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only their son, Jaeger Knudsen, to call on. His younger brother, Peter, was off in the Air Force.
    I hadn’t wanted to bother Jaeger earlier, and now it was too late to go into town. I had already put up the chickens, fed the winter hog, closed the barns up, and brought Shep inside. I had overridden Hank’s rule of no animals in the house. Nowadays, it was just as important to have the dog at my side as it was to have a loaded .22 rifle next to the kitchen door.
    Hank had taken his evening broth, and I stared at the strips of bacon on my plate and the bowl of canned fruit that sat next to it. We ate a big dinner at noon and a smaller supper in the evening. It had always been that way, and I was in no mood for any more changes in my life, even given Hank’s condition.
    I brought my dishes to the sink, turned off all of the lights in the house, padded easily to the bedroom, and climbed into bed next to Hank. He smelled of baby oil—to keep the bedsores away—instead of the wind and toil. I missed his healthy scent more than I could say.
    â€œYou don’t know anything is wrong, Marjie.” Hank’s eyes were open, staring straight up at the ceiling.
    â€œI do. I do know something is wrong. So do you,” I said.
    Hank didn’t answer; he just exhaled as fully as he could and closed his eyes. It was my turn to stare into the darkness. I was afraid of the dreams I would have if I let myself fall asleep.

CHAPTER 5
    There were days when I wished Shep was a retriever instead of a border collie. It would’ve been a fine luxury to have the capability to send the dog out for the morning newspaper, then have him bring it back inside the house and deposit it at my feet. But Shep was not that kind of dog, and I certainly didn’t have the time or the inclination to try and convince him why such a duty would have been in his best interest to take on. He was too busy worrying over the wandering chickens that had already been let out of the coop.
    The necessities of the morning had been tended to before the sun had broken over the flat horizon. Hank had been fed, bathed, and exercised. Coffee simmered on the stove, and what little livestock was left on the farm had already been seen to.
    I had slept fitfully. Sometime during the night exhaustion took over and I let my worry go, or at least set it aside. My question about musk thistle wasn’t far away when I woke. And the fact that Calla hadn’t answered the phone nagged at me deeply. Even more worrisome was the fact that Guy had answered the phone. Come one minute after nine, I knew I’d be on the phone to the library to see what I could find out. Until then, it was business as usual. It had to be.
    I eased my way to the edge of the road where the newspaper lay waiting for me. Morning dew had dampened the outside of the rolled and rubber-banded paper log. It felt like my fingers would push through it when I picked it up. Retrieving the soggy paper was a mindless act that occurred every morning. If I’d had my way, I would have stopped taking the news a long time ago, but Hank liked me to read it to him after lunch. He would drift off soon after I read Dear Abby to him.
    Typically, I would have made my way back to the house, refilled my coffee cup, put the paper on the kitchen table to dry out, and headed to my desk. But this morning I stopped halfway to the house and considered the paper in my hand. That bad feeling I’d had after the library phone went unanswered persisted like a bad cough that couldn’t be cured.
    You’re being silly, Marjorie , I said to myself, then looked at Shep, who had herded the chickens up next to the garage. There was no way he was ever going to retrieve anything as long as there were chickens to put in their place.
    I looked at the newspaper, the Dickinson Press , or the Press, as everyone around these parts had forever called it. I opened it gingerly, carefully, because of the dampness and