Cooper looked back, the dark of his eyes glinting beneath the brim of his Stetson. Briefly he held Peter’s gaze. But his eyes didn’t tell him he loved him. Not this time. They were saying something else. Peter cocked his head to one side to ask him what it was, but Cooper just flicked his collar up around his neck to shield it from the snow and stood there smiling at him for what felt like the longest time, or maybe just for the first time in a long time. Whatever they were about to do, whatever they were about to discover, it was the reason Cooper had come. This was what all the Returnees were meant for. Peter could feel it so clearly now, and the glint in Cooper’s eyes was brighter than a cowboy’s spurs after rain, brimming with pride that Peter was by his side in life to bear witness to it.

Cooper doffed his Stetson. “We meet back here in twenty minutes,” he said. “And remember, if they don’t got no uniform on, we won’t be able to make the others see.”

Peter didn’t know what Cooper meant by that. But before there was any time to ask, he, Emmett and Earle ran off inside the snow and Becky started to make her own way up Mainstreet, beckoning for him to follow. Peter hesitated, listening to the broken lights of Mainstreet jostle and clink in the flurrying snow above him.

“It’s their time,” said Tokala, standing at his side. “But they want so very much for you to be a part of it.”

Peter nodded, even though he still didn’t feel he had a right to be a part of anything, let alone understand what he was being invited to be a part of.

“I found a document,” he said. “It said that when the Dead first attacked, the Returnees were trying to warn everyone of humankind’s extinction. The government at the time thought they meant to cause that harm themselves. But they didn’t. I think they suspected that people were going to do something to hurt themselves. I still don’t know what, but I reckon you all think that too.”

“Then follow that feeling,” said Tokala. “And follow the others now and see where it takes you.”

Becky turned back, urging Peter to stay close, so he walked on. And soon Tokala was so small standing at the foot of Mainstreet beneath the hills that he very nearly wasn’t there at all. Just a red smudge of his ski jacket inside the veiling snow. But it was a comfort knowing he was. And his friendship was a comfort, one that somewhere along the line Peter had simply stopped seeking. He walked on and his thoughts turned to the sheriff and then to Teddy. Always back to Teddy.