The first fifty miles were straightforward.
Colton drove. Francis rode passenger. The others distributed themselves through the cab and the covered bed with the practiced compression of people who had stopped noticing discomfort as a category. Emma sat between Sarah and Diana on the rear bench seat, the rabbit in her lap, watching the road unspool through the windshield with the focused attention she gave to most things.
The sky had settled into a flat pewter grey that promised nothing specific but ruled nothing out. Snow on the ground on both sides of the road, not fresh, the kind that had been there long enough to harden and grey at the edges and develop a crust that caught the light without reflecting it. Spruce trees running in dense unbroken lines. The occasional structure set back
