Page 22 of Savage Ranger Daddy

"I haven't said anything yet."

"You're wearing your jacket and your bag is packed. I can read the room." I take the folder off the table and tuck it under my arm. "You're staying here. I'll drive the route, check the sites, and be back before dark."

She doesn't flinch. She pulls out a chair, sits down, and folds her hands on the table like she's settling in for a negotiation she already knows she's going to win.

"Sit down, Brock."

"I'm not sitting down. We're not debating this."

"Then I'll talk while you stand." She opens her notebook to a page dense with handwriting. "The route we planned hits four waypoints. Two are locations you've physically scouted before. The other two are sites I identified through shipping manifests and Cal's coordinates that you've never visited. You don't know what the terrain looks like at those sites. You don't know the approach angles, the sight lines, or the access points. I do, because I spent three weeks studying satellite imagery and Cal's field notes before I even came to Timber Creek."

I set the folder down. She's not wrong.

"I'm also the only person who can identify the Ridgeline Outfitters shipping labels on sight. I've handled them. I know the dimensions, the color of the ink, the way they format the tracking codes. If we find cargo, you'll need me to confirm whether it's connected to the ring or just some hunter's supply cache. You can't do that from a photograph."

My jaw tightens. She keeps going.

"And there's a practical problem with leaving me here alone. The radio intercepts confirmed at least three operatives in the range. If you're gone for eight hours on a solo recon and someone finds this cabin while you're away, I'm alone with a bolt lock and a self-defense lesson I've had exactly once. The safest place for me is with the armed federal marshal, not in an empty outpost waiting to find out if the door holds."

She closes the notebook and looks at me.

I stand there with my hand on the folder and run the tactical calculus. She's right on all three points and she knows it. The shipping label identification is genuine operational value I can't replicate. The satellite imagery knowledge gives her terrain awareness at the two sites I haven't scouted. And the security argument is sound. Leaving her alone for a full day with active hostiles in the area is a risk I can mitigate by keeping her with me.

What she's not saying, and what I can hear anyway, is that sitting in this cabin while someone else chases her story would feel worse than the danger. I understand that. I've been the man on the bench during active operations. It's its own kind of hell.

"Rules," I say.

She nods. "Name them."

"You stay in the truck unless I clear the area first. If I say get down, you get down. If I say run, you run back to the truck and you drive. Not toward me. Away. Back to the outpost. Call Mason. Don't wait for me to follow."

"Brock."

"Those are the terms, Hazel. If I'm telling you to run, it means the situation is beyond what I can control with you present. You leaving gives me room to operate. You staying makes you a liability I have to protect instead of a threat I can engage. I need you to understand the difference."

She's quiet for a moment. I can see her processing it, the journalist in her weighing the logic against the instinct to stay and document. Finally she nods.

"Okay. If you say run, I run. But I'm taking the sat phone with me and I'm calling Mason the second I'm in the truck."

"That's exactly what I want you to do." I pick up the folder, hold her gaze for a second longer, and head for the door. "Let's go."

The truck starts clean. I pull out onto the access road and head north, following the route we mapped. The mountains are buried in white, branches heavy, the road scraped down to dark pavement with walls of plowed snow on either side. I drive with both hands on the wheel, scanning every pull-off, every tire track, every break in the tree line.

Hazel rides with her notebook open on her lap and the map spread across the dashboard. She calls out landmarks as we pass them: a distinctive rock formation, a creek crossing, a sharp bend where the road forks. She's navigating from memory and from Cal's notes and she's precise about it. Left at the split boulder. Two miles past the dead pine stand. The logging road should branch off just past the next ridge.

We hit the first two waypoints without incident. Saddleback Cut shows evidence of recent activity: tire tracks in the mud beneath the snow, boot prints near a cleared area, and the remains of a campfire that's been rained on but not old. The crate cache I found five weeks ago is gone, moved since my last visit. Someone cleaned the site. That tells me they're still using it and they know it's been spotted.

I photograph everything and log the coordinates while Hazel sketches the layout in her notebook, noting approach angles and sight lines the way I showed her.

The second waypoint is a dead end. The trail Cal marked doesn't match the current terrain. Either the coordinates were wrong or the access has been deliberately altered. We move on.

It's past noon when I spot it.

A dark pickup, older model, is parked halfway down a narrow access road that shouldn't see traffic this time of year. It's tucked against the trees like someone tried to hide it, but the fresh tire tracks leading in are clean in the snow. A tarp covers something in the bed that doesn't quite conceal the edges. Rectangular. Heavy. The cab is empty but the hood is still warm enough to melt the snow that lands on it. Whoever drove it here hasn't been gone long.

My gut tightens. I slow the truck and pull over fifty yards back on the main road.

"Stay in the truck," I tell her. "Lock the doors. This is one of those moments I was talking about."