Chapter 6
Cole Walker woke before the first blue knife of morning split the ridge, a hard ache running down his back. The valley was silent but for the drag of wind over frost and the distant shuffle of a horse rooting for grass. The others still slept.
He stoked the breakfast fire and boiled coffee, then walked the lines, testing every knot, every cinch, every snap in the feed buckets.
When the sun finally crested, the air went from steel to silver, and he could see his own breath turning white as a birch switch.
Good. Better to start cold—it would keep everyone alert.
The group emerged in shivers and grunts, drawn to the warmth and smell of eggs and meat.
Harper was first, eyes swollen but clear, her hair in a flame-fisted braid.
Jack followed, moving stiff but not broken, the cold peeling the sleep from his face.
Riley was a vaporous ghost, arms tucked into his armpits, every step an accusation against the concept of morning.
Ethan—always last—stepped from his tent in an early morning daze, blinking at the brightness. He looked raw, honest. Like a man peeled down to nerve endings.
Cole made sure they ate heavy, double-rations of protein and carbs, then ran them through the day’s plan: an early push into the high country which means three hours of rough climb, two more over the pass, and maybe—if they didn’t fuck around—a sheltered slot near the old surveyor’s cairn to camp before dark.
“Trail’s going to get nasty,” Cole said, flat and clear, as he tossed a strip of bacon to the fire. “We ride tight. Don’t talk unless you need to. If something spooks the horses, get low and hold your line.”
They packed in silence, the kind that sharpened focus.
Cole liked this part—the slow slide from human noise to animal urgency, each person falling into their role.
He checked his horse last, running his palm down the withers, feeling for heat or spasm.
Satisfied, he mounted and wheeled to the front.
The first half-hour was easy, the trail still wide and soft, a rolling avenue of golden grass and frost-glazed sage.
But soon the path choked off, turning to switchbacks and ankle-wrecking shale.
Pines crowded the sky above, sunlight trickling through in broken lines.
The air grew thinner with every climb, and even the horses started to show sweat.
Cole led at a steady pace, but he checked over his shoulder every hundred yards.
Always scanning. Always measuring the slope, the looseness underfoot, the way Riley’s horse kept dropping its head, or the nervous twitch of Harper’s gelding near the more exposed curves.
But it was Ethan he tracked most—the way the man’s body swayed with the horse, more fluid now, less afraid.
An hour in they reached the first real test: a ribbon of trail etched along a granite face, the drop to the right dropping off a clean hundred feet, the edge crumbled to sand in spots. Cole slowed to a crawl, signaled with a raised hand.
He could hear the scrape of Jack’s boots as he tensed in the stirrups. “Jesus,” Jack said, voice brittle.
“Just keep it straight,” Cole called back, never looking down. “Don’t stop.”
They crept across, each horse nose-to-tail, the slope so sharp you could smell the roots holding the mountain together.
The wind picked up, slicing through every layer, freezing the sweat before it could finish beading.
Harper went first, her horse a stone, each step measured and calm.
Riley followed, hunched but game, teeth clenched.
Then Ethan, hands tight but steady on the reins.
Jack’s mount was last. The animal was breathing ragged, flecks of foam dotting the black line of its mouth.
Cole saw it happen in slow motion: a pebble, nothing more, pinched out by a hoof, then another.
The horse’s rear leg slipped. Jack lurched left, over-corrected, and the animal went down on one knee.
“Whoa!” Jack shouted, panic slicing the air. The horse’s front legs scrabbled, back hoof losing purchase, and in a blink the man and beast were spinning toward the open edge.
Cole was off his horse before the shout was done. The slope was loose shale, every step a test of friction and balance. He reached the animal in three strides, adrenaline blanking out pain and cold. He grabbed the bridle, set his weight backward, heels digging into the earth.
“Easy, dammit,” Cole hissed, voice notched down to pure muscle. “Easy!”
The horse’s eyes rolled, showing more white than brown. Jack clung to the horn, face drained, feet windmilling. Another inch, and both would be off the edge.
It was Ethan who moved next, no hesitation, no city-boy fuckup.
He was out of his saddle, hands on Jack’s jacket, hauling him upright with a force that didn’t fit his frame.
Together, Cole and Ethan became an anchor, one on the reins, one on the man.
Cole heard his own heartbeat roaring, but he could also hear Ethan’s breath, sharp and hungry, as they braced against the wild torque of animal and man.
Jack slid, almost lost, but Ethan got a grip around his waist and pulled hard. Cole used the momentum to drag the horse upright, keeping the reins tight to avoid a panic run. The animal’s hooves dug in, shuddering, but found a hold.
Jack was dragged up by Ethan, scraping up Jack’s arms but at least he was alive and not an inch away from falling a hundred feet off a cliff.
The horse steadied, sweating and scared but unhurt. Cole looked at Ethan, eyes narrow with surprise and—something else.
Ethan held his gaze, steady as an old horse.
“You okay?” Cole asked, voice low.
Ethan nodded, the movement barely there. “Fine. You?”
Cole grunted, adrenaline still sparking under his skin. “Fine thanks to you, I appreciate the help.”
They got Jack and the horse upright, dusted, and across the rest of the ledge. Only when they were safely on the wide plateau did anyone breathe again.
Harper dismounted, jogged over. “Is everyone intact?”
Riley, a step behind, “Shit, that was insane.”
Jack, pale but functional, checked his own limbs. “I almost pissed myself.”
Harper patted him on the back.
Cole waited until the group had gathered themselves. Then he set his hand on Ethan’s shoulder—brief, businesslike, but it lingered half a second too long.
“Good work,” he said, letting go before it could mean anything.
Ethan’s cheeks went pink. “You too.”
They mounted up and rode the rest of the ridge in silence.
But for Cole, every nerve stayed lit, his arm remembering the weight of Ethan’s body, his skin still hot where they’d pressed together.
He forced his mind back to the trail, to the chores, but nothing dulled the echo of Ethan’s hands on him.
Exhausted from the close call and tougher trail, the group decides that it would be best if they made camp early.
Three hours before sunset, at a strip of earth barely flat enough for five tents and a ring of trampled grass.
The valley cupped them on all sides, pines ragged above, anemic stream below.
The air hung with the residue of terror—everybody moved like a hungover boxer, eyes flicking to the ledge they'd left behind.
Cole threw himself at the work. He corralled the horses in a fold of granite, lashed the food packs tight in a ponderosa snag, dug out the fire ring and ringed it with fresh rock.
The motion emptied his head, gave him purpose.
Whenever the noise in his body started up—the memory of Ethan's touch, the heat in his own chest—he just set his shoulders and did the next thing.
The others were less adept at ignoring the day.
Jack parked on a bedroll, jaw set, refusing to look at the drop-off they'd almost plummeted over. He winced as Harper dabbed iodine on the cuts along his arm. Harper then wrapped his arm in gauze with methodical care.
Riley ferried water up from the creek, filling canteens and shaking out the last of the trail mix into everyone’s palms. He cracked jokes, but they didn’t quite land.
Ethan rolled out his gear by the fire, hands pink and raw.
When he flexed them, Cole could see the split skin at the base of his thumbs—rope burns from holding Jack so tight.
There was blood under one nail, a line of red tracking the web of his hand.
Cole didn't want to stare, but couldn’t look away.
He built the fire up, breaking sticks over his thigh.
When the flames were steady, he circled the ring, checking for sparks, then sat on a boulder with the group.
The space was smaller than usual—five bodies, five egos crammed in a circle barely big enough for their shadows.
Nobody spoke for a while, the only sound the pop of sap and the snap of the fire.
Harper broke the silence first. “Not the day any of us wanted,” she said, lifting her metal cup in a toast. “But nobody died, and I call that a win.”
They raised their cups.
Ethan stared into the fire, his face split between light and dark. The wind pulled at his hair, turned the skin along his jaw gold. He looked older, tougher, as if the near-death experience had carved him down to something essential.
Cole wanted to say something, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, he busied himself with the med kit, rooting for the tube of antibiotic and a fresh pack of dressings.
He stood, then crouched beside Ethan. “Let me see.”
Ethan hesitated, then turned his palms up, the skin already starting to swell. “Doesn’t hurt that bad,” he said, but the tremor in his hands betrayed him.
Cole unscrewed the cap and squeezed a line of cream along the worst of the burn.
His fingers brushed Ethan’s. There was an intimacy in it—a way of touching that said I see you, I know you, even if we’re not allowed to talk about it.
Cole worked in silence, smearing the medicine, then wrapped Ethan’s palm in a strip of clean cloth.
Their knees touched, the press of bone through denim.