My Father Brought a Locksmith to Sell the Ranch I Bought
I took my heavy canvas coat off the wooden peg by the door and pulled it on. The fabric was stiff from the cold, smelling of pine smoke and sheep dip. I zipped it up to my chin and stepped out onto the back porch. The air was sharp, biting at my nose and throat as I drew a breath. The silence of the foothills stretched out in every direction, clean and empty.
Down in the barnyard, a green pickup truck rumbled through the snow, its tailpipe sending up a steady cloud of gray exhaust. It was Thomas Miller, the neighbor who leased the section of state land directly west of my boundary line. He had three tiers of split pine stacked in the bed of his truck, the yellow wood showing bright against the dark green metal of the tailgate.
He pulled the truck to a stop near the woodpile and let the engine idle. He was seventy-one, with a face like creased boot leather and a gray wool cap pulled low over his ears. He climbed down from the cab slowly, his knees popping in the cold, and nodded toward the porch.
