Sterling sits above its river, and plenty of driveways here take that grade personally — a slope that means nothing in August and everything the first night it freezes. K & G Landscaping plows those, along with the flat ones, working December nights when the streetlights are the only thing showing where pavement ends and lawn begins. Salt goes down where meltwater runs and refreezes by dawn. There is a stretch in the small hours when the town is entirely still and the only sound is a blade scraping down to black. Come daylight nobody thinks about it, which is exactly the point.