him it was well past dawn. He’d tidy up the cabin, pack his things, and in a few hours, hike back to the civilized world. And once he’d reached Sutter Gap, he’d find a warm and willing woman, one who wouldn’t evaporate before he had a chance to come.
Sam crawled off the bed and walked to the rough plank door. He threw it open and let the cold air hit his naked body, blasting away the last traces of his dream. The sky above the leafless trees was clear and blue, forecasting good weather for his trip.
Spring had come to his little corner of the Appalachian wilderness two weeks ago, the rising temperatures melting the dense cover of snow in the higher elevations of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He’d thought about making the hike out a few days before, but a driving rain had changed his mind. In good weather, it took a long day’s walk to reach the little town of Sutter Gap, but if he had to slog through swollen streams and ankle-deep mud, the hike could take two.
Sam went back inside the cabin and tossed another log on the fire, poking at the embers. He’d run out of coffee last month and had been existing on the last of the beans and rice for the past week. The thought of a thick, juicy steak and a baked potato made his mouth water.
Strange how a man’s needs could be reduced to just two things—sex and red meat. And a hot shower, maybe. If he could find a way to enjoy all three at the same time, then he wouldn’t have to choose which to pursue first.
He’d lived a monkish life for the past six months, a simple existence in a rough log cabin, perched on a mountainside among the thick forests of western North Carolina. Over the past three years, the cabin had become home.
Sam smiled as he remembered his first winter living in the woods. He’d craved sex and Snickers candy bars. And when he’d returned to civilization, he’d eaten twenty candy bars in two days and spent a week in bed with a pretty bartender from a road-house outside of Asheville.
During his second winter it was sex and the music of Linkin Park. After he’d gotten back, he’d driven around for over a week with their latest CD in his disc player and spent his nights with a sexy nature guide from Smokey Mountains National Park.
Sam wondered just what kind of woman would share his bed this time around. It was always a bit tricky, explaining his situation and his particular needs to a potential bedmate. Most single women were interested in a romantic relationship, one that might result in marriage. Sam’s only interest was in a wildly exciting, no-strings attached sexual encounter lasting approximately one week.
To his surprise, he’d found quite a few women who required nothing more than unbridled passion with a skilled and eager partner. After a week together, there was nothing more to experience and both parties went away well satisfied.
Sam grabbed a pair of faded jeans from the hook on the wall and tugged them on. He’d first walked into the mountains a few months after the death of his best friend, Jeff Warren. They’d climbed Mt. McKinley together and on the way down, Jeff had been swept away in an avalanche, gone in an instant, buried deep beneath the snow.
Adventure had become almost an obsession for the two of them. Every extra dime they’d made from their jobs on Wall Street had been spent searching for bigger and better thrills. And when Sam had suggested a climb up McKinley, Jeff had barely been able to contain his enthusiasm. It had all been good, the crazy thrill of standing on top of one of the world’s seven summits. And then it had suddenly turned so bad. In a heartbeat, Jeff was dead and Sam had been left to rue the day he’d ever mentioned Mt. McKinley.
The first book Sam had read after the funeral had been Thoreau’s Walden Pond and he’d gotten from it the idea of living a quieter, simpler life, what he hoped would be a remedy for his chaotic emotions. So he’d quit his job and set out on his most challenging adventure—to spend a winter in the wilderness, completely alone.
Luckily, that first winter had been mild. He’d come with just a tent, a warm sleeping bag, some rudimentary tools and a book about wilderness survival. He’d camped on a piece of privately owned, inheld land, surrounded by national forest and set on top of a small mountain range.
In his determination to live off the land, Sam had nearly starved. He’d decided not to bring a gun for hunting and was left to fashion snares out of vines and saplings. He had quickly exhausted his taste for wild roots and edible plants and the occasional rabbit that wandered into his snare, yet he’d refused to give up.
He’d left his camp that spring knowing he’d become a different man on those long, lonely winter nights—a man he could look at in the mirror again. A man who could face anything life threw at him.
Over the following summer, he’d prepared to go back to his former life, but when autumn had rolled around, Sam had packed more tools and spent the winter working on a rough log cabin. It had been slow progress all alone, but by the time spring had come, he’d had a cozy shelter with a stone fireplace and a roof over his head.
He’d begun recording his experiences and thoughts in a small diary as a way to pass his evenings. And when he’d hiked out after his second winter, Sam had decided to submit a few of his stories to an adventure magazine. The editor had been impressed and scheduled the stories to run in a regular column starting that October. But by October, Sam was back in the wilderness again.
He filled his days with finding food and chopping firewood and making improvements to the cabin. The long winter nights were a time to contemplate the man he’d been and the man he’d become. But there was a limit to his need for solitude and he’d passed it about a month ago.
Sam grabbed the water bucket and walked out the front door of the cabin. He followed the well-worn path to a small stream that carried runoff from high in the mountains. It was nice not to have to melt snow to bathe and shave. He wondered what it would take to dig a well on his mountainside.
As he walked back up to the cabin, Sam was startled to see a lone figure waiting on the front steps. He hadn’t seen another person for months. But when the man turned, Sam chuckled and shook his head. “Carter Wilbury! What are you doing on my mountain?”
The elderly man waved and dropped his pack beside him. “Sam Morgan! If I remember correctly, I own this mountain and pretty much all the land around it.”
“I was just on my way down,” Sam said when he joined the older man. “How was your hike up?”
“Not bad. Took a while for me to work the winter out of my bones. Could have done the whole thing in a day, but I camped down below last night. Just couldn’t work up the energy to climb this last bit. I thought you might see my campfire and walk down to investigate.”
Though Sam considered himself a competent out-doorsman, Carter Wilbury was a real mountain man. Carter had once broken his leg in a twenty-foot tumble off a rock ledge, then crawled for six days to get help. He’d eaten bugs and grubs and worms and drunk the dew off leaves to stay alive. Since then, he’d been a legend around Sutter Gap. But age and a bad bout of frostbite had kept Carter indoors in the winter—that and a pretty widow who had captured his fancy.
Sam picked up the man’s pack and dragged it through the front door. “I’d offer you a cup of coffee, but I ran out a few weeks back.”
“I brought some along,” Carter said, bending down to rummage through his pack. “Just show me where the pot is.”
Sam grabbed the pot from the dry sink and filled it with water from the pitcher. “So what brings you up here so early in the season?”
“Came here to warn ya,” Carter said.
Sam froze. “About what?”
“There’s a woman nosing around Sutter Gap. She found out you like to frequent the Lucky Penny when you’re in town and she’s waiting for you to come back.”
“Who is she?” Sam asked.
Carter shrugged. “Says her name is Sarah Cantrell. She won’t say what she wants, but she’s a persistent little thing. She tried to pay me five hundred dollars to bring her up here, but I told her I didn’t know where you were.”