Patty stared at the crow for a few moments longer, then walked past it, into the house. She’d call her mother. That’s what she’d do. She’d describe the crow, spell out the precise chain of events, and see if her mother could figure it out.

The crow cawed once as she entered the house. Twice more at the precise second she picked up the kitchen phone to dial.

She wished Hube were here as well. He might have some smart answer for why the crow’s cries were timed so specifically to her movements, but she doubted that even he could fail to notice the correlation.

The line was busy, and she heard one more quick caw as she hung up the receiver. She opened the back door to check on the crow once again, but it was gone. She walked outside, hurried around the house, but it was nowhere to be seen. Not on the roof, not on the porch, not on the ground or any of the trees. She didn’t even see any birds in the sky. It was as if it had just disappeared.

She walked up the front steps of the house and turned for a moment to look at the view. She could see the Tetons, rising grandly up, the permanent snowcaps blending in with today’s white ceiling of autumn sky. Directly before her, on the other side of the pasture, the overgrown meadow, its grass brown and dry, sloped up and away from their ranch, the end of the meadow indistinguishable from the beginning of the foothills.

She looked to her right, past the garage at the side of the house, but saw no dust trail clouding up the road.

She wished Hube would hurry up and get back. He was supposed to have gone into town for coffee and bread flour, but it seemed like he’d been away for far too long. She hoped the truck hadn’t had engine trouble again. The last thing they needed was another mechanic’s bill. They were still paying off the water pump from July. They couldn’t afford to have anything else go wrong. Not with winter coming on.

Patty walked into the house, automatically stomping her feet on the outside of the doorsill though she hadn’t walked through any mud. She reached for the living-room phone on the small oak table next to the couch and was about to dial her mother’s number once again when out of the corner of her eye, through the mesh of the screen, she saw movement outside. She stopped, slowly put the receiver back in its cradle, and walked back over to the doorway.

She could see them coming from the mountains. Dozens of them. It looked like a small army, speeding down the side of the hill toward the sloping meadow.

A small army.