Ethan rode last, every footfall a drumbeat of what he’d lost. The air felt thinner. He let his mind wander, tried to lose himself in the rhythm, but every thought came back to the same hollow ache.
Hours passed. The scenery changed—less rock, more open grass, then the first hints of wildflowers as they approached the alpine zone. Even at this elevation life was bursting through with pale pinks and yellows dusting the trail. It should have been a miracle. Instead, Ethan only saw the distance growing with every step.
Conversation dried up. By dusk, nobody spoke at all. Only the creak of saddle leather, the clatter of hooves, the sound of Cole whistling for the pack train when they lagged.
They camped that night on a rise above the basin, a wide flat bowl that would, in the morning, reveal the glacier meadows in their full, impossible color.
Cole gave out chores, voice clipped but polite. He handed out freeze-dried rations, set the tents in order, then retreated to the farthest edge of camp. His silhouette stood against the falling sun, tall and alone, like he was holding up the sky all by himself.
Riley gave Ethan a last look before heading to his tent. "Tomorrow," Riley said, "it’ll get better. It always does."
Ethan nodded, not believing a word.
He stayed up long after the others had gone, staring into the coals. He thought about Cole, and about himself, and about all the ways a man could ruin something just by wanting it too much. He wanted to sleep, but his body felt wound tight, every nerve sparking with the things he hadn’t said.
He finally gave up and crawled into his tent. He closed his eyes and tried to remember what it had felt like to want something without being afraid.
Chapter 16 - Ethan
Ethan woke to sunlight pouring over the tent’s sagging roof, everything rimed with frost except his chest, which was clammy with sweat.
He forced himself up, ignoring the dry ache in his throat.
He didn’t bother to look for Cole. It was easier to keep the guy peripheral—just another silhouette in the colorless wash of dawn, looming over the half-packed mules.
The plan was clear. Make it to the meadows by midday.
They rode out single file, hooves thudding soft against the earth as the landscape pinched upward, closing into a knife-blade switchback. The sun, mean and brilliant, scorched off the frost as soon as it touched it. Nobody made a sound.
The trail crested hard and sudden, and the world split open—Glacier Meadows, twenty acres of riotous bloom, a sprawling, impossible garden shot through with pink and blue and fire-orange, the air thick with a perfume so intense Ethan almost tasted it on his tongue. Lupine everywhere, purple and serrated and vivid, interspersed with spikes of Indian paintbrush, clouds of asters, thistle with bees going at it like drunken sailors. Aboveit all, the ridgeline was rimmed with dirty snow and the blue ice of old glaciers. The whole place glowed as if the sun had picked this one spot to retire in.
The horses, tired and shaking with sweat, seemed to feel it too. Everyone stopped in their tracks and just stared.
Ethan heard a sharp, involuntary sound—half laugh, half sob. He looked left. Harper was wiping her eyes, face split with a real smile for the first time in days. Riley, next in line, let out a low, whistling “holy shit,” reverent.
Cole was up front, shoulders squared, hat tilted back. For one moment, Ethan could see it—the way Cole wanted to soften, to just let the beauty of it lay him flat, but he couldn’t. The armor was welded on.
Jack said, “Well fuck me, I thought you were exaggerating,” but it was quiet, almost to himself.
They all just stood there, letting the light wash over them.
Ethan wanted to believe that if he said the right thing, did the right thing, this would be the moment it all turned around. But the words were stuck.
Cole finally set the horse in motion, picking a careful line down the scree to the broad floor of the basin. The rest followed. As they dropped into the bowl, the heat of the meadow wrapped them—wet and fragrant, thick with the breath of a million plants pumping out summer before winter crashed back in.
Camp was a stand of ancient, wind-cracked pines on a rise just off the main field. Harper and Riley took point, jumping off their horses with theatrical exhaustion.
Cole hopped down and started unsaddling, the motions clipped and methodical. He didn’t look at Ethan, not even when Ethan, desperate to help, untied the lead rope and tried to steady the twitchy packhorse.
They worked in silence, barely coordinating. It wasn’t angry, just stripped of anything but necessity.
With the tents up and food stashed in the bear hang, Harper nudged Riley and nodded toward the western edge of the meadow where Cole was walking, his figure silhouetted against the dramatic drop-off that overlooked the valley below.
"We're climbing the northern ridge," Harper announced, loud enough for everyone to hear, "to see if the rumors of 'epic glacial runoff waterfalls' are real or just the hallucinations of dehydrated botanists." As she passed Ethan, she gave him a pointed look and a slight nod toward Cole.
Riley squeezed Ethan's shoulder. "Fix it," he whispered, then followed Harper, their banter receding quick into the sea of blue and gold.
Jack, left behind, eyed Ethan and said, "I'm going fishing. There's supposed to be a lake just over that knoll. If I'm not back by dusk, send the search party." He was gone in seconds.
