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I climbed the ladder.

My legs complained on the sixth rung.

Boone did not comment from below, which meant he was exercising survival instinct.

The loft was warmer than the barn and held the dry, close smell of old hay. Dust moved through the flashlight beam. Forty years of Calloway storage stood in rows that had once made sense to somebody.

Grandfather's tack hung from square nails.

Crates held cracked halters, bits blackened with age, old ledgers, gate hardware, and enough baling twine to restrain the state of Montana. A child-sized saddle sat beneath a canvas tarp. Cash's, probably. I could imagine Wyatt having been born too serious to ride anything that small and Boone having outgrown it before anybody finished tightening the cinch.

I found the north wall.

One crate.

Two.

The third sat behind stacked panels.

"Of course," I muttered.

Below, a gate clanged.

Biscuit barked once.

I leaned the flashlight against a post and shifted the first panel. It scraped over the floorboards. Dust rose around my knees.

The second panel had caught behind a cardboard box.

I pulled it forward.

CHRISTMAS — PORCH.

The letters were black and heavy.

I knew that hand.

It covered the old calving books. It appeared on faded feed charts and repair notes. Big John's writing had no curves it could avoid.

Behind the first box sat two more.

CHRISTMAS — DRIVE.

CHRISTMAS — TREE.

All taped shut.

I sat back on my heels.

The panel brackets waited in the crate behind me.

I forgot them.

Cash had told me about the lights once.

Not as a story. As an answer.

We had been driving the ranch road after dark in April, and I had noticed hooks set into the posts at regular intervals.