Chapter 1

"Give me that pass. It's stolen," Twyla Weyburn said.

Merritt Teal had been pushing a muck cart down the center of the Weyburn County livestock barn when the woman in the dark flannel stepped in front of her.

The pass was a square of oak, two and a half inches across, and she had kept it in her left pocket every day since her mother died.

She closed her hand around it.

Twyla's rings caught the barn light. "Cleanup crew doesn't come through here until six. You know that. Out."

Merritt had been hired three weeks back to haul straw and hose the pens. Nobody had said a word to her about six o'clock.

"I'll finish the far stalls and go," she said.

"You'll go now." Twyla's voice climbed. "And you'll hand over whatever that is in your hand."

There were maybe twenty people in the barn. A couple leading a steer. A row of kids in 4-H shirts by the goat pens. They all slowed down to watch.

A freckled girl in a green shirt had her phone up already, recording the aisle past her goat, and she had been at it since before Twyla walked in.

Orville Weyburn came up behind his sister, broad in his dusty boots. "There's a blue ribbon gone missing off the dairy board," he said. "Funny thing to go missing the same week we hire a stranger."

"I didn't take a ribbon," Merritt said.

"Then you won't mind opening that bag." He nodded at the duffel by her cart. "Or I call the sheriff and he opens it."

Merritt looked at the duffel. The tin box was in there, under her spare gloves, with everything her mother had left her.

"The pass first," Twyla said, and reached for Merritt's fist.

Merritt stepped back. Then she opened her hand flat, so they could all see it instead.

The oak was dark with age. One edge was burned black and curled like a leaf. Across the face, pressed deep, were the letters and the number: WEYBURN 01.

Twyla stopped reaching.

"That came out of the lost-and-found," she said, too fast. "She lifted it from the office."

"It's mine," Merritt said. "It was my mother's before me."

"Your mother." Orville almost laughed. "And who's your mother supposed to be?"

Merritt didn't answer. She wasn't going to answer that in a barn full of strangers.

Behind the crowd the wide door rolled, and a volunteer pushed a wheelchair through it.

The old woman in the chair had silver hair pinned back and a navy shawl around her shoulders. People stepped aside for her without being asked.

"Twyla. Orville. What is all the noise," she said. Her voice was thin and carried anyway.

"It's handled, Mother," Twyla said. "Caught the cleanup girl with a stolen pass."

Rosetta Weyburn's eyes went to Merritt's open hand and stayed there.

"Bring me closer," she told the volunteer.

The chair rolled up until she was near enough to touch the oak square. She didn't touch it. She looked at the burned edge, and the letters, and the number.

"Where did you get that," Rosetta said.

"My mother gave it to me," Merritt said. "She said it came from my father."

"What was your father's name."

Merritt's throat went tight. "Ansel."

A goat bawled down the row, and no one laughed.

Twyla's hand came to rest on the back of the wheelchair and held there.

Rosetta lifted one thin finger and pointed at the charred pass.

"That was on my son when he burned."