Page 7 of Wild for the Mountain Man
I track her down the first mile, watching for the places the road leans toward ditch. At the turn to my place, I lift two fingers, and she flashes her headlights in a thank-you that feels bigger than it is. Her taillights fade into the trees, and the quiet returns, full of all the words I didn’t say. Instead, I’m full of guide talk or whatever I go around spouting.
My phone buzzes again as I’m walking in my front door. It’s a photo from Lilah. The image fills the screen—amber grass frozen at the tips, five elk mid-turn, all ears, all attention. The horizon looks like a breath held and the sky like what comes after. The herd isn’t centered. It’s edged, tension between what’s leaving the frame and what’s about to enter.
Beneath, her message:Proud.
I look at it too long, then type:You should be. Wind did what we wanted.
Another image lands. A bull in profile, antlers like a cathedral’s ribs, one eye catching a rim of light. My own breath changes.
Lilah:Not sure. Too tight?
Me:Tight on purpose, I write.Edge tells the story. He’s not posing. He’s choosing.
Lilah:Okay, I see that.
A third photo follows. Not elk at all. The meadow gone blue in shade, one boot print melting a shallow bowl in the new snow, the faint track of a crow cutting the top corner. Empty and not.
Lilah:You won’t get this one
I do, though. I get it more than I want to admit.
Me:Leaving proof. And how quickly it vanishes.
It takes a long time for her to message back. When she does, she simply says:Yes.
♥♥♥
I pocket the phone like it’s warmer than my gloves. The day is tilting toward evening now, and the sky has that bruised color that means we’ll scrape windshields tomorrow.
Caleb’s truck is in the drive when I roll up from getting a new thermostat put on the truck. He’s left the porch light on without thinking about it. Inside, there’s the slam of the fridge, the thud of a bag dropped by the door, the voice that has been getting deeper and steadier and less mine by the week.
“Hey,” he calls. “There’s lasagna?”
“Yeah, it’s the frozen kind,” I say, kicking snow from my boots. “You get the gas?”
“Yep.” He fingers the edge of an envelope on the counter. “Coach says scouts are at Saturday’s game. Says I need to …” He stops, looks at me, eyes a mix of dogged and spooked. “I don’t know what I need.”
“Same as always,” I tell him, sliding past to the stove. “Do your job. Breathe when the pocket collapses. Take the hit you need to take. Don’t take the one you don’t.”
He watches me for a second, then nods like the words find the right hooks inside him. “You coming?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
After he heads to the shower, I step out back. I think about the three images on my phone. Proud. Not sure. You won’t get this one. I think about how quickly proof vanishes if you don’t hold it in your hands, and how holding, in my experience, is the part that breaks you if you’re not careful.
I text Lilah before I can talk myself out of it:
Storm track shifted north. You’ll get color at creek bend tomorrow at about 6:12. Bring the long lens and dry socks.
Lilah:I’ll bring warmth with me.
I lean against the rail and let that line thread through my mind. And then my phone pings again, four words that bring anticipation for morning.
Lilah:See you at dawn.
Chapter 5
Lilah
