Sarah never liked the woods. At 29 she had avoided camping and hiking for most of her life and only went along when she felt fairness obligated her too. She was a city person. She loved museums and theaters and the sound of traffic. She found herself lost now, in thick undergrowth, alone sleepy and tired. She had Peter to blame for this.
She had agreed to spend the weekend camping with her boyfriend only after much begging on his part. She agreed to try it, for his sake. Once they had set up the camp things had progressed as she had expected. He spent his time showing off and she spent her time trying to keep from breaking her neck. This continued until he decided to play. He began by tickling her. She literally hated being tickled and when she broke away from him she had run. Of course he chased her, tickling being his idea of foreplay, he fully expected to catch her and have wild sex with her. What he did not calculate was that she would run so fast or so far. Sarah was lost before the tension she felt from the tickling had worn off.
Now she wondered through the woods calling his name. She had read the ranger warnings about bears and hoped her yelling might also serve to scare them away. She was wearing a pair of sandals and with each step she regretted it. Brambles and sticks cut and bruised her feet. She debated with herself whether the best course of action was to just stay put. As she pondered she looked up to see smoke. Smoke meant fire and fire meant people she reasoned. She made her way to the source of the smoke.
The cabin she found lay on the edge of the woods. As she approached she saw that from the front porch the owner had an expansive view of a meadow that was cut by a stream. This fact somehow gave her confidence that the person who owned the cabin was not a monster. This was too pretty a spot for a monsters home.
She walked to the door and knocked. The fact that her journey seemed over gave her mind freedom to feel the pain in her feet. The ached, and the small cuts and scraps burned.
The man who came to the door was huge by any standard. Sarah guessed his height at 6'5". He had very long blond hair and a not so well trimmed beard. "Just my luck," she thought. "I found Grizzly Adam's."
He waved her in and asked, "you lost?"
She tried not to role her eyes at the question and simply answered, "yes." She wondered how else he thought she might have arrived.
"This is not the place to get lost," he said with a faint smile and avoiding her eyes. "You better have a seat."
Sarah looked around the room. She could see the entire interior from her position in the entranceway. There was a wood stove in the center of the room and a very sparse kitchen to her right. The living room/bedroom was too her left. She limped her way to the only chair in the room, and old and very warn rocker halfway between the bed and the woodstove. She looked up at the stranger and laughed. "I sure didn't plan to get lost," she said, "My name is Sarah."
The tall man smiled and introduced himself as Adam. He looked at her battered feet and she noticed his face wince in sympathy. "Take those sandals off. We need to tend those feet."