Walking was warmer than standing still. That was for sure. But Calvin Bitterhand’s legs were swollen and aching, throbbing behind the knees like they were going to explode. The cowboy boots that he’d worn for eighteen months, through every season then the same again, slipped in the snow as though they were skates. Nothing was left of the sole on the left boot except a thin piece of split leather and that had come away from the seam round the heel. It slapped loose and then snapped shut again with every step, shovelling snow into the boot like it was meant to. His feet were in worse shape than his legs.

Only fifteen miles west out of Calgary and his old ruined body was yelling at him to stop. Getting this far in the storm had taken him a ridiculous fourteen hours, twelve of those through the night, and three times now since dawn, when he’d seen a pick-up or car driven by Indians, he had been tempted to thumb a ride. But his heart and his knowledge told him that he needed to be pure, to atone for his sins. And walking was the only way.

His food was gone now. The stomach that hadn’t eaten properly for two days had at first rejected the sandwiches the girl on First Street had given him, making him puke up shrimp outside a motel on Sixteenth Avenue. But gradually he packed away the rest, devouring the dainty deli sandwiches like an animal, ripping at them, cramming handfuls into his gap-toothed mouth as he walked, caring little if people saw him and turned away in disgust. But now the sandwiches were gone and he was hungry again. Hungry, cold and tired enough to lie in a grave.

He bent against the wind and kept walking, cars throwing up slush as they cruised past him on the country road. He’d long since left behind sidewalks and was now in the commuter belt, the land of ranches that weren’t really ranches at all. Just city people who like to play at being ranchers by having a big brown-and-white stallion sitting out in a stable and a white corral fence round a bit of grass. Even when it was just a horse and a house.