Avoiding The Blurbstomp – Above (Beyond) Reproach

Somewhere in the mountains of Colorado, you trek through the snow and notice four paw prints. It's a wolf's tracks, fresh in the powder. You follow, one foot after the next, as if pulled by an invisible wire, a waking dream that could tip into nightmare at any moment. The night sky billows above you, as the tracks tighten up. The wolf is slowing.

As you reach the summit, the tracks merge. They are the tracks of a man. Your pulse quickens, your shallow breathing pauses as the altitude fights a battle against your common sense. You push forward.

The summit reached, you see him. Bud Black. He stands resolutely, a lumpen totem pole stoic in the face of the savage solitude of his surroundings.

"You're here to kill me?" he says in a knowing voice without turning. You say nothing.