Still, something in his face made me straighten.
“How bad?” I asked.
Grandpa chewed once on the inside of his cheek, a habit he had when he was thinking hard. “Bad enough.”
That was all he said, but it was enough to put a knot in my stomach.
Our ranch sat outside Buffalo, on a stretch of land my family had worked for three generations. Not huge by Wyoming standards, but enough to keep a man tired and proud. The house was an old white two-story with a green metal roof that sang in hailstorms. The main barn sat to the north, red once, weathered now. Beyond it were the corrals, loafing sheds, hay storage, and the long winter pasture where our horses were turned out when the weather allowed.
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