but it didn’t always make his days in Manson any better. I have it better than some, he thought. I am alive, and that is something. I have a mother who loves me and we have a roof over our heads and we are not starving, although sometimes food is pretty scarce. It could be worse, Jonas thought as he emerged from the woods into the meadow that housed their little stone cabin his father built twenty years ago, before Jonas was born.
Suddenly Jonas stopped in mid-stride. Lying in the snow before him was the carcass of a large mountain elk, rare at these times since the snows usually pushed the animals to lower elevations to avoid the harsh winter conditions. A white feathered arrow protruded from the elk’s side. The animal had been gutted recently and its innards lay in a steaming pile just to the side of the large beast. The blood was fresh and the animal was obviously still warm.
Suddenly Jonas felt a gentle breeze and then something cold pressed up against his throat as a powerful hand clamped around his mouth. A strong smell of wood fire and sweat washed over Jonas as he struggled in the iron grip. Jonas was shocked by the speed and stealth of the attack.
“You wouldn’t be think n’ of stealen me kill, would ya boy?” Jonas’s assailant hissed in his ear. His breath stank of strong tobacco, similar to what Jonas had smelled from many of the men in town as they smoked their wood pipes. Jonas shook his head from side to side, his eyes wide with fright as the man’s blade moved up closer to his left eye, allowing him a glimpse of the glimmering steel. “Are you that crippled boy, Jonas?” the man asked in his ear. The man’s voice was soft and raspy but was filled with a quiet strength. Jonas nodded his head up and down in reply. Finally the man released his grip and Jonas turned around to face him.
Jonas recognized the man, for he had seen him several times in the past. He was called Tuvallus, but no one knew if that was his real name. The burly man was a hermit, a hunter and trapper who lived on his own deep in the mountains. He only came into town a few times a year to trade his dried meats and furs for supplies that he needed. He was always spoken of with a mixture of fear and awe, for people feared what they did not know and no one knew much about the strange trapper. But he always came into town with the most furs and meats to trade, a feat that was highly respected in the mountain town of Manson. He rarely spoke and many people thought he was crazy.
The man was tall and wide and he wore a coat of thick mountain wolf furs. His boots were made of leather and lined with similar fur. He needed no hat for his head was draped in a mass of long curly black hair and his face was covered with a thick beard and mustache. It looked as if his entire face was hair, except for two holes for his eyes and one for his mouth. Tuvallus carried a big hunting knife in his right hand and a longbow lashed to his back next to a quiver of arrows. Dangling from his side was a sword, its pommel wrapped in black leather and the cross piece was polished silver like his knife blade; both seemed to be in contrast to his dirty and wild appearance.
“My apologies, boy, thought you might be after me kill,” Tuvallus said as he moved past Jonas and continued to dress the elk, cutting away skin and slicing off large pieces of flesh, which he laid out in the snow.
“Are you Tuvallus?” Jonas asked as he moved closer to him. The man simply grunted in response and continued to prepare his kill. “I have never seen a mountain elk this time of year,” Jonas commented as he watched the trapper expertly slice into the warm red flesh.
Tuvallus did not respond as he continued to lay out strips of elk meat.
“How did you sneak up on me in this snow? I did not hear a sound until I felt your knife,” Jonas said as the man continued to ignore him.
Jonas waited for a response while the trapper worked on the dead elk. Finally Jonas shrugged his shoulders and turned