And when I finally get back up to the cabin, hours after I planned to return, I have to get my ass into gear to finish up everything that needs doing.
Blue is at the door to greet me, her tail wagging excitedly, but I have to turn around and head right back outside after I grab my face covering and gloves. She’s a yellow lab, just a puppy when I found her in the woods last year, mostly wrapped up in a trash bag and struggling like hell to get out of the thing.
A fighter.
Someone had dumped her rather than taking her to the shelter when they decided they no longer wanted her. I filed a report with the town cop but didn’t bother asking around to see who she might belong to. As far as I was concerned, they didn’t deserve to get her back.
At first, she’d struggled to trust me, skulking around the cabin like I might turn on her at any moment. Eventually, after enough treats and pets, she started sleeping at the end of my bed. Now, I can’t get her to give me space.
I push back out into the freezing air, gearing up to finish my chores so I can get back inside to a hot shower, dinner, and my dog. I already covered the solar panels earlier, for easier snow removal when the storm finally lets up, but I check on themanyway, then move on to my other tasks. Filling the bucket of salt outside my front door, scattering it generously over the steps, porch, and around my truck. Loading up the fridge with the goods from the general store. Bringing up some jars from the basement. Restocking my supply of firewood.
It’s going to be a long couple of days with this storm, and I’m definitely not going to make it down to town until it’s done snowing and the sun comes back out.
After a shower, I rub a towel roughly over my hair, put on my cabin socks and slippers, and head into the kitchen. I pull out a parcel of the elk meat I didn’t send over to Gramps and start prepping a large pot for chili.
From the fridge, I pull out some butter from the local dairy. I’m running low and will have to ask if they want to trade for meat or firewood. I could always pay them, but sometimes the old farmer needs things done around his farm and prefers the trading system to having to hire someone to do it.
If I offer to fix up his old barn, it’s a lot different than him admitting his old bones just aren’t up to the task.
After melting the butter in the pot, I dice up an onion and some peppers, throwing them in. The smell of the food fills the cabin, and I settle into my groove. Chopping garlic, adding in the meat, opening jars of tomatoes from my garden this summer and throwing them in, too.
Then, I add Gramps’s chili seasoning mix from the large jar he gifts me each Christmas. After settling the lid on the pot and turning it to low, I start on the corn bread.
I’m so consumed by what I’m doing, letting my mind settle after the busy day and hard work, that I almost don’t catch the sound of a car coming up the road.
First, there’s something weird about the approach. I hear, faintly, the crunch of tires on the snow and the distant sound of a vehicle moving, but there’s no growling engine to go along with it.
From the floor, Blue perks up, her ears turning slightly toward the direction of the road, as though she’s confused about the strange noise too. We stand silently together, straining to hear.
Then, I turn back to the kitchen. It’s none of my business if someone has had the horrible idea to take a leisurely mountain drive this time of night, with the snow coming down like it is. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to distract myself and let my food get cold.
Blue turns, staring at me from her place on the floor.
“What?” I grouse, reaching for a bowl to serve up my chili. I’ll leave it cooking for the next couple of days, and each bowl will taste better than the last. “It’s not my problem, Blue.”
She lets out a low whine, and I roll my eyes at her, reaching for the cutting board and grabbing a scrap of bell pepper from the pile. When she catches it, swallowing it in one bite, it seems to assuage her curiosity.
I hum to myself, picking up the knife to cut my corn bread, when a flash of lights shines through the curtains, and I realize a car is pulling up to my cabin outside.
My dog stares at me for a second, and when there’s a brisk, no-nonsense knock on the door, Blue seems to cock one of her eyebrows liketold you so.
CHAPTER 4
AMY
When I decided to buy an EV, a lot of people tried to talk me out of it. My mother, for one, didn’t think the technology was good enough yet. Kirstin was another, worried about what would happen if the power went out, and her husband, who argued it wouldn’t be worth the extra cost.
So far, they’ve been wrong. I charge her while I’m at work, get great mileage in the city, and have yet to take the cross-country road trip that Greg thinks will leave me stranded somewhere in the middle of Nebraska without a charge in a hundred miles.
But what none of them cared to bring up, and what I didn’t ever think of as a possibility, is what would happen when my little compact SUV was climbing up the side of a mountain in sub-freezing temperatures, the battery quickly depleting and the economy-focused tires not doing much to combat the snow and ice already caking the gravel under the car.
Of course, I could have gone for one of those electric adventure trucks, but I never thought I would be in a situation like this.
I never thought Don’s big break would be a cabin up in the middle of nowhere, a patch of land in the mountains he claims has been under disrepair. A neglectful, lazy owner, trying to get someone killed by not maintaining the mountain pass that runs through his land like he should.
And, of course, when Don insisted I needed to come make an offer, check out the area and take pictures, I didn’t even bother to ask why.
Because I knew the answer. And that’s why I’m on this road, an hour outside of Denver, struggling through the snow and trying to get to this man, despite the fact that it’s already past five o’clock, and the sun is dangerously close to falling down over the horizon, plunging me and my little EV into darkness.
