Page 9 of Savage Ranger Daddy

No idea. One minute he's the man who held me while I cried, the next he's cleaning guns like he's trying to exorcise something and then fleeing to chop firewood like the logs personallywronged him. Did I snore? Talk in my sleep? Accidentally drool on his shirt?

I decide caffeine is required before I can solve the mystery of the grumpy marshal.

The kitchen is well stocked. On the top shelf of the fridge sits a full pot of coffee that's still hot. Of course he was up early enough to brew a pot before deciding to clean every weapon he owns. I pour myself a generous mug, add a splash of cream, and take a sip. Strong and perfect.

Outside the window Brock is chopping wood in the snow, jacket off despite the cold, thermal sleeves pushed up. He splits log after log with that focused scowl like the firewood has secrets and he's determined to beat them out of it. I let myself watch for exactly ten seconds because I'm only human. Then I turn away from the window, set my coffee on the table, and sit down.

Because I didn't come up here to stare at a lumberjack. I came up here because I published a story, and that story isn't finished yet.

I pull my investigation notebook from the stack and flip it open. Last night I spotted Brock's corkboard with the photo of Harker Creek and the hand-drawn map. This morning I need to lay out everything I know next to everything he might know and figure out where the gaps are.

I grab a pen and start a fresh page.

What I know:

The ring moves weapons (assault rifles, possibly military grade) and trafficked wildlife through the Steel Mountains using a trail network called the Spine. The front company is Ridgeline Outfitters, registered as a logistics firm, but every shippingmanifest I got my hands on listed cargo that doesn't exist being delivered to locations with no roads. Cal Hutchins, retired game warden, gave me the first real lead. He said the ring had been operating for at least four years and that someone he called "Voss" ran it from somewhere deep in the range. Cal gave me a set of GPS coordinates before our last meeting. Three days later he stopped answering his phone.

What I don't know:

Who Voss actually is. Whether that's a real name or an alias. How deep the local corruption goes. Whether the "hiking accident" and "carjacking" that killed those other two journalists were connected to this ring or separate operations. Where the active distribution sites are. And the big one: where the goods go after they come out of the mountains. Someone's buying. Someone's selling. The Spine is just the highway in between.

What Brock might know:

Harker Creek (burned-out site, six months inactive per his note). At least two other locations marked with red x's on his map. Something called "RC North" with a question mark. Seven months of ground-level surveillance I don't have access to.

I stare at the page. The shape of the thing is starting to form, like looking at a jigsaw puzzle where half the pieces are still face down. I have the paper trail. The sources. The manifests. Brock has the terrain. The physical evidence. The access to law enforcement databases I can't touch. Apart, we've each got half a picture. Together we might have the whole thing.

I flip to a clean page and start cross-referencing the trail names from my notes against the ones I remember seeing on Brock's hand-drawn map. Three of them match: Ridgeline Pass,Crescent Fork, and Saddleback Cut. All three showed up in the Ridgeline Outfitters manifests as delivery waypoints. If Brock's red x-marks are anywhere near those trails, they could be the active sites Cal said were still running after Harker Creek burned.

My heartbeat picks up. This is how it always starts. The moment the connections start clicking and the story reveals its architecture like a building coming out of fog. I've felt it before on smaller stories, local corruption pieces, a money laundering investigation that got me my first real byline. But never at this scale. Never when the answer might explain why people are dying and disappearing.

I'm so deep in the notebook I don't hear the door open until the cold air hits my neck.

Brock steps in, cheeks flushed from the cold, breathing hard. He stops when he sees me at the table surrounded by open notebooks and scribbled pages. His eyes move from my face to the spread of notes and back again.

"What are you doing?" His voice is careful, like he's not sure if he should be concerned or curious.

"Working." I tap the pen against the page. "I'm cross-referencing my investigation notes against what I saw on your corkboard last night. The Harker Creek photo. Your map. The x-marks."

His expression doesn't change, but something shifts behind his eyes. He closes the door, locks it, and leans against the frame with his arms crossed. "You went through my board."

"I noticed your board. There's a difference. I'm a journalist, Brock. Noticing things is the whole job." I hold up the notebook so he can see my page of cross-referenced trail names. "Threeof the trails on your map match delivery waypoints from the Ridgeline Outfitters shipping manifests I obtained. Ridgeline Pass, Crescent Fork, and Saddleback Cut. If your red x-marks are anywhere near those locations, I think they might be active distribution sites."

He's quiet for a long time. I can see him weighing it. How much to share. How much to keep behind the badge. The wind pushes against the windows and the fire pops.

"One of them is," he says finally. "Saddleback Cut. I found fresh tire tracks and a cache of empty crates there about five weeks ago. Military-style packing materials. Shipping labels scraped off but I pulled enough residue to run a partial. Came back to a distributor in Billings that went dark before I could follow up."

My heart is hammering. "And the other x-mark?"

"North of Crescent Fork. High elevation. I couldn't get close enough to confirm before the first snow closed the access trail. I've been waiting for a window to go back up." He pauses. "That's what RC North means on the map. Recon north. Unfinished."

I write it all down, fast, hand flying across the page. RC North. Recon north. Unfinished. Active site at Saddleback Cut. Distributor in Billings gone dark. Every detail is a thread and I can feel the web tightening.

"Brock." I look up at him. "I have six months of source material, shipping manifests, and a set of GPS coordinates from a retired game warden who went missing after he gave them to me. You have seven months of ground surveillance and access to law enforcement databases. We're working the same case from opposite ends."

He stares at me. That jaw is still tight but his eyes have changed. He's looking at me the way he looked at the terrain last night on the drive up. Reading me. Assessing what I can do.

"You're asking me to share my investigation with a journalist."