But fate—fate had other plans.
Something dark lay near the half-frozen creek.
At first Eli thought it was a dead animal. A calf maybe. Or a coyote that had misjudged the cold and paid for it. Out here, winter collected bodies the way the prairie collected dust.
But there was something about the shape.
Too still.
Too… human.
A strip of fabric lifted in the wind, snapping once like a flag in distress. For one heartbeat it looked like a dress hem, dark against the white.
Eli’s pulse quickened.
He could have ignored it. He could have ridden on and pretended he never saw it. Trouble was easy to find in the West, and harder still to leave behind once it chose you.
He could have told himself it wasn’t his business.
He could have told himself it was too late.
But something inside him—something that had lived in him since he was a boy—wouldn’t let him.
A memory of his sister Sarah.
The one he couldn’t save.
That memory rose up like a hand on his reins, slowing him whether he wanted it to or not.
Eli turned Jupiter toward the creek.
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