It was November, just after first light, and Luna was tracking a wounded doe along Leakey Grade — a gravel road that cuts through the Sam Houston National Forest. The blood trail led her off the road, into the cedars, and down into a dry creek bed where she found something that should not have been there. A hunting dog, a blue tick coonhound, sitting perfectly still on a flat rock. No collar. No tags. Just waiting. When Luna got closer, the dog stood up and walked deeper into the brush, and she followed it because that is what you do when you have a rifle and you think the animal is leading you to your deer. But the dog was not leading her to anything she had killed. It led her to a campsite that had been abandoned for years — a rusted-out truck frame, a tent half-collapsed, a fire ring full of ash and bone. And then the dog sat down again, looked at her, and opened its mouth to speak. This is a story about the things we follow into the woods, and what follows us back out.