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dissipate.
    As of today, Sunday the ninth of June, sixty-eight of the projected two hundred eleven potential sales had been made to Capital Overland. Al had provided me with a list of surnames of Capital Overland’s targets, three of which I recognized – Rawley, Turnbull (which would be Ron’s acreage), and Spicer. None of these families had yet agreed to the sale. According to Al, Capital Overland had offered fair market value for each of the properties they were vying for, hoping for fast sales, and there were enough people in the area struggling to make ends meet that they’d been willing to sell their land.
    â€œIt’s like the town is crumbling apart,” Al had said during our brief phone conversation, earlier this week. I knew from Dad that he was fifty-seven, but he sounded older, and close to defeat. I had almost considered telling him I’d be there before my projected arrival date of July sixth. He added, “I’m so grateful that you’ll be another body out here to help me. I mean that, Patricia. I’m beside myself here.”
    And I’d promised him I would do whatever I could to help.

Chapter Three
    Jalesville, MT - July 2013
    The drive southwest through Minnesota and North Dakota had been endless, but as of three in the afternoon I had cleared the Montana state line and felt a rush of adrenaline, reenergizing me. Aunt Jilly’s old Honda ran like a champ but didn’t have air-conditioning, or so much as a CD player. I’d made do with the radio and Mom’s dusty shoebox of old cassette tapes from the 1980s, which she had laughingly lent me for the drive.
    At the café this morning, I had held tightly to my sisters, Clint, my mother; Grandma and Aunt Ellen had each kissed my forehead. I promised that I would sneak back to Minnesota before I returned to Chicago this fall. I had directions to the Rawleys’ house for this evening; they were expecting me for dinner, and then Clark would show me to my apartment, which I had found on Google Earth before leaving Minnesota. It was just outside of Jalesville, perhaps five minutes from downtown, a newer apartment building called Stone Creek, constructed of beige stucco and appearing to sit smack in the center of a forest of Christmas trees. The view from my laptop had shown mountains in the distance, sending an unexpected and distinct thrill through me.
    Even now, having driven through Miles City under the late afternoon sun, I was unexpectedly moved by the scenery flashing by out the window. The foothills, that’s what Camille had called the rock formations in this area, towering and odd, gorgeous and mysterious, painted with infinite colors of brown. I marveled that I had ever found brown a plain color; the sunlight tinted it into shades as dazzling and varied as the nail polish selection at Lanny’s favorite salon. I giggled at myself for comparing one to the other.
    What I had a harder time acknowledging was the stirring in my soul. The scent in the air, the wildness of the landscape, the sense of something untamed in the air, beyond my control. I was a control freak, by nature, and found this sensation both exhilarating and startling. I didn’t so much welcome it as I did recognize it; I thought, The country here doesn ’ t care for you at all. It ’ s utterly impassive. Somehow I had never felt this way, even in Landon; there, the tall trees that ringed the lake and whispered in the wind offered a distinct sense of comfort. Here, there was none of that.
    I crossed over from Custer to Rosebud County in the early evening, pulling into a gas station to refuel and attempt to calm my fluttering nerves. I was really not much more than an acquaintance to the Rawleys, and had never been around them without the rest of my own family nearby. Would it be awkward as hell? What would we have to talk about? Was I too underdressed to greet them? Pumping gas, I tipped to examine my travel outfit