Morning light filtered through the window, warming her face. She opened her eyes toward the light—and was startled by a dark splotch against the windowpane, a sudden clang, a thud and blackness spreading, followed by a sticky red dripping.

She screamed.

Chance barged into the bathroom. “Mujer?”

She was on her feet, her hands over her mouth, staring at a smashed crow.

Chance’s eyebrows furrowed, and he breathed out an exclamation in Zuni she didn’t understand. “Did it fly into the window? Or …?”

Her stomached cinched. “Or what?”

“Stay here.”

He flustered out the door as she resocked and booted, then scurried after him.

Eunjoo sat at the dining room table eating a granola bar while Mara stood in the kitchen, her rifle on the counter. She asked what was going on, but Calliope only rushed past.

At the front door, Chance saw Calliope following and chuckled, shaking his head like Ay, mujer—there was no commanding Calliope. The icy air nipped at her face and hands as she stepped outside. The sky wore a purplish-blue haze, although clear of clouds, the early morning sun shining bright. It was the clearest she’d seen the sky since before her crash on the Río Grande bridge. Easily three inches of snow enshrouded the yard in incandescent white, but the sun was already melting the ice on the porch rafters, drops of water trickling off the roof, down the beams, wetting the floorboards. Careful not to slip, Calliope caught up to Chance, her camper’s sweatshirt brushing against his flannel. She stayed a step behind but close enough to smell his unshowered mustiness mixed with wood smoke from the fireplace.

He spoke softly in Zuni. “Ulohnan uteya k’ohanna pottiye.”

“What’s that mean?”

“The world is filled with white flowers.” He kept one hand on his rifle, still slung over his shoulder.

The bird’s neck was broken in half, its body at a right angle to its head. Chance drew nearer to the scene than Calliope could tolerate; she turned away, leaned against the porch rail, searching for the dead crow’s flock. She wrapped her arms around her chest. What would make a bird fly into a closed window? Especially a frosted pane?

“Chance?”

“Hmm?” He pulled a pair of work gloves from his back pocket. Had those always been there? She hadn’t noticed. Her cheeks burned when she realized what she was staring at. She looked away.

“What did you mean it could have flown or? What are you insinuating?”

He pinched the bird corpse with a gloved hand, studying it. “It was used as a projectile.”

“Thrown?”

“Right.”

“By whom?”

“Exactly.”

She squinted into the bright white yard.

“Who would throw a bird at a window? That’s ridiculous.”

“For a person, yes.”

She sighed. “About that … Chance … Suuke? Really? I don’t, I just can’t … buy it.”