23. Cade
CADE
Most people think moving contraband is hard, but it’s not. The hard part is making sure you can move it again the next day, and the day after that.
When I go out on another reconnaissance mission using the new information we plotted on the maps, I find out Harlan Turner isn’t just running random trips through the wilderness. He has infrastructure in place for long-term operations.
I move slow and stay high, using the terrain the way I was trained to use it. I keep ridgelines between me and open ground, and I spend more time waiting than walking.
The first night, I watch four men come through the pass moving in a staggered formation like before.
The lead man carries a rifle across his chest, and the last man keeps turning his head, scanning their backtrail.
They’re equipped with night vision, which might be an upgrade since the night Wren first spotted them.
They’re professional enough to be dangerous, but not good enough to spot me.
I photograph them from beneath a stand of twisted spruce, with my body tucked into deadfall and my breathing controlled until my ribs ache. My camera’s wrapped in matte tape so it won’t catch moonlight. Every click is silent.
By dawn, I confirm a second route through another pass, then a third that follows an old game trail that’s been subtly widened over months, maybe longer.
Three active corridors, and all of them converge in a place that makes this situation more fucked.
On the second day, while I’m belly-down above a remote valley west of Elk Run Outfitters’ main client trails, I spot a staging area.
It’s mostly hidden below a steep cut of rock and timber, shielded from accidental discovery by deadfall, waterlogged ground, and a decommissioned logging road that used to be impassable.
The road is narrow, rutted, and disguised at the lower access point with brush someone dragged across. From above, I can see a good number of recent tire marks in the dirt.
There are two utility trailers under camo netting, a canvas shelter, stacked fuel containers, and a portable antenna rig tucked against the treeline.
Logistics win wars, and a man with Turner’s background would understand that better than most. Logistics also keep criminal operations running.
There are at least six men guarding the staging area, and at noon, there’s a shift change with a clean, practiced handoff to a new crew. The men wear plate carriers, there are radios clipped to their vests, and they’re carrying the type of weapons no mountain guide has any reason to own.
I photograph everything until my fingers go stiff and the muscles in my shoulders burn from holding still.
I stay through nightfall, through their first movement out of the valley, and through the second. By the time I pull back, I have enough photographs, coordinates, and movement notes to make a DEA agent sit up straight.
I should feel satisfaction from what I’ve accomplished, and I should be recharged after my time alone. Two days on my own in the mountains used to feel like relief, but now the silence only reminds me who isn’t here.
On my way out, I stop under a stand of firs as a realization hits me.
Three weeks. That’s all it took for one stubborn wildlife biologist to reorient something inside me that I thought had hardened into place. Three weeks for a woman to become the center of my focus, not a distraction.
It should make me uneasy, and it does, but I don’t regret a damn thing.
It’s nearly dawn as I circle back toward our land, taking a purposely indirect route. I cut north, follow the high contour, then drop down through a saddle that gives me a long view of the ridgeline behind the cabin.
On my approach, I find a boot print. It’s fresh, and it’s not one of ours.
It’s in a patch of soft soil where pine needles have been pushed aside by pressure and dampness. There’s a deep heel, an aggressive tread, and it’s larger than Wren’s by a mile.
A couple of feet ahead, there’s another. Then another. The angle tells me the man was moving east along the ridgeline, not crossing it. Staying parallel to our property.
I follow the trail without stepping on the prints. Twenty yards in, there’s a branch that’s been cleanly trimmed back with a blade. Another twenty yards, there’s another mark.
I keep moving and find a well-trodden spot just below the crest, behind a rock shelf and three pines. Our cabin is visible through a narrow window between the trees.
From here, I can see our porch, our windows, the driveway, and the stretch where Wren walks when she needs air. The world goes quiet and something old and black moves in me, as I lower myself behind the same rock shelf and look at our home through a stranger’s eyes.
The position isn’t perfect, but it’s good.
A careless observer would choose higher ground with a cleaner view, potentially exposing himself.
Whoever chose this spot knew enough to trade visibility for concealment.
You can’t see everything from here, but you can count vehicles, track lights, and see who leaves and when.
Someone can watch Wren from here.
My hand closes around the rifle sling across my chest hard enough for the webbing to bite into my palm.
I take a deep breath, then make myself take another, because anger is only useful when it’s under control.
I study the ground, where a flattened patch of grass and pine needles tells me someone has spent hours here, not minutes.
I spot a torn corner of a protein bar wrapper under some rocks and bag it with tweezers from my field kit.
Near the base of a pine, I find a small strip of black electrical tape that’s been wound in on itself.
The adhesive side has picked up dirt, pine dust, and maybe skin cells if we’re lucky. I bag that, too.
I take photographs from every angle, but in my head, I’m picturing a man’s throat under my hands.
I think of Wren asleep in our cabin. I think about the way she looked at us after she heard what we wanted, and how she stood in the middle of our living room with the firelight touching her hair, as she dared us to be as brave as she is.
I think of her mouth against mine. Her hands on my shoulders, the soft, stunned sound she made when we were first inside her.
She’s ours, and whoever’s been watching her through these trees made a mistake he doesn’t understand yet.
When I finish documenting the site, I shift from evidence to defense.
After a trip down to our garage for supplies, I use a thin, dark cord to rig an alert on the surveillance route low enough to catch a boot.
The cord attaches to a cluster of empty brass casings and washers I tuck inside a dead hollowed limb.
It’s primitive, but effective, and if disturbed, it’ll rattle hard enough for the sound to carry in quiet air.
I place another alert farther downhill, tied to a dry branch suspended against a rock face. When tripped, the branch will drop.
I angle the third across a likely approach to our cabin, outside Wren’s usual walking path. I don’t like rigging anything this close to home, and I like needing it even less.
My brothers are awake when I get in. After making sure Wren’s still asleep, we gather in the kitchen, where I lay out my evidence on the counter and tell them about everything I found.
Every bit of warmth drains from their faces as I explain how Turner’s operation is bigger than we thought, and when I get to the part about someone doing surveillance on our cabin, their expressions harden to granite.
“I set out noise alerts,” I say. “Just for warning. Nothing that’ll hurt anyone.”
“We vary patterns starting now,” Rhett says. “No predictable movement and no regular times outside or away.”
“And when Wren wants air?” Boone asks.
“One of us goes with her,” Rhett says.
“She’ll argue.”
“She can argue while one of us goes with her.”
That sounds exactly like Wren. I picture her with her chin tipped up, her green eyes flashing gold as she tells three former Rangers she doesn’t need a babysitter. But there’s no stopping us from rearranging our lives to become the walls between her and anything that wants to touch her.
God help the man who mistakes her softness for weakness, and God help him more if he tries to get past the three of us.