They always told the tale the same way, like it belonged to the fire more than it belonged to any one mouth. In the Colorado Territory, where a man could ride for two days and still see the same line of mountains staring back at him, stories traveled faster than horses. They slipped through saloon doors on cold wind, sat down uninvited at card tables, and warmed their hands at campfires with tired travelers who wanted something to believe in besides hunger and weather.

And the story that clung to the mountains like pine sap was the one about Jonah Granger, the high-country trapper who lived where the spruce grew tight and the air turned sharp enough to bite your throat. They said he’d built his cabin out of logs so thick they looked like a fort, roofed it with timbers that winter couldn’t pry loose, and set it in a clearing that only the bold or the foolish ever found.

They said he hunted elk alone, fought off wolves the way other men swatted flies, and came down into Silverpine Valley only when he needed salt, shot, or iron. When he did, folks watched him like they were watching a storm decide where to land. Jonah wasn’t famous because he was big, though he was, broad as a barn door with a beard like a dark curtain and hands that looked carved from old knots of oak.

Jonah wasn’t famous because he didn’t talk, though he didn’t, giving most questions nothing but a flat look that made people suddenly remember they had somewhere else to be. Jonah was famous because of the women.