Peter narrowed his eyes. “He exaggerates. Anyway, that’s my Cooper. He’s just like you. And I love him.”

The girl raked her front teeth over her bottom lip and said nothing.

“I love him more than anything.”

“We can’t be trusted,” said the girl. “We’re dangerous.”

“Is that you talking or the men who are on their way up to the cabin?”

“Men?” She laughed like that would be a relief somehow. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then tell me. We know the gangs that operate around these parts.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. One guy took Cooper just so he had someone to protect him from the Dead. So, tell us.”

“The Harrisons.”

Peter shook his head. “Sorry. Who?”

“Sweet boy, you think it’s all cowboys and Indians out here.”

“I don’t. Cooper was traded in for medicines by our own community when he returned, so I don’t think any such thing.”

The girl’s amusement slipped from her face as she took his words, and him, seriously for the first time. She gazed through the window where the sun hung low like a fireball inside the forest, as if trying to discern her fate in the darkening sky beyond, and Peter knew he’d finally reached her.

“Ray and Pat Harrison are on their way over,” she said. “Our nearest neighbours. You can see their cabin on the other side of the ridge from here.”

Peter made his way over to the door next to Cooper and peered through the veil of snow to the hill on the other side. The cabin was mostly hidden, packed inside terraces of snowy pine. Then he saw the smoke wending its way up through the treetops and light from two windows glinted from inside the woods.

“Daddy’s waitin’ it out at their place while they come here for me,” said the girl.

“Why?”

“Because he did the same for them when their boy Billy returned from death, too. I didn’t know it at the time, I thought they were just paying us a visit with offers of soup and a game of cards. But the Harrisons were just waiting here while Daddy saw to him.”

“But why?”

The girl shrugged. “Because they made a pact. And because nobody wants to admit to killing their own child. I guess Daddy’s over there eatin’ soup and playin’ cards right now. Now he’s made a ghost of me.”

Peter looked away as if to give the girl’s proclamation some privacy and Cooper almost seemed to disappear beneath the brim of his Stetson.

“The whole world’s made ghosts of us, miss,” he said.

“Yes. But ain’t that only right?”

“No,” said Cooper. “No, it ain’t.”

“But I coulda hurt them.”

“But you wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t I?”

“No,” said Peter. “You wouldn’t.”

“Why not? How do you even know that?”

“Because—”

The girl shrugged. “Well?”

“Because—”