The chap­ter opens with Nate and Pry­or arriv­ing at Wylie Frye’s home in Encamp­ment, a small town sur­round­ed by the Sier­ra Madre range. The set­ting is vivid­ly described, with snow-cov­ered streets and wood smoke hang­ing in the air. Pry­or knocks on the front door while Nate cir­cles to the back, observ­ing Frye’s garage, which dou­bles as a work­shop and man-cave filled with hunt­ing tro­phies and unfin­ished projects. The ten­sion builds as Nate unzips his par­ka to access his weapon, antic­i­pat­ing a con­fronta­tion.

Frye exits the back door, and Nate imme­di­ate­ly con­fronts him at gun­point, forc­ing him back inside. The inte­ri­or of the house is messy, reflect­ing Frye’s soli­tary life after his fam­i­ly left. Pry­or joins them, and Nate orders Frye to dis­arm, dis­cov­er­ing an expen­sive pis­tol and two cell phones—one of which is a burn­er phone. The dis­cov­ery of a cryp­tic text message—“He knows”—hints at Frye’s involve­ment in some­thing clan­des­tine, rais­ing sus­pi­cions about his loy­al­ty and activ­i­ties.

Nate’s inter­ro­ga­tion inten­si­fies as he press­es Frye about the text and his con­nec­tions to unknown indi­vid­u­als. Frye’s fear is pal­pa­ble as he reveals that “these guys” scare him, imply­ing involve­ment with a dan­ger­ous group. Nate’s ruth­less tac­tics esca­late when he retrieves a frozen trout from his SUV and uses it to strike Frye, demon­strat­ing his will­ing­ness to employ bru­tal meth­ods to extract infor­ma­tion. Pry­or watch­es uncom­fort­ably, dis­tanc­ing him­self from Nate’s vio­lence.

The chap­ter con­cludes with Nate forc­ing Frye to send a mis­lead­ing text to his asso­ciates, claim­ing the deliv­ery is back on. Frye, injured and ter­ri­fied, com­plies but express­es doubt about whether his con­tacts will believe him. Nate’s cold demeanor and threats under­score his role as an unre­lent­ing enforcer, leav­ing Frye at his mer­cy and set­ting the stage for fur­ther con­flict. The scene high­lights themes of betray­al, coer­cion, and the harsh real­i­ties of their world.