"Before dawn. Best tracking happens in the first few hours of light."
She winces but doesn't complain.
"I'll be ready."
I settle onto my bunk behind the woodstove and listen to her moving around above me. The rustle of the sleeping bag. The careful placement of equipment. The small sounds people make when trying to settle into a strange place with someone they don't trust.
"Nash?" Her voice drifts down through the darkness.
"Yeah?"
"When you kill an animal, how do you feel?"
I think about the question.
Not many people ask it, and fewer would understand the honest answer.
"Grateful," I say. "I thank them for what they're giving me."
Silence follows.
Then she speaks again.
"That's more than most people would do."
"Most people don't have to look their dinner in the eye before they kill it."
"No," she says quietly. "They don't."
The cabin settles around us.
Outside, something howls in the distance. It could be a dog, but it probably isn't, and I make a mental note to look for tracks in the morning.
She'll learn the difference between academic theory and wilderness reality quickly.
Or she won't.
I have weeks to find out.
Chapter Three
ARIS
The smellof oatmeal drifts up to the loft, cutting through the cold.
I lie still, buried under a geological layer of quilts—three, to be exact—plus a wool blanket that smells faintly of woodsmoke and history. I stare up at the rough-hewn beams of the ceiling, watching my breath plume in the frigid air, and try to take stock of my situation.
I am in a cabin on an island ninety miles from the nearest paved road. I am about to embark on a weeks-long expedition into wolf country with a man whose primary modes of communication seem to be grunts and intense eye contact. And I am starving.
My stomach gives a traitorous, audible lurch. I've been awake since before dawn, listening to the wind claw at the roof and wondering if I've made a terrible mistake. The few vegetables I managed to choke down last night, refusing Nash's venison stew out of a stubborn mix of principle and nausea, feel like a distant memory. My body is running on fumes, adrenaline, and moral superiority. Unfortunately, as I am rapidly discovering, moral superiority has a very low caloric density.
Below me, the cabin is waking up. The woodstove groans as the metal expands with fresh heat. Heavy boots thump-scrape across timber, a spoon clinks against ceramic, and under it all runs the low, steady hum of a man who is comfortable in his own space.
"Breakfast is ready," Nash's voice calls up.
There's no impatience in his tone, only a calm notification of fact. It's the voice of a man who knows the sun will rise, the snow will fall, and city girls will eventually have to come down from the loft if they want caffeine.
I throw off the quilts, shivering violently as the cabin air hits my skin. I dress quickly, layering like someone who has realized that "fashion" is a concept that died south of the Arctic Circle. Thermal base layer. Wool shirt. Fleece pullover. The heavy cargo pants that still feel stiff and new, making a swish-swish sound when I move that screams "tourist."
