Chapter 5: Cold Creek

The road to my mother's cabin ended at a fallen cedar.

It lay across both lanes at the Cold Creek bridge, three feet thick, with its roots in the air.

I stopped the Subaru and sat with my hands on the wheel.

Behind me the grey SUV stopped too.

The old dog stood up on the seat and made a low noise in his chest.

From the far side of the tree came the scream of a chainsaw.

A black truck was parked on the Stonefall bank, and a man in a black shirt was cutting through the trunk in clean steady passes.

He did not look up until the saw went quiet.

Then he lifted it away, wiped his forehead on his arm, and looked straight at me through the windshield.

Kellan Merrow.

"That came down Thursday," he said when I got out. "Stonefall's road crew was supposed to deal with it."

"You are the road crew."

"I'm short on staff."

The cedar's last cut fell away and a section as long as a couch rolled off the asphalt.

I should have asked him what he was doing there.

I didn't, and neither of us said a word about it.

Vernon's door shut behind me.

He walked up the road with his hands in his jacket pockets and his warm look on.

"Dev. This is a lot of drama for a misunderstanding."

"It's my mother's cabin, Vernon."

"It's pack land."

"It's deeded to my mother, and now to me." I held up the brass key. "You can't cross onto a wolf's own ground without her word. You taught me that."