There was no storm to chase summer away, and trees had not yet written their leafy epitaph … but it was fall. Max felt the change, seasons in Montana more sensible to feeling than to calendars. Days were wilting still in summer heat, but mornings came with an edge to them, bumping against him as he lay in his blankets on the prairie. And each evening, God painted the sky with such color that even He must weep with the joy of it. Max had shared one of those evenings with Catherine. He had walked east with the horses that afternoon toward the dugout, watching the light play across the prairie ahead of him. Behind, the sky was practicing with subtle shades of pinks, purples, golds, and blues as an orchestra warms itself before a performance. At the corral, Max had unharnessed the horses, giving them an extra ration of oats in celebration of having finished seeding the winter wheat. He left the gate of the corral open so they could leave to graze on the cool grass of the creek bottom, and then he hurried to the dugout, knocking before entering the door he had built a couple of weeks before.
