SOLVED. Short Story / Man walks home to Alaskan town; left in wilderness to die. [s]

[M—]

I read this short story I swear only a few years ago, but I can't remember where I read it and that's making it very difficult for me to pin the title down.

An Alaskan man had planned to spend a month or so in the summer out hunting with his dog and made arrangements with his best friend for the friend to fly him into a remote area and come back to fly him out again. The hunting trip goes very well, but when the time comes for it to end, the friend never returns. The man spends the rest of summer and all of autumn preparing to get out of the wilderness and by winter time accomplishes the very difficult task of walking home.

At home he finds that his wife and his best friend have moved in together, and he realizes it wasn't an accident that left him in the wilderness; it was an attempt at murder. He surprises the two of them at what used to be his home, causes them to piss themselves in fear but leaves them unharmed and untouched. He takes a few personal and necessary things from the home and the keys to the new pick-up truck he had purchased just before the hunting trip, and he and his dog drive off. (The End.)

The few odd details I remember include: the wife had cut her long hair short, and that was how the man knew she was now with his friend (the friend favored short hair); when the man claimed the the truck, he tossed out of it all the wife's crappy music CDs (country music CDs, if I remember correctly and am not bringing my own music prejudices in).

Any idea? Thanks!

[M—]

Found! I raided my local library network of anthologies themed around Alaska (there were more than I'd expected) until I stumbled along the story I was trying to remember:

"A Little Walk Home" by Michael Armstrong, available in The Mysterious North (2002).

[Lisa]

Glad you found one, M. Hope you find the others asap.

[M—]

Thanks much!