Chapter 13 - The Father on the Mountain
The rain was falling heavily over the Cascade Mountains, turning the logging roads outside Bend, Oregon, into thick, churning mud. A battered green pickup truck sat parked outside a small, cedar-shingled cabin nestled among towering ponderosa pines.
Inside, thirty-two-year-old David Cole sat at a rough-hewn timber table, cleaning the components of a chainsaw. He was a lean, broad-shouldered man with calloused hands, weary gray eyes, and the quiet, reserved posture of someone who spent more time listening to the wind in the trees than talking to people.
On the wall behind him hung a single framed photograph: a smiling young woman with messy brown hair, laughing into the camera while standing on a coastal cliff. Rebecca.
The heavy thud of a car door closing outside made David pause. He set down his wrench, standing up with instinctual caution. Visitors were rare out here, miles past the nearest paved road.
A knock sounded on the heavy oak door.
David opened it to find a middle-aged woman in a drenched trench coat accompanied by a uniformed Oregon State Trooper.
""David Cole?"" the woman asked, holding up a badge. ""I’m Special Agent Morrison with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.""
David’s brow furrowed, his body tensing. ""What’s this about? If it’s about the fire season contracts, I don't work for the state until July.""
""It's not about your work, Mr. Cole,"" Morrison said, her tone softening with a gravity that made David’s breath hitch in his throat. ""It’s about your son.""
David went entirely still. The sound of the rain drummed against the tin roof, filling the cabin with a hollow roar. ""My son died four years ago. With Rebecca.""
Morrison shook her head slowly. She reached into her waterproof satchel and pulled out a clean, laminated photograph, holding it out to him.
David looked down.
Staring back at him from the glossy paper was a four-year-old boy sitting in a hospital bed, holding a blue crayon. The child had Rebecca’s messy light brown hair, but the shape of his jaw, the straight line of his nose, and the solemn, hopeful gray-hazel eyes were an exact mirror image of the man standing in the doorway.
""His name is Toby,"" Morrison said gently. ""He’s alive, Mr. Cole. And he needs his father.""
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David's hands began to shake—the steady, powerful hands that had cut firebreaks through burning forests and pulled men from burning timber. He took the photograph, his thumb gently tracing the edge of the boy's cheek. A sound tore from his chest, an agonizing, breathless sob that had been buried beneath four years of grief and silence.
""Where is he?"" David choked out, his voice cracking into pieces. ""Where is my boy?""
