He was alert before his eyes opened, listening to a murmur of words scatter above him. He opened an eye, found snow an inch or so from his face, obeyed an instinct that told him lie still. The pain in his head was sharp and stunning and pulsed in throbbing waves. His first thoughts came jumbled. Ungraspable.

Matty somewhere. In a house.

Call if I’m not back by dark.

An axe.

He’d had just enough time to feel panic when he was hefted to his knees. Bright sunlight. Only one eye would focus.

“So the little dog wakes.”

Three tall men loomed over him, dark figures of menace, some wearing guns, their faces blurred by sunlight that came from behind them. Jack felt a powerful need to run to the truck or into the trees. The truck—too far. The trees. He squinted and saw the axe in the hands of one man, who smiled. A dental grill shone gold on his front teeth.

A voice spoke that sounded like Red.

“You shouldn’t have come to me, Jack.”

Jack aimed his good eye at Red. His head felt thick. He was cold and the sun was setting, and there was bitter wind coming down the rocky slopes.

“I warned you,” Red said. “I warned you, and you wouldn’t listen.”

The ground swayed under Jack. The right side of his face was wet. He touched the swelling and tried to focus his blurry eye, but it was stretched tight and fattened half-shut. Blood trickled from a gash on his forehead, and his mouth dribbled spit. He bent over and vomited stringy wads of red saliva onto the snow.

Red, again: “They watch me, Jack. I couldn’t do nothin’ else.”

He tried to focus his eye.

“Just do what they say,” Red said. “Okay? You ain’t gonna fight.”

Jack wiped his lips. His mouth formed a response, but no sound came. He fumbled in his coat pocket for the knife.

“Are you looking for this?”

He looked up at this new, quiet voice. The man who sharpened into view stood with one arm raised, holding Jack’s knife in his hand between finger and thumb. His boxed beard was aged gray, and he carried a semiautomatic rifle with a nylon strap over one shoulder. Collared shirt, a coat with western yokes on the front. Long straight nose and dark lashes. His eyes watching. His neck was tattooed with a spider, and he wore an old black top hat with a short crown. The man’s gaze went inside Jack to the most secret parts and found out whatever it wanted.

He said, “Your father took something that belongs to me. And now you want to take it.”

His voice gleamed in Jack’s head like a raised hammer.

Jack looked to Red and said slurred words broken by swallows: “How can you—? If you knew—”