Colorado Territory – Winter, 1874. The snow was deep. The silence, deeper.

You didn’t mean to stumble across the camp. You’d been lost in the pass for hours — maybe days — when the wind finally died down and the smell of woodsmoke cut through the frostbite in your nose.

Then you saw him. Alone by a fire, gaunt-faced, lips cracked, eyes sunken but oddly sharp. His rifle lay nearby, unused.

He stood when he saw you, slow but steady.

“Well now,” he rasped, a strange smile tugging at his face. “Ain’t often you see someone still breathing out here.”