I’ve thought about marriage—of course I have—but no one seems to have taken a shine to me. It’s no secret I spend my days squatting in the creek bed or hefting a pickax or mucking the barn, that I have an eagle eye and a steady shot that brings in more game than Daddy ever did, even during his good spells. I might be forgiven my wild ways if I was handsome, but I’m not. My eyes are nice enough, as much gold as brown, just like Mama’s. But I have a way of looking at people that makes them prickly, or so Jefferson says, and he always says it with a grin, like it’s a compliment.

One time only did I mourn to Daddy about my lack of prospects. He just shrugged and said, “Strong chin, strong heart.” Then he kissed me quick on the forehead. I never complained again. My daddy knows my worth.

I suppose Jefferson does too, and my heart hurts to think of him leaving and me staying. But the truth is I’ve never thought of him in a marrying kind of way. And with an awful proposal like that, I don’t know that Jefferson’s too keen on the idea either.

A gunshot cracks through the hills, tiny and miles distant. A minute later, it’s followed by a second shot. Someone must be out hunting. I wish them luck.

By the time my wagon comes in view of the icy creek and the faint track that winds through the bare oaks toward home, I decide there’s no help for it but to talk everything out with Mama and Daddy. The three of us have some shared secrets among ourselves, sure, but we have none from one another.

Peony tosses her head, as if sensing my thoughts. No, it’s the surrounding woods that have put a twitch in her. They are too silent, too still.

“Everything’s fine, girl,” I say, and my voice echoes back hollowly.

As the leafless trees open up to reveal our sprawling homestead, right when I yell “Haw!” to round Peony toward the barn, something catches my eye.

A man’s boot. Worn and wrinkled and all alone, toppled into a snowbank against the porch.

“Daddy?” I whisper, frozen for the space of two heartbeats.

I leap from the bench, and my skirt catches on the wheel spoke, but I rip right through and sprint toward the house. I don’t get far before I fall to my knees, bent over and gasping.

Because Daddy lies on his back across the porch steps, legs spread-eagled, bootless. Crimson pools beneath his head and drips down the steps—tiny rapids of blood. His eyes are wide to the sky, and just above them, like a third eye in a brow paler than snow, is a dark bullet hole.