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Lindsons’ stead, a neat place with sheep and chicken and a team of mules. Ordinary, except for the plot of ground near the house carefully marked off with a white picket fence and a row of river stones around it. Green always seemed to be growing inside that fence, no matter the season. Green and blooms. He’d suspected it was tended by a woman’s hand. He’d just never seen the woman before.
    “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Jeb Lindson,” he said.
    His reaction seemed to catch her off guard, and her stubborn mask cracked to reveal the grieving woman beneath.
    It didn’t take a scholar to see her pain.
    “And yours,” she whispered.
    “What brings you out my way?”
    “I am looking to hire your services.”
    “Trouble with your stock?” Wolves weren’t the only thing he’d hunt, and hunting wasn’t the only answer he had for vermin. Certain plants took care of grazers, certain fences repelled smaller varmints, and certain matics took care of both.
    “Trouble with my husband’s death,” she said.
    Cedar frowned. “Don’t think I understand you rightly.”
    “My husband, Mr. Hunt, has been killed. Last night. Somewhere here in this valley. I want you to find his body and his killer.”
    “If you don’t know where his body is, how is it you know he’s dead?”
    “I am his wife. A wife knows these things. A wife has . . . ways.” She twisted the reins in her hands. Even though she had repaired her mask, her hands betrayed her grief.
    “You don’t think an animal killed him, do you, Mrs. Lindson?”
    “No.” She opened her mouth to say something more, then looked away from his gaze. “No,” she said again.
    Cedar took in a deep breath, and let it out quietly. This was something he could not do. The town didn’t trust him, and if he killed a man among them, they’d just as soon hang him as listen to his reasons for it.
    “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Lindson,” he said softly. “But if it’s justice you’re looking for, you’ll need to talk to Sheriff Wilke. I have little sway with the law in these parts.”
    “I am not looking for justice,” she said, her hands gone cold as her face now. “I am looking for revenge.”
    He’d thought as much. Folk got it in their heads that once a man made his living by the gun, any target was as good as another.
    “I don’t hunt men, Mrs. Lindson.”
    “I don’t consider my husband’s killer a man, Mr. Hunt. I consider him a monster.”
    Her anger was fueled by sorrow, by a broken heart. He understood it. Understood what it was like to lose a loved one, a spouse. He knew what it was like to lose a child, and a brother too. He’d been at death’s elbow all his life and felt death’s chill sickle slice through his heart more than once.
    “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I don’t hunt men.”
    She folded her hands calmly across the horn of the saddle. Stared at him with a widow’s eyes. “I have money to pay you, Mr. Hunt.”
    “Money you shall keep, Mrs. Lindson. I have another job, a more urgent task, to fulfill this day.”
    “Well, then. If money won’t change your mind, consider this: I see the curse upon you and I know how best to break it.”
    Cedar’s heart kicked at his ribs. Was she telling the truth? Could she be a messenger, an angel from the god who had torn his life apart and cursed him with a beast’s skin? Could she know some way to end his nights chained to the moon? Or was she just a woman gone crazy with grief?
    “Find my husband’s killer,” she said again, “and I will free you from what ails you. I will wait until sunset.”
    “You’ll wait for what?”
    “For you to change your mind, Mr. Hunt.” She clicked her tongue and turned the mule, urging it into a trot, then a ground-eating lope.
    Cedar stared after her, his heart pounding so hard, he couldn’t hear the mule’s hoof beats over the noise of it.
    The ear-cracking pop of a rail matic expelling steam ricocheted through the hills. Then