They all acknowledged that yes, she surely had.
For a long time he sat there and looked at the burned mountain below and did not speak. Finally he got to his feet and got back onto the horse.
“It’s a good place for her cross,” he said. “You can see the grass from this spot. You can see where we were. I know that she did. She was high enough to see us.” He looked at Allison then and said, “Did you really not hear her voice?”
Allison never took her eyes off him as she said, “Did you really hear it?”
Jace nodded.
“That’s all that matters,” Allison said.
They rode down from the cross then, and over that circle of healthy green grass, and even beneath the blackness, you could see the rebirth beginning, if you looked hard enough. The land would hold the scars for a long time, but it was already working on healing them and it would patiently continue to do so.
That was the way of it.
Acknowledgments
This book wouldn’t have been written if not for Michael and Rita Hefron, who introduced me to the mountains, first in stories and pictures when I was a child, and later in welcoming me to Montana and the wonderful communities of Cooke City and Silver Gate. Their friendship and support have helped me in many ways over many years, and I’m forever grateful. To the group who made the first Bounce over the Beartooths-Mike Hefron, Ryan Easton, and Bob Bley-I’d like to offer a special thanks.
For all things related to wilderness survival, I send my deepest gratitude to Reggie Bennett and his wife, Dina Bennett, who endured and indulged far too many dumb questions. If it makes you feel any better, Reggie, I can still start a fire in the rain! Many thanks.
It was an enormous privilege to work with two incredible editors on this book, Michael Pietsch and Joshua Kendall. Thanks to you both for marvelous work.
A nowhere-near-exhaustive list of the people who actually made the book happen once I did the easy part: Reagan Arthur, Heather Fain, Marlena Bittner, Sabrina Callahan, Miriam Parker, Wes Miller, Nicole Dewey, Tracy Williams, Nancy Wiese, Tracy Roe, Pamela Marshall, and all the others at Little, Brown and Company are the best in the business, and it is a pleasure to work with them.
Richard Pine, David Hale Smith, and the rest of the InkWell Management team deserve their standard accolades, as does Angela Cheng Caplan.
Finally, the lion’s share of the gratitude belongs to my wife, Christine. She tolerated various off-the-grid research trips, participated in others (in retrospect, maybe we shouldn’t have done both the waist-deep wading and the mountaintop lightning on her first day out), and read more pages than any editor.
This book was inspired and informed by countless nonfiction works, and a list of the best of them is available on my website, michaelkoryta.com.
About the Author
Michael Koryta is the New York Times-bestselling author of nine previous novels. His books have won or been nominated for many awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Edgar Award, the Shamus Award, the Barry Award, the Quill Award, the International Thriller Writers Award, the Great Lakes Book Award, and the Golden Dagger. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages. A former private investigator and newspaper reporter, Koryta lives in Bloomington, Indiana, and St. Petersburg, Florida.
michaelkoryta.com
