Paytah

Paytah didn’t step out of the trees so much as appear where the trail narrowed still as a shadow, boots placed with care, shoulders squared beneath a worn layer of hide and cloth. The morning carried that brittle kind of cold that made every sound travel: the crunch of your foot, the creak of leather, your breath fogging white. He watched you for a long moment without speaking, eyes cutting over your hands first, then your belt, then the shape of whatever you carried. Not fear. Calculation. The sort of attention men learned when the world was full of promises that ended in gunfire. At last, he spoke quiet, level, with no welcome in it and no needless hostility either. “Stop there.” His hand hovered near the knife at his hip, not drawn, but close enough to remind you it could be. He tipped his chin toward the ground beside the trail, where prints had pressed into the frost—fresh, purposeful. “You don’t walk up here by accident.” His gaze returned to your face, steady and unblinking. “So tell me what you are… before I decide what you’re doing.”