When he closed to within thirty yards of the creek, he spotted what he needed directly ahead, a huge fallen oak whose roots had been undermined by a flash flood. The exposed root ball was perfect. It towered over the sand in a chaotic tangle of worm-like tendrils, clods of earth, and river stones. The main structure of the tree fanned out toward Nathan’s position at a 45-degree angle from the creek. Its trunk looked to be almost four feet in diameter, with large branches jutting out from its central structure.

As Nathan studied the tree, a plan came to him, fully formed.

He crawled to its prone form and shucked off his ghillie suit and backpack. The trees flanking the fallen oak gave him spotty cover at best, so he made slow, deliberate movements to avoid catching Leonard’s eye. He shouldered his weapon and slowly swept the canyon’s southern rim from west to east, ending at the rock spire. Nothing at all. No movement. Was Leonard up there? If so, where would he be? Would he pick the most obvious position, the deepest recess offering the darkest shadow? Probably not. A trained Army Ranger wouldn’t choose a predictable location. He’d pick an unlikely spot, with marginal cover. But he would pick a location from which he could relocate after shooting.

Okay, Nathan thought, let’s assign names to the four most likely shooting positions up there. He started with the closest place to the spire, a long bowl-shaped dip in the rim with a sandy surface flanked by low ledges of fallen limestone. He’d call that spot Ledges. The next place moving west was a shadowed crevice with a thirty-foot long fallen slab of rock in front of it. That would be a good location because the slab of rock looked to be about three feet high, suitable for bench resting a rifle. He called that location Bench. The next good candidate was a missing piece of striated limestone shaped like a coffee cup. He named it Coffee. The final location was a leaning chunk of limestone that formed a triangular-shaped opening with deep shadow. He’d call that spot Shadow.

Nathan didn’t favor Shadow as much as the others because it didn’t allow a large radius of fire. If Leonard chose Shadow, he’d have to sacrifice nearly half the canyon in order to stay concealed. It also didn’t offer an easy way to relocate because it wasn’t at the very top of the canyon’s rim.

He studied each location through the rifle’s scope again. Ledges. Bench. Coffee. Shadow. He favored Bench because along with its length of nearly thirty feet, it offered Leonard the easiest relocation capability. He put Ledges in second place, followed by Coffee. He thought the least likely spot would be Shadow.