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He’d stop at the creek on the way into town. He’d hunker down and drink like an animal.
    “Martin,” Sara said, taking his hands. “Pray with me. Please.”
    Martin had never been a praying man. Sara and Gertie prayed each night before bed, but he never joined them. He went to church every Sunday with them, listened to Reverend Ayers read from the Bible. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in God, just that Martin never believed that God might listen to him. With the millions of people who must be praying to him each day, why should God pay attention to Martin Shea in West Hall, Vermont? But now, desperate and running out of hope, he nodded, removed his hat, and bowed his head, standing in the snow outside the barn, Sara’s hands with their bloody fingers gripping tightly to his own.
    “Please, God,” Sara said, voice hoarse. Martin sneaked a look at her; her eyes were clamped shut, her face was blotchy, nose running. “Watch over our Gertie. Bring her back to us. She’s a good girl. She’s all we have. Keep her safe. Please bring her back. If she’s gone, I …” Sara’s voice broke.
    “Amen,” Martin said, ending the prayer.
    Sara let go of Martin and walked off toward the house, head still bent down, lips moving, as if she was continuing her own private conversation with God, bargaining, begging.
    Sliding open the door to the barn, Martin heard the animals letting him know he’d never fed them. The cow hadn’t been milked. She gave a mournful wail as he walked by her pen, but she would have to wait. He grabbed the saddle and was lugging it to the horse stalls when something caught his eye, stopped him in his tracks. His heart pounded in his ears; the saddle was heavy and awkward in his hands, now slick with sweat.
    The fox pelt was gone.
    Hours ago, he’d nailed it up against the north wall of the barn to dry. Then he’d stood back and admired his handiwork, imagined the hat Sara might make for Gertie.
    He squinted at the empty wall.
    Only it wasn’t empty.
    No, something else hung there by a nail. Something that glintedin the little bit of light coming in through the window. His breath caught in his throat as he stepped forward to see. The saddle fell from his hands.
    There, nailed to the rough wooden boards, was a hank of blond hair.
    Gertie’s hair.
    His stomach cramped up, and he leaned over, retching.
    His head felt as if it were being pounded between a hammer and an anvil. He gripped it in both hands, fingertips pressing into his temples.
    He looked down, saw the blood on his clothing from skinning the fox.
    “Martin?”
    He swallowed hard and turned to see Sara in the doorway. She was walking toward him slowly. He jumped up, stood so that he’d block her view of the hair.
    “What are you doing?”
    “I was … getting the saddle.”
    For the second time that afternoon, he prayed:
Please, God, don’t let her see the hair
.
    He could not allow Sara to see the hair; it would destroy her. He had to hide it—throw it into the stream, where it would be carried away.
    “Hurry,” Sara said. “It’ll be dark soon.” Mercifully, she left the barn.
    Martin turned, hands shaking as he reached for the thick rope of blond hair. He pulled it loose from the rusty nail and shoved it into his pocket.
    W hen he had saddled the horse, he led her out of the barn, into the deep snow. It would be slow going, and he hoped they’d rolled the main roads by now.
    It was possible, Martin told himself, that an animal had come into the barn and torn down the fox pelt. A coyote or a stray dog. But then he reached into his pocket, felt the thick hank of hair. Hecould come up with no explanation for Gertie’s hair being on that nail.
    “Martin?”
    There was Sara again, waiting outside, just to the left of the open door, rocking back and forth, picking at the skin around her nails. Her eyes were wild and frantic. “You need to go inside, Sara. You’re not dressed to be out in weather like this.”
    She