Chapter 1

Blackfeet Nation, Northern Montana

Seven years later

Considering how many times the old bat had threatened to shoot him, Hank was surprised to find a lump in his throat as he cradled Norma’s cheap ceramic urn. It had been only a week since she’d come knocking on his door in the wee hours, woken by a blinding headache, her words so slurred that at first he’d assumed she was drunk.

At least the stroke had taken her fast. Norma only had two wishes—the primary being to live out her days in the decrepit camp trailer that moldered in a clearing beside St. Mary’s River.

And the second…

A bitter fall wind whipped straight, dark hair into Hank’s eyes as he pried the lid off the urn and held it aloft, tipping it so the ashes swirled into the bright, hard blue of the Montana sky.

He was a long way from Texas. An eternity from the thoughtless boy he’d been for far too long—a string of increasingly bad choices that had plummeted him from the highest of highs to unspeakable lows, until he’d bottomed out here, in a squatter’s camp on the northern edge of the Blackfeet Nation, with a murderous old hermit for company.

And of course Bing—part-time rodeo secretary, full-time counselor, and guardian angel of lost cowboys—hovering over him, guiding him toward the light. When he’d woken up in a hospital in Yakima with no money, no insurance, and no future to speak of, Bing had been there to scrape up the pieces, bring them here, and help him patch the wreckage into something resembling a man.

She leaned into his side now, hunching deeper into her puffy coat, and tilted her head to watch the ashes disappear. “The way it’s blowing today, she’ll be scattered from here to the Sweetgrass Hills.”

Hank tucked the urn under one arm and Bing under the other. “As long as some of her lands on Brantley’s place. Figures Norma would want to trespass on his pasture for eternity.”

“My kind of woman.” With his spare frame braced against the elements, Gil Sanchez could have been rooted in this landscape, even hundreds of miles north of his Navajo mother’s homeland. He was the sole point of contact with Hank’s former life. Cynical, sarcastic, borderline antisocial: Gil was the last member of the tight-knit Earnest, Texas, rodeo community that anyone would have expected to show up in the wilds of Montana and declare himself Hank’s sponsor.

“I’m not an addict,” Hank had pointed out. Unlike Gil, who no longer made a secret of his struggles with prescription pain meds. “And you don’t even like me.”

Gil just shrugged. “I know worse people. And one of the founding principles of Fucked-Up Anonymous is that after someone helps pry your head out of your ass, you’re supposed to pay it forward. I figure you’re a prime candidate. Brownie points for me with the friends and family, and you’re too far away to stagger in and puke on my floor when you backslide.”

“I’m not a drunk either.”

“But you’re still fucked up.”

There was no arguing with that.

A year and a half later, here they were, on the high point of a ridge that ran parallel to and only a mile from the jagged east face of the Rockies—Where the mountains meet the plains, according to the local tourism slogan, and only a few miles from where the United States met Canada.

They observed the traditional moment of silence, just the three of them to witness this final step in a mostly uphill ninety-two-year journey—from birth to death, ashes to dust.

Then Bing slapped her gloved hands together. “Well, that’s that. Let’s go. I guarantee Norma wouldn’t have froze her ass off for me.”

They scrambled down a cow path, through the brush and stunted aspens to the gravel road where Bing had left her pickup. As Gil climbed into the back seat, a gust slammed against the door, nearly mashing his leg before he could yank it out of the way.

He swore with the eloquence of a man who practiced regularly. “I’ll never bitch about the West Texas wind again.”

That’d be the day. For Gil, cursing verged on a recreational activity.

Silence reigned as they wound down off the ridge. Bing stopped at the bottom of the hill to wait for a pickup and trailer to pull out onto the main road, hauling off the last of Norma’s mangy bunch of cows. The proceeds of their sale would be used to offset the cost of her cremation. As the rig rolled away, her old piebald gelding gazed mournfully out through the back gate.

That damn lump swelled in Hank’s throat again.

Stupid, lazy nag. Hank should be glad to see the last of him. And those wild-ass cows. And the impenetrable tangle of brush where they’d liked to hide, making Hank long for his dad’s good cowdog, Mabel.

He’d never been homesick, exactly. In the bone-chilling cold of the endless Montana nights, there’d been only a handful of things he’d craved with a pure, physical ache. The silk of Mabel’s coat between his fingers. The sweltering southern heat. A bellyful of Smoke Shack barbecue.

And Grace.

The list was by no means in order of importance, but Mabel got priority because Hank knew if he reached out to her, she wouldn’t rip his hand off. But Grace…

She’d been foolish enough to let herself get tangled up in his fall. Of all the things he regretted—and there were many—hurting Grace, betraying their friendship, ranked pretty damn high.

Bing followed the pair of ruts down to Norma’s clearing, her pickup sloshing through puddles fed by water oozing from snowbanks that clung along the lip of the hill, icy remnants of an October blizzard. When the pickup finally rocked to a stop, Hank purposely avoided soaking up the view. Fall had stripped the squatter’s camp down to its ugly bones—revealing every scrap of discarded metal in the flattened brown grass, turning the trees to tortured skeletons, deformed by wind and snow.

He wanted to remember it rippling and green, with sunlight flickering through the aspen leaves and wildflowers bobbing in the ever-present breeze. His beautiful self-imposed prison—and now he was being paroled before his rehabilitation was complete.

When Norma had parked her ancient travel trailer on this scrap of land, most everyone had shrugged. It was tribal property, she was an enrolled member, and if they chased her out they’d just have to put her somewhere else. With the old woman gone, the council had let Hank know he was expected to vacate the premises.

“You need help grabbing your stuff?” Bing asked, even though she knew better.

“No. I’ve got it.” Hank pushed his door open and went to gather what was left of his life.

It had taken all of ten minutes to pack: three pairs of ragged jeans, a couple of sets of thermal underwear, a handful of socks and briefs, and his motley collection of secondhand T-shirts and sweatshirts. His entire wardrobe didn’t fill one of the two duffels he’d had with him when he arrived.

The other had never been unpacked.

It held a boatload of painful memories along with the body armor, knee and ankle braces, athletic shoes, and soccer cleats that had been tools of his trade as a bullfighter. He’d had no use for any of it since the day Bing had hauled him out of that hospital with a plate and pins holding together the worst of his physical injuries. No surgeon could fix what was broken in his head.

He should’ve hawked the gear months ago, but like too many other things from his past, he couldn’t quite seem to let go, especially of the parts that hurt the most.

He grabbed both bags from the bare, stained mattress and dragged in one last lungful of mold and mouse shit that no amount of cleaning could banish. Then he let it out in a whoosh.

He tossed the bags in the back of the pickup and climbed into the cab. “Let’s go.”

“How long are you staying at Bing’s place?” Gil asked.

“Until I see what I can find for a job.”

He wasn’t optimistic. Like Norma, his intense desire to avoid humanity had taken priority over comfort, so he’d scraped by on the meat she’d shared in exchange for tending to her cows, doing minor repairs on old beater cars for the locals, and this past summer, breaking colts for a couple of nearby ranches. All together it kept him fed and not frozen. It would not put a roof over his head.

In the summer, when tourists flooded Glacier National Park, work was easier to come by. With the historic hotels and all the surrounding restaurants, gas stations, and motels shuttered for the winter, unemployment on the reservation climbed to epidemic levels. He might be able to pick up a few hours as a convenience store clerk down the road in Cut Bank or Shelby, but it would be a stretch to put together enough money to cover rent and food.

“You could jump in with me,” Gil said.

Hank twisted around in his seat. “To Texas?”

“To work. Your commercial driver’s license is still valid, and I happen to run a trucking company.”

“You want to hire me?”

Gil shot him an impatient glare. “Didn’t I just say so?”

“But…” Geezus. Working for Gil?

He might have put up with Hank as a restoration project, but when it came to Sanchez Trucking, his lack of tolerance was legendary. Gil ran the dispatcher’s office the same way he’d ridden bucking horses—balls to the wall, no excuses, and nothing less than maximum effort from everyone around him. Toe the line, bust your hump, and there was no one who’d do better by you, the drivers said.

But if you failed to measure up, there were a dozen other operators standing in line to take your place—all of them with more experience than Hank.

“I’ve never done any real trucking,” he said.

Gil dismissed that with a flick of his fingers. “Cole Jacobs trusted you to haul his stock. That’s all the résumé I need. And the apartment above the shop is vacant, so I’ll even toss in housing.”

Hank cast a pleading look in Bing’s direction. She didn’t look surprised. Obviously, Gil had already run this by her, but how could he leave her alone only ten days before Thanksgiving? “Let me look around here first. There might be something…”

“Nothing that will compare salary-wise. Or with benefits.” Bing closed a warm hand over his chilled one, her jaw set. “It’s time, Hank.”

A lousy time. The worst part of the year for Bing. “You’ll be alone for the holidays.”

Her face tightened, but she didn’t relent. “I’ll manage. And who knows. Maybe I’ll take some of that vacation time they’re threatening to steal from me at the end of the year and come ride along with you. I can be your truckin’ mama.”

If only she’d been his actual mother. “Bing…”

She shook her head. “You’ve gotta move on, Hank.”

“Fine! But I don’t have to start by going backward.” To face his mistakes, lovingly preserved in the minds and hearts of Earnest, Texas, as permanent as the initials five-year-old Hank had scrawled in the wet concrete in front of the Kwicky Mart.

“Yeah, you do.” Bing cast him a sly smile. “And people are always in a more forgiving mood with Christmas coming on.”

Hank gazed at her striking face, the expressive dark eyes that so often sparkled with laughter despite the grief lingering underneath. He had begun as one of an endless parade of lost souls, but they were infinitely more to each other now. Bing loved him by choice, not obligation, even though she’d seen the worst he had to offer.

He loved her back with a ferocity that stunned him…and now he was paying the price.

She believed in him, and Hank couldn’t bear to let her down. For Bing, he was compelled to salvage something from the wreck he’d made of his life—even if it meant having to pick through Texas rubble.

And wouldn’t you know, he’d land in good old Earnest three years to the day from the last time he’d tried to go home. He hadn’t even made it to the ranch. One quick and dirty shouting match with his dad in the middle of the Corral Café and Hank had stormed right back out of town.

It had been the blackest of Black Fridays, licking his wounds in Korby’s college apartment, beating himself in game after game of pool at the pizza joint down the street—until Grace walked in.

Even as he’d trailed along to her dorm room, Hank had cursed himself for taking advantage of her. Sweet, innocent Grace, who had never even been to a homecoming dance.

Then his little red-haired girl had proceeded to rock his world.

And in typical immature asshole style, he’d repaid the favor by running for the hills.

“Well?” Gil demanded. “I can’t dither all day. I’m scheduled to drop my load in Sheridan at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

Hank looked at Bing. She nodded. He closed his eyes. Shit. This was really happening.

Bing let go of his hand and put the pickup in gear. They rattled back to the main gravel road and over the ever-present washboards. A left turn at the stop sign, a few short miles down Highway 89 to Babb, and all too soon, they were standing in the parking lot of a log-framed restaurant closed for the season.

Gil grabbed Hank’s luggage and hauled it over to the waiting eighteen-wheeler—his transportation of choice, arranging loads that made his trips to Montana a paying proposition. Bing watched, arms folded tight around her body as the wind plucked at the glossy black spikes of her short-cropped hair.

He didn’t bother to hide the tears that welled in his eyes as he gave her a hug. “I will be back.”

“To visit. This isn’t where you belong.”

What is?

For twenty-two years he could have answered without hesitation, but he’d shredded the umbilical cord that had tethered him to the Panhandle. Cut loose, he’d rampaged, then scrabbled, and finally drifted aimlessly, leaving a trail of smoking bridges behind him. Even if he wanted to, was there anything left worth rebuilding, or anyone willing to let him try?

He thought of Grace…and nearly laughed. It was too bad she hadn’t stayed in Oregon, where she’d run after Hank had humiliated her in front of the entire town on that shitty New Year’s Eve, thirty-seven days after the weekend that had turned him upside-down and inside-out. But last year she’d come back to the Panhandle, for a job as a teacher and athletic trainer just down the road in Bluegrass. Hopefully being on the sidelines for every game of every sport would keep her too busy for their paths to cross—for her sake and his.

Hank gave Bing another squeeze. “I’ll call you.”

“I’ll drive down there and kick your rear if you don’t.” She pushed him away and made a shooing motion. “Like the song says, I can’t miss you if you’re not gone.”

“Thank you,” Gil said. And to Hank’s shock—and Bing’s, judging by her expression—he kissed her on the cheek. Then he turned and tossed Hank a set of keys. “You are now officially on the clock. Start earning your keep.”

As he opened the truck door, sunlight glinted off the gold lettering. Sanchez Trucking, Earnest, Texas. At least he would roll back into town in style. And as usual, he had to admit that Bing was right, on one point anyway. What better time than the holidays to face down everyone he had wronged? At least they would all be conveniently gathered in one place.

Hank climbed behind the wheel, fired up the big engine, and pointed the rig south.

Ready or not, here I come.