One hundred forty close-up heifers.

Sixty pairs on the ground, give or take anything born since morning.

Four days of feed staged. Generator tested. Regulator ready. Near shelters mostly bedded except south, which needed half a bale and was likely done by now because Wyatt heard instructions even while telling a man to stop giving them.

Cash could gather stock. Better than anybody.

Wyatt could run the ranch.

Josie could run the barn.

Josie.