Her stomach dropped.
"Nathan."
He turned.
She pointed.
The wooden horse was gone.
For the first time since Emily had known him, Nathan Reed's hands began to shake.
Outside, the wind erased the yard beneath fresh snow, and somewhere beyond Double Pine, a 9-year-old girl was carrying everything she believed she owned inside a flower sack.
Nathan was moving before Emily reached the bottom stair.
"Henry."
The front door opened hard enough to strike the wall.
Within minutes, the ranch had come alive.
Henry and Robert saddled horses in the barn while Samuel filled a canvas bag with matches, rope, blankets, and a tin of coffee.
Jack ran toward the lower pasture to check whether any horse was missing.
Emily pulled on her coat.
Nathan came through the kitchen carrying his rifle and gloves.
His hands were still unsteady.
"How long since you saw her?"
"Maybe an hour. Maybe she was upstairs at 3."
Nathan closed his eyes for one second, then opened them.
"Could be anywhere."
"No."
He looked at Emily.
"She talked about a cabin."
"What cabin?"
Emily searched her memory.
"Two weeks ago, when we were stitching flower cloth, she told me her father used to take her somewhere in the high country. An old herder's cabin. She said there was a creek nearby and a pine bent like a crooked finger."
Nathan went still.
"I know it."
"How far?"
"Seven miles, maybe eight by winter trail."
Emily looked toward the window.
Snow struck the glass sideways.
"Would she know the way?"
"Her father took her there every summer."
Nathan headed for the door.
Emily followed.
He turned.
"No."
She stopped.
"No. What?"
"You're staying here."
"Nathan."
"I know that country and I know Lucy."
"Emily, this isn't a road into Red Willow. There are creek cuts under that snow deep enough to break a horse's leg."
"Then you'll know where they are."
"The wind's getting worse."
"Then stop spending time arguing."
His jaw tightened.
"You've barely ridden since coming here."
"I rode before I ever met you."
"Not into Black Ridge country in a storm."
Emily stepped closer.
"You promised not to make decisions concerning my life without speaking to me first."
"This isn't about your life."
"It becomes about my life the moment you order me to stay behind."
Nathan stared at her.
Behind them, nobody in the barn made a sound.
Emily lowered her voice.
"That child thinks she's ruining your life. If we find her frightened and half frozen, you may know every trail in Wyoming and still not know what words she'll believe."
Nathan looked away.
His eyes went toward the mountains, invisible now behind snow.
When he looked back, the fight had left his face.
"Stay beside me."
"I will."
"If I say stop, you stop."
"If there's a cliff, yes."
Emily, get my horse.
Henry coughed into his fist.
Nathan looked at him.
Henry immediately found important business with a saddle strap.
Ten minutes later, they rode out.
Nathan and Emily took the north trail toward the old cabin. Henry and Robert searched the lower road.
Samuel and Jack rode south along the creek in case Lucy had tried reaching Red Willow.
Snow had already buried most of the tracks near the house.
Nathan rode slowly at first, leaning from the saddle to study every depression.
Emily's cheeks burned beneath her scarf.
The world narrowed to white ground, dark trees, and Nathan's broad back ahead of her.
At the first fork, he stopped.
"Nothing."
Emily searched the brush.
A broken branch moved in the wind.
Then something blue flashed beneath it.
"Wait."
She dismounted.
"Emily."
She pushed through knee-deep snow and pulled a small strip of cloth from a thorn.
"Blue ribbon."
Nathan stared at it.
"That's hers."
Emily turned the strip between her fingers.
"The ribbon on the horse could have torn."
Emily looked ahead.
Twenty yards farther stood another clump of brush.
She walked toward it.
Another blue strip had been tied around a twig.
"Not torn."
"Tied."
"She's marking the trail."
Nathan swung down.
For the first time that afternoon, something like hope crossed his face.
"Smart girl."
They followed the ribbon.
Sometimes the pieces were 50 yards apart, sometimes farther. Each one seemed impossibly small against the storm.
Nathan led them through a stand of lodgepole pine where the wind weakened, then down toward a creek hidden beneath ice and drifting snow.
"Stay where I ride," he called.
Emily did.
At the crossing, Nathan's horse suddenly sank to its knees.
Emily's breath caught.
Nathan pulled the animal backward instead of forward, talking low until it regained solid ground.
He pointed left.
Snow covered the old crossing.
He searched until he found a safer place upstream.
They lost nearly 20 minutes.
By late afternoon, the light had begun fading.
Emily's fingers hurt inside her gloves.
Nathan stopped beneath a pine.
"We turn back if we don't find another marker soon."
Emily looked at him.
"You don't mean that."
"Dark catches us in open country."
"Lucy could lose all three of us."
"You'd keep going alone."
Nathan said nothing.
Emily understood.
"You'd send me back and keep riding."
"I'd try."
"Then don't ask me to do something you wouldn't."
His face tightened.
"You're making this difficult."
"I believe you knew that before marrying me."
Despite everything, Nathan gave one short breath that might almost have been a laugh.
Then Emily saw blue there.
The next ribbon was tied to a low juniper branch.
Beyond it, the trail climbed sharply.
Nathan knew where Lucy was going now.
"The cabin's over that rise."