When Whip had first come to the Rocky Mountains, he had seen their emerald and granite heights and felt that somewhere ahead of him there was a cabin he had never seen and a woman he had never known, and both of them were waiting for him, filled with warmth. The certainty was so deep in him that he even saw it in his dreams, the open door of golden light and snow all around and peaks reaching up into the dawn….

But in the past few years Whip had been from east to west and north to south in the beautiful, deadly mountains, and he had found only his own shadow riding ahead of him, pushed by the rising sun.

«Do you think Silent John is dead?» Whip asked.

Murphy shrugged, looked sideways at Whip, and decided to keep talking.

«He ain’t been seen since the pass opened,» the storekeeper said. «A few days later it snowed somethin’ fierce. Pass didn’t open again for weeks.»

«Where was Silent John last seen?»

«Heading out to his claims on Avalanche Creek on that old mule he favors.»

«Who saw him?»

«One of them Culpepper boys.»

«How long ago?» Whip asked.

«Five, six weeks. We don’t keep track of time much here. It’s either snowing or it ain’t. That’s the only clock what matters.»

«No one has seen Silent John for six weeks?»

«That’s about it, mister.»

«Is that unusual?»

Murphy grunted. «Ain’t nothin’ usual about that old snake. He’s chancy as a hog on ice. Come when you least expect and leave the same way. A hard man, Silent John. Real hard.»

«Most bounty hunters are,» Whip said dryly. «Has he ever been gone longer than six weeks before?»

Squinting, Murphy scratched the tangled hair that covered his chin.

«Can’t rightly say. Once, maybe, back in sixty-six,» Murphy said slowly. «And in sixty-one, when he fetched the gal from back east.»

«Seven years ago,» Whip said. «The War Between the States…»