Dreams were one thing. Blackouts that left you unable to account for your actions were another. Sam had wrestled with his damaged memory since waking at Stoke, trying in vain to recall how he came to be in the truck. The part of it all that stung him hard was the blood. There was no escape from the fact. His face, his chin to be exact, had been covered in thick, dried, blackened blood. Sam had woken in the warm truck to find himself half-way up the pass from Stoke, on the edge of the highway with the engine running. He had sat in the cab for at least five minutes trying to figure out what the hell had gotten him there, until a glance in the rear-view mirror let him catch sight of his face. Everything below his nose was black with it. It caked his face like a kid’s first chocolate brownie at a party.

His first thought was that he was dying. The panic that rose in his breast sent images of Katie and the kids whirling in front of his eyes, and although he wasn’t aware of it at the time, he had croaked Katie’s name as his hands flew to his face.

But the blood was old, and Sam was not wounded. Half-falling from the cab into the road, he scrubbed at his face with handfuls of snow until the blood, and what felt like most of his head, had finally disappeared.

Now, faced with the grinding normality of the first of the morning’s skiers clattering onto the chair, the incident felt like a distant and vile nightmare. Except that Sam knew it had been real.

The cold was real, too. And the conditions were hellish. All this snow might be good for business, but only if it would damn well stop. It was clear right now, but the blizzards had been rolling in and out of Silver like they’d been ordered. Huge dumps aren’t much use if the pass keeps closing. This morning, it was minus twenty at the lodge and Sam shovelled like a fevered gold prospector to keep his circulation going.

The Beaver took three-at-a-time on a chair that should have been junked ten years ago. Skiers were arriving at his hut in ones and twos, warming up with the first run of the day down what the instructors called a pussy run. This was where Sam was supposed to say have a nice day and enjoy your run as he steadied the chair for them and swept the snow off the seat with a broom. Today, it was unlikely Sam would win bonus money for being employee of the month. In fact, the skiers would be lucky if he looked at them. Sam Hunt was in a very far-away place.