Late October, before first light, on Broken Ridge in Montana. I was tracking a buck when I heard a man calling for help—faint, human, insistent. It moved through the trees like it was just ahead, but never closer. I followed the sound to an old logging road, found a pair of boots with no one inside, then a figure seated against a dead pine. He was wearing camo, looked like he'd been there for hours. His eyes were wrong: too wide, not tracking. When I touched his arm, it was cold, stiff. He'd been dead long enough for the coroner to put a season on it. But his mouth kept moving, and the same word kept coming out. I left him there, ran all the way back to my truck. Now, months later, I still hear it—echoing inside the quiet. This is not a ghost story. It's something else. Something that waits in the space between your last breath and the next one calling for help.