I'm not here to make friends. I'm here for Waldo.
Waldo. The name my late mentor, Dr. Thaddeus Brine, had given the magnificent, elusive caribou bull. For three years, that animal has been my obsession. He's the lynchpin of my research, the key to understanding the shifting migrationpatterns that could have devastating consequences for the entire herd. Thaddeus believed Waldo was genetically unique, a leader whose instincts were adapting to climate change in ways we'd never seen. Finding him, collaring him, tracking his journey—it was Thaddeus's life's work. And when he died last year, it became my promise to him. A promise I intend to keep, even if the man helping me keep it smells like pine trees and motor oil and makes me want to argue about everything.
"This is the last of it," Nash says, securing a large Pelican case to the sled. He moves with the confidence of someone who's done this a thousand times, every motion efficient and sure. He belongs here. I'm the intruder, the fish out of water, dependent on his expertise for survival.
"Ready, Doctor?" he asks, wiping his hands on his jeans. I examine the horizon.
I pull my parka hood up, cinching it tight around my face until only my eyes are visible. "Ready."
He helps me onto the rear of the snow machine, his hand brief but warm on my elbow. The touch lasts half a second. My pulse takes notably longer to agree it was nothing.
"You'll want to hold on tighter than that," he says over his shoulder as I grip the side handles. "The trail to Misty Meadows gets rough."
"I'll be fine," I say through gritted teeth, because admitting I need to hold onto him feels like surrendering something important.
He chuckles, a low sound that I feel through the seat, then guns the engine. The machine lurches forward, throwing me against his solid frame, and suddenly I'm grabbing his waist to keep from falling backward into the snow.
His body is solid beneath the thick jacket, warm through all my layers. I hold on for one breath longer than necessary. Then I let go, which is harder than it should be.
The journey is cold and loud and relentless, and Nash handles the machine like the terrain owes him something. We fly across open stretches of snow, the engine's roar the only sound in the vast, silent country. Towering pines, heavy with white, flash past in a blur. The air is so cold it feels sharp in my lungs, each breath a tiny, crystalline pain.
Through bumpy sections and steep inclines, every jolt pushes me against his back until holding on stops being optional. His strength registers without permission. He leans into the turns before they arrive, reads the terrain with instincts I'm fairly sure weren't taught in any classroom.
After what feels like an eternity, he slows the machine, cutting a wide arc into a clearing sheltered by a dense stand of spruce. Ahead, nestled against a rocky bluff, is a two-story house of cedar and stone. The stone chimney stands cold and silent against the piercing blue of the sky. It looks like it was built by someone who decided permanence was more important than comfort.
Misty Meadows. His cabin. My home for the night.
He kills the engine. The wilderness fills the space immediately—wind, a distant bird call, nothing else. My ears take a moment to accept it.
"Home sweet temporary home," he says, swinging his leg off the machine. "We'll unload, get your gear inside, and then we can go over the route into the basin for tomorrow."
I slide off the back, my legs stiff and cold, and look at the cabin. It's clearly a place built for function rather than comfort, though there's something undeniably appealing about its solid, no-nonsense construction. A rack of snowshoes hangs by the door. A stacked cord of firewood stands against one wall. Through the single front window, I can see into the dim interior.
"I'll get the heavy cases," he says, lifting one with an ease that drags my eyes to his forearms before I can stop them. "You can grab your personal pack."
I nod, shouldering my bag and following him toward the cabin door. He pushes it open, and the faint warmth from a banked fire greets me. The scent of cedar, woodsmoke, and old leather lingers in the air.
And above the stone fireplace, staring down at me with the patient indifference of the dead, is the mounted head of a caribou. The antlers are enormous.
I stop dead in the doorway, my breath catching. The animal is beautiful, even in death. Especially in death. A monument to everything I'm trying to save.
Nash follows my gaze. "That was my grandfather's," he says, quieter than I've heard him. "Took him on this ridge, almost forty years ago. Said it was the smartest, toughest bull he ever tracked."
I stare at the creature and can't look away. Something catches below my ribs and stays there. He sees legacy. I see loss.
"I need to check my equipment." The words come out thin.
"Take the loft," he says, gesturing toward a sturdy ladder leading to a sleeping area above. "There's a cot up there. More privacy."
Privacy. In a loft that overlooks his great room, in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, privacy is an illusion. There's him, and me, and the dead bull on the wall between us, and weeks of wilderness ahead.
I climb the ladder without another word, my pack feeling heavier with each rung. The loft is small but adequate, enough space for a narrow cot and a small table. A single window looks out over the snow-covered meadow.
I drop my pack and sit on the edge of the cot. Below, Nash moves through the cabin. A drawer opens, the stove clicks on,something metal is set down on a counter. He sounds settled. I sound like the problem.
The mounted head stares up at me from below, visible through the loft slats. It's magnificent, still, exactly where it didn't expect to end up.
Chapter Two
