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Rick looked at him with the expression of a man who had known him his entire life and had opinions he was generously choosing not to share in full. “Right,” he said. “Well. Good trail.”

He paid for the weatherstripping and left.

Shane looked at the crossed out exterior caulk.

He looked at the door.

He looked at Doug, who was annotating inventory at the counter with the focused serenity of a man who had heard every word of that conversation and was absolutely not going to bring it up.

“Don’t,” Shane said.

“Wasn’t going to say anything,” Doug said.

“Good.”

“Beautiful views from the ridge in December.”

“Doug.”

“Clear weather coming.”

“I have things to do Saturday.”

“You do,” Doug agreed. “You always do.” He turned a page. “First names,” he said, after a moment, in the tone of someone returning to a subject they’d been patient about. “Roy used to say that first names were the beginning of something. Said once you’ve said a person’s name like it’s the only word in the room, you’ve already made a decision. You just haven’t admitted it yet.”

Shane said nothing.

“Inventory needs doing in the back,” Doug said pleasantly. “If you’re looking for something to do.”

Shane went to do inventory.

He stood in the back room among the organized shelving and the smell of the hardware store and thought about a classroom in the early morning and frost on the ground outside and the way the light had fallen through a window he’d just fixed.

He thought about Saturday.

He thought about clear weather.

He thought about a trail he’d walked his whole life that he’d never shown anyone.

He stayed in the back room longer than the inventory required.

When he came out Doug was on the phone and didn’t look up, which was either coincidental or merciful and Shane chose not to examine which.

He found the next thing on the list.

He did it.

He thought about Saturday the whole time.

* * *

He was at the trailhead at ten to nine on Saturday morning.

He had not brought any tools. He’d noticed that halfway there, the empty seat beside him where the toolbox usually rode, and he had kept driving.

The gravel lot sat on the east side of town where the last houses gave out and the lodgepole began. The sky over the ridge was the hard, clean blue that only came with real cold. Frost on every blade of grass. Snow on the peaks, the way Rick had said, and the valley still bare and brown below them, waiting.

Jake Morrison pulled in at nine exactly with a thermos the size of a fire extinguisher and a box of hand warmers he had bought for everyone.