The wild. That is my home.

Though I am just a man, I have found my place here amongst the white cloaked, sawtooth mountains and these ten thousand acres of virgin timber. I’ve been to the tops of every high granite peak and the bottom of every narrow glacial valley, exploring every alpine lake, every brook and stream along the way. I know these mountains the way a city man knows his own street, know them as well as every wily fox and keen-eyed hawk.

Twelve years, I think it’s been, though memory is hazy, details forgotten like so many winters past. Twelve years since I came to these woods to hack out a life for myself.

Twelve years since I’ve spoken even a single word to another human being.

It’s not that I haven’t seen them around, people. At least three times a year I go down into town to sell my furs and buy coffee, sugar and flour, and whatever else I can’t make or catch myself. Once in a great while I even catch sight of them wandering in my forest, though just the sight of me usually sends them quickly on their way. Few ever stop to chat. Those that do, I do not answer.

I have no interest in forming human connections. What little I once had died a long time ago, with them.

I have no cares in this life, no attachments of any kind. My only thoughts are for survival, and occasionally for the little things I can do to make my hard, lonely existence a bit more bearable. Finishing a new rabbit skin blanket, stirring a spoonful of wild honey into my coffee, these supply my life with brief flashes of pleasure and meaning, and I find that’s all I need.

If my life continued exactly like this until the day I expired, I could ask for nothing more…

It’s evening in late September, and the air is pleasantly cool after another long, hot day setting and checking traps. I carry in my pack the skins of two wild hares and a pine marten. Their flesh is in a separate pack slung over my shoulder, ready to be salted or dried and stored up for winter. Or, I consider, I could just cook it all up in a big meat stew. I’m probably hungry enough to eat three critters tonight.

These are my thoughts as I come upon the clearing where my cabin stands flanked by two mountain peaks, the tall one bare, jagged and white and the other sloping, covered in spruce trees. A beautiful scene, I’ve complimented myself on the location and the craftsmanship of my home a thousand times. But the view’s not what halts me in my tracks tonight.

Smoke. Coming from the chimney.

The wind is at my back, or I’d have smelled it sooner. The sudden and unmistakable scent of a cook fire.

Someone’s in my house.

I’m used to my world, used to nature and its rules. With the animals, I know what I ought to do and how I ought to behave. Each creature has its own code, and as a man I have my own in dealing with them.

But an encounter with my own kind, in that, the rules are not so clearly defined.

Human. What would a human be doing up here?

They are lost, perhaps, needing shelter for the night. A harmless traveler, turned around in this vast woodland. Or have they come, perhaps, for a more sinister reason?

I have little use for money, outside of the few amenities it buys me. But I know very well the worth of the pelts I have stored up in my chest. And more still the nuggets of gold I’ve taken from these rivers and holed up in a little leather pouch on the mantle.

The animals I share my vast home with, they might kill to eat, or to defend their young or perhaps to mate. There is no malice to it, no right or wrong.

Humans, though…humans are a different animal altogether. And, as I recall, they might kill for any reason, at any time. Just to kill.

Well. That’s something I’ll have to watch for.

Hatchet on my belt, rifle gripped surely in my big hands, I stride fearlessly across the clearing. I open the door to my cabin and step inside.

A comfortable place built with thick log walls, the ceiling is high to accommodate all of my nearly seven foot height. The floorboards creak beneath my enormous muscular weight, and a little girl bent over the fireplace starts at the sound and spins around, her dark eyes wide as she takes in my figure, dancing with terror.

A woman?

I don’t know what I was expecting. But somehow, it wasn’t this.

I stare at her a minute. She stares back at me. Neither of us speaks.

She is as short as most women appear to me, or perhaps a little shorter. Young, maybe twenty, she has a good figure; full bust, tiny waist and generous hips. Her face is… well, it’s gorgeous. Even a hermit like me knows a good looking woman when I see one. But I’m not really interested in things like that. Rather than the company of a pretty woman, what I want now—

I look past her shoulder to the cauldron cooking over the fireplace, and my stomach lets out a loud complaint. She jumps to attention, goes quickly to the counter to retrieve the deep wooden bowl I carved for myself, and the wooden spoon. She ladles in a generous portion of stew made from my venison stores, I note, and from some of the vegetables growing in my backyard. Then she sets the bowl and spoon on the table and looks to me expectantly.

I shrug my shoulders. After a long day, my pack is heavy. Considering her another minute, and the bowl, I make the conscious decision to slip it off and set it on the floor. My rifle, I keep with me. I set it across my lap as I take my seat at the table where a single lantern flickers.

Picking up the spoon, I look to her again. She is watching me nervously. Expectantly. I stir the stew around and tendrils of steam rise to my face. It smells delicious.

I’m famished, and forgetting my uninvited guest for the time being, I eat without question, never minding how hot it is. The flavor is incredible.

In the years I’ve spent alone out here, I’ve learned my own tastes, and can more or less cook a decent meal that satisfies both my gut and my palate. But it’s been a long time since I’ve eaten anything this good.

A damn long time.

Only when the bowl is finished do I look up at her again. Study her.

She has the fair skin of a lady, I think, though her hands seem rough and she’s dressed rather poorly in simple gown of stained white. Or is that what they call a nightgown? I don’t know much about women’s clothes.

Her hair gleams in the firelight in nut brown curls. Her eyes are large and dark brown; they speak volumes though she remains silent. She seems to query me anxiously with them, and I think I can guess her question.

Slowly, I hold out my bowl for more…