Chapter
One
DENVER
Morning starts before dawn. Chipped stoneware mug filled with steaming coffee, ebony as the darkest part of night. Orange and black flannel against the cold. Northern Idaho running wild through my veins.
Thunk! Thunk!
Axe against wood, hollow, purposeful. Hands calloused and resilient, years of muscle memory roping up my arms to my shoulders, where my back strains with the work.
A life carved from the wilderness. It’s changed me in too many ways to count.
Bear waits patiently, harness hitched to his wooden cart. Built it myself with my own two hands. Like my cabin. Like my life. No one can take that from me.
The Bernese mountain dog’s thick coat was made for this chill. Black across most of his body with white at the top of his tail, like he dabbed it in paint. A big, friendly face, tongue lolling. More white echoed around his eyes and the tips of his paws with brown in between. Never met a stick he didn’t like or a squirrel he wouldn’t seek.
I pile the cart with wood, conscious to keep it light. A little bit every day. Building a buttress against the winter to come ratherthan waiting until the last minute to cut it all in one dramatic sweep of effort. That’s what makes me different now from the Denver before.
Back then, procrastinator, immature, distracted. Pursuing everything all at once and nothing that mattered.
Only when fate showed me the ephemeral nature of it all—the superficiality I walked away from—did I eschew noise for solitude, people for nature. The kind of quiet that steadies my soul.
Spark to flame. Money burned. Life torn down with wrecking ball precision. The material made immaterial by one random stroke of fate, and then its consequences. Consequences I still live with. The real weight of existence.
The forest holds a dark weightiness so close to first light, pregnant with potential and danger. What lurks behind the shadows? Far less than what city-dwellers’ imaginations would say. At least, that’s been my experience. Far more than they could ever fathom. Or probably want to experience.
The cart rolls wobbly, a slight hiss as the wheels grate along the forest floor. Bear smiles at the work, pulling it with a proud gait. A gait bred into him since time immemorial. White mist clings to the forest floor around the cabin. The kind I chop through with my axe—steady, rhythmic. Like my day.
Orderly, repetitive, habitual.
Each trip brings us back to the cabin where I pile wood. Already enough to get through three winters. Yet, never enough out here. Like food, clean water. Basics distilled down to the essence of survival. No room for error or mistakes. I lose count of the trips—satisfied only when wood kisses the bottom of the window frame.
I pat Bear’s head. “Good boy. Better friend.” All I need out here. Talking to him helps when the silence feels too loud.
The cart comes off, and his big tail wags as he darts between saplings and blueberry bushes, nose to the ground, smelling the morning. He loves nothing more than chasing his own shadow. Wish I could be so easily entertained. Out here, I run from mine.
It hits me like a wave. Iron and twisted metal. I feel the phantom ache low in my ribs. Lights too bright against a dark cold I didn’t know how to survive. Maybe I didn’t.
Bear scrambles up to me, bobs his head under my hand. Chases my shadows, too. He’s the best defense against my past. Best defense against big predators—cats, grizzlies, wolves. I grab a big wooden basket. Time to collect nature’s gifts.
He knows the routine. Keeps me sane. Harnessed back to the cart, now with tools to one side, a sturdy basket to the other. We check fences, fixing weak areas, new holes, and places where animals have tried to crawl under. We maintain the solar array. Won’t do much until the sun burns mist away.
I examine the chicken coop with care, absorbed in finding disruptions in the usual pattern. Points of disturbance, areas predators could take advantage of.
“There,” I grunt, pointing. Bear cocks his head. A fresh pile of dirt, claw marks, and a depression. “Likely fox or raccoon.” I pause, kneeling down carefully. “Maybe coyotes.”
They were active last night. Wailing into the inky ether with their otherworldly cries and chatter. Had Bear on edge, pacing by the front door.
I fill the new hole with river rocks and dirt. The bottom of the coop is lined with hardware cloth. Still, it can fail quickly, especially sunk deep in the rich, wet soil, rusting. Something I wish I’d known before. Could’ve saved myself some work and hassle. But not an unforgivable mistake, thankfully.
In a place where there are no second chances, moments for hesitation, doing wrong out here means one thing most of the time—death. I’m okay with that, too.
I croon to the preening, gossiping girls. Brown feathers warm and thick. Mahogany with black tips. Buckeyes. A heritage breed created to withstand cold. Good mousers, too. Better than cats some say, though I have yet to see that in any significant way.
Even-tempered, curious, friendly hens, they run up to the wire, greet Bear and me like old friends.
“Scratch coming later, ladies. Safety first.”
