Ranger

Trent was up.

I heard him come out of his bunk.

Elise was up.

I heard her too.

I yelled for Trent to get the rope from my pack.

I yelled it twice.

He went for my pack.

Dale got a knee up under me and nearly threw me off.

He was screaming in a high, flat register, no words in it, and his eyes were open and fixed on my face, and I understood in that moment that he knew who I was.

that he had known for a while, that maybe he had recognized me on the trail that morning, the same way I had recognized him at the stove, that he had recognized my face as the son of a man who had been his friend 25 years ago, and he had decided that was fine, because I was just one more person who was going to disappear in a storm, and because it would please him to be the one to make it happen.

He drove his knee up again and I went sideways.

The knife came loose from his hand and clattered across the planks.

Elise was there.

Elise picked up the knife before he could reach for it.

She stepped back three paces with it held up and she said, in a voice that was steady in a way that surprised me, I've got it.

Hold him down.

Trent was back with the rope.

We got his left wrist tied.

The right arm was useless from the collarbone.

We flipped him over and tied his wrists together behind his back.