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stretch to suppose that he’s thinking hard about what came before him.
    The wolf trotted along the steep ridge between the Middle and North Forks of Squaw Creek, with the high, hard peaks of the Lee Metcalf Wilderness spreading out south and east. In October, aspen trees would have been burning sunlight yellow in all the places where live water flows or springs rise close to the surface. The wolf would have been fat, full to bursting with offal and meat from some hapless mule deer. He would have followed the only good trail, the one that snakes between boulders, dipping often into the timber on the north side. The trail is the best route for everything that moves through Squaw Creek. Elk use it to gain elevation before they hit the rocky shins of Hilgard Peak. Grizzlies come in the early summer to flip boulders and swill down the grubs underneath. Because it is the easiest way through a tough piece of country, with a sweeping view of the open, grassy parks between the forks of the creek, ranch hands use it to check cattle.
    The wolf trotted up that well-worn trail. He visited and refreshed the trees he used for marking territory. He watched, as everyone does from up there, the progress of cloud shadows across the sage and grass in the valley below. He stopped at a spot where something had scratched up a pile of fresh dirt. One whiff, and he knew he was no longer alone.

Rolling Rocks

    W hen James’s white crew-cab, long-box Chevy pulled into Wolf Creek, I thought that I had never seen a truck so thoroughly full. The cab was packed to the dome light and the box was piled high with tack, tools, plastic toys, and a bewildering array of camouflage camping gear. Behind the truck, a rusty bumper-pull trailer rattled and clanked with the noise of the impatient horses inside. The whole outfit rolled to a dusty stop outside Jeremy’s house, and a big, redheaded guy in a flat-brimmed cowboy hat climbed down from the driver’s seat.
    I had come to the Sun Ranch in a little Toyota Tacoma with a small stock of gear. James had brought everything he could lift. After we shook hands, I helped him unearth an entire household from the truck bed and carry the bigger stuff inside the single-wide trailer that sat at the base of a hill across from my bunkhouse. Over the next half hour, we moved furniture, appliances, food, saddles, musical instruments, a good-sized TV, framed photos, and a queen-sized headboard, plus a half dozen pistols and at least that many rifles. James unloaded three horses from the trailer and turned them out to graze in the little pasture behind my house. Our last task was to unpack a doghouse and four panels of chain-link fence. We set the doghouse down near the corner of the trailer house and stood the panels up around it. As we worked, James told me that his herding dogs were en route, driving with his wife and kids from their home in Preston, Idaho.

    James’s world revolved around ranch work; his wife, Kendra; and his two young children, Christian and Emma. Beyond that, his favorite things were guns, hunting, old-time cowpoke yodeling, and trashy pop music. He had an open, easygoing charm and was a devout enough Mormon to abstain from beer, coffee, and swearing, three vices that he replaced with hard work and an endless stream of sugar. At home he was never without a big cup of Gatorade, and at the height of summer he went throughan Otter Pops craze so intense it made my teeth hurt just to watch him. James gave me a copy of The Book . I might have read it if I weren’t so stubborn, because I quickly grew to look up to him like an older brother.
    Although we were both summer hands on the Sun and got paid about the same amount of money, James had far more experience. Almost through the Range Science program down at Utah State, with more than a few summers of ranch work under his belt, James was better than I was at every aspect of our work, and faster, too. When fixing fence together, we started at a gate and