Her mouth ticked. “So we trip it.”
“You really do speak my language.”
She shouldered me. “I also speak ‘breakfast.’ If you feed me jerky again, I’m filing a complaint.”
I made eggs, biscuits and gravy, and watched her demolish all three with visible suspicion and then reluctant appreciation. We argued about socks—she wanted her city socks, I handed her mountain ones—and I lost when she called my emergency winter stash “flannel overload.” She tucked those ridiculous heart-shaped sunglasses from the pier into her pocket “for morale,” and I pretended not to love her for it.
We rolled out just before noon: packs light, radios, med kit, blades, and the quiet hum that meant we were synced. The forest took us in. The sun came out and laid gold across the firs. Somewhere up-canyon, a jay heckled us in fluent profanity.
“Rule one,” I said, leading us onto the old spur. “Don’t run downhill on loose gravel unless you know where you’ll stop.”
“Translated,” she chuckled, stepping where I stepped, “don’t die, stupid. You’ve told me that rule before,
“Exactly.”
“Rule two,” she asked, breath even, eyes everywhere.
“Keep your center over your feet and your brain a step ahead. Rule three—”
She cut in. “If you say ‘hydrate,’ Mountain Man, I will stage a coup.”
“—talk to me,” I finished. “Even if it feels small. Look at me, sweetheart.” She turned her head. “Any little thing that doesn’t belong in the mountains.”
Her shoulder bumped mine. “Copy.”
We covered a mile quickly, then slowed down. The first trail camera was hanging on a fir at knee height, camouflaged but pointed in the wrong direction—toward the access road, not the spur. The second was higher up in a hemlock, aimed across the slope. The third, I found with my nose: a faint sour battery smell and disturbed bark at chest level, pointed directly at the switchback with the pine etch.
“They knew someone would come this way,” Zoe murmured softly. She instinctively grabbed her phone, looked at the “No Service” message, and let out a sigh. “Your mountain hates my plan to text a strongly worded message.”
“Later.” I stepped into frame on purpose and lifted my hand in a friendly, exaggerated wave. “Let’s meet our neighbor.”
We didn’t wait long. A small quadcopter whined up the canyon, as subtle as a fly. It hovered twenty yards out, watching. I turned my head like I was just a guy in a hoodie (thanks, city), admiring the trees. The drone drifted left, and that’s when I saw the shimmer of nylon fishing line at ankle height, stretching from a stump to a rock.
“Zoe,” I said.
“Tripwire,” she breathed the word I was already thinking.
We knew what to do by instinct—she held position, covered arcs; I traced the line with my eyes to a tin can half-buried in duff. Not explosive. A rattle can—early warning. Someone had mixed old-school with new toys.
“On your left,” Zoe warned.
The forest folded and gave up a man in a gray jacket and a face you’d forget in a crowd by design. He walked like he belonged. Wrong. He didn’t look us over; he looked past us, cataloging exits.
“Afternoon,” he said pleasantly, hand tucked in his pocket. His eyes flicked at the drone, then to the pine-carved tree. “You folks lost?”
“Just admiring your craftsmanship,” Zoe said, tipping her chin at the camera in the hemlock. “Landscape photography’s hard.”
He smiled. “City people love our views.”
“You’re not from around here,” I said.
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Neither are most bears anymore. Reintroduced.” He tilted his head. “Word of advice: trails can turn on you if you don’t know them.”
“And sometimes they do it on purpose,” Zoe replied sweetly.
He lifted his hands a fraction—not surrender, not threat. “Turn around. Enjoy the scenic route back. Forget this spur exists.”
“Can’t,” I said, because his jacket hem flashed the corner of a pine stamp when the wind nudged it, and I was done pretending. “It’s our favorite.”
