Watershed Ch 1: The Return

Eight years gone, Josie comes home to find the land failing, the town frozen, and something foul in the air.

Read the prologue (updated 06/26/26).

---

Chapter 1

(updated 06/26/26)

Reconnaissance had always been her specialty—assess, analyze, adapt. But as her beat up Tacoma's engine coughed its way across the Oklahoma state line, Josie realized she had no intel on the target ahead. Eight years away from home was long enough for everything to change, including the woman trying to come back to it.

John Prine was singing "Angel from Montgomery" when the Tacoma's AC had finally given outside Fort Worth, which felt about right. Now Josie drove with windows down and the familiar scent of home rolling across the dashboard—dust and cattle and autumn grass.

The sky had been building all afternoon, heavy clouds massing on the western horizon behind her. When the rain finally caught up, it came fast and hard, drumming against the roof and flooding the windshield faster than her wipers could clear it. Water everywhere, streaming down the glass, turning the world into a blur of gray and green.

For a moment her vision tunneled, the way it did when her mind tried to take her back, back to saltwater closing over her head. Her knuckles went white on the steering wheel.

Not now. She breathed through her nose, focused on the rhythm of the wipers—left, right, left, right—until the storm passed as suddenly as it had come, leaving the air clean and the road steaming.

Eight years. That's how long it had been since she'd driven this blacktop. Since she'd left for West Point with her father’s memory and her mother's expectations wrapped like a shroud around her shoulders. The landscape looked smaller somehow, the way childhood places always did when you came back with adult eyes.

She almost missed it, but at the last moment she hit the brakes and skidded into the turnaround at the roadside marker for the Land Run of 1891. According to family legend, her great-great-grandfather Joseph Thomas Copeland had started from this spot, though Pete always said the stories got bigger with each telling. She stepped out, boots hitting gravel, and indulged in a long, full-body stretch.

Looking out over the grass, she tried to imagine what J.T. must've felt. How different was this prairie then—before roads, before fences, before whatever had changed the silence?

Her father had taught her to read landscapes like this. Look for what doesn't belong, Jack used to say when they rode fence together. The land tells you everything if you know how to listen.

Far on the horizon, she could just make out the grain elevator in town of Anchor, shimmering in the October heat. Even at this distance, it looked exhausted.

Movement near the monument caught her eye. A lean cattle dog, blue-gray and watchful, stood half-hidden in the grass. Female, maybe two or three years old, no collar. All tendon and wariness.

Josie crouched. “You lost too?”

The dog didn’t move. Ears forward. Calculating.

Josie dug into her pocket, came up with a smashed granola bar. Peeled it slowly, letting its scent waft towards the dog, no sudden moves.

She broke off a chunk and tossed it into the space between them. The dog flinched, then edged forward, snatched it up.

Josie nodded then tossed another piece, closer this time. The dog didn’t wait as long. "That's a girl. Trust, but verify."

After the last bite, Josie stood and opened the passenger door. Said nothing.

For a long beat, the dog just looked at her. Then she jumped up and settled in the seat like it was hers by right.

Josie shut the door gently. “Yeah,” she said, sliding behind the wheel. “Me too.”

"Need a name for you." Josie considered the possibilities as she started the engine. "How about Dolly?"

The dog's ears pricked at the sound of her new name.

"She's tougher than she looks, built something from nothing, and never forgot where she came from." Josie scratched behind the dog's ears as she started the engine. "Plus she's got that thing about helping people who don't have much—kind of like picking up strays on the side of the road."

Dolly settled deeper into the seat, already claiming her place.

Josie nodded once. “Welcome aboard.”

They rode the last few miles in silence, windows down, wind threading through the cab. The dog—Dolly now—watched the road like she’d been doing it for years. Josie didn’t say much. There was comfort in the quiet, and too much to take in.

When the Copeland Ranch gate came into view, it hit her harder than she expected.

One hinge sagged. The cattle guard had half-collapsed on the right side, and the wooden sign her father had painted—Copeland Ranch, Est. 1891—tilted at an angle that would’ve sent him reaching for his tools. Eight years of Oklahoma weather had washed the letters down to ghosts.

Josie downshifted. Gravel popped under the tires like old bones settling as she turned up the drive.

A half mile past the gate, she could see the house, still standing but somehow smaller than memory suggested. A single-wide trailer sat where the garage used to be with a beat up Ford parked next to it.

Pete was still here, then. That was something.

She eased the Tacoma through the gap in the cattle guard, tires bumping over potholes, and followed the gravel road toward the cluster of buildings that had once felt like the center of the world. The ranch house looked exhausted—paint peeling, gutters sagging, a blue tarp covering what must be roof damage. But the bones were solid. Her great-great-grandfather had built the main house to last.

Pete emerged from his trailer, sizing up the unexpected visitors. When he spotted her through the windshield, his weathered face broke into a grin.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Pete’s voice carried across the yard as he approached, moving with the careful gait of a man who’d spent sixty-eight years working cattle and weather. “Josephine Margret Copeland, as I live and breathe.”

She stepped out of the truck and he pulled her into a hug that smelled like coffee and wood smoke and something she couldn’t name, but remembered from childhood. When he stepped back, his eyes were bright.

“You still look like your daddy around the eyes,” he said, then noticed Dolly watching him through the driver side window. “And who’s this?”

"That's Dolly. Found her down the road." Josie opened the truck door and the dog jumped out, staying close to her legs but studying Pete with interest. "Dolly, meet Pete. He's family."

Pete crouched down, extending his hand for the dog to investigate. "Hey there, Dolly by Golly. You picked yourself a good one." The dog sniffed his fingers, then allowed a cautious head scratch. "Blue heelers are a smart breed. Loyal."

"Looks like she's been on her own for a while."

"Yeah, a lot of folks have sold out over the past few years. Moved to Tulsa or Denver to live with their kids." Pete straightened, brushing dirt off his knees. "It’s a shame. We lost a lot of good people."

"How many others?"

"Oh, a quite few here and there. Times have been... challenging." Pete's expression grew careful, the way it did when he was choosing his words. "But you're here now. That's what matters. Come on, let's get you settled."

Pete led them toward the house, Dolly trotting between them like she'd always been part of the arrangement. "Coffee at my place is still hot if you want some. Made a pot around three, but time gets away from me sometimes."

The front porch creaked under their feet, boards warped from years of Oklahoma weather. The door stuck for a moment before it swung open, revealing the living room that was exactly the same and completely different.

Josie stepped inside, breathing in the familiar scent of old wood and her mother's lavender sachets. The furniture hadn't moved—her father's leather recliner still faced the window where he could watch both the TV and the pastures; the ancient grandfather clock still dominated the far wall, its steady tick filling the silence.

But it was the photographs that stopped her. They covered every surface, chronicled every generation of Copelands who'd worked this land. Her great-great-grandfather J.T. in sepia tones, standing stiff and formal beside a wooden plow. Her grandfather in his Army dress blues, the same uniform tradition she'd carried to West Point. Her father as a young man, grinning beside a prize bull at the county fair.

And there she was—ponytailed and fearless on her barrel horse at fourteen. Then Josie in her cadet uniform at graduation, her mother's proud but strained smile beside her. On another wall, her mother appeared throughout the decades like a political timeline: swearing-in ceremonies, ribbon cuttings, handshakes with senators and governors, each photo showing her growing more polished, more distant from the ranch kitchen where they'd been taken.

But it was her father's landscape work that drew her closer. His photos hung between the family portraits—the creek at sunset, cattle silhouetted against storm clouds, the endless grassland that rolled beyond the fence lines. Each one perfectly composed, capturing light and shadow and the kind of truth that only came from knowing a place completely.

"He always said the land would tell its story if you gave it time," Pete said quietly behind her. "Spent hours out there with that camera, waiting for the right moment."

Josie touched the corner of one frame, the way you might test the edge of a scar. It was a view from the top of the hill behind the house at sunset, the one place where you could see for miles."When I was in the hospital, I dreamed about this photo."

Pete sighed, his voice softer now. “I’m sorry about the accident.” He paused. “Your daddy used to say you never did like shallow water.”

Josie didn’t answer. But her hand stayed on the frame a second longer.

Dolly settled by the door with a heavy sigh, positioning herself where she could watch both the room and the yard beyond.

“Senator’s been by a few times this year,” Pete said, pulling out the kitchen chair that had always been his during family meals. “Mostly phone calls, though. Was here in July with some paperwork for the farm.” He nodded toward a manila folder thick with documents on the kitchen table. “Doesn’t really stay here anymore, you know. Too busy with Washington.”

A faint hum of tires drifted in through the kitchen window. Josie glanced outside, but saw nothing. Dust stirred on the far road as if someone had just passed.

She turned back to the folder. “How are things with the farm? Everything okay?”

Pete’s expression stayed neutral. “Depends who you ask.”

She nodded, waiting for him to elaborate as she ran her finger along the dust on the mantel.

"I've tried to keep the place up," Pete said, following her gaze. "But it ain’t been easy. These old bones don't move like they used to."

“It’s fine, Pete. Clearly you’ve had other priorities,” she said.

“Speaking of.” He stood and picked up his hat. "I hate to leave you after you just got here, but I was just leaving for Stillwater, an auction, and won't be back until tomorrow. There’s not much in the way of food here, but you can probably find something in the cupboard to tide you over until I get back tomorrow.” He shook his head. “Sorry I can't stay and give you a proper homecoming."

"Pete, you don't have to—"

"Course I do." His weathered face softened. "Your daddy would've had my hide if I didn't take care of his girl." He looked down at Dolly, who had positioned herself strategically between Josie and the door. "Besides, looks like you've got good company. That dog's got sense."

The grandfather clock chimed four times, its deep German voice filling the silence that followed.