Bracken remained beside Wiley and Quinn, weighing the implications of shifting his entire crew from their steady work near the mill to begin building upstream that very evening. He studied the current as it pressed on, easing past the old mill supports. Then, after thoughtful consideration, he turned to Wiley and Quinn.

BRACKEN: “Ain’t wise to leave this stretch open. Thaw’ll come, sure as it always does. If them double dams aren’t set firm, spring melt’ll send the banks slidin’ and we’ll lose ground we won’t get back.”

His gaze lifted upriver toward the tightening bend as Quinn and Wiley nodded in agreement.

QUINN: “The ancient map marks this as a double-dam crossing. You are right, it cannot be abandoned. But the upstream bend cannot wait either.”

WILEY: “What if the double dams are quickly secured first? Could the crew then move upstream before the November moon?”

Bracken shook his head.

BRACKEN: “Rush them double dams, and they’ll fail. Push upstream too fast, and the river’ll push back. Either way, we come up short. What we need is more builders.”

A faint, determined glint crossed his eyes.

BRACKEN: “They don’t call this Beaver County for no reason. We’re not short on builders. All we gotta do is send word, and them lodges’ll help out.”

WILEY: “Perfect. With more builders, we don’t rush a thing. We secure the mill for the thaw, and upstream, we ease the current rather than forcing it. The buried line only fractures under sudden change. If the river changes slowly, the line won’t crack. No crack, no methane. And no reason for the land men to come lookin’.”

Bracken’s brow furrowed slightly.

BRACKEN: “Landmen?”

WILEY: “Yup, they are the ones who laid the Predator pipeline. They watch it from afar with instruments that measure its pulse.

BRACKEN: “Wadya mean … it’s pulse?”

WILEY: “Pressure. Flow. If something changes too fast, they’ll know.”

Bracken’s eyes narrowed toward the bend upstream.

BRACKEN: “And if they know?”

QUINN: “They’ll come to protect their Black Snake.”

Bracken considered this, then turned back to the river.

BRACKEN: “Then we don’t give ’em sudden, we give ’em steady.”

Far downstream, beyond the sycamores and out of sight, a straight, cleared corridor marked the buried pipeline’s path through the woods. Every so often, along that corridor, stood waist-high, dull-gray metal cabinets bolted to steel posts set in concrete. Some were no larger than a small refrigerator.

Inside them, pressure and flow sensors translated the steady pulse of the buried Predator Pipeline into numbers. Those numbers traveled through buried fiber and satellite links to a distant operations center where screens glowed under fluorescent light.

At river crossings, the cabinets clustered more closely, quiet guardians of the Predator where water and steel met.

Digital graphs rose and fell within narrow bands of acceptable variance.

Technicians in clean shirts watched curves, not currents. They monitored pressure, flow rate, and temperature. Each remained well below the level that would trigger an alarm.

No alarms sounded.

No thresholds were crossed.

According to their screens, the river was behaving.

Back at the mill, leaves drifted along the surface as beavers gathered wood for double dams. The work had begun.

Bracken stood a moment longer, watching the current press and ease past the mill supports before calling out to Dunley, a broad-shouldered beaver already directing several others around him.

BRACKEN: “Dunley, you hold this stretch. Set them double dams strong and wide. I want these banks firm come frost.”

Dunley thumped once in agreement.

BRACKEN: “The upstream bend needs more paws than we’ve got here.”

He turned to Quinn and Wiley.

BRACKEN: “There’s lodges up and down this water. Old families. Strong builders.”

Quinn adjusted the recorder.

QUINN: “You’re going to ask them?”

Bracken nodded.

BRACKEN: “This is Beaver County. We don’t work alone.”

He cast one last look at the mill, where mud was already being pressed tight between woven branches under Dunley’s steady direction.

Then, without ceremony, Bracken stepped into the current.

BRACKEN: “You two comin?”

Quinn and Wiley followed as the river carried them upstream toward allies.

The farther they traveled from the mill, the quieter the river grew.

The banks rose higher here, the current narrower and swifter. Somewhere beneath the water, the Predator lay buried in patient silence, snaking its way towards Hell’s Bells.

Bracken did not slow.

BRACKEN: “There’s a lodge beyond that bend. Old builders. They’ll want to hear this from me.”

Quinn tapped the recorder once more.

The recruitment had begun.

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