Shane, who had postponed his visit to North Village as long as he could, started out Wednesday morning in the tail end of a storm that had dumped more than two feet of new snow over Elk Gap and dropped the temperature at least twenty degrees. Fortunately someone with a wagon and a team had driven through around dawn, so Midnight did not have a struggle until they started up the North Village trail. With equanimity he stepped into the unbroken drifts under the winter-bare trees, picking up his hooves as they climbed. Shane’s stomach tightened as he approached the first ford that crossed the creek, doubly treacherous now that the trail was obscured. But he knew he would never look at that crossing the same way again if he lived to be a hundred, because only a short while ago in that selfsame spot he had come perilously close to dying. He stopped Midnight at the bank and scanned the trees for danger, real or imaginary, then touched the horse’s flanks again and let him pick his own way between the stones that lined the creek bed.
