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.

Every few months, a stagecoach would rattle into the valley carrying another mail-order bride, wrapped in fresh fabric and thin hope, clutching a carpetbag and a letter that promised a home in the mountains. Some of them arrived in white gloves that never touched dirt until the moment they stepped out. Some wore bonnets pinned so tight you’d think propriety could keep out fear. All of them smiled the same tight smile, as if they could convince the world and themselves that a stranger’s cabin might become a life.

And all of them, without fail, were gone within seven days. The valley counted them the way it counted seasons. “That makes five,” the barber would say, shaking his head. “That makes six,” the grocer’s wife would whisper, crossing herself. “That makes seven,” the bartender would mutter, sliding a whiskey down the counter with the kind of respect you give to bad luck.

Rumors grew teeth. Some said Jonah was cruel, that he wanted a servant more than a wife. Others claimed he was half-wild, not fit for a woman’s softness. A few men, the kind who enjoyed gossip because it kept them from looking at themselves, leaned in and said, “Maybe he scares them on purpose,” like that made it less ugly. No one knew the truth, because Jonah didn’t explain himself, and the women who returned had the same distant look in their eyes, as if the mountain had spoken a language they couldn’t bear to translate.

By the time the seventh bride slipped away before dawn, leaving only footprints in frost and a wedding band on a table, people stopped saying “unlucky” and started saying “cursed.” That’s how the tale began, with everyone certain they knew how it would end.

Then, in the early fall of 1878, a different kind of woman climbed into the stagecoach in St. Louis with nothing delicate about her except the one small place in her chest she’d stopped admitting was there. Her name was Abigail Lane, though back home her brothers had called her “Big Abby” with the lazy cruelty that feels like truth when you hear it long enough.

She’d grown up round-faced and wide-hipped, with hands better suited to kneading dough and hauling laundry than fluttering at dances. Boys had ignored her unless they needed someone to laugh at, and girls had learned to treat her like a cautionary tale. Even her own mother spoke to her with a weary edge, like Abby was a chair taking up too much room in a house already short on space

When the letter came, inked in careful script by a matchmaking agent, promising a “strong husband, steady homestead, and honest work,” Abby didn’t ask if she was wanted. She asked if she could leave. By the time the stagecoach began its long climb toward Silverpine Valley, Abby’s body ached from the road and her pride ached from the memories she carried like stones in her pockets.

The driver, a leathery man named Hank McCall who smelled of tobacco and horse sweat, had driven enough hopeful brides into the mountains to recognize the look in their eyes. On the second day, when the mountains rose ahead like a wall and the air turned thin enough to make the lungs complain, Hank spit out the side and said, not unkindly, “Miss Lane, you sure you want this? Folks say no bride lasts a week with Jonah Granger. Mountain swallows ’em whole.”

He didn’t try to frighten her for sport; he sounded tired, like warning people was a chore the world kept assigning him. Abby stared out at the pines and the rock and the sky that seemed too close, then lifted her chin as if the mountains were another person trying to decide if she belonged. “I’ve been swallowed before,” she said, voice steady. “Came out with my bones still mine.”

Hank grunted, scratching his jaw. “Most of ’em say somethin’ brave in the coach,” he replied. “Then they see him.” Abby’s mouth tipped into a small, sharp curve. “Then he’ll see me,” she said, and something in that sentence, the way she didn’t ask for permission inside it, made Hank glance at her like she was a puzzle that might not break the way the others had.

When the coach finally creaked to a stop at the edge of the valley, the air snapped cold though winter hadn’t arrived yet. Abby stepped down onto hard-packed earth, boots sinking just enough to remind her that this land didn’t care about softness. A split-rail fence marked the start of a narrow trail that climbed into the trees, and leaning there, as still as a post, stood Jonah Granger.

The stories hadn’t exaggerated him. He was massive, shoulders stacked with muscle from years of chopping and hauling, beard untrimmed and dark, eyes a pale gray that looked like river ice. He didn’t smile. He didn’t lift a hand in greeting. He just studied her the way a man studies weather, trying to decide what kind of storm it will become.

Most women would have shrunk under that stare, feeling suddenly smaller than they’d ever felt. Abby didn’t shrink. She tightened her grip on her carpetbag, squared her shoulders, and walked forward until she was close enough to smell woodsmoke on him. Jonah didn’t move. He didn’t offer to help with her bag. Silence sat between them like a third person, smug and heavy.
Abby glanced back at Hank, who was already wearing the look of a man planning a return trip. Then Abby faced Jonah again and said, “Well? You going to help me with my bag, or are we starting this marriage with me carrying all the weight?” Hank choked on his own spit, half expecting Jonah to explode. Jonah only blinked once, slow, as if Abby had spoken in a language he hadn’t heard in years.

Then he reached out, took the carpetbag as though it weighed nothing at all, and turned toward the trail without a word. No welcome. No vow. Just movement. Abby followed, boots crunching on gravel, breath growing heavier as the path narrowed and climbed. Behind them, Hank shook his head and muttered, “Poor woman,” but Abby didn’t hear. And even if she had, she’d have treated it like rain: something you feel, something you endure, not something that gets to decide your direction.The climb to Jonah’s cabin was a test, and the mountain didn’t bother pretending it was anything else. The trail twisted through pine and spruce, steep enough to make Abby’s calves burn and narrow enough that one wrong step would send a person tumbling into rock and brush. Jonah’s stride was long and relentless. He didn’t look back to see if she struggled. He didn’t offer a hand at the slickest turns.

Abby’s dress snagged on branches, her breath came in rough pulls, and blisters began forming under her heels like small punishments. Still, she kept going, because she’d learned long ago that if you wait for the world to make things gentle for you, you’ll die sitting down.

When the trees finally opened into a clearing, the cabin stood there like a challenge made of logs. It was solid, squat, and built to endure. Firewood was stacked high along one wall. Pelts hung drying on racks. A thin wisp of smoke curled from the chimney into a sky already pale with coming cold.

Abby planted her hands on her hips and took it in. “So this is where brides come to disappear,” she muttered, not loud enough to be polite, not quiet enough to be hidden. Jonah paused near the door, his head turning just enough for one gray eye to catch hers. “They left because they weren’t built for it,” he said flatly, voice deep and rough like rocks grinding together.

“If you’re smart, you’ll do the same before snow sets in.” Abby’s chest rose and fell hard from the climb, but she managed a snort. “You don’t scare me, Jonah Granger,” she replied. “I’ve lived through worse than cold walls and hard work.” Jonah said nothing more.

He shoved open the heavy door and stepped inside. The cabin smelled of smoke, pine resin, and the faint metallic tang of old iron. Inside, it was exactly what Abby expected: rough-hewn furniture, a wide stone hearth, animal skins thrown over floorboards for warmth. There were no curtains, no softness, no little signs of anyone trying to make beauty where survival was the main language.Jonah dropped her bag by the wall and looked at her like he was reading a list no one else could see. “You’ll cook,” he said. “Mend. Keep the fire. I’ll hunt. Chop. Keep wolves off the door. Don’t expect more than that.” It wasn’t a proposal. It was a division of labor.

Abby lifted her eyebrows. “Well,” she said, voice dry, “isn’t that the kind of romance a woman crosses a continent for.” Jonah’s jaw tightened as he pulled a knife from its sheath and began sharpening it on a stone. The scrape filled the silence, sharp and steady.

Abby waited a beat, long enough to see he wasn’t going to fill the air with anything else, then walked straight to the hearth. “Fire’s low,” she announced. “Either you like breathing, or you enjoy freezing. I’m stoking it.” She gathered logs, split kindling with a small hatchet she’d spotted by the wall, and had the fire crackling within minutes. Heat spread into the room, softening corners, turning the cabin from fortress to something closer to shelter.

Jonah’s sharpening slowed for half a second, his eyes flicking to her hands, to the sure way she moved. The other brides, Abby guessed, had stepped inside and started looking for curtains that weren’t there, a softness that had never been promised. They’d shivered and complained and tried to talk Jonah into being someone else.

Abby didn’t have energy left for pretending a mountain man was meant to behave like a parlor gentleman. She cared about warmth, food, and not being sent away like a cracked dish.

That night, Jonah tossed her a wool blanket. “You take the bed,” he said. “I’ll sleep by the fire.” Abby blinked, surprised not by the offer itself but by the blunt honor inside it. “You don’t have to,” she started. Jonah’s eyes narrowed. “I said you take it,” he replied, like refusing would be an insult.

Abby nodded once. “Fine. But if your back freezes stiff, don’t blame me when you start walking like an old mule.” Jonah grunted, which might have been annoyance or amusement. Abby climbed into the narrow bed, pulled the quilt up, and stared at the log ceiling while wolves howled in the distance.

For the first time since she’d left home, she didn’t feel like she was taking up too much space. The cabin was rough, the man was rougher, but the mountain wasn’t laughing at her. The mountain was simply asking: Are you going to stay?