Acing the season

I pulled an old scab off Ace last night. It was on his back just above his tail where the barbed wire caught him.

He didn’t cry or flinch. He simply watched and wagged, glad that I was home again.

A couple of days earlier Barb and I boarded the westbound Empire Builder a few blocks from the house, took our seats, and watched Montana pass by until it got dark. Then the Christmas lights came on in the little towns along the tracks and we stared at them out the window until we fell asleep to the click-clack of the rails.

We got off the train in the middle of the night in Spokane and took a taxi t...