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1 " The first hint of danger was a howl so distant, it was more a feeling than a sound. "
― , The Dark Divide
2 " Outside the closed windshield, birds hovered mid-air, held aloft by the relentless breeze. Lethbridge was a prairie city, dusty and slow-moving, but it had one constant that separated it from other places on the flatland: Wind. Bracing for it, Lou swung the door open and caught the handle before the gusts could tear it from her hand. Black hair whipped around her face. Scents rose and swirled past, carried by the breeze. Lou breathed in sunbaked soil and sparse golden grasses, motor oil and fast food. "
3 " The town was as barren as an empty movie set, the only movement from deer that wandered the boulevards. His eyes skimmed silent streets as he searched for the bed and breakfast. A half-grown fawn, grazing near the side of the road, lifted its head and hurried off to its mother. "
4 " An early frost was in the air tonight. Wind whipped outside the cabin’s basement windows, the last tendrils of late summer disappearing as fall took root. The dismal turn of the weather was a match for Lou’s mood. "
5 " His voice jerked Lou from her memory. She blinked and the dim bedroom returned. Outside the parted curtains, the inky surface of Bertha Bay lay silent. Above it ran a saw’s blade of mountains. Beneath, Lou knew, but didn’t dare say. "
6 " There was too much history he’d like to forget, but his memories were on the surface today, closer even than the woman across from him. For a single heartbeat the shop faded and Slocan appeared: huts in rows, men and women like cattle within its fenced boundaries. "
7 " I know these people, Sadie,” Jim said quietly. “They’re all good folks.” “I know. That’s what bothers me. "
8 " He opened his mouth and closed it again. There was so much more he wanted to say to her, but Alistair knew that he couldn’t. He could remember her. He could remember this: the two of them standing side by side. Only it wasn’t this moment, but another, centuries before. Two sides of the same coin. It made him want to shout in excitement; it made him want to hide in shame. She doesn’t remember. "
9 " Sparrows were an interesting bird. They had dialects unique to each region they inhabited. If Waterton had a sound, it was the lonely sparrow, keening for its mate. The trill was peaceful, but melancholy. "
10 " Lou sat on the dock and stared into the blue depths of Waterton Lake to where a figure floated under the surface. It was the woman who’d walked into Emerald Bay, her pockets full of stones, but in the dream, the woman’s face was a mirror of Lou’s own. "
11 " Beyond him lay a small, boggy lake, a few patches of brush along its edge. There was the scent of decay, and Rich’s nostrils flared in disgust. His feet slowed just as one of the bushes moved. He jerked to a stop and his knee twisted in his haste. A stone’s throw away, a grizzly bear, interrupted from its feast of carrion, stood up on hind legs. "
12 " Prairie flatness gave way to a shocking thrust of ragged peaks, the town site nestled in the crook of the mountain’s arm. "
13 " It was almost nightfall when Lou reached the outskirts of Lethbridge. Dark blue skies backdropped golden coulees and shadows of buildings stretched across roads in long, undulating bands. "
14 " Still he drove. Through rainstorms, and down windswept slopes, across the narrow fruit-bearing valleys and the hidden, secret mountain paths where the rusted carcasses of abandoned cars appeared at the bottom of deep ravines. West. West… the thought spurred him forward. "
15 " Outside the parted curtains, the inky surface of Bertha Bay lay silent. Above it ran a saw’s blade of mountains. Beneath, Lou knew, but didn’t dare say. "
16 " It’s a new day,” she said with a smile, “and you’re taking a drive in one of the most beautiful places on earth, and you get to enjoy my company the whole way.”“Now that is something worth savouring. "
17 " This is why I don’t talk about my past, you know. Active imagination sounds like ‘crazy’ in the right context. "
18 " A peeling sign appeared from behind an untrimmed hedge. Bertha Mountain Bed and Breakfast. The cross-timbered cabin had a quaint, storybook quality, with overhanging eaves and deeply recessed windows. Like the rest of the town, it was a place out of time, a half-step behind the busy pace of the world. "
19 " Days were long; nights longer. The streets, empty of tourists, were replenished by returning wildlife. Bighorn sheep stood in the parking lot of Hunter’s Coffee Shop and licked dirt off the hubcaps of parked cars. Deer meandered down Main Street and caused unexpected traffic jams. Even the cougars returned, slinking through night time gardens and leaving oversized paw prints in soft soil. "
20 " It seemed to Rich Evans that his innocence was an afterthought. Someone would go to jail for arson, and he’d do as well as anyone else. "
