Book excerpt: Each year of their long marriage, Walt and Millie have spent a month apart, as Walt heads out to hunt bear and moose in the pristine Alaskan wilderness, and Millie takes to the concert stage to perform. Their letters, picked up and delivered by a bush pilot each week, keep them close. Now in his seventy-sixth year, Walt realises his hunting days may soon be over, and there is a black bear prowling around his camp. Will Millie ever receive the crumpled letter Walt keeps in his pocket?