"I'm going to let you up," Cole said. "You will leave Lily alone, and you will walk out that door. Or we can wait here for the sheriff's department together."
"My uncle is the sheriff."
"Then you'll have someone familiar to talk to."
Brandon went still. His humiliation had finally caught up with his anger. The man who had entered the diner certain that everyone would move out of his way was looking up at a room full of witnesses who had, for once, kept their eyes on him. And when Cole stood and stepped back, Brandon scrambled to his feet without assistance.
He straightened his shirt. He looked at Lily, and his voice dropped into a register far more frightening than his earlier shouting. "This isn't over."
Lily lowered her gaze. Cole did not. He watched Brandon leave, then watched the black pickup accelerate past the front windows and disappear toward Main Street. Only after the engine noise faded did he turn to the young woman behind the counter.
"Are you hurt?"
Lily looked at the red marks on her arm. "I don't know."
That answer, more than anything Brandon had said, stayed with Cole. It was the answer of someone who had been hurt often enough that her first instinct was to minimize the damage before anyone could ask questions about it. It was the answer of someone who had stopped trusting the difference between a bad morning and a dangerous life.
Cole glanced at the glass on the floor. Then he looked around the diner, at the people who had watched the entire thing. "Somebody call for help," he said. "And somebody get her a chair."
For the first time, people moved.
Cedar Hollow was the kind of Montana town that appeared on a map only if you knew where to look. The highway passed five miles north, close enough to bring tourists through in summer and far enough away to leave the town forgotten through most of winter. Its main street held a hardware store, a gas station, a post office, two small churches, a pharmacy that had begun closing early on Saturdays, and the Mountain View Diner, which served as an unofficial town hall for people who did not much like the actual one.
On clear days, the Absaroka foothills were visible beyond the grain silos. In October, frost gathered along the margins of the county roads before the sun rose high enough to loosen it. The wind carried the smell of dry grass and distant wood smoke. Families measured time by calving seasons, school terms, hunting trips, and the particular week when somebody finally admitted it was cold enough to turn on the furnace.