Chapter One
Frost Falls, Colorado
September 1901
Back in New York, they called him the black sheep. Not to his face. Or rarely to his face. But he’d heard it whispered in a pitying sort of way in the free-spirited Bohemian circles where his family was revered. Roen Shepard didn’t mind particularly. Depending on one’s view, he supposed it might even be true. It was certainly his family’s view; although the appellation was couched in humor, not pity. They were dreamers. He was not. He’d been stewed in creative juices since birth. Musicians. Painters. Poets. Novelists. Surrounded by so much talent and imaginative genius, something should have inspired him. Nothing had.
He’d never been afraid to try, and so, encouraged by his parents and grandparents, by his siblings and cousins, by his tutors and teachers, he tried his hand at every sort of artistic endeavor.
He was fair to middlin’ on the piano if there weren’t too many sharps or flats, and if he wasn’t required to sing at the same time. For a while, he thought painting might be his forte. He could put a still life on canvas that looked exactly like the bowl of fruit on the table in front of him. It was politely pointed out to him that he represented the fruit too accurately. A photograph would do just as well, his mother said, and that would not do at all. He wrote bad poetry and even worse prose. He’d once revised the first chapter of a proposed novel sixteen times before his father kindly took the pages and burned them.
The differences between him and his family were not only artistic ones. There were physical differences as well, so many of them, in fact, that his brother and sisters teased him mercilessly that he was a foundling adopted by their parents in one of the impulsive, magnanimous gestures they were known for. As he was the only child with green eyes, chestnut-colored hair, and a clumsy, loose-jointed frame that took years to grow into, it was easy to believe the foundling story no matter how often his parents reassured him it was not the case. As for the dissimilarity in appearance, it was all on account of his being a change-of-life baby, his mother told him, although she neglected to furnish an explanation for what that meant.
Thinking about it now, Roen smiled to himself. He was still a fish out of water at family affairs, but as an adult, he’d come into his own. At twenty-nine, he was content with the features that set him apart. He was more athletic than graceful, which made him a better baseball player than a dancer, and at a hair above six feet, he stood half a head taller than all his male relatives. He could joke, before his family did, that he had physical stature if not an artistic one. He could also have pointed out that he was not possessed of the same fiery temperament as the rest of the Shepards, but they would have said he lacked their passion and wouldn’t have understood that he was thankful for it.
Roen studied the drawing he had made in his sketch pad, reviewed the calculations, checking and rechecking his work on the elevations, and, once satisfied, closed the book with a pleasant thump.
It was only then that he became aware that he was not alone, and he guessed that he hadn’t been for some time. Roen could acknowledge that upon occasion he had an extraordinary eye for detail while being oblivious to the whole. This was one of those occasions.
He looked up from his sketch pad and turned his head in the direction of his visitor. He merely raised an inquiring eyebrow.
A lesser man might have flinched at being caught out, perhaps even been unseated from his hunkered position on the rocky outcropping where he was perched like a bird of prey,but Clay Salt didn’t twitch. Roen estimated the boy was eleven, maybe twelve, so that explained both his curiosity and his lack of embarrassment.
“Are you done now, mister? Seems like you might be. Didn’t want to disturb you none while you was working, so I just settled down to watch. I never seen the like before, what you were doing. That much fascinated I was.”
Roen had no recollection of anyone ever being fascinated by what he did, and he looked for mischief in young Clay’s eyes. What he saw were a pair of dark brown eyes, earnest in their direct gaze and without a shred of guile.
“Did you follow me up here, Clay?”
Now Clay flinched. “You know who I am?”
“Uh-huh. Why does that surprise you?”
“Well, you’re new to town. You’ve hardly been here more than a minute.”
“Three weeks. People are friendly, and I’ve been to your church twice. Saw you there with your mother and your brother and sisters. Between the minister and Mrs. Springer, I believe I was introduced to every parishioner.”
“Yeah? Not us.”
“No, that’s true. I misspoke.” Clay and his family sat at the back of the church and were the first out the door both Sundays. Out of the corner of his eye he had seen them fleeing—that was the word that came to mind—while Mrs. Springer was pumping him for information under the guise of welcoming him to Frost Falls. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance now.”
“Are you? Ma said I should leave you be, that your work is too important to suffer the children.”
Roen’s cocked an eyebrow again, this time with a challenging curve. “Suffer the children? Did she say that?”
Clay shrugged, unabashed. “Something like that.”
“I see. So you are in defiance of your mother’s wishes right now.”
“Not really. You didn’t know I was here until you were done so you didn’t have to suffer me at all.”
“True, and I admire your logic even if you are splitting hairs.” Roen saw one corner of the boy’s mouth lift at whathe perceived was a compliment, and for the first time Roen had a hint of the rascal that resided within. He was gratified to see it. Until this moment, Clay Salt had seemed unnaturally self-possessed. Roen opened his sketch pad to the page he had just completed and held it up. “Do you want to get a closer look?”
In answer, Clay clambered down from his rock and closed the ten yards that separated them. Roen handed him the book and waited for the inevitable disappointment that would shadow Clay’s features. It wasn’t disappointment, though. It was puzzlement.
“What is it?” asked Clay. He turned the pad sideways as though an angle might offer clarity. “I mean, I see it’s numbers. I know numbers. But these other scratchings? Looks like a hen stepped in ink and walked across your paper.”
Roen tugged on the pad so that Clay had to lower it for him to see. He regarded his work with fresh eyes. He huffed a laugh and ran a hand through his chestnut hair: Δ h ∑ D g. “So it does.”
