In the great U.P. wilds he craved sex more than normal—even more so than in Ironville thanks to the pulp plants that fouled the air. All that fresh air helped blood flow. These were feelings he’d come to know with regularity. His appetite was also ravenous out here, and he consumed vast quantities of bear steaks, venison, and fried grouse. These desirable proteins further enhanced his feeling of the wild. Hell, they made him part of it. Every fiber of his being was in one way or another connected to the U.P. landscape. When he ate trout from the Silver, he became part of it, part of the cold water and frothy bubbles from underwater crevices and graveled bottoms, shuddering from the deep, shaded recesses, as deep down as a fish could go. When he shot a bald eagle last season and grilled it, he felt as if he might even be able to fly. Out here it was hunt, fish, eat, fook, and drink—a blissful existence. What the hell else could a guy want? None of this was hippy-dippy bullshit. That was for the liars, the fakes. These were facts. And while he was always fearful of bears in a common sense way, what he felt now was something far different. A real and protracted sense of danger enveloped his senses and that’s what made his balls shrink on this warm fall day. Like wading into the deeper pools of the Silver during spring runoff, up to his waist and feeling out the river bed in front of him with the tip of his boots. Shadows glommed in the depths, and you weren’t sure if your next step would submerge you, waders filling with frigid water, triggering a shock heart attack. When your front boot swung in the murk, you retreated a few steps. There, a few feet from the precipice, you enjoyed fishing, happy and safe.

The fools walked forward with both boots.

Those were the ones he’d read about in the paper every spring. And right now, he was walking forward with both boots, shit-eating grin, fishing pole in hand like a dumb tourist.

That isn’t Bob Sanders, he thought. Fookin’ a no.

Sanders examined his winding, illegal trail, a taste of copper in his dry mouth. He sloshed his beer can around to make sure no insects had flown inside and took a drink. His wife’s voice assaulted him once again. You ain’t so different from the coyotes, she’d once told him. You stick your snout in all kinds of bullshit! One day you ain’t gonna be able to pull your snout out of what you stick it into, eh Bob?

“Shut your fooking piehole,” he mumbled to no one.

Without hesitating, Sanders turned the four-wheeler around in a skillful five-point maneuver. He wanted out.