A light snow began to fall, the flakes streaming into the headlights. He thought he might have missed the turn for the ranch until he saw the 8T8 brand on a slab of cottonwood a dozen feet above the front gate. The tires of the Cadillac rattled over the cattle guard. Fence posts, windmills, the occasional bunch of cattle wearing the same brand swam out of the headlights. The snow fell harder and the wind picked up and it was hard to see the road with the blowing snow. He slowed a bit to watch for the turn where the lane came to the big house, but he didn’t see it. He drove on until he was sure he had traveled at least eight miles from the front gate. He still could not see the house. It was not until he spotted a cluster of windmills and stock tanks that he knew where he was. He had somehow overshot the last turn. He was headed down a sidetrack that was taking him due west, away from home. He found a wide spot in the road where he could turn around and gunned it back to the east.

Eli had to grin at his foolishness. It would have been impossible to get lost on the hundred and sixty acres of his original homestead in Nebraska, but on the hundred thousand acres of the 8T8 here in Powder River country, there was plenty of room for a man to lose his bearings. In the snow, everything looked strange. A rise that should have led up to Ezra’s house appeared on the right side of the road rather than the left, and there were cottonwood trees where a holding corral should be. Perhaps he was mistaken and he had turned onto the old army trail that angled across his land. He rubbed his eyes and tried through a haze of fatigue to figure out where he had gone wrong. He sped up, certain that, if he could drive fast enough, the house would appear—but nothing was right. The landmarks were so unfamiliar that he began to wonder if he hadn’t driven off the ranch altogether.

The road had dwindled to little more than a cattle trail, a rough one at that. He was looking for a place where he could stop and get his bearings when the Cadillac rounded a sharp curve going much too fast and hit a deep, spine-jarring rut and then another. The wheels dropped off a cutbank that was invisible in the snow and the big car was airborne, sailing like a blimp released from its moorings. The wheels came down so hard he bit his tongue, there was a thump as the car rolled over, and another bang and he was lying in the snow twenty feet from the car, broken and bleeding. The Caddy came to rest on the passenger side, its wheels still spinning.