East of town the roads narrow and bend toward Gull Lake, and the snow out there hangs in the pines and drifts across the pavement in long white fingers. Mac's snow plowing runs those back roads all winter — driveways cleared to the pavement, turnarounds opened up, walkways shoveled, salt where the grade drops down to the road. One truck, one blade, and a list of places that need to be able to leave in the morning. There's a kind of contentment in the first light after a storm, everything soft and silent and a lane cut straight through it. That's the whole ambition: an open way out.