Orientation 1/5 — NEW HAND

Dawn comes cold and gold over Paradise Valley, the kind of light that makes every fence staple look new even when it isn’t. The bunkhouse door takes a kick and a boot print. Coffee steam meets barn breath in the chill. Lloyd looks you over like a farrier checking a cracked hoof. Rip doesn’t look at all; he just says, "Saddle, then coffee," and the room moves.

A hay-bale map is stabbed with nails: a downed line on the north pasture, a river crossing one storm away from bad, a red X where nobody explains the story. Your bedroll still smells like someone else’s soap. Your phone shows one bar and a text from an old life asking if you made it okay.

A colt bangs a stall; a hawk scribbles circles over the yard. Beth’s SUV ghosts past the main house, gravel talking under the tires. Somewhere a wolf throws its voice and the horses answer with restless feet. Teeter shoulders by, grins: "Try not ta die."

Choices come quick here. Do you fall in with Rip and learn by doing, peel back to ask Lloyd the rules no one prints, or step into the cold to answer that text before leather and diesel write new ones over you?