Part 1 – Chapter 1
In the spring of 2012, as the moon rose over Montana, the forest echoed with the whooshing of hurried breaths and the sharp snap of twigs underfoot. A small green shrub grazed a pair of legs in passing. A fugitive ran as fast as he could from his pursuer.
The hunter moved with focus and fury, holding firm to one core belief: justice could not extend into the forest. Wearing a rancher’s coat and carrying a hiking backpack with a rifle strapped to the side, he began to feel the strain of the chase. His lungs ached. His legs burned. His endurance wavered.
When he finally paused to breathe, the justice-seeker lost sight of his quarry—the man with medium blond hair and piercing blue eyes had vanished into the underbrush.
After catching his breath, the tracker surveyed the ground. A broken twig. A fresh shoe print. Another footprint two feet ahead. Clues. Evidence. The kind he lived for. He followed the signs deeper into the woods.
Then a gunshot cracked through the silence.
Without hesitation, the rifleman sprinted toward the sound. He soon found a black-footed ferret collapsed in the dirt, wheezing, struggling to stay alive. His breath caught.
Then—click.
A gun behind his head.
He froze.
Daniel thought, As a hunter, he thought grimly, I can’t believe I fell for that nonsense. This might be my last hunt for Joe Gill. The longer I stand here, the sooner that ferret dies. I have to move.
Joe’s voice came sharp with threat. He wanted access to the boat passage. But the lone avenger stalled, offering to lead him there—on one condition.
Mr. Gill stepped back to gain distance. But hidden in plain sight, a bear trap snapped shut on his left leg. He screamed as he fell, but the vigilante moved fast, clamping a gloved hand over his mouth. Joe writhed, then managed to stand and raise his rifle.
The man in the coat stared at him.
“Why did you murder those people?”
Joe’s answer came tangled in excuses. The tracker listened with hard eyes, unmoved. He gave the fugitive a final chance to turn himself in.
The fugitive threatened him instead—with a contract on his head if he didn’t help him escape.
The avenger laughed.
“Even if you escaped on the boat passage, Mr. Gill… you’d still put the contract on me. And I’m not about to let a murdering, thug-looking man end my entire career.”
The ferret let out one last shriek over the horizon.
“There goes your chance at freedom,” the vigilante said. “All because you wasted an endangered, innocent animal.”
Joe gritted his teeth.
“I just wanted to make a quick buck for the boat.”
The shadow in the woods stared at him for a beat, then whispered as he dragged the trigger, “I don’t work with the law—I follow my own…”
“Wait!” Joe screamed.
But the whistle-blower didn’t hesitate. He pulled the trigger. The shot echoed through the trees. Mr. Gill collapsed, still tangled in the iron jaws of the trap.
The hunter reached for a shovel strapped to his backpack. He dug a grave nine feet deep. Unhooking the trap, he dropped the body inside and buried him under three feet of dirt. Then he tossed the ferret in and covered it with another three feet of dirt. By the time he returned home, the earth had swallowed the evidence.
When sunlight gleamed through his cabin windows the next morning, the woodsman stirred to the low growl of something outside. He dressed quickly—in black tactical gear and rubber hunting shoes—and peered through the glass. A grizzly bear with one eye was sniffing around the edge of his property.
A flash of memory struck him: the beast’s roar had once shaken the forest floor. Its paw prints had sunken deep into the mud. He had hesitated back then—but shot it in the right eye and rolled to safety.
Back in the present, the ghost of the forest watched from inside, silent.
Daniel wanted redemption.
He would face the one-eyed monster again—but not here. Not yet.
The bear, finished scavenging, began to disappear into the woods.
As it lumbered away, the hunter thought, One day… I will stand against you at the right moment, ensuring my victory at last… shooting you in the left eye.
Later that day, the vigilante climbed into his white, four-seater 2010 truck and drove into town. He needed supplies, ropes, traps, food, and time.
