I hadn't been back to Kentucky in almost five years, not since the funeral.

Brett was there, quiet as ever, his arms crossed and his face carved from granite.

He'd always been the tough one, built like a tree trunk, a seasoned outdoorsman who tracked

deer and elk through the Daniel

Boone National Forest for a living. I, on the other hand, spent my days trapped behind dual

monitors, drowning in code and client emails. It was soul-crushing, and Brett knew it. When he

invited me to meet him in the Red River Gorge for a weekend of camping, I accepted

instantly. It sounded perfect. No screens, no calls, just miles of rugged trails and absolute solitude.

We parked Brett's truck at the mouth of an old Forest Service Road, shouldered our packs,

and set off along a trail that wasn't officially marked on any park maps.

Brett liked it that way.

Keeps the tourists away, he'd muttered.

After a few hours, we arrived at a clearing he called Slab Camp Gulch.

It was a quiet, primitive sight, nothing more than flat earth ringed by tall trees, close enough to the

murmuring trickle of Slab Camp Creek for water, and isolated enough to forget the rest of the world.

I was rusty at pitching a tent, and Brett chuckled as I fought the nylon fabric.

Easy now, Evan. You're setting camp, not fighting a bear. It felt good to laugh. We spent the early

evening cooking canned chili over a modest fire, swapping old stories, filling each other in on missed

years. But as the sun sank behind the treetops, the atmosphere changed. I couldn't shake the

feeling we were intruders here, small and insignificant beneath towering

cliffs and vast Kentucky wilderness.

As darkness crept in, Brett pointed out something odd along the trail, an oak tree stripped

...