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.
Above it 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.
Ethan stood alone, watching Cole at the cliff's edge, hands on his hips, facing the vast expanse below. Even from this distance, Ethan could see the set of Cole's jaw, the hard straightness of his neck.
He wanted to call out—say something, anything—but the words, all the rehearsed apologies and explanations, scattered like leaves.
Instead, Ethan wandered the edge of camp, stalling.
The wildflowers came up to his knees, alive with bugs and color.
He let his hand trail along a cluster of asters, petals buttery-soft and giving.
Above, the sky was an impossible dome, blue so dense it bordered on black.
He tried to imagine it, to let the grandeur crowd out the shame, but nothing had that kind of power.
Ethan dug around in his saddlebag and found what he'd stashed for this very moment—a bottle of wine and the last hunk of bakery sourdough, intended for a celebration upon their arrival in Glacier Meadows.
Taking a deep breath, he started across the meadow toward the cliff where Cole stood like a statue—a monument to holding it all in.
Walking to Cole felt like crossing enemy ground, every step flattening another perfect bloom. The air was syrupy with honey and mint, but each breath made Ethan’s throat tighter, not looser.
He closed the distance, standing a few feet away. Cole didn’t turn, didn’t even flinch.
The view here was even more beautiful. The meadow sloped off and then just dropped, a sheer fall to the river valley below. Light spilled in from the west, gold and white.
Ethan opened the bottle, the cork refusing at first, then giving with a pop that sounded too loud in all that space. “Thought you’d want to share this,” he said, voice wrecked.
Cole’s head dipped, the brim of his hat hiding his eyes.
Ethan held out the wine, the glass already fogging with chill. “We made it,” he said. “You did it. You brought us here.”
For a long beat, nothing.
Then, quietly, Cole reached over and took the bottle, his hand brushing Ethan’s for just a second. He tipped it back—no pretense of class, just a clean swig—and let out a slow exhale.
Ethan broke off a chunk of bread, handed half to Cole, who took it with a nod, then said, “It’s beautiful here.” His voice was ragged.
They decided to sit side by side on the edge of the cliff, the ground beneath them a tapestry of vibrant wildflowers swaying gently in the breeze.
They admired the vastness below, where the river valley stretched out like a painted canvas, each hue more striking than the last. As they shared the bread and sipped the wine, the beauty of the landscape enveloped them, creating a fragile bubble of intimacy amidst the tension that still lingered between them.
Ethan felt the weight of unspoken words pressing against his chest as he mentally prepared himself to pour out his heart in apology and explanation, to give it his best shot at fixing things with Cole.
He took another swig of wine, hoping the liquid would give him the words he needed and the courage to finally say it.