The Cessna came down hard in a patch of black spruce. For a long minute Mara heard nothing but her own heartbeat. Then her cousin Dell coughed in the seat beside her, alive, his glasses cracked but still on. The radio was dead except for one thing: a clean tone, repeating, over and over, on an old frequency. A tower beacon. Somewhere out there, someone had left a light on.

"That beacon means people," Mara said. She grabbed the map from the broken dash and found a tiny mark: an old ranger tower, maybe ninety miles north. "We walk toward it. We follow the signal." Dell wiped his cracked glasses and nodded, already pulling on his boots.

They walked all morning, keeping the radio on so the tone guided them. By noon the trees opened onto a wide, cold river, fast and gray. There was no bridge. The beacon kept calling from the far side.

They found a fallen log across the narrowest part of the river. Mara crossed first, arms out, heart pounding, and made it. Dell followed slower, then slipped, but he caught the log and dragged himself up the far bank, soaked and shaking but safe.

On the far side the trees thinned and there it stood: a steel ranger tower, a small light blinking at the top. They ran the last stretch and pounded up the stairs. Inside the cabin, a working radio crackled under Mara's hands. A calm voice answered at once. "A chopper's been looking for that downed Cessna all day. Stay put. We've got you now." They had made it.