He stepped back into the darkening shadow of the trees as the rumble from the tunnel indicated that the train was nearly through. It was just in time. The last car glided out of the dark arch and moved past with a diminishing screech, leaving the track in a sudden and unnerving silence.

Calvin was alarmed to see Sam so near. He was standing only yards away at the entrance to the tunnel, his back to Calvin, staring out over the top of the pines to the lower track, where already the front of the freight train had emerged from the second corkscrew inside the mountain. He stood barefoot in the snow, his boots still strung around his strong neck and Calvin’s heart rolled in his breast at the sight of that thick, shining black hair and the set of those square shoulders. The branches above Calvin rustled again. It was time. Because there was no time.

He stepped out slowly from the trees and stood on the edge of the rail that was dripping and snowless from the passage of the train. He could see the breath from Sam’s mouth clouding around his head. It was as though he had seen this picture of him before, a picture that might have been painted on velvet and sold to tourists in lobby arcade shops: the figure of a tall man, looking out over the tops of pines to the towering mountains beyond, his breath freezing on the evening air as though he were some frosty prince wearily surveying his magnificent kingdom. Calvin clenched his fists, the good hand performing the act more neatly than the bad.

‘Sam.’

He said it quietly, softly. And just as gently, as if Sam’s body were responding to the tone of the tranquil voice, he turned around. The face was bloodied where it had grazed against the rock, but it was no less beautiful for its wounds. Calvin’s heart lost its light anticipation to become an organ of lead, as those deep black eyes scanned his face with an expression of fear, hatred and suspicion. He spoke again, in Cree, with the same quiet tone.

‘Look into my face, Sam. You will see no darkness. This is flesh. Old and tired flesh, but the real flesh of a man.’

Sam looked. He looked hard and long at the old man standing on the other side of the rail track. If this was another trick it was a horrible one. Calvin Bitterhand had been a handsome man. Tall, though not as tall as Sam, his long black hair braided and thick and his eyes always fiery with intelligence and purpose. This thing that stood before him now was nothing like Calvin. It was a wrinkled old bum, stooping and broken.