Chapter 1

The stranger at the D-Bar gate said she could read any brand in the Territory.

The foreman looked at her cracked boots and her thin blue coat.

"One night in the lean-to," he said. "Gone by sunrise."

Then the storm shut the road for three days.

She said her name was Tacy.

She said the silver ring on the cord at her neck came from her dead mother.

She said a letter in her bag could only be opened when someone in this house knew the child.

Nobody asked which child.

The bank held papers on the ranch now.

The sale was set for Saturday noon.

By morning the crew wanted the stranger gone before it.

The gray-braided woman who owned the D-Bar set a scarred hide on the long table.

"They say you read brands," she said. "Read that one."

Tacy put down her tin cup.

She ran one chapped finger along the burn in the hide.

The kitchen went quiet, tin cups and all.

"This mark's been filed and re-cut," she said.

"Somebody wanted a B out of it."

"But the D-Bar's still here, under the scar."

The lean foreman leaned in close.

He traced the same line and swore under his breath.

"She's right," he said. "That's our iron."

Somebody had changed it from inside the D-Bar.

The crew stopped chewing.

For a year someone had re-marked calves with the ranch's own fire.

Tacy reached across for the hide again.

The cord slipped loose from her collar.

The silver ring swung free and caught the lamp.

Small letters ran around the inside of the band.

The gray-braided woman leaned down and read them.

The color went out of her face.

Her hand shot out and closed around the ring.

"Where did you get this?"