Page 48 of Eco-Activist's Mountain Men
"What? Oh—yes. Yes."
His practical tone pulls me back to myself. He’s right. This isn’t over. Finding her is only step one. We still have to get her safely down this hillside, and night is closing in fast.
I clear my throat and force focus. "Found anything?"
Luke crouches lower, scanning her with those sharp eyes of his. "Pretty sure she fell and hit her head. Can’t be a hundred percent, but see here?" He points to a scuffed patch of dirt. "Looks like she slipped. Then she twisted in midair—" he demonstrates the angle with his hands, "—and finally, she landed against this stone." He rests a palm on a flat rock just beside her. "That’s what knocked her out."
"Any breaks?"
"Don’t think so. Nothing obvious. She’s got a nasty gash on her shin, though. Needs cleaning and dressing. After that, the best thing is to get her back to the lodge before full dark."
"Good. Sounds like a plan."
I dig the medical bag from where I dropped it and hand it to him. Luke rifles through it, finds a sterile swab, and carefully tends to the cut, methodical even here on the mountainside.
"How’re we going to get her down?" I ask.
"I’ll carry her."
"What… all the way? I can’t let you do that, Luke."
He doesn’t look up, just shakes his head. "It’s no bother. Besides…" His jaw flexes. "I blame myself for her being out here in the first place. Shouldn’t have gone at her the way I did this morning. I should’ve been more tactful. I owe her."
"Don’t be stu—" I start, but he cuts me off.
"With respect, Boss, I’m not being stupid. I’m being practical. I can deadlift four hundred, squat three hundred. She’s what, a hundred pounds? One-ten, tops? I can carry her over my shoulder without a problem if you’ll take my rifle and pack."
He’s right, and I know it. Younger, stronger. Built for this kind of burden. My pride wants to insist we share the load, but my ranger training says you put the job in the hands of the one best suited for it. That’s Luke.
I nod once. "Alright. I’ll take the gear. If you need to swap out, let me know. Deal?"
He doesn’t waste words. Just nods, scoops her up like she weighs nothing, and in one clean motion slings her across his shoulder. She looks so small there—so fragile in the arms of a man who could bend steel with his bare hands.
We start back down the steep hillside, our steps careful, deliberate.
Southpaw trots behind us, his tail high, ears pricked, no longer the dejected shadow he’d been earlier. The wolf practically radiates pride and purpose now, as if to say, I found her. I saved her. Again.
It hits me then—how much has changed since the day Luna quite literally dropped into our lives less than two weeks ago. Two weeks—and yet everything feels different.
Eric. Toby. Luke. Me. Even Southpaw. None of us is the same man we were before she came.
Who is this woman that she can stir us up like this? She’s unconscious in Luke’s arms, and yet every one of us spent theday with her on our minds. Every one of us dropped everything to come after her.
Does this happen everywhere she goes? Does she always ignite storms in the people around her?
Sometimes it feels like she might be an angel. Other times… something else entirely. There’s a force at work here—an invisible current none of us understands.
But is she the ringmaster of it? The one pulling strings?
No. No, that doesn’t feel right. She’s as tangled in this as the rest of us. Maybe more.
And still… something else lingers. Something none of us has seen yet, but I can feel it pressing at the edges. Out there. Watching. Waiting.
I don’t know what’s coming.
But I know this—whatever’s taken hold of us hasn’t finished yet. Not by a long shot.
CHAPTER 16
