Page 1

Chapter One

JOSIAH

The bull in the Iron Creek post office has eaten most of the Sears catalog and shows no interest in leaving.

He's wedged between the counter and the wall of brass mailboxes, jaw working, tail swishing at the flyer for Saturday's bake sale. Edna Birch stands on the stool behind her register with a broom held out bristles first, gray bun coming loose, glasses crooked on her nose.

"Sheriff." Her voice climbs an octave. "He came in when Harold held the door."

"Harold always holds the door."

"Not for livestock!"

Sergeant sits at my boot, ears up, studying the bull with the professional interest he gives everything bigger than him. He glances at me. He wants permission to handle this his way, which would end with a stampede through the front window and Edna in the hospital in Durango.

"Stay."

He stays. Good dog. Better manners than half the men in this county.

That's Gus's bull. Dumpling. Eighteen hundred pounds of black Angus with the temperament of a golden retriever and the brains of a fence post. Gus named him when he was a calf small enough to carry, and the name stuck long after the calf stopped being carryable.

I pull out my phone and call.

"Josiah." Gus answers on the first ring, which means he already knows.

"Your bull's in the post office."

"He likes the post office. It's warm in there."

"Edna's standing on furniture, Gus."

A long sigh crackles over the line. "Grain bucket's in the back of my truck. I'm parked at the feed store."

The feed store is across the street. Gus's truck is unlocked, because every truck in Iron Creek is unlocked. The grain bucket sits in the bed next to a coil of rope and a thermos older than me. Back in the post office, Dumpling lifts his massive head the second he hears the rattle of corn.

"Easy, big man." I keep my voice low, shake the bucket once, then take a slow step backward toward the door. "Breakfast is outside."

He considers this. He considers Edna. He considers the remaining pages of the catalog.

Then he follows me.

Edna whimpers as the back half of Dumpling swings past her counter. The bell over the door jangles. Dumpling squeezes onto the sidewalk and blinks into the October sun, bits of paper stuck to his wet nose, while I back him down the ramp and into the street. By the time Gus jogs over from the feed store, his bull is buried face first in the bucket in the middle of Main Street, and Harold is taking pictures with his phone.

"You're a good man," Gus says, taking the rope.

"Fix your gate."

"I fixed the gate."

"Fix it again."

He grins, all gums and sun wrinkles. Fifteen years ago this old man towed my dead truck off the pass and sat me down at his kitchen table with a plate of eggs, and somewhere between the eggs and the second pot of coffee, I forgot I'd been headed to Denver. He's been adopting strays his whole life. I happened to be the one that stuck.

Deputy Lyle Pruitt skids his cruiser to the curb, lights flashing for no reason, and climbs out tucking in his shirt. He's twenty six and eager. He is also very late.

"I'm here, Sheriff. I heard it on the scanner."

"It's handled."