Winter Lost

“Can you look in the other people’s rooms?” Adam asked.

Liam nodded. “Maybe I will organize some work parties this afternoon. We need to clear out some of this snow. I doubt the Heddars will participate—but I can look in their rooms at dinner.”

“This could be a very long storm,” Adam said, getting to his feet and pulling me to mine.

Liam frowned and nodded. Then he walked to the door and opened it for us to exit. Something creaked over our heads.

“I’ll clear the roof while the rest of them are shoveling snow,” Adam offered as he led the way out the door.

I’d been reexamining what we knew. I had much better questions than I’d had last night, and I knew who I wanted to ask about them.

“Unless you need me to shovel snow,” I said, “I think I’d better check on Gary’s horses.”

“Hrímnir is taking care of them,” Adam said.

“But it’s not his job, is it?” I said. “It’s Gary’s, and that means it’s mine.”

“If you’re going up to the ranch, could you check and see if Gary has any eggs?” Liam asked, bringing up the rear. “He was using the kitchen in the main building because he preferred to cook on the gas stove. I have enough for a couple of days, but I’d be happier with another dozen.”

“Eggs,” said Adam with a frown.

“If I don’t come home, check for me in Italy,” I told him. He didn’t look like he thought I was funny.

—

As the crow flies, the ranch was about three miles from the lodge. On four feet it took me about forty minutes to make the trip. The snow had lightened up, probably because it was well below zero out. The winds cut through my coyote winter coat, so I stuck to the wooded areas where the trees blocked some of it.

I’d carried Adam’s pack because mine wasn’t big enough to stuff my winter coat in. The straps took a bit of jury-rigging—Adam’s wolf is over two hundred pounds, and my coyote is around thirty-five. But when Adam was finished, it was secure and I could still wiggle out when I wanted to change.

The barn door was closed tight and it had a round door handle, so I had to become human to get in the barn. It was a good thing that years of knowing our foul-mouthed British wolf had expanded my vocabulary of power words. They lasted me until I was able to shut the door behind me.

The horses whinnied as soon as I opened the door. One of them put a hoof on the metal bar of the panel fence and made a loud noise. The other popped his lips together, like Donkey in Shrek. Or maybe it had been Shrek 2.

“I know, I know,” I told them. “I’m dressing as quick as I can. Underwear. Bra. Socks. Oh, good socks. Warm socks. Jeans. Sweatshirt. Coat.”

I indulged in a full-body shiver, then put on shoes. I’d brought my tennis shoes instead of my boots because even Adam’s pack didn’t have room for midcalf boots as well as my coat.

“No stepping on my toes, you two,” I told the horses, flexing my toes in their meager protection. “You have big feet, and the tennis shoes aren’t going to help much.”

They had water, though they’d drunk the tank down by about four inches. It was still warm. That would be a handy bit of magic. I wondered again if Gary would teach me how to do it.

Not that keeping water unfrozen was likely to be all that useful. But it would be fun to have a magic spell I could work. Changing into a coyote was who I was. It didn’t feel like magic, and it was most useful when everyone didn’t know I could do it. But keeping water unfrozen…that might be a neat party trick.

They had eaten every wisp of the hay I’d given them last night. The bale I’d pulled from didn’t look like it had been touched since Adam and I had left.

“A third of a bale per horse per day,” I muttered, hearing my foster father’s voice in my ear.

But the bales I’d fed horses with when I was a teenager had been bigger, I thought. And the horses I’d been feeding had been a lot smaller.

I tossed the rest of the open bale over the panels for the horses to start on. Then I took the knife conveniently stuck in an unopen bale to cut the strings of another one. I stuck the knife into another unopened bale so it didn’t get lost in the hay chaff. Habits were coming back to me.

I fed the horses half of the new bale. It looked like a lot of hay. Too much?

“I don’t know that I’m going to make it back today,” I told them. I dumped the rest of the second bale into their pile of food. They were hardly going to get too fat if I overfed them for a couple of days.

I had the trough filled and was using a manure fork to toss manure into a wheelbarrow when I heard a mechanical growling sound outside. Liam had said the lodge had a backhoe, but the engine I heard was way too small for that.

Snowmobile, I thought, as the engine shut off. I considered my actions—and decided to keep doing my job. I moved the wheelbarrow to the next pile of manure.

The barn door opened and shut.

I waited until I got the last round nugget before I looked up.