Chapter 2

It wasn’t until he bolted upright at sunup, awakened by the shouts and whoops from the cowboys riding up for breakfast, that Roy remembered he’d refused to go on the damn cattle drive.

2

Josiah Gibb, Joe to his friends and employers, joined the stampede to the cookhouse for breakfast before the drive. It was barely light outside, the sky that grayish color that precedes the dawn. Joe could hardly make out the peaked roof of the cookhouse against the horizon. He dropped to a seat at the long table and dished up eggs and bacon and a couple of Cookie’s giant biscuits.