Carole hurried down the highway, worried about being late. She’d promised to meet her brother almost an hour ago at home but had been detained by a personnel dispute. The job had grown less pleasant with the consolidation of two companies into one. No one seemed interested in cooperation, only domination. Perhaps it was time to depart. Heaven knows she would have been long gone, but family considerations kept her in place.

If she wanted to be thoroughly negative, she could say that work hadn’t been good ever since she gave up her gallery job in Durango. There were times when she missed it strongly, fighting off the pinprick of tears as she waded into yet another dispute. Compromise was something she’d learned to do as her duty. Other people were less willing to cooperate.

The sun was almost at the horizon point as it sank, leaving dusky shadows. The sentinel-like cliffs of the Hogback loomed ahead to her right. She’d grown up in its shade, always preferring midday when the sun gleamed off the dark sedimentary rocks. This part of Four Corners was known for its amazing rock extrusions, with the most famous, Shiprock, several miles due west.

Ahead she caught the flare of red and blue lights and groaned internally. Another traffic accident and since it was early Friday evening the bars hadn’t even begun to fill up. Carole had been brought up to be mindful of the danger on the roads. For various reasons the next stretch of five miles through Waterflow were particularly perilous. She’d lost her grandparents and an aunt to local drunk drivers and tipsy tourists.

This accident looked like a bad one. There were two ambulances stopped on the other side, a fire engine, and several police cars. Smoke rose from a car with a crumpled front. A cop was directing traffic to a single lane and she braked automatically to join the queue. Her car had just pulled level with the fire engine when she saw the smashed bicycle; Carole applied the brakes and skidded off onto the shoulder, throwing open her car door. She leapt out into the murky scene, ignoring honking vehicles behind her and the cop’s warning shouts. The whole world had narrowed down to a tunnel with one focus: a shrouded gurney being pushed toward one of the ambulances.

Other people loomed out of the haze and several tried to grab her shoulder to detain her.

“It’s my brother!” she shrieked and fought off restraining hands. A tall man in paramedic scrubs spoke sharply to those around her and she reached the gurney. She’d almost succeeded in grabbing the sheet that concealed the victim when the paramedic pulled her away none too gently. “Carole, stop! There’s nothing we could do by the time we got here.”

Chest heaving with a heart attack of despair, she subsided. Her eyes noted a rumpled and very deflated middle-aged man sitting in the back seat of one of the police sedans. Floyd Dewey, perennial drunk, had somehow gotten his license back. He ducked his head when he caught her frantic gaze. She and Roger had always joked how old Floyd would kill half the county one day. Raising her voice in a scream, the world suddenly dropped away.

When she returned to consciousness, she was in a hospital outside Farmington. The same paramedic who had yelled at her was seated next to her on a wide vinyl sofa. They were in the waiting room for the E.R. but Carole knew there was nothing to wait for. One look at the man’s deep blue eyes confirmed her despair. She’d known the man, Everett Muncie, most of her life. She used to ride with him on the school bus, and never hesitated to accept his counsel. He was one of the best persons she’d ever encountered, and perhaps for that reason alone she lashed out at his concern. No one and nothing could help her climb out of this tragedy.

Now, her whole life had tumbled to a halt. Her brother was gone. Carole held her head, marveling at the fact that for the first time in her life she’d fainted. Everett tonelessly narrated to her the story of the accident. She listened silently and remained that way even when a pack of relatives and friends arrived to noisily commiserate and point out unnecessarily what needed to be done now.