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chewed quickly. In between bites, she said, “I’m mighty grateful, Trapper Jack. I don’t feel right eating your chuck, especially before you.”
    He didn’t acknowledge her comment. Instead he said, “You seem to know about me, at least what people in town like to say, and I don’t know anything about you. Who are you, and what are you doing out here in the woods?”
    She swallowed her bite of eggs. “Same thing you’re doing. Surviving off the land.”
    He scoffed. “Real fine job you’re doing.”
    She looked up, and a wounded look crossed her face. “Mock me if you want, but I do what I have to. My husband never came home from the war. I was evicted from my house two years ago without so much as a penny to my name.”
    This explained nothing, as far as Jack was concerned. She was a fool if she thought she could survive in the woods. Winter would come quickly, and he highly doubted she had shelter that would suffice. “You should find a job in Helena or remarry. It’s not practical for a woman to live out here.”
    “I didn’t exactly get a lot of marriage proposals following my husband’s death. Besides, I don’t want to get married. Don’t care much for the idea. I only ever loved my husband.”
    He didn’t budge in his opinion, though he could understand the feeling of only loving one person. He himself had only loved his wife and couldn’t imagine loving another. Still, the war had killed many a woman’s husband, and he didn’t see other women traipsing the woods of Montana stealing chickens and ending up in a hole in the ground, so his sympathy didn’t run deep.
    Nettie stuffed a big piece of ham in her mouth. Jack raked his hand through his hair. “If you have to steal to survive, that means you don’t know how to catch food on your own. You can’t live here without those skills. Then there’s the matter of shelter.”
    “I have shelter,” she cut in, speaking with her mouth full. She chewed the rest of the food quickly and gulped it down. “I found a cave about a mile west of here. I learned how to build a fire in just the right spot. Rain and snow can’t get to it, see, but the smoke still escapes without filling the cave and suffocating me.”
    She sounded exceptionally pleased with herself as she relayed that information, and Jack closed his eyes with frustration. He tried to sound more patient than he felt when he responded. “I know that cave, and it’s a grizzly’s hibernating spot. She’ll be wanting it soon, and you’d best not be around when she does.”
    Her eyes widened. The news seemed to shock her.
    He shook his head at her. She didn’t seem stupid, but he didn’t know how she couldn’t have thought of that. She answered that question next.
    “Where I come from, there aren’t grizzlies. I’m from Iowa, see, and I came out here as a mail-order bride. But then my husband went off to fight in the war not long after.”
    Dunderhead , he thought. Her husband would have had to volunteer to fight, since Montana was outside of the draft. “He should have stayed in Montana,” he muttered.
    She nodded sadly. “I wish he had, but he felt a sense of duty. You were in the war too, weren’t you? That’s what I heard.”
    Jack had no desire to talk about the war. “Finish your breakfast,” he ordered gruffly.
    She quieted and focused on eating. After she’d scarfed down her last bite, she stood from the stool. “I’ll get your portion for you, Trapper Jack.” She carried the plate to the oven and scooped the rest of the food onto it, while Jack sat on the stool. She placed the plate in front of him and stood nearby. She looked very small and vulnerable in his huge shirt. Her legs and feet were bare and pale. If she was aware of her immodesty, she didn’t show it.
    Suddenly a memory came to Jack. The last time he’d been in town, he went to the saloon, ordered a beer, and sat alone at a table near the bar. He overheard a conversation.
     
    “The carpet matches the