Maybe J.D. was right in giving his heart to this land. She could have given hers too. She felt a part of it, nourished by its beauty and its strength. Turning onto her back, she gazed up at the sky. It really was bigger here. A huge sheet of electric blue, stretching on forever. There were moments like this one, when she felt more at home here than she ever had anywhere. That sense of belonging had nothing to do with birthright. It had to do with things deeper than circumstance, with matters of the soul.

A llama nose descended on her, small and furry, twitching inquisitively as it bussed her cheek. Smiling, Mari sat up and reached out to stroke the baby’s neck. This one was brown from the shoulders back with a white front half and splotches of brown on his face, as if God had been forced to abandon the paint job to go on to more pressing matters.

“I’ll call you Parfait,” she announced, startled at the hoarseness of her voice.

The llama’s long ears moved from angle to angle like semaphore flags. A brown spot on her muzzle made her look as if she were smiling crookedly. Half a dozen of her older relatives stood a few feet away, studying Mari with their luxurious sloe eyes. They hummed softly to one another.

Mari curled her legs beneath her and stood slowly, worried that she might frighten them away. They just looked at her, chewing their grass and violets, their expressions gentle and wise. They were beyond the petty cruelty humans inflicted on one another. It didn’t matter to them that she’d fallen in love with a man who was both hero and villain. The scope of their simple world was so much greater. They held the secret to inner peace and looked on her with gentle pity for her ignorance. They offered solace in the form of company, understanding in their quiet manner.

She spent the afternoon with them, resolutely ignoring the various messes in which her life had become entangled. She mingled with the llamas, petting them and scratching them, talking with them about the greater meaning of life. For a few hours nothing else was important. She pretended she had stepped through a portal into a place of calm and reason. She let the llamas take the tension away, let the sun recharge her soul. Then, as the sun began its descent toward the mountains to the west, she stepped back into the real world of people and trouble and the mysteries of llama feed.

J.D. RODE the pharmacist’s yellow mare down across the wash above Little Snake Creek. The mare picked her way along uncertainly, awkward with the unaccustomed weight of a man on her back. Her small ears flicked forward and back. She leaned on the bit. Automatically, J.D. dickered with the reins, moving his hands gently, just enough to get her to soften her mouth and bring her nose back an inch.

His mind wasn’t on the job. He hadn’t gone on this ride for the benefit of the mare. He’d saddled her only because his work ethic wouldn’t allow him to do much of anything that wasn’t productive in some way.

What about Mary Lee?

Time spent with her might have been productive had she shown any sign of offering him the chance to buy Lucy’s land. But then, the idea of prostituting himself went against his ethical grain. It was a no-win deal. If he went to bed with her for the purpose of gain, he was nothing but a gigolo. If he went to bed with her for any other reason, he was asking for trouble he swore he didn’t want.

The point was moot. He wouldn’t be going to bed with her again.

He made a sour face and shifted his weight back in the saddle as the mare negotiated her way down the last slope to the creek bottom. Life in general was turning out to be a no-win deal. He’d gotten nowhere in his attempt to put together an offer for the Flying K. A call to set up an appointment with Ron Weiss, vice president of the First Bank of Montana, had netted him condolences on Will’s unprecedented losing streak at Little Purgatory. Bryce was probably sitting back laughing at his futile attempts to keep the property out of Bryce’s hands, biding his time and counting his money. With Samantha in his camp, he had to be thinking ownership of the Stars and Bars wasn’t that far off.

And now Will was leaving-had in fact already left. J.D. had watched him drive out of the yard in Tucker’s old International Harvester pickup. He had always expected him to relinquish his claim to the family land and move on to greener pastures. Now that the day had come, J.D. felt neither relief nor triumph, but a sick hollowness in the pit of his stomach. Old guilt revisited. Remorse for losing something he thought he had never wanted in the first place.

They were family, and there was a strong obligation there. But he had taken that sense of duty as a license to badger and bully and preach. He treated Will more like a screwup ranch hand than a brother. Only he couldn’t fire Will for his drinking or for not showing up to work or for gambling away ranch money or for playing them into the hands of their biggest enemy or for totaling his pickup, which brought him back full-circle to the drinking.

Mary Lee thought Will needed help, that his drinking was out of control. J.D. had viewed it as a nuisance. This was rugged country with rugged people. Drinking was part of a cowboy’s life. Too big a part in too many cases. Alcoholism was a problem in the ranching culture. The stress, the loneliness, the code of manhood, all contributed. He’d seen Will drunk more times than he could count, and all he had ever done was ride the kid about wrecking his truck or being late to work.

The guilt dug its teeth a little deeper and gave him a shake. The truth pulled on him. The lead weight of accountability. He had come out here to escape the burden of his responsibilities, not put them under a microscope. He had come out here to lose himself in his first love-the land.

This stretch along the Little Snake was a favorite spot-when there weren’t half a dozen city idiots in their Orvis vests and waders fly fishing. Luck was with him for once. He could see a red Bronco parked some distance downstream, but no sign of its owner. Probably someone hiking in the woods, looking for morels. He might stop and pick a few himself on the way home. Tucker could fry them up a feast of fresh trout and wild mushrooms for supper.

This little valley and the slopes on either side belonged to the Bureau of Land Management. Once upon a time the McKeevers of the Boxed Circle spread had owned the grazing lease, but the McKeevers had sold out in ’ninety-one to a network news anchor who didn’t raise anything but a few head of horses a year, and the lease had gone back to the BLM. J.D. had considered trying for it, but an environmental group had taken up the “Preserve the Little Snake” banner for fly fishermen and weekend hikers from Bozeman and Livingston, and the small amount of grass hadn’t been worth the trouble of a fight.

He still liked to ride over here when he got a chance. It was secluded, unspoiled for the moment. The Little Snake, which was actually a small river, wound between columns of cottonwood and aspen. Fed by mountain runoff, it ran fast this time of year, and was cold and clear and studded with boulders. Along the banks the grass grew in a lush strip dotted with wildflowers. Wooded slopes rose sharply beyond. It wasn’t uncommon to see mule deer drinking from the creek, their black-tipped tails flicking nervously. He’d seen bears here more than once. The Absarokas were thick with grizzlies and black bear. The encroachment of man pushed them deeper into the wilderness areas every year, but conflicts with ranch stock and tourists still happened from time to time.

He rode the yellow mare to the edge of the water at a shallow spot and urged her to step in. She arched her neck and blew through her nostrils at the water rushing past. J.D. spoke to her and coaxed her, urging her forward with his legs. She lifted a foreleg and pawed at the water, splashing herself, then moved tentatively forward, her attitude telling J.D. she wasn’t too sure about this idea, but she trusted him not to get her into trouble.