I looked down at the GPS mounted on the dash for the umpteenth time in the past forty miles. And read the numbers displayed below "SPEED".

92.6.

And that ain't kilometers, folks. I hadn't seen that number at anything less than 91.4 for about the last 25 miles. And it'd always been above 80 for the 20 miles before that, even as we raced up Beaver Rim. But now we were coming into Home on the Range, that little remnant town along the Sweetwater, and I had to decide what to do.

Slow down, or maintain speed?

The speed limit through the four or five blocks of town is officially 50 mph, a brief drop down from the 65 mph posted on this two-lane highway. I watch the flashing lights of the ambulance more than a mile ahead of me. Doesn't look like they slowed down. Which is understandable, since almost all of town is on the right side of the road, and there's a frontage road between town and the highway.

Okay, maybe we'll drop to 80 through town.

Dispatch is trying to reach the Regional boss again, and I call in to let her know he's Code 1. At the office. She best use a telephone. Had some closed-door meeting there when I was in town an hour ago, and a bunch of other calls that needed responses. She thanks me, and then mentions the call I'm responding on. The high-speed run that began with a woman calling on her cell phone, reporting her husband was having a heart attack while they were up on the mountain elk hunting.

Static is bad, and I can't quite hear what she says. Either "There's an elk involved," or maybe she said "There isn't an elk involved." And then she quietly adds:

"For your information, the subject is 10-79."

Ten seventy-nine.

I lift my foot off the gas for the first time in 25 miles, and click off the emergency flashers. We coast through town at 50 mph. I look up the highway, and the ambulance is no longer pulling ahead. They've slowed, too.

Ten seventy-nine.

If you check our official 10-Code list, 10-79 means "Call Coroner." But rarely does anyone use the code as a verb. Usually it's an adjective.

The man is dead.

And up on the snow-covered mountain on our right, in a stand of trees on top of a ridge, just below the clouds, a woman in a blaze orange vest sits alone.

Alone with the body of her dead husband.