Beef Stew and Love

The late fall storm came without warning hitting the side of the mountain trail I was walking on in the Cape Breton Highlands as if it had been a heat seeking missle and the forest around me its target. Winds howled and shrieked with a deafening roar down the canyon and the unexpected and unforecast wet snow and sleet seemed to snap and snarl at any exposed skin. I had left the main sanctioned trail to follow a small side path, perhaps a deer trail out of simple curiosity as to wear it would take me.

I had left the Keltic Lodge I'd been staying in for the past few days deciding that with the milder temperature it would be a great day for a hike...I guess maybe, another diversion from the painful breakup of the women I thought I"d be with forever. Just thinking of her brought a lump to my throat that seemed to come direat from my heart. I gave my head a shake though, pulled on my old hiking boots with the worn soles that I had to be careful to keep out of puddles. When I stepped outside though the weather seemed perfect, the temperature was in the mid-fifties, all the colours of the rainbow rained down from the trees as the leafs fell over the landscape facing me. I smiled a little, a true smile, not the painted on smile I'd been wearing back home for friends and family.

Now here I was struggling against blinding white, trying to walk bent forward against a Norwester wind and no longer sure where I was. The woods seemed to start closing in and my only thought was to push on and seek shelter. I managed to get a glimpse of my watch face and saw it was already after six and I knew night would come early. I shivered for with the snow and winds the temperature on the mountain had also dropped and the thin fall jacket was not made to with stand this weather. Twice I stumbled and fell face first into drifts and on the third fall I had to fight the urge to just lay down and sleep but I knew that would end in only forever darkness.

So I trudged on without a clue where or in what direction I was heading. Minutes went by and then hours and just as I thought I couldn't get any further through the dark of falling night and the shifting snow I saw the glimmer of a light ahead. Hope rose in my mind and I found forgotten energy it seemed and hurried my pace through the now foot deep snow until I was close enough to make out the rustic cabin. I was close enough to smell and see little wisps of smoke coming from the chimney and with my voice hoarse I yelled for help just before I fell one more time and striking my head against a gnarled pine tree, I must have passed out.

When I heard a beautiful female voice singing a Celine Dion song over the crackle of a wood fire I began to believe I had died and gone to heaven so at first I was afraid to open my eyes. Then the smell of something spicy and hit my nostrils and as I didn't believe they made beef stew in heaven I opened my eyes and sat up. Across the cabin from the old sofa I was laying on covered in quilts stood a young lady stirring a pot at an old fashioned wood stove.

As if sensing I was awake the lady turned towards me with a smile that would no doubt have melted the abundance of snow outside the little cabin. Long auburn hair framed a face with sparkling emerald eyes, high cheekbones and lips that were the storybook (adult storybook that is) sooo kissable.

"Hi," she said at first sounding a little nervous.

"Hi" I replied and started to get up but stopped when I realized I was naked under the old quilts, my clothes I saw were hanging from a line by the stove drying.

"I'm Catherine, I heard you yell for help and when I went out found you out cold, literally on the snow. I managed to drag you in here, and hope you don't mind I got you out of your wet clothes as you were close to hypothermic."

I was still stunned by not only the turn of events but as well her beauty, for when she smiled at me, I instantly believed in love at first sight.

"Thank you Catherine, I am Mike and I er,Well ah you...ah saved my life...thank you."

Pouring a cup of steaming coffee into an old and cracked mug she started towards me but pause went back and pulled my jeans and t-shirt off the line and passed the coffee and clothes to me.

"Well Mike I am going to go out and grab another armful of wood while you get dressed and if you are hungry I will share my pot of stew with you, nothing fancy but it is filling."

Once she went out the door, I took a quick sip of the scalding coffee and swiftly pulled on my jeans and shirt, by the time she returned I had managed to make my way to the old wooden table (it looked almost home made but surprizingly the chairs were quite comfortable. After dumping the fire wood in a wood box close to the stove, my host took down a couple of big bowls from the open cupboards and served up the stew. The table had already been set and she sat down and I told her how I had come to be outside her door in the middle of a Nova Scotia snowstorm. She listened, asked me questions but offered little information about herself.

After second helpings accompanied by home made rolls fresh from the oven smothered in butter I couldn't eat anymore.

Catherine gathered up the dishes and put them in the old sink but before sitting down again she reached up in the cabinet above the sink and took down a bottle and a couple of tumblers. We should have been afraid of each other, I mean two complete strangers in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with a ragin storm outside blocking us in for the night. Instead she poured two shots of rum into the glasses and raised one in a toast.

"To Mike and his survival of Mother Nature's rage on Cape Smokey."

I raised my glass as well but I had my own toast to offer:

"To the lovely angel Catherine who brought me back from the abyss with the most beautiful smile I have ever seen and the best meal I have eaten in my entire life."

We chugged down the rum and she poured us another and now that we were a little more relaxed I asked her to tell me about her life and how she had come to be there.

"Well, its not really all that exciting to be honest, I was married, living in the city but same old boring story, found out my husband was cheating on me with my best friend and well...you know how that ends. Anyway this cabin was my grandfathers and he used to take me up here fishing when I was a kid. He left it to me when he passed away and I have been here..." Catherine glanced at an old ratty calendar on the wall with days x'd out. "Hmnn I guess about 10 months now."

Somewhere during the rest of our convesation when Catherine got up to feed the wood stove, we ended up moving to the old sofa and to this day I am not sure if she instigated it or I but we kissed and the rest as they say is history. I found my love over a bowl of beef stew and a glass or two of black rum.