Weather had become impossible to predict. It had rained and snowed and rained again. Now the late-afternoon sky spit down at them, a freezing mixture of sleet and rain. Water pooled on the ground, turned to sheets of dirty, weed-studded ice. Leni had to do her chores in muck. After feeding the goats and chickens, she trudged into the woods behind the house, carrying two empty buckets. The cottonwoods were bare; autumn had turned them into skeletons. Everything with a heartbeat was hunkered down somewhere, trying to get out of the sleet and rain.

As she walked down toward the river, a cold wind pulled at her hair, whined across her jacket. She hunched her shoulders and kept her head down.

It took five trips to fill the steel water barrel they kept at the side of the house. Rain helped but couldn’t be relied upon. Water, like firewood, could never be left to chance.

She was sweating hard, scooping a bucket of water from the creek, slopping it across her boots, when night fell. And she meant fell; it hit hard and fast, like a lid clanging down on its pot.

When Leni turned homeward, she saw an endless black expanse. Nothing distinguishable, no stars overhead, no moon to light a path.

She fumbled in her parka pocket for the headlamp her dad had given her. She adjusted the strap and put it on, snapping the light switch. She pulled a pistol out of its holster, stuck it in her waistband.

Her heart was hammering in her chest as she bent down and picked up the two buckets she’d filled with water. The metal handles bit into her gloved hands.

The icy rain turned to snow, stung her cheeks and forehead.

Winter.

The bears aren’t in hibernation yet, are they? They are most dangerous now, feeding hungrily before going to sleep.

She saw a pair of yellow eyes staring at her from the darkness.

No. She was imagining it.

The ground beneath her changed, gave way. She stumbled. Water sloshed out of the buckets and onto her gloves. Don’tpanicDon’tpanicDon’tpanic.

Her headlight revealed a fallen log in front of her. Breathing hard, she stepped over it, heard the screech of bark against her jeans, and kept going; up a hill, down one, around a dense black thicket. Finally, up ahead, she saw a glimmer.

Light.

The cabin.

She wanted to run. She was desperate to get home, to feel her mother’s arms around her, but she wasn’t stupid. She had already made one mistake—she hadn’t kept track of time.

As she neared the cabin, the night separated a little. She saw charcoal outlines against the black: the sheen of the metal stovepipe poking up through the roof, a side window full of light, the shadow of people inside. The air smelled of wood smoke and welcome.