“It will be buried with him,” Bill predicted. There was a loud clang from the horse trailer. “I’d better get going. Be back soon.”

“So long,” she said.

She watched him drive off. She’d just finished a chapter of her new book that morning and she needed some fresh air. She saddled Sand and climbed into the saddle, dressed in jeans and boots and a red plaid wool shirt under a leather jacket, with a cowboy hat on her loosened hair. She’d meant to put it up, but Bill’s arrival with the horse trailer had interrupted her. It didn’t matter anyway, she considered, because nobody would see her except her part-timers, and even then from a distance.

She rode along the fence line, through the lodgepole pines, toward the boundary she shared with Bart Riddle’s ranch. They ran the same breed of cattle, Black Angus, so there was no worry of crossbreeding if a bull wandered through a downed fence. Besides that, it was the wrong season for breeding. Her cows, and Bart’s, would be dropping calves soon, just in time for spring grazing. While she rode, she looked for breaks and posts that needed replacing. She noted them on her iPhone with GPS, so that she could tell her part-timers where to find them.

Cousin Rogan had said that she needed at least one full-time man on the ranch, and she agreed that she did. But it would be expensive to hire somebody, and she wasn’t about to trust her purebred bulls to just some person she knew from a newspaper or trade advertisement. Still, she could afford it now, with the money from the new contract and what she’d get, hopefully, from her yearling bull crop.

Maybe Bart knew of somebody local who’d be a good hire. She wanted somebody trustworthy.

It was a beautiful day, if cold. Mid-March, and her cows would be calving soon, to take advantage of the spring grass, which would hopefully come after the ankle-deep snow melted. The weather was getting warmer. She could see snow melting where the sun hit it, although it was still covering the ground in the shade. Snow in Wyoming was nothing unusual, even up until April or May. But it had been a rather warm winter, all the same.

She came to a gate that sat on the boundary between her land and Bart’s. She dismounted to open it, led Sand through and closed it back. People who left gates open were severely punished in ranch country. Straying cattle could get expensive, especially if they spilled out onto a highway and caused accidents.

She looked around for her cousin. He was supposed to be showing a visiting rancher around, hoping to sell some young bulls. She didn’t want to interrupt him, but it was late morning and he’d probably gotten through his business already. She was going to invite him for lunch. She’d made a tuna salad and put it in the fridge. She could offer him sandwiches and coffee.