She watched the four-wheeler disappear around a corner and chewed the inside of her lip. Part of her was annoyed Jeremy thought Earl was doing something wrong, but what if he was right? How long could Earl keep riding that old Yamaha around before someone got hurt? Something like that would never be allowed to happen in Santa Clara.

Sometimes the upsides of living in a small town were also the downsides. And vice versa.

As they continued walking, Jeremy checked his phone. “I’m not getting any reception.”

“It’s spotty all through the foothills.”

“What’s the elevation here?”

“About forty-eight hundred feet in town, but it gets up to six, seven thousand when you go through Bridger Canyon.”

He pointed over his shoulder. “How high is that peak?”

“Around ninety-five hundred or so.”

It was a long way up from Santa Clara, which sat pretty much at sea level. The air was heavier down there, similar to Atlanta, where they had met. Jeremy had been attending Georgia Tech, while she’d chosen Georgia State University in response to an overwhelming urge to escape Moose Creek after her mother died. So much for that.

They turned south on Town Road and exchanged the hard-packed dirt for a sidewalk. Town Road was the best-kept road in Moose Creek since it was part of Highway 288.

“Where does everyone work?” Jeremy asked.

“At the school mostly, but jobs are scarce. There are a few small businesses. Some people drive the canyon to Ponderosa every day.”

“How far is that?”

“About forty-five minutes when the roads are good.”

Bea glanced to her left at the mountain. It rose above the town with an air of authority, every peak and crevice distinct today.

Jeremy smiled. “And Ponderosa is where all the buildings are?”

She smiled back. “Yep.”

“We’ll have to drive over there and check it out sometime this week.”

“Sure. It’s easy to get there now.”

“Not easy when it snows?”

“Well, there’s an arm on I-90 that goes down and closes the road when the weather is really bad. The crosswind can blow strong enough to tip a semi. Then you have to go the long way through the canyon.”

“And that’s not as easy?”

“No.” She shrugged. “But that’s just how it is.”

She thought back to the horror stories Dad used to tell her when she first got her license. He’d wanted to discourage her from ever attempting the long way to Ponderosa by herself and gave her the “people die ten feet from their front doors in a blizzard” lecture more times than she could count. Drivers needed to be careful in the snow, of course, but his stories had been exaggerated for her benefit, she was sure. Leftover tales from Montana’s untamed pioneer days. He’d never been able to tell her exactly who these people were who couldn’t find their own houses in a storm.