Unless a man had cattle to feed and water. Oh, the glorious life of a rancher. Sloan Sullivan sighed, his breath creating vapor in the frigid air that stung when drawn into his lungs. His right leg had been injured when a horse fell on him several months ago and now protested the extreme temperature. He didn’t have time to give it so much as a rub. He’d hurry and get the chores done so he could get off it and back to the cheery fire blazing in the old stone fireplace. Shivering, he turned up the collar of his wool coat and pulled his hat down low, bracing himself against the biting wind that swirled around him like an insistent saloon girl wanting to dance. The heavy snowfall created a blanket of white in all directions and wiped away all traces of the footsteps he’d just made. He’d seen storms like this on the Texas Panhandle, where no living thing survived long without refuge. But this particular storm was one of the fiercest he’d seen in years. A faint black outline through the curtain of falling snow caught his eye.
