I do a slow scan of my surroundings, hand loose on my weapon’s grip, checking the approaches and sight lines the way I've done every day since I got here.
Old habits. Army habits. EOD habits that say you always clear the area, always check for threats, always assume someone might want you dead, because sometimes they do.
The canyon is empty except for me and the resident ravens. One of them croaks from a pine tree twenty yards away, watching me with that unsettling intelligence corvids have. I've been feeding it scraps, and now it expects breakfast like I'm running a goddamn diner up here.
My camp is minimal—the bivvy sack rolled tight and secured to my pack, fire ring from last night's small blaze now just gray ash and cold stones, water bottles lined up beside my pack where I filled them from the spring last night.
Everything has its place, everything is organized the way the Army taught me, and EOD reinforced. When you work with explosives for a living, disorder isn't just inconvenient—it's deadly. A misplaced tool, a forgotten step, a moment of inattention, and people die.
Like Noah.
I shake off the thought and move to the fire ring, building a new fire from tinder and kindling for tonight’s meal. The motions are mechanical, soothing in their simplicity. Scrape a nest in the ash, place the tinder, arrange the kindling in a teepee, light one match — because I’m not wasting resources —and breathe gently to encourage the flame.
Smoke rises thin and pale, and I feed it carefully until the fire is self-sustaining. Coffee first, then food, then decide whether to stay another day or push higher into the backcountry.
Except I know the answer already. I'm leaving tomorrow.
Nine days is enough.
The anniversary has passed, Noah's ghost is no quieter, but at least I've paid my respects with solitude and guilt, and I need to get back before my boss at Sierra Wilderness Expeditions starts to worry. I texted him from the trailhead before I lost signal that I'd be out for a week, maybe ten days, and he knows I do this every year. But there's a limit to how long you can disappear before people start asking questions I don't want to answer.
The coffee is instant, tastes like dirt and chemicals, and I drink it black while watching the sun set over the western ridges. Light spills into the canyon in shades of gold and amber, painting the granite faces and turning the pine needles to bronze. It's beautiful in a way that makes my chest ache.
Out here, nothing explodes.
Nothing bleeds.
Nothing dies because I made a mistake in judgment three years ago when I thought training devices could simulate real-world threats without real-world consequences.
I'm finishing the coffee when the raven goes silent. One moment it's muttering to itself in that conversational way ravens have, and the next it's gone completely quiet. I set the cup down slowly and reach for the Sig, thumbing off the safety as I scan the tree line. Birds don't shut up without reason.
Something's coming.
I move to a position behind the rocks that form the natural wall of my camp, sighting along the most likely approaches. My heart rate picks up but stays controlled—adrenaline withoutpanic, the way I learned to manage it when a wrong move could set off an IED.
Breathe. Focus. Assess.
It takes me three minutes to spot him. He's good, I'll give him that. Moving carefully through the scrub oak and manzanita, using cover, keeping noise to a minimum. But I've been staring at this terrain for nine days, and I know what belongs and what doesn't.
He's coming from the southwest, uphill, which is smart—it gives him the high ground advantage and makes him harder to spot against the setting sun. He's big, broad-shouldered, moving with the kind of controlled grace that says military or law enforcement. Tactical pants, hiking boots, and a pack that's neither too heavy nor too light. Armed—I can see the pistol on his hip from here.
My finger rests alongside the trigger guard, not on the trigger. Not yet. He hasn't done anything overtly threatening, but he's also not a hiker who stumbled onto my camp by accident.
Nobody comes up here by accident.
This is deliberate.
I wait until he's forty yards out.
"That's close enough." My voice cuts through the quiet, sharp and clear. I keep the Sig pointed at him but not quite aimed—a warning, not an execution.
He freezes immediately, hands coming away from his sides, palms visible.
Smart.
Non-threatening but not submissive.
His head turns slowly toward me, and I get my first clear look at his face. Strong features, maybe mid-thirties, dark hair cut military-short, eyes that are either gray or blue—hard to tell from this distance. There's a hardness to him, the kind thatcomes from seeing and doing things that change you, but also something else.
