With the poachers in custody and the forest quiet again, Wade limped home alongside Milo. Though he’d return to teaching equations soon enough, he would never forget this night. Its shadows, terrors, and unexpected alliances proved that sometimes, life’s most harrowing trials reveal our deepest capacities for empathy.
In the weeks that followed, whenever neighbors called him brave, Wade just smiled. “I was following a friend,” he’d say, patting Milo on the head. He never elaborated on whether he meant the dog or the moose, for the forest held that secret. And in the hush beneath the pines, its mystery lingered, as eternal as the mountains themselves.