No one read like Charlie, a reminder that, once upon a time, he’d been a professor of biology in Wisconsin, where he’d met Effie and dragged her to Alaska. “If it’s in a book, you can learn it, son.” Charlie’s words to him, long before the mauling, back when Effie taught Echo how to garden and create her own healing balms.

Frankly, if any couple could have lasted, it should have been Effie and Charlie.

No one knew why Effie had left, really. And Charlie didn’t talk about it.

Dodge pulled up to the house, the lights on, and an old dog got up and walked toward them, barking.

Granite? What was he doing here?

As Charlie opened his door, Dodge got out his own side and caught the dog. “Hey, bud. I thought you were out on the trail.” Maybe it had been a different dog at the cabin. Crazy, but his eyes burned as he rubbed the dog behind its ear. Granite leaned into it, groaning, and then gave him a kiss on the chin. “Yeah, I missed you too.”

Dodge spotted Charlie grunting and limping up to the house. He must have been hurt in the fall. He got up and hustled over to him as Echo’s lights cut into the drive.

Dodge put a hand on his arm, but Charlie yanked it away. “I got this.”

Dodge didn’t take it personally, just followed him and opened the door.

Charlie didn’t look at him as he tromped inside, kicking off the snow, then sat on the bench in the arctic entry and toed off his boots.

Dodge was stuck on a picture that hung on the wall of the entry. Clearly taken from a bluff not far from here, it captured the land in summer, where the green fields and deep pine forest rose and fell, split by glimmering blue rivers, an endless cerulean sky. To the west, a ragged horizon captured the deep purple of the foothills, and farther, a hint of white-capped glaciers nested into mountain canyons. A thin layer of cirrus clouds suggested a lazy, warm day. And at the center of the picture, standing in a field of deep pink dwarf fireweed and yellow poppies was a massive grizzly, a lone sentry in the middle of a vast beauty.

“That’s George,” Charlie said. “Our last picture of him. Echo took it a number of years ago.”

“It’s beautiful.”

Charlie made a noise of agreement and got up. Dodge refrained from grabbing him when he groaned and reached out to prop his hand on the wall.

Echo came in behind him. “Dad. You okay?”

He didn’t look at her. Just shuffled out of the entry toward his office.