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My hands were shaking on the wheel, but they were capable hands. Scarred hands. Working hands. Hands Doc trusted. Hands Boone kissed not because they were small but because they were mine.

"I'm needed."

That was the sentence.

The truck climbed into darker country. Cell service dropped to one bar, returned, disappeared again. The radio signal dissolved at the edges, the warning voice going rough with static and coming clear long enough to say heavy at times.

Ahead, the road became two faint trenches through gathering white.

I slowed to twenty-five.

The mountains had vanished. The fields had vanished. The whole world narrowed to the small reach of my headlights and the next reflector post appearing out of dark.

But west was still west.

Carrow Creek was still there.

And I drove toward it while the snow came down harder.

Chapter 17

Boone

The wind found the county building before daylight and spent the rest of the night trying to get in.

Loose metal worked somewhere on the roof. Three taps, a scrape, three taps again. The fluorescent tube hummed without changing pitch. The whole building sounded awake.

I hadn't slept.

I sat on the short bunk with Josie's note opened across my palm and counted what I couldn't reach.

One hundred forty close-up heifers.

Sixty pairs, likely more now.

Thirty-odd miles of fence.

A storm coming faster than forecast.

One small truck gone west.

At four-forty, snow started ticking against the windows. At five, it became a hiss. By five-fifteen, the windows had turned into dull gray squares with nothing behind them.

Hutchins came through the outer door at five-twenty-three.

He took off his Stetson, knocked snow from it against his leg, and looked toward the cell. He carried three printed pages in one hand. His coffee thermos was absent. That told me more than his face.

He set the pages on his desk.

"Mr. Calloway."

I stood.

"Open it."

He didn't tell me he couldn't. Didn't tell me to sit down. He put on the reading glasses hanging from their cord and looked at the first page.

"At three-oh-four this morning, the county inbox received an email from Josie Marsh. Same material was sent to Wyatt Calloway. Screenshots attached."