Chapter Twenty Three

Northwestern Montana,

Cabinet Wilderness

Dennis didn’t know why he’d survived the beast’s attack, any more than he understood how he’d survived three tours of ’Nam when so many of his friends, his comrades, had not. Maybe his survival both times was just luck or maybe fate had other things in store for him. Like another thirty years wandering alone

in the woods.

If his survival after the beast’s attack had been unlikely, the rest of it was just plain weird. The first thing he’d noticed was that the aching arthritis that hadbhaunted his shoulders and knees, the throb of an old wound in his hip, had all disappeared. The cold no longer bothered him. It took him a lot longer to realize that his hair and beard had regained the color of his youth he didn’t carry around a mirror. That’s when he began paying attention to the oddities.

He was faster and stronger than he’d ever been. The only wounds that hadn’t healed with the same remarkable speed as his belly were the ones on his battered sou