“Why didn’t you wake me?” Max said as he slid out of the bivvy.

“I want to look for tracks as soon as the sun comes up.”

It didn’t skip past Max that Lyle hadn’t actually answered his question. He began disassembling the bivvy and rolling up his sleeping bag and pad. The morning air was cold. The moisture that had remained on the trees and leaves had frozen overnight, and the world around him had turned stiff and crisp. Max worked quickly to stow his gear inside the backpack, pausing to get some of Lyle’s boiling water for his breakfast before Lyle had a chance to toss it aside.

“Were you planning on going without me?” Max asked as he took the first bite of his rehydrated eggs.

“I don’t need your help,” Lyle said. He scraped at the sides of his food pouch with an all-purpose utensil, finishing the last of his breakfast. His pack leaned against a tree stuffed and ready to go except for the tiny stove. Lyle’s deer rifle leaned against the tree as well. “You should go home; you’ll only be in my way.”

“I’m going with you,” Max said.

“Why?” The question came out sharp and angry.

Why? Max thought to himself. This wasn’t his burden to carry. Whether the men they hunted lived or died meant nothing to Max, but stopping Lyle from killing them did. Shoot them in a fair fight—in self-defense—fine, but he couldn’t let Lyle execute them. Plus, he had promised Meredith he’d bring her family home. “That’s my business,” he said finally.

“And doing what I’m gonna do…” Lyle picked up his stove and folded it down to tuck into his pack. “That’s mine.”

Max finished packing his gear as the first rays of dawn reached down into the valley, giving the world a hazy glow. Lyle left without another word, working his way downstream, and because they were north of the Laurentian Divide, that meant he walked north. Max thought about following him. It made sense that Reed would head north, where the land was more agreeable, the hills more manageable. But Lyle had that covered. If there were prints, he would find them.

So Max worked his way upstream toward the Devil’s Cascade, all the while keeping an eye on Lyle. If Lyle disappeared, Max would know that he had found tracks.

As the sun broke the horizon, it lit the woods with a luster that bordered on magical, the trees glistening with frost, the ice on the leaves and twigs sparkling like glitter in a snow globe. Every few steps, Max would turn and look for Lyle, his weathered figure hunched over as he searched for tracks. The longer Max searched, finding nothing, the more it made sense that Reed would have taken the easier path to the north.

Max was on the verge of giving up when he saw it—a small boot print on the bank. It was only the toe, but it belonged to a child. It was the same boot print he had seen the day before on the beaver dam.