Chapter 5: The Northern Approach

Morning came grey and cool. Lily made coffee and let it sit while she planned her day. The northern route to the eastern ridge would take about an hour of hiking, but she could place two cameras by noon and be back before dark. The man wasn't going to know she'd gone back. She wouldn't be directly challenging his authority; she'd just be doing her work on land she had a permit to work on.

It was a good rationalization, and she clung to it while she loaded the truck.

By nine AM, she was at the northern access point, heading into the forest with fresh camera traps and more determination than was probably wise. The hike was longer than she'd anticipated, and the terrain was rougher, but she made steady progress. The forest was different on this side of the valley, more exposed, with smaller trees and more meadow. Good wolf country.

She was so focused on the terrain and her GPS coordinates that she almost walked directly into the man standing in the middle of the trail.

He was in human form again, wearing the same clothes as the day before or possibly different versions of them. This time he had a rope in one hand, like he'd been doing something with livestock or equipment. He didn't look surprised to see her.

"I said the eastern ridge," he said quietly.

"You said the eastern ridge via the southern trail. This is the northern approach. Technically, you didn't forbid it."

His expression went still. "You're a lawyer?"

"No, I'm a biologist. But I'm also someone who takes her work seriously, and this is part of my research territory."

He wound the rope around his hand slowly, methodically, like it was giving him something to do while he decided how angry to be. "You're trespassing on private land."

"Your land?"

"My pack's land."

Lily blinked. "Your pack?"

Something dangerous flashed across his face. "Forget I said that. Just go back where you came from, Lily."

He knew her name. She was certain she'd never told him her name.

"How do you know my name?"

"Small town. People talk. You asked questions at the rental office about the valley. You made an impression." He tied off the rope and slung it over his shoulder. "I'm Ryder. And I'm asking you, professional to professional, to leave this part of the valley alone."

"Why?"

"Because."

"That's not a reason. That's just avoidance." She took a step closer, and his body went completely still. "What are you protecting out here? If you want me to respect your wishes, I need to understand why."

Ryder's amber eyes held hers, and for a moment she thought she was going to get an actual answer. His mouth opened, and she could see him deciding what to say, weighing consequences and revelations.

Then he closed it again.

"Go home, Lily," he said. "This is not a place for you."

He walked around her without waiting for a response, moving down the trail with that same efficient grace, leaving her standing alone on the ridge.

But he'd called her Lily. He'd used her first name like it meant something, like they'd already established a relationship that warranted that familiarity.

She stood there long enough to watch him disappear into the forest. Then she pulled out her camera trap and continued up the trail like she'd never been interrupted.

She was not going to be told where she could and couldn't work. She was not going to let a man with amber eyes and secrets tell her how to do her job.

She was absolutely going to place these cameras on the eastern ridge, and she was going to come back tomorrow to check the footage.

What she didn't know, not yet, was that she'd just made the second most important decision of her life. The first had been coming to Montana. The third would be answering the question he'd never asked but was about to spend the next week trying to.

The storm came in faster than the weather forecast had predicted, dark clouds rolling over the ridge like someone had spilled ink across the sky. Lily had successfully placed three cameras on the eastern ridge despite Ryder's objections, and she'd been heading back to the truck when the light changed from afternoon grey to something that looked like early dusk.

She made it to the access road just as the first heavy drops started falling. Within two minutes, it had become a deluge, the kind of rain that came down in sheets and made the world narrow to visibility of maybe twenty meters. Lily turned on the truck's headlights and started driving carefully down the access road toward the main valley road.

The road was paved, mostly, but the drainage systems in the area apparently weren't equipped for the amount of water that suddenly started flowing downslope. By the time Lily made it to the lower section near the valley floor, the road had become a stream. The truck handled it fine, though she was going slowly, watching the water level carefully.

It was when she crested the small rise before the bridge that she saw the problem.

The creek that normally flowed quietly under the bridge had become a raging brown torrent. The water level was already up to the bridge railings, and it was rising as she watched, debris floating in the current: branches, soil, pieces of vegetation. Flash flood.

Lily stopped the truck thirty meters before the bridge, assessing. She was in a good position on high ground. The water level wasn't quite to road level yet, but it was clearly climbing. If she went back the way she came, she'd have to navigate that stream road again, and with the volume of water coming down from the ridge, it might get impassable.

She turned around anyway, heading back upslope, looking for higher ground or an alternate route.

The road twisted back up into the forest, and Lily was so focused on watching for the water levels that she didn't see the washout ahead. The road simply disappeared, the ground giving way to a gully where the water was running in a torrent, undercutting the pavement. She hit the brakes hard, and the truck slid, tires losing purchase on the wet asphalt.

For a moment, she thought she was going over. The truck tilted dangerously, the right wheels dropping toward the gully, and Lily's hand went to the brake even though she knew it wouldn't help. But the tires caught again, just barely, and the truck lurched to a stop balanced on the edge of the washout, half on road and half on the crumbling shoulder.

Lily sat very still, her hands shaking so hard she could barely hold the steering wheel. Behind her, the gully was cutting deeper by the minute, the water from the ridge flowing down in a brown torrent that was rapidly becoming more dangerous.

Going forward wasn't an option. Going back wasn't an option. She was, essentially, stuck.

She got out of the truck carefully, testing the ground beneath her feet. The shoulder was holding, but it was wet and unstable. Water was flowing across the road in multiple places now, the runoff from the ridge turning the entire slope into a temporary watershed. If the washout got any deeper, the road would cave entirely.

Lily pulled out her phone. No signal, naturally. She got back in the truck, locked the doors, and tried to think logically. The road would eventually drain. The rain would stop. This was a temporary situation, and the truck was on reasonably stable ground, even if that ground was sloping more than was comfortable.

She pulled on dry clothes from her emergency kit, which she always carried because she was the kind of person who always carried emergency kits. Then she made coffee from her thermos and tried to settle in for what would probably be several hours of waiting.

It was still raining hard, the sound on the truck roof loud and persistent. The light was already fading into evening, which meant full dark would come in maybe an hour. Lily was not particularly afraid of the dark, but she was starting to be concerned about the level of water flow. The gully continued to deepen, and the road on both sides of the washout was starting to show signs of instability.

She was reviewing her maps and trying to think of alternate routes when the sound changed. The rain sound got different, more urgent, and Lily looked up to see something alarming. The water level in the gully had risen dramatically, and now it was climbing the slope toward the road itself.

Flash flood. A big one.

Lily started the truck immediately, deciding that back down the slope toward the bridge was her only option. She put the truck in reverse and eased back from the gully, watching her mirrors. She'd made it about twenty meters when the headlights caught something in the darkness ahead of her.

A figure, standing in the middle of the road, making no effort to move or get out of the way. Even through the rain, she recognized the shape. Ryder.

Lily pumped the brakes and opened the window, shouting, "Get out of the road!"

He didn't move. He just stood there, and even through the downpour and the darkness, she could see that his eyes had changed. They were bright amber now, glowing slightly in the darkness, and his hands were clenching and unclenching like he was fighting something inside himself.

"Get in!" she shouted.

He wrenched open the passenger door and threw himself into the truck, his clothes soaking wet, water dripping onto the leather seat. Lily didn't waste time on questions. She could see the water level rising in her mirrors, the gully becoming less of a gully and more of a chasm.

"Which way?" she demanded.

"North," he said, his voice lower than before, rougher. "There's a high route. Go north."

Lily swung the truck around, pointing it back up the road, driving faster than was probably safe. Ryder had both hands braced on the dashboard, and when the truck hit a pothole, he gripped the edge of the seat and she heard something that sounded almost like a growl come out of his throat.

"Are you hurt?" she asked, glancing at him.

"No. Drive."

She drove. The truck climbed the slope through the rain, and behind them, she could hear the sound of the water rising. Not a small creek anymore. A river trying to flow down a mountain.

"Turn left," Ryder said. "There's an old logging road."

Lily saw it just in time: a narrow cut through the forest, overgrown but passable. She swung into it hard, and the truck bounced on the rough ground. She could feel something very wrong with the situation, but she was trained to compartmentalize. Data first, panic later.

She drove for maybe five minutes, losing elevation and reaching higher ground, until they were clearly above the flood line and the forest was solid around them. Only then did she slow down, pulling into a small clearing and shutting off the engine.