Gradually, he let himself sink into the snow, still warmed by the burning wreck. A skimpy moon was up on the horizon, swimming through thin clouds that were now spitting just a few flakes of snow, lighting the expanse of snow around him. He wiped his forehead. His hand came away smeared with congealed blood. If he died here, he would die because of his own plain damned foolishness. Juanita had begged him to find a hotel in Casper. A man with a lick of sense would have listened to her, even if she was part of the reason he was in such an all-fired hurry to get home. He could have stayed with his daughter Ruby way back on Sheep Creek, just this side of the Wyoming state line, or any number of places in between. Instead, he had pushed on like a stubborn fool and put himself in as bad a fix as he had ever known. No fool like an old fool, they said, and he was an old fool. He watched the blaze chew at the tires of the Cadillac, the black smoke pouring from inside the wheel wells and from the spares, which had rolled away from the front fenders after the leather strap that held them burned through. The burned automobile still gave off a pulsating heat that warmed his legs and his torso. It was possible he might live until dawn. Maybe someone would find him yet before it was too late.

He drifted off into a waking dream. When he opened his eyes, it was much colder and Spotted War Bonnet, the friend of his youth, crouched at his side, saying something in an Indian tongue he did not understand. He answered in Lakota, but War Bonnet went on speaking in the strange tongue. He gestured toward a pinto that was tied fifty feet away and muttered something. At last Eli understood. Spotted War Bonnet had ridden out to usher his old friend into the spirit world.

4.