Hadley used to watch her do that across the breakfast table and think he was the luckiest man in Wyoming Territory. He still had the mug. Washed it twice a week. Set it back on the shelf where she used to keep it. Seven years since she'd touched it.
He still washed it. The cabin would be quiet when he got back. It was always quiet now. That particular kind of quiet that isn't peaceful. The kind that has weight.
That presses against your ears. That makes you aware of every small sound your own body makes just to fill up the space. He hadn't planned for this kind of life. Nobody plans for this kind of life. But here he was.
40 years old in January, checking fence posts that were probably already beyond saving on a ranch that was running fine but felt hollow. Like a barn with good walls and nothing inside, Rex stopped. Not a gradual slowing, a full stop, all four hooves planted. Hadley sat up straighter, scanned the white. At first he saw nothing.
Just snow and more snow and the dark shapes of the pine cluster up ahead where the north fence ran along the tree line. He'd repaired that section back in November. Should have held through spring. Then he saw them, two dark shapes in the snow, just there against the base of the trees, half buried, not moving. His stomach went cold in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature.
He'd found people out here before. Not often, but enough. Wanderers who underestimated the Wyoming winter, men who pushed their luck one stretch too far. It never got easier. The looking, the not knowing what you were about to find.
He nudged Rex forward, the horse went reluctantly, more slowly, but went. ten yards out Hadley could see they were people, two of them, lying close together. Their clothing frosted solid, their hair dark and stiff with ice. 20 feet away he could see they were women, young, indigenous. He dismounted before Rex fully stopped. The snow was knee-deep in places and he pushed through it without thinking, without planning.
Just moving because stopping wasn't something his body knew how to do when it mattered. He dropped to his knees beside the first woman, pressed his gloved fingers near her mouth, faint breath. A ghost of warmth, barely. But there. He was already reaching for the second woman when his eyes caught it.