It took a few low flybys, but he found the animal on a hillside ten miles east, and it rose, waving a spiked paw at him as he flew by.

He hated to see an animal wounded, but a dead grizzly meant he’d have to skin it and bring it in for Hank to lock, and not without a load of explaining. Bush pilots had rules, and despite the wild frontier rep of the bush, Winter’s words had hung around in his head for the past week. “They’re talking pilot error.”

Dodge still couldn’t get his brain around that—his father was legendary in the area for his flight record. Still, if it was pilot error, they didn’t need any more problems staining their record.

He’d get Hank and take down the grizzly lawfully.

The afternoon sun slung dark, jagged shadows across the glacial spill south of the Alaskan range, and he ducked under the falling ceiling, the clouds thickening. A ring of spidery ice crackled around his windshield, and he guessed the weather had decided to betray him, the storm chasing him home.

He shouldn’t have expected any less, really.

He passed Chelatna Lake Lodge, a spiral of smoke rising from the stone chimney, and debated for a moment setting down on the thick pack of ice to wait out the oncoming storm.

“Mistakes get you killed. Fly smart.”

At this airspeed, he guesstimated he’d be home long before the clouds closed in. He hugged the foothills, the jagged peaks to his port side, as he flew low, nearly a thousand feet. A voice came over the radio, reporting snow in Copper Mountain, but he could already see it gathering on his windshield.

The clouds started to sink, and he found himself in a wash of white. He gained altitude, now over another glacial run, flying almost from memory, but he knew how the terrain could deceive.

Stay calm.

He broke free at 3,500 feet, his gut a little jumpy, and saw the rise of peaks ahead of him. Angling to the south, he made out familiar terrain in the fading light. Rambler Creek. He could take it north to his next marker—Cache Mountain.

The clouds hadn’t yet fogged in the river valley, so he descended for a better view and followed it. If he needed, he could put down at Cache Mountain Cabins, a tourist mining and hunting operation just ten miles south of the park.

The snow hit his windshield in a fury now. It began to cake, so he turned on the pitot heater. Visibility cut to a half mile, and he wove his way up the creek. He finally spotted the scattering of red-roofed cabins and the long lodge.

Nearly home. He could make it.