Northwestern Montana,

Cabinet Wilderness

WALTER didn’t know why he’d survived the beast’s attack, any more than he understood how he’d survived three tours of ’Nam when so many of his friends, his comrades, had not. Maybe his survival both times was just luck—or maybe fate had other things in store for him.

Like another thirty years wandering alone in the woods.

If his survival after the beast’s attack had been unlikely, the rest of it was just plain weird. The first thing he’d noticed was that the aching arthritis that had haunted his shoulders and knees, the throb of an old wound in his hip, had all disappeared. The cold...