Chapter Twelve
Hawk and Sinead crested the last rise just as the sun cleared the ridgeline. He turned his head to the east and stopped without meaning to, his boots planted and his breath caught in his chest.
Below them, the valley opened up, wide and glowing. Mist still clung low over the stand of pines, and the whole world lit up like the heavens dipped too low to earth that morning.
Suddenly, the three days they spent on the trail—the switchbacks and deadly scree—seemed worth it for this view.
Sinead stepped up beside him, and a low breath rasped from her. “Wow.” She swallowed audibly, like her throat was tight.
“Yeah.” He couldn’t tear his gaze away. He’d seen a lot of views in his life, but this…
“It’s almost soul-altering.” Sinead’s voice came out as a whisper, hushed as if speaking louder would break whatever magic was spread out before them.
He gave a jerky nod. Hearing her say it out loud put words to the sensation in his own chest and tightened his throat.
The world he’d seen before now, much of it overseas, was beautiful in a hard way—mountains that didn’t care if he lived or died on them. And deserts swallowed men whole and forgot they’d ever existed.
This was different. This felt like the world saw them too.
He tore his stare away from the land and found Sinead was already looking at him. Neither of them said anything, but he reached over. When he touched her hand, she curled her fingers into his, as if they’d stood on this ridge and drank in this view a million times instead of once.
They stood there for long minutes, hands clasped. Every shade of green and gold melted into the soft brushstrokes.
Then, without a word, they kept walking.
They stopped for lunch near a spot in the earth where a spring bubbled. While he set more water to boil, Sinead squatted by the spring, wetting a handkerchief and wringing it out over the back of her sunburned neck.
As he ate his meager spaghetti and meatballs in a pouch, she devoured the other portion of tortellini.
Though they had little to say to each other, the silence was far from uncomfortable. When they got back on the trail, he focused on keeping them both safe even as his brain recognized they were close to the coordinates.
Their final destination. The end goal.
That meant they had a long day’s walk down the steep side of the mountain to reach a road. From there, he would call one of his teammates for a lift back to the ranch…
Where he and Sinead would part ways.
The thought gave him a pang in the middle of his chest, and he covered the spot with his hand.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He glanced over at her walking at his side. “Fine. Why?”
“You grabbed your chest. I thought you might be having a heart attack.”
He stopped walking and cocked his head. “How old do you think I am? Besides, I’m at my peak game. My health is perfect. This body is a machine.”
Her lips twisted in amusement, but he caught the way her eyelids drooped lower over her smoldering eyes.
The cabin came into view twenty minutes later. It was tucked into the mountain where the trees thinned out. The weathered logs were silver with age, and the roof was sagging but intact. A stone chimney still stood straight and tall despite the age of everything around it.
He was just lifting a hand to point to their discovery when Sinead let out a cry. “Is that it? Is this what we’ve been searching for?” She stumbled forward, but he caught her arm to hold her beside him.
“I’ll check it out first. Stay by this tree.” He sent her a look to ensure she was going to listen to him. When she nodded, he hurried toward the small door, his pulse thrumming fast and hard in the old familiar drum he used to get during ops.
With his hand curled around his weapon, Hawk threw her another glance and rushed forward. The old door was locked with an iron hinge and an ancient, rusty lock. There were no windows, and only one way in.
He tucked his weapon along his spine and returned to Sinead. “Unless someone locked themselves in from the outside, it’s safe.”
She raked her fingers through her hair. “Good. I’d hate another surprise.” She threw a look at the trees as if she’d never fully trust them to be safe again.
He eyed her. “Want to go inside?”
She bit down on her full bottom lip and then let the plump flesh slip free of her teeth. “I’d like to go in.”
He reached for her hand again and they walked up to the door. She paused, head tipped to study the roof and the rough-hewn logs. “I can’t believe this cabin is standing on the coordinates. You’re sure?” She searched his eyes for verification.
“Yes.” He showed her his map and their pin on the destination.
“Well, how do we get past this?” She touched the lock with a fingertip.
“I have just the thing.” He shrugged out of his pack and let it drop to the ground. After rummaging through one pocket, he closed his hand around the small toolkit.
He located a pair of heavy-duty metal cutters. It took a couple tries, but finally the lock snapped.
Sinead worked fast to remove the lock. They pushed through the door, its hinges groaning in protest. They stepped into a single room coated in a thick layer of dust. The silence seemed to be part of the walls, as untouched by time as the structure.
Sunlight cut through gaps in the roof, striping the floor in pale bars. Dust motes hung suspended in the air, stirred up by the breeze that wafted in with them.
She spread her hands. “Where do we start?”
“We search for anything that will tell us who lived here.”
“Or died here.” A shiver ran through her as if they’d stirred up ghosts along with dust.
He squeezed her arm. “I’m no historian, but this place is old. If I had to guess, it fits the time of the cabin from the Legend of Three Prospectors.”
She glanced around. “Or it could just be an abandoned shack rotting in the mountains.”
“We need to look for proof. Names carved in the logs. Anything personal left behind.”
She nodded and set off to a corner, and he started in the opposite corner.
There wasn’t much to the place. A simple wood table.
A single dug-out stump drawn up to it for a stool.
The far corner had a pile of fabric that might have once been a mattress.
He moved to it first and used his phone flashlight to cut through the shadows.
He was aware of Sinead’s footsteps behind him and drew comfort from the sound as they both searched the place.
His flashlight panned over the old striped cloth, chewed by rodents and moths, and settled on a dark piece of leather.
He reached for the object and grunted as he lifted an old leather bag, cracked and stiff with age.
His pulse kicked up a notch. There were initials burned into the leather flap.
In awe, he ran his thumb over the lettering, still legible despite the decades in the cabin: EW.
This was it. He was sure of it. He felt it in his bones.
This was the cabin from the legend.
He spun toward Sinead. She stood across the room in what passed for a kitchen—a rough plank counter and a rusted potbelly stove crumbling into ruin. On the counter sat several burlap sacks sagging with rot.
She was working through them one by one. He watched her inspect one carefully and then toss it aside after a single peek inside. As it hit the counter, white powder spilled out—old food turned to dust and crawling with bugs that she clearly wanted no part of.
“Sinead—”
She cut him off with a sharp breath as she looked into the second bag. “Hawk!”
He closed the gap between them in three strides, boots kicking up dust. When she drew out the object, the light from the open door hit it, revealing something small and square.
A leatherbound book, its cover cracked with age.
He crowded close to her, holding up his phone to shed light on the pages. She was breathing fast, and her eyes were wide on his for a beat.
“Open it,” he urged her.
There was handwriting on the first page, a careful, looping script in ink faded to brown but still readable after all this time.
“It’s a journal.” Her voice wavered. “This is—Hawk, this was his. My great-great-grandfather’s.” She ran her finger beneath the name. “Eli Winthrop.” Her voice broke.
Hawk stared at the page over her shoulder, reverence a weight in his chest.
They were holding actual history in their hands. Not a legend. Not a story passed down and exaggerated over a hundred fifty years around campfires and dinner tables. But a real man’s words—written in this exact room.
He held up the bag in his hand. “Look. This has his initials.”
She issued a gasp and reached for the strap. He let her take the bag, and she leaned close to examine the initials EW.
“Hawk…” Her eyes were bright, and they didn’t say anything for a second as they processed what they’d discovered among the dust.
Sinead moved to the stump and sank to it, setting the items on the table.
While she took a moment with her ancestor’s belongings, Hawk kept searching the cabin.
He needed proof this wasn’t just a family homestead but the cabin. The one from the legend.
He moved along the far wall, running his hand over the old logs, testing each one. If this place had seen battle, there would be evidence on the walls.
In modern war, he would find bullet holes. According to the legend, natives had attacked.
He trailed his hand along the log and his finger caught on something protruding from the wood. He shined his light on it and his heart slammed into his chest when he saw the broken shaft, buried deep in the log, splintered where it was snapped off.
He worked his pocketknife into the wood around it, carefully prying it loose piece by piece. Wood crumbled around the object until it came free in his palm.
The wood shaft was attached to an arrowhead. It was old, chipped stone, unmistakably Native American.
He looked up and found Sinead’s stare fixed on him, her eyes wide. They traded a look that said more than words. This place held violence and history that happened long before either of them was born.
He held up the arrowhead. “I think we can safely say this is the cabin from the legend.”