He loaded the supplies into the bed of his rusted ’92 Ford and drove the eight miles back to his property, a narrow strip of land backed against a rise of timber and rock. Forty acres sounded like a lot until a man actually tried to make a living off it. Half of Caleb’s acreage was scrub pine and uneven slope. Ten acres were open enough for a few goats and a garden. The trailer on the property had been left by the previous owner, along with a caved-in chicken coop and a sagging pole barn that lost a new board every time the wind got opinionated.
He parked near the trailer and stood a moment, looking up at what the town was calling his “grass roof.”
It was not much yet—just a low timber frame set into the south-facing hillside twenty yards beyond the trailer, partially banked with earth, roofed with rough-cut poles, boards, tar paper, and a thick layer of sod he had been cutting from an overgrown stretch near the creek. It looked strange if a person expected a cabin. It looked primitive if a person judged by appearances. But Caleb had not built it to impress anybody.
He had built it because he knew winter.
And winter, unlike neighbors, did not care how foolish something looked.
