Page 10 of Love for Thea

Shaking his head to clear the memory, Grizzly shrugged his shoulders. “Just talking to myself.”

Reef gave a small nod and fell silent, moving to the back of the cabin.

“Pantry window’s open. Size seven tracks headed east. She flushed before they cleared the entry.” Reef paused, looking at a second set of tracks in the dirt outside. “And three sets of size eleven tactical lugs. They were right on her heels.”

Grizzly walked back out to the porch, looking toward the jagged, timber-lined ridges of the Stone Ribs. His eyes tracked the size-seven prints past a stand of Aspens. Even in the moonlight, he could see the leaves were curled and blackened, but there was no sign of fire. He touched the trunk of the tree; the bark felt unnaturally feverish against his palm.

He remembered his father standing by the old oak near the creek the day Ben left for boot camp. Ronald had pressed a calloused hand against the rough bark, almost like he was greeting an old friend. “The land is a living thing, Benji,” his father had said, eyes fixed on the horizon. “It’s got a pulse. You feel that vibration? That’s the water moving through the deep roots, the earth shifting in its sleep. This tree has roots deeper than the house; it drinks what the earth gives it. If the earth is healthy, the tree is cool and steady. But if the ground starts to run a fever, the tree is the first to tell the truth. A sick mountain is a dangerous thing, son. You can’t fix a fever that burns from the inside out.”

Grizzly pulled his hand back. He hadn’t felt the steady, cool rhythm of the earth’s pulse. Instead, the Aspen had vibrated with a frantic, jagged tremor, as if the roots were drinking liquid fire. It wasn’t just warm; the tree was burning from the inside out. His father had been right. The mountain was telling the truth, and the truth was terrifying.

“She’s heading for the rocks,” Grizzly said. “It’s the best place she can get to hide.”

“Hey, Grizz,” Reef said, his voice dropping an octave as he held up a rugged, scuffed plastic device. It looked like a cross between a 1980s walkie-talkie and a heavy-duty calculator. “Your dad shoved this into my hand on the way out the door. He said it was a ‘pinger,’ but I’m pretty sure it’s a prop from a low-budget sci-fi movie. What the heck is this thing, and why is it currently screaming at me?”

Grizzly glanced at the screen. “It’s a cattle-tag scanner. Dad uses it to track the herd when they wander into the timber. He probably tuned it to pick up the low-frequency pulses from the ranch’s fence-line sensors.”

Reef looked at the device with a mix of suspicion and newfound respect. “A cattle-tag scanner? So, you’re telling me your dad’s farm equipment is doing a better job than my military-grade comms? Because this ‘moo-meter’ is picking up a localized jammer. High frequency. Someone is saturating this entire valley with white noise. We’re in a digital dead zone, Grizz.”

Grizzly’s jaw tightened. “If the cattle scanner is picking it up, it means the jammer is dirty; it’s throwing off a lot of interference. They aren’t just trying to be quiet; they’re trying to bury the whole valley.”

Ben pulled his phone from his pocket. Zero bars. He looked toward the ranch, sixty miles away.

“The twins are officers in Naval Intelligence,” Ben said, his eyes fixed on the dark horizon. “Mace is a specialist in counterterrorism, and Logan is in cybersecurity. If I can get word to them, they can tear the digital mask off whoever is operating in this park. But we’re locked in a box until I can get a signal to them.”

“Who has the hardware to blanket a national forest?” Reef asked, his voice low and dangerous. “This isn't a couple of guys in a basement, Grizz. To saturate a valley this size, you need a high-output array. We're looking at a professional footprint. State-level, or a very well-funded private firm.”

Ben’s jaw set. “Vanguard. They've been leaning on Thea for months with legal threats. Now they’ve brought the equipment to back it up.”

He looked at the "Cow-dar" in Reef's hand, then toward the F-350.

“Reef, get back to the truck. My dad has a high-gain VHF booster antenna mounted behind the cab for when he’s out in the high country. It’s an old-school, wide-open signal, but if you crank the gain and patch your phone into the bridge, you might be able to punch a text through the white noise.”

Reef frowned, calculating the frequencies. “A rancher’s booster? Grizz, that's unencrypted. It'll be like screaming in a library.”

“Exactly,” Ben replied. “The jammer is looking for encrypted military handshakes: it's trying to solve the signals it finds. It won't be looking for a raw, low-frequency shout from a cattle ranch. Use the RobinsNest cipher just in case Vanguard is sniffing the air. Tell Mace and Logan we've had a forced entry and we're dealing with armed contractors.”

“And if the signal doesn’t punch through?”

Grizzly looked at the dark silhouette of the mountains. He remembered a thirteen-year-old girl holding a shivering bird, looking at him like he was the only thing in the world that could fix it.

“Then we’re on our own,” Grizzly said. “I’m going to go find her. And God help whoever is holding the other end of that leash.”

He watched Reef jog to the truck.

As he stepped off the porch, his eyes caught a glint of yellow tucked deep into a rock formation near the path. He knelt, pulling out a small ribbon. It was tied in a very specific, messy clove hitch, the first knot he’d ever taught her.

“She’s leaving bread crumbs, Reef. She knows I’m coming.”

The gravel crunched softly as Reef returned, his silhouette low and athletic. He gave a single, firm nod. “Signal burst cleared the antenna, Grizz. The twenty-four-hour clock is running. Let’s go get her.”

Grizzly moved into the trees, Reef falling into step behind him in a practiced staggered column. They shed the “vacation” mindset like a second skin. Grizzly didn’t have his full kit: no plate carrier, no suppressors. He was a man in a canvas jacket with a pistol and a lifetime of mountain knowledge, and he had his best shooter covering his six.

He climbed in silence, his breath shallow. About half a mile up, he spotted them. He pulled the Leopold hunting scope from his vest, the one he’d snatched from his father’s gun safe. Through the glass, he saw the two-man element leap-frogging up the slope.

They were good. They had the green glow of dual-tube goggles and the silent barrels of suppressed rifles. They were a modern army, and he was a rancher with a grudge.

They approached the Stone Ribs, one pausing near a specific fissure.