The Draft Dodger

By Dale Smith

In 1969, young men of draft age faced two choices: either fight an unpopular war in Vietnam, or immigrate to Canada. This is the story of a young man who chose Canada.

When twenty-year-old draft dodger Scott Yale Knight crosses the Canadian border with his girlfriend and her toddler daughter, he is full of idealistic enthusiasm and and hope for their future. As he struggles to establish a home for himself and his family in the Canadian wilderness, he comes face-to-face with forces intent on shredding his youthful ideals and defeating his innocence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dale Smith
• Release date: Aug 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9780986440816

Dale Smith

NEW FOR ADULT READERS: THE DRAFT DODGERIn 1969, young men of draft age had two options: either fight an unpopular war in Vietnam, or immigrate to Canada. This is the story of a young man who chose Canada.When twenty-year-old draft dodger Scott Yale Knight crosses the Canadian border with his girlfriend and her toddler daughter, he is full of idealistic enthusiasm and hope for their future. As he struggles to establish a homestead for his family in the Canadian wilderness, he comes face-to-face with natural and psychological forces intent on shredding his youthful ideals and defeating his innocence.DALE SMITH ON WHY HE WRITES ‘ENVIRONMENTAL FICTION’In a few years, the children on the playground down the street will have joined the workforce. Some of them will find themselves working for corporations or governmental agencies, sitting behind desks in positions of responsibility and influence, making decisions that will, for better or worse, affect the ecological health of the planet. My goal in writing these books is to plant the seeds of environmental responsibility, giving today’s kids something to think about before the future arrives.These well-researched, easy-to-read “environmental fiction” books are written for middle and high school students. What makes the books unique is that kids hear from the endangered species themselves. The books entertain readers with engaging stories while educating them about how and why a species becomes endangered and what they can do to help. The chapters are short, providing kids who don’t particularly enjoy reading with a sense of accomplishment.Teacher’s Guides for “What the Parrot Told Alice” and “What the Orangutan Told Alice” can be downloaded at Smashwords.WHAT THE PARROT TOLD ALICETen-year-old Alice’s view of the world is changed forever when her pet parrot starts talking. Written for fourth graders and up, this book uses wild-caught and domestic parrots to deliver a powerful, inspirational message about conservation and the environment.WHAT THE ORANGUTAN TOLD ALICEAlice and her foreign exchange student friend Shane venture into a Borneo rain forest where they meet endangered orangutans threatened by habitat loss and the illegal pet trade. Jane Goodall calls Dale Smith "... one of the leading environmental writers for children."WHAT THE TORTOISE TOLD ALICEIn a dusty trailer park near Las Vegas, recent high school graduate Alice and Creach, her eccentric but down-on-his-luck uncle, use solar technology and creativity to invent a product to help bolster Creach’s failing ‘Lizard Maintenance’ business. Alice and Creach soon realize what role their invention will play in helping save the endangered desert tortoise from extinction.ABOUT DALE SMITHWriter and photographer Dale Smith lives in Nevada City, California where he writes ‘environmental fiction’ for Young Adult readers. His daughter, Alice, has been his inspiration and muse for his three ‘Alice’ books. In his spare time he explores the American Southwest and Mexico’s Baja peninsula in his small RV with his Scottish terrier, Cooper, riding shotgun.A rock and roll photographer in the 1960s, Smith’s captured intimate portraits of many of the musicians and poets that shaped the counter-culture. Smith’s photographs of a young Bob Dylan will appear on Dylan’s Bootleg #12 album, due in October 2015. View his rock and roll photographs at dale-smith.com.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

HOME ON THE STRANGE

I guide my motorcycle under the twisted bamboo arch that hides the house from the road. An abandoned Volkswagen bug sits in the yard, its hood sprung in a permanent yawn, trunk overflowing with empty Guinness bottles. Near a dented fender, a pair of British Columbia license plates lay abandoned atop of a pile of trash. I stretch from my long ride and look past the hanging wisteria blooms to the small cottage where my friend Sky lives. A matted one-eyed mutt pulls his muzzle out of the bag of dog food that lays broken open on the concrete and wags his tail. Pancho, is that you, boy? I say, and kneel to scratch his ears as he wags his tail.

Everywhere I look there is a sort of psychedelic diorama, assemblage of things that conspire to look like other things, the work of a visual prankster. Mutant gourds dangle from the limbs of a peach tree. A charred crucifix, Venus-like with arms and head burned away, is wedged between two branches. In another tree, a titmouse pokes its head out of a birdhouse that has a faded Baltimore Orioles baseball cap stretched over its roof. Old shoes – tennis shoes, cowboy boots and work boots, impaled on driftwood stakes – mark the path to a vine-covered cottage. On the neglected lawn, a pair of Lazy-Boys bask in the sun like sentinel elephant seals guarding whatever lies ahead. Nailed to the side of the house is a large piece of driftwood that resembles a decapitated human torso. A string of plastic pearls around its neck complete the illusion. This must be the kind of yard art you end up with, I think to myself, if you drop acid three days a week for fifteen years.

I enter the house without knocking. In the entry hangs a black and white photograph of Sky as a young man. In one hand he holds a giant maple leaf, in the other, a small mushroom – psilocybin, no doubt. The ordinary dark green furniture in the living room looks as if it belongs in someone else’s home.

On the knotty pine walls hang a dozen oil paintings, Sky’s artistic achievements created during his exiled years in Canada. The paintings have a crisp, hallucinogenic character about them, and a sort of over-developed hyper-reality. In one, a highly detailed golden fish dangles from a fishing line held in a young girl’s hand. In a self-portrait, Sky, with hair well past his shoulders, stalks his own reflection along a rocky shore. In another, a nude woman emerges from a rock. Or does the rock emerge from the woman, hard to tell. None of the paintings are quite what they seem and all hold visual rewards for the viewer who takes the time to peel back all the layers. Then I notice a small, tattered canvas thumbtacked to the wall in a dark corner of the room. I can barely distinguish the form of pregnant woman combing her long brown hair as she sits in a loft overlooking a serene valley.

Like old friends, aren’t they?

I look up to see Sky in the kitchen doorway, watching me admire these reminders of his draft-dodging days. He steps forward and we hug. He smells of earth and marijuana.

It’s good to see you, I tell him.

Good to be seen, he says.

"Stereopticon Monkhaus, right?" I say, pointing to the tattered canvas.

What’s left of it, Sky says. Who else but you would know the name of that painting?

Though it’s been only a year since my last visit, I can see he’s changed, thicker now, with the hint of a belly. His hair is streaked with gray and pulled into a ponytail. The dark half-circles that cradle his green eyes make him seem older than his forty-five years, and too old for a man who predicts he will live 250 years.

Sky puts a Leonard Cohen cassette in the player and we sit cross-legged on the Oriental rug in the center of the room. Sky pulls a baggy from his shirt pocket and rolls a joint. He looks at me and smiles, then lights the thin cigarette. He inhales deeply, choking in the smoke, then offers the joint to me.

Still get loaded? he says, smoke exploding from his mouth and nostrils as he coughs.

Not so much, I tell him, accepting the pass.

"Ain’t No Cure for Love" fills the room and suddenly Sky gets up and begins to whirl around the room, dancing with his arms extended, bouncing off the furniture as if he was a pinball trapped beneath the glass in a cosmos of his own creation. When he sits down again, tears are streaming down his cheeks.

So, I say when a few seconds have passed and Sky has regained his emotional ballast, what’s happening? On the phone you said you had something important to tell me.

I got busted, Sky confesses, talking backwards, holding the smoke from a long toke in his lungs. This friend of mine – I thought he was a friend – got popped for possession. He told the cops he got it from me, so they’d go easy on him. You should’ve seen the cops come charging in here with their guns drawn like this was some kind of serious shit. They took me away in handcuffs. It was…strange.

What’d they charge you with?

Cultivation with intent to sell.

What’d they find?

Eighty plants. Sky sighs as he recalls his loss.

Jesus. Then what?

I went up before the judge. I kind of expected him to reprimand the cops for harassing me then throw the whole thing out of court, but it didn’t happen.

Why would you think it would? I ask, incredulous.

Because the DA lives down the road. He’s my neighbor, he knows me. Everybody around here knows I’m just a harmless old hippie.

A harmless old hippie with eighty pot plants.

But, Sky argues, holding up an index finger to make his point, only forty of them were female. They shouldn’t count the males, man. They’re not good for anything, everybody knows that.

I nod sympathetically.

Those were my little girls, man, Sky says, fashioning a roach holder from a matchbook cover. They took my little girls.

Then what?

Somebody turned me on to this drug lawyer over on the coast. When I called him he told me he wanted twenty-five grand, up front, to handle my case. When I asked if he’d be into trading his services for some artwork, he laughed.

Where’re you going to come up with that kind of cash? I ask.

I’m going to invite all my friends to an auction of my paintings. You think that’s a good idea?

If it works, it’s a good idea, I tell him. But you’re going to have to get a couple of grand apiece for them. How many friends do you have with that kind of cash?

I don’t know, maybe three or four.

I look at the paintings staring eerily down from the wall. These paintings are such an important part of your past, I tell him. It’d be a shame to give them up.

I won’t be giving them up, he explains. "They’ll just be on other walls.

Outside, Sky leads me down the shoe-lined path. What’s with these shoes? I ask.

This is my path of old soles, he explains. I notice the shoes he wears don’t match.

I follow him into his studio, a shed behind the house. Pinned to the walls are yellowed photographs, mostly of Sky with various women. The cracked windows in the sliding glass doors are held together with masking tape. Extension cords crawl along the floor like snakes stalking a meal. Cobwebs clog the rafters and everything in the room is covered with a fine coat of dust.

Sky shows me a silkscreen print he has been working on for five years.

It’s got 129 colors in it so far, he tells me, holding it beneath a color-corrected lamp.

The print is reminiscent of Sky’s earlier paintings. In the foreground, a jade-green woman disguised as a rock rises out of the mist at the base of a waterfall. A closer look reveals the falling water is the ghostly hair of a second woman. Sitting on a rock, a third woman faces the falls, playing the flute. Each of the women, I notice, resemble Sky’s ex-wife, Sarah.

"I call it The Three Graces," he tells me.

I ask when he’s going to finish it.

Couple of months, maybe.

That’s what you said a year ago, I remind him. He shrugs.

Sky leads me to an acre of garden. Rows of lettuce, squash, carrots, corn, cucumbers, peas, and Walla Walla onions as big as cantaloupes bulge from the earth.

What do you do with all this produce? I ask.

Sell it every Saturday at the farmer’s market in town, he says. People love it, it’s all organically grown. I don’t make a lot of money, but I don’t need much. At least I didn’t until I got busted.

I look out at the vista beyond the garden. The Sierra foothills glow in the golden light. You’ve got a good life here, I tell him. You’re a farmer – a respectable occupation. You’ve got your art, you live rent-free on your grandmother’s ranch. Your daughters are married with children of their own. Maybe you still need to connect with a good woman, but you’ve got a quality life.

Sky lights another joint as we walk toward the pigpen. Used to have two pigs, he says, leaning into the pen to grunt at the surviving pig. Other one hangs out in the freezer now.

There are a lot of unsatisfied people out there, I muse philosophically. A lot of impoverished spirits.

Out where? Sky says.

Out there – in society, leading bogus lives, doing pointless, unproductive work. I’m one of them. We were the generation that was going to change the world, remember? But we didn’t do it. It never happened. You ever think about that? We ended up with all the materialistic baggage we swore we’d never own – mortgages, car payments, the PTA, just like our parents did. Shit, we became our parents.

Sky and the surviving pig exchange a few more snorts then Sky turns to me and says, I’ve tried not to get sucked in by that whole scene.

While Sky cooks dinner, I visit the bathroom to wash up from my dusty ride. While I brush my teeth, I notice a copper-colored frog on the windowsill. When it doesn’t move, I decide it is porcelain. When I lean in for a closer look, it hops away. There’s a frog in the bathroom, I tell Sky when I am finished.

He lives there, Sky tells me. His girlfriend lives in the shower.

After dinner we sit in the grass near the pigpen to watch the sunset. Our conversation drifts to the days of our youth.

Twenty-five years ago, when everybody was getting drafted, you were the only one with guts enough to go to Canada, I tell him. I’ve always respected you for that.

Sky gives me a quizzical glance as he lights an after-dinner joint. He looks up at the red sky. The smoke escapes slowly between his lips and for a few minutes he does not speak. Canada, he finally says, was a long time ago.

PART 1

MONKHAUS

CHAPTER 1

Berkeley, 1969… a time of turmoil, in a time of war. A dense canopy of smog settled over the still waters of San Francisco Bay. To the east, the hills, already turning flaxen, rose above the brown air like loaves of fresh baked bread. The rows of tired Victorians near the University of California had the soft-focus feel of old, sepia-toned photographs. Like over-dressed dowagers, the once-elegant buildings seemed to wilt in the hazy heat, paint peeling in the warmth of the sun.

Perched on the weathered top step of one Victorian, Scott Yale Knight sat with a sketchbook balanced on his lap. Concentrating on his pencil sketch, he struggled to capture the underlying malevolence he sensed in the smoggy swirl.

Sky, as he was known to family and friends, wore the student-artist uniform of the day: Mexican sandals with tire-tread soles, paint-splattered Levi’s, and a well-worn gray T-shirt with UCB stenciled across the front in faded blue ink.

Sky was not quite six feet tall, slender, and twenty years old. His boyish face was framed by a shoulder-length mane of dark chocolate-colored hair worn parted in the middle. His nose turned up slightly at the end and his cheekbones were high. His green, brown-flecked eyes were uncommonly large, making him look like a waif in a Keane painting. A faint mustache barely covered his lip. He was a good-looking adolescent on his way to becoming a handsome young man.

Down the street, from the direction of the tidal flats, a mailman plodded along his route. His traditional maroon and gray uniform was wrinkled and stained, and his greasy blond hair was pulled into a tight ponytail. He paused, wiping his glistening brow with a limp red kerchief. The mailman pulled the leather strap on his heavy bag downward to more evenly distribute its weight, then cut through the weed-ridden yard toward the young artist sitting on the top step.

Your mail, man, the mailman said, holding out a nest of envelopes.

Sky looked up from his sketch. Oh, he mumbled, thanks.

The mailman gave a peace sign then cut across the driveway to the next house.

Slipping his pencil behind his ear, Sky closed his sketchbook and began to examine the mail. The feel of one particular envelope gave him pause. This envelope was heavier than the others with the look and texture of government mail, caramel-colored with a see-through window. Sky knew what it was. He had expected it, but not this soon, not before he finished school. Through the envelope’s glassine window, Sky read his name:

Scott Yale Knight, III

5763 Grove Street

Berkeley, California

To his family and friends, Scott Yale Knight III was Sky. His grandfather was known to the family as Big Scott, his father as ‘Little Scott’. If not for his mother’s clever rearrangement of his initials – S-Y-K –, he would have had to suffer through life as a Scotty.

Sky tore open the envelope and slowly withdrew the papers inside. For a long time he studied the order to report.

Like nearly everyone else, he had been following the Vietnam War on the six o’clock news. But Vietnam was a long way from the life he shared with his girlfriend, Sarah and Shelly, her two-year-old daughter from an unsuccessful marriage.

As he stood, he felt his knees weaken and a nervous rumble deep in bowels. He turned slowly and walked into the house.

Sarah!

Kitchen.

Sarah Rynder’s petite frame was silhouetted against the window. A pot of chicken soup simmered on the stove. Shelly was at her feet, busily scrawling crayon impressions on a pad of newsprint.

I got drafted, he announced.

What? said Sarah, stopping her stirring to wipe a wisp of long auburn hair from her brow. As she turned her face to him, her forehead creased in concern. What did you say?

I got drafted, he repeated, handing Sarah his order to report. For a moment, Sarah studied the document.

Shit, said Sarah. What about your deferment?

Sky shrugged. I guess they don’t care about deferments anymore.

What are we going to do?

Sky was glad to hear her say we. Though they had lived together only six months, she considered Sky’s draft notice her problem as well.

I don’t know, said Sky. I have to report on the seventeenth… two weeks.

Taking back the induction notice, he wadded it into a tight ball, set a match to it, and tossed it into the trash burner at the side of the stove.

Lying in bed later that night, after Shelly was tucked in, Sky and Sarah discussed their options.

A couple of winters ago, when I was still in high school, I was teaching skiing up at Sugar Bowl, Sky began. I had this class of paraplegics, guys that had lost legs and arms in Vietnam. I remember riding the chair lift with this one-legged guy. He told me there was some serious shit coming down over there in Vietnam and that if I got drafted, I shouldn’t go. He grabbed my jacket sleeve and looked me right in the eye and said, ‘You get what I’m telling you, man? If you don’t want to end up like me, don’t go!’

Wow, Sarah said. Heavy.

We skied down the hill and he kept falling down and I kept helping him up. Finally he kind of got the hang of it and got going pretty fast, totally out of control. He crashed into the ski rack at the bottom of the hill. I went over to help him… he was just laying in the snow, laughing hysterically and crying at the same time.

I guess you’d better talk to a lawyer, said Sarah after a few minutes of silence.

Why? Sky said. I’m exactly what the army wants, a naive kid who doesn’t have a clue. Besides, what if I lost? What would I do then? He paused. They’d still send me to Vietnam.

Sky and Sarah fell silent, lost in their own thoughts. The candle flickered and died.

What do you think about going to Canada? Sarah said in the darkness.

Canada? I don’t know anybody in Canada.

I do.

Sky re-lit the candle, reached under the bed for his tin stash box and rolled a joint. They stayed up all night, high on Panama Red, high on life, talking changes, talking Canada, painting word pictures of what their new lives might be like in the north.

Three days before they were scheduled to leave, Sky drove to his parents’ house in Fresno to deliver the news.

Canada? his father asked. "What do you mean, Canada?"

His father urged his son to contact a lawyer but when Sky stood firm on his unwillingness to risk his chances with the legal system, he reluctantly accepted his son’s decision. His mother did not care for the idea that her son was to become a draft dodger, but at last she, too, accepted his decision. When he left his parents’ home, it was with their support and a gift of five hundred dollars. Arms around each other, they watched from the porch as their son left home for the last time.

Sarah and Sky spent their last afternoon in Berkeley loading the dilapidated van. On top of the boxes of clothes, disassembled brass bed frame, records, books, stereo receiver, turntable, utensils and assorted appliances, they loaded the mattress. It was impossible to see out the rear window. Above the mattress was an eighteen-inch crawl space in which Shelly would make the long trip. Sky rolled a dozen marijuana cigarettes and filled the hollow in the plastic Jesus on the dashboard with seeds. They were ready for the future.

At dawn, Sky backed the van out of the driveway, crossing his fingers. There had not been time or enough spare money to give the old engine a tune-up, and the tires were nearly bald. There was no spare.

The van heeled sharply as it rounded the corner at the end of the street. As the bus whined toward the Bay Bridge, Sky silently made a deal with the old Volkswagen: Make this one last trip, and I won’t ask you to make another.

The van strained along U.S. 101 as the miles slipped slowly past. Inclines of the slightest degree were tedious, and the van rapidly lost momentum on steep hills. Sometimes, by the time the van reached a summit, it was poking along the shoulder at fifteen miles an hour. Sky and Sarah leaned forward in their seats and breathed a sigh of relief whenever the van crested a hill.

The fields and hills that lined the freeway blazed with bright poppies and mustard blossoms. Cows with newborn calves were everywhere, awaiting their fates.

I think we’re going to make it, said Sky, his spirits rising like the sun over the dewy beauty of the spring day.

Sarah draped her arm over his shoulder and snuggled close. I think so, too, she whispered.

That first night out, they camped in a roadside park. Sky spread out their sleeping bags under the stars. Ten minutes later they were asleep.

The next night they camped fifty miles from the Canadian border. They could have made it all the way that day, but Sky wanted to arrive at the border station refreshed. In the morning they took showers and afterward Sarah trimmed Sky’s hair to a length certain not to offend the most conservative immigration official. As he shaved, Sky studied himself in the mirror. He looked strangely clean-cut. His hair had not been this short since he graduated from high school. He didn’t feel any different, but he looked different. They changed into fresh clothes and continued north.

CHAPTER 2

At 9:30 a.m. Sky pulled up at the border station. A woman dressed in ill-fitting beige uniform stepped out of a booth to greet them. Sky pushed open the window.

Welcome to our country, said the woman. Visitors?

No, said Sky, we’d like to immigrate.

You’ll have to speak with one of our immigration officers, the woman said. Park your car over in the lot and come into the office. Bring your birth certificates and if you have an offer of employment, bring that, too.

Inside, Sky and Sarah spent the next hour filling out forms. When they were finished, a middle-aged immigration officer wearing a short-sleeved white shirt and a string tie invited them into his office. He introduced himself as Wallace Thorton.

Would either of you care for a cup of coffee? he asked.

No thanks, said Sky.

None for me, said Sarah.

Wallace Thorton studied their applications. As I’m sure you know, we use a point system to determine an applicant’s eligibility for Landed Immigrant status. We require an applicant score a minimum of seventy out of a possible one hundred points, he said while making notes in the margin of both applications.

I see you’re both native Californians.

Yes, they said in unison.

And the little girl is, too?

Yes, said Sarah.

And you are not married?

No, Sky said. Does that make a difference?

It could, Mr. Knight. You would be awarded ten points if you were married. Miss Rynders will be awarded ten points because she has a child. It’s the regulation.

Oh, said Sky.

I see you’ve completed three years of college, Mr. Knight. And you, Miss Rynders, you’ve completed two, is that correct?

That’s correct.

Wallace Thorton made a few more notations.

Do you want to look at our transcripts? said Sky.

No, that won’t be necessary. I would like to see your birth certificates, though, and the little girl’s.

Sky laid the documents on the desk. Wallace Thorton compared them with the information on the applications.

He paused, then said, Do either of you have an offer of employment?

I do, said Sky as he unfolded the letter Sarah’s friend Jane Rhodes and laid it before Mr. Thorton.

The officer studied the letter and made a few more notes on Sky’s application.

You will be assuming full financial responsibility for Miss Rynders and her child, is that correct, Mr. Knight?

Yes, sir, said Sky, shifting uneasily in his chair.

Mr. Thorton handed Sarah her and Shelly’s birth certificates and stamped her application, ‘Approved.’ Please give this to the woman in the outer office, he said. She’ll type your identification papers and issue you a Landed Immigrant card.

You mean I passed? said Sarah, smiling.

I’ve approved your application. Congratulations. You are entitled to all rights and privileges of a citizen, except that you are not permitted to vote. In five years time, and should you so desire, you will be eligible for citizenship.

Thank you very much, said Sarah.

I’ll have to detain your friend a few moments longer. Would you mind waiting in the lobby?

Wallace Thorton closed the door behind Sarah. Sky fidgeted in his chair.

Mr. Knight, he began, your friend had more than enough points to qualify her for Landed Immigrant status. That is why I let her go. Unfortunately, you have only sixty-five points, but there is still my personal evaluation of your character to tally. There is a possibility of ten additional points. You must earn at least five to be granted Landed Immigrant status.

Sky wished he had a cigarette.

Do you mind if I ask you a few more questions, of a more personal nature? Wallace Thorton asked.

No, said Sky, his voice suddenly strained.

Fine, said the immigration officer. Mr. Knight, what is your attitude toward drugs?

Sky cleared his throat. Drugs?

Yes, illegal drugs, such as marijuana and LSD. Wallace Thorton leaned forward in his chair. Do you now or have you ever used either of those drugs?

Sky flushed and swallowed with difficulty. He cleared his throat a second time and said, I tried marijuana once, a long time ago. It made me sick and I never did it again.

And LSD?

I think only an insane person would take that kind of chance with his mind, he lied.

As Wallace Thorton leaned back and folded his hands behind his head, his chair squeaked. I see. Tell me, Mr. Knight, why do you want to immigrate to our country?

Sky tried to collect his thoughts.

Is it because you are resisting induction into the army, Mr. Knight?

Yes, it is.

I see, said Wallace Thorton, again leaning over his desk. He made a few more notes and then stamped the application, Approved. Sky quivered with relief. Congratulations, Mr. Knight, said Mr. Thorton, extending his hand. I hope you find life here a rich and rewarding experience.

Sky stood and shook the man’s hand. Thank you, sir, I’m sure I will. He exhaled deeply. Is that all?

The woman in the outer office will issue your papers.

Sky turned to leave, but hesitated. Mr. Thorton, why did you ask me that, about the army?

It’s very simple, Mr. Knight. I believe that if everyone refused to participate in war, we simply wouldn’t have any. He smiled warmly. Don’t you agree?

Sky most gratefully did. Thank you, Mr. Thorton.

Good day, Mr. Knight. And good luck to you.

CHAPTER 3

The road unraveled like a black ribbon before the van. They were in Canada, and suddenly the mountains and trees were bigger, the air clearer than a few miles back. Sky knew it was all in his head, but it didn’t make any difference. He’d made it. He was free! The uncertainty and anxiety that had driven him here dissolved into the expansive landscape before him. They sped down the highway in the best of spirits, on their way, they felt certain, to the good life.

That they had arrived in the Jane’s Valley was signaled by the many fruit stands that adorned the side of the road: Tom’s Apples, Pete’s Produce, Apple Mary’s Organic Fruit, Larry and Elaine’s Cherries. They drove through little towns and out into the country again, along roads lined with orchards. The evening sky was saturated with orange tones as the van strained up the mile-long driveway that led to Jane and John Rhodes’ cottage that crowned a hill overlooking a glassy lake.

The cottage sat at the center of an acre of well-tended lawn bordered by crabapple trees full of white and pink blooms. Spring was bursting with promises of new beginnings.

Sky stopped the van. This has gotta be one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.

Sarah snuggled against Sky, and smiled with satisfaction that Sky had liked her old friend’s wilderness sanctuary. Don’t you think it’s paradise?

Paradise, Sky declared, is a lot easier to find when there’s money in the family.

Jane, alerted by Sarah’s call that morning, had prepared an elaborate feast to celebrate their arrival. Sky remained quiet throughout dinner. Sarah and Jane, who talked about school, dominated the conversation while John and Sky feigned polite interest. After dinner, Sarah put Shelly to bed, and the adults adjourned to the living room.

John built a fire in the stone fireplace and rolled several joints. He lit one and passed it to Sky.

Sky choked in a long toke and sputtered, What kind of housing is available around here?

John ran his fingers through his well-groomed beard. What’re you looking for?

We thought we’d like to try living on a farm. You know, grow our own food, get back to the land, said Sky, with stoned authority.

You could probably find a house to rent for pretty cheap, Jane said, but I don’t know about any around here. Do you, John?

No, he said, stoking the fire.

We don’t want to impose on you any longer than we have to, said Sky.

Oh, don’t worry about that, said Jane. We never get any visitors – stay as long as you like.

Don’t you ever get bored living way up here? Sarah asked.

Oh, no, said Jane. I read and sew and the time just goes by. John keeps busy with the orchard during the growing season. The winters are pretty quiet, though.

John lit another joint and passed it to Sky. You know, man, I found this abandoned homestead a while ago when I was hunting. It’s across the lake. I don’t know if you’d be interested. The place is pretty run down. It doesn’t look like it’s been lived in in years.

How bad is it? Sky asked.

Pretty bad. I don’t even know who owns it, but it’s a big piece of property. There’s a huge main cabin, a barn, and a bunch of smaller cabins.

Really? Sky moved to the edge of his chair. Could you show it to us?

Sure. We could ride up there tomorrow if you want, but I’m warning you, it’s in pretty bad shape.

In the morning, while Jane stayed at home with Shelly, John, Sarah, and Sky took John’s four-wheel-drive pickup. The road wound around the shore of the lake for several miles then turned into the hills. The farther from the lake the road climbed, the fewer homes and people they saw. The pavement narrowed and turned to dirt. After four or five miles of chuck holes, they spotted an overgrown driveway. A chain was stretched across the entrance.

This is as far as we go by truck, said John. The house is a couple of miles up this driveway.

A couple of miles? said Sarah.

Well, a mile, anyway. It’s all uphill, too.

Let’s have a look, said Sky.

The hills were carpeted with wildflowers, and the calls of birds filtered from the forest. After half an hour’s climb, they came to an open meadow, enclosed by a weathered split-rail fence. On the far hill, half a mile away, stood the cabin.

It