None Goes His Way Alone

By James Gaffey

Two brothers, Tom and Gary McNally, have set an ambitious task for themselves—spend the summer building a log cabin on family property located on a remote pond in Northern Vermont. Both have good reasons to see the project succeed. Gary is an engineering student eager to apply what he has learned in the classroom to the practical application and problems of construction. More important, he hopes to dispel nagging doubts about his abilities. Tom, saddled with a handicap that has limited his ability to function in the real world, sees a chance to succeed at something that has thus far eluded him, not being dependent on others. But when beset with problems ranging from the dangerous nature of the work, the unwelcome intrusions of uninvited strangers, and outside events beyond their control, the successful completion of the cabin becomes much more than a daunting challenge. It forces the two brothers to confront how they view themselves as part of a much wider world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781644621059

Book preview

Chapter One

The day was almost over for me, but for the other creatures at Hatcher Pond, the day was just beginning.

The mosquitoes were the first to arrive, followed by the bats in close pursuit. As I sat on the dock with my feet in the water, I could still see them in the fading light. They swooped in among the deadfalls near the shore, skillfully dodging the dried branches sticking up out of the water like skeletal fingers. First, there were two, then five. In a matter of seconds, there were a dozen or more, skimming the water for mosquitoes and dragonflies.

The bats gave me the creeps. I had no warning of their approach until a whisper of air from their wings brushed past my ear to inspect me, the stranger who arrived two days ago. They flew quickly, silently, only inches from my head. Then they would drop a wing, change direction, and be gone, all in an instant. I had been alone in these dense woods in Northern Vermont for three days and two nights. With the bats flitting around me, I could feel the fear coming again, elbowing its way into my thoughts, making my heart beat faster. To stay calm, I had to stay with my routine, do normal things.

It was time to feed my dog. I stood up on the dock and unrolled the legs of my jeans to protect the bare skin from the mosquitoes. Riley, my golden retriever, lifted his head off the end of the dock and looked hopefully at me with hungry eyes.

I made my way down the dock toward the boathouse, which was set back about thirty feet from the edge of the pond. I stretched my arms over my head and threw my shoulders back. Chow time, I said to Riley, who was already on his feet. I stepped quickly down the last few feet of the dock. I didn’t have a flashlight, and I had to watch my step, as the narrow planks were slippery with the evening dew. My brother Gary would arrive tomorrow. Maybe then we could do some repair work on the old and sagging dock. But knowing Gary, we would get down right away to the business that brought us to Hatcher Pond. Gary had big plans for the summer of 1978, and I had been drawn into those plans and swept along like a leaf in a brook. Like the leaf, I felt there was nothing I could do but go with the flow and see where it took me.

Following the narrow path from the dock, I reached the boathouse and stepped inside. It smelled damp and musty in the cool night air. I felt my way along the left wall until I came to the bunk beds and inched slowly forward until I reached the shelves on the back wall. Riley impatiently rattled his dog tags outside. I found the flashlight and played the beam around until I found the dog food. Closing the boathouse doors behind me, I slid the bolt shut to hold the doors in place. If I left the doors open, the mosquitoes would be waiting for me when I went to bed. I had learned that lesson the hard way.

Between the boathouse and the edge of the pond was a picnic table my grandfather had built years ago out of spruce logs. The logs were cut lengthwise, so there was a flat side on the top and a round side on the bottom. The flat sides were placed together, forming the top. Matching log benches ran along each side.

Riley watched me as I mixed the canned dog food with dry meal. I set the dish down, and he began eating hungrily. While Riley ate, I took in a lingering view of the pond. Even in the dim light, it was a beautiful sight. The water was black and smooth, like polished glass, darkly reflecting the spruce and fir trees that grew back from the water’s edge. Along the shore, low-growing shrubs stretched their stems out over the edge of the water.

The bats had disappeared. Or at least I could not see them. I walked back to the dock, hoping to postpone the inevitable descent into blackness. The open water retained the fading sunlight, giving me a needed sense of well-being and appreciation for my surroundings in spite of my uneasiness. To my left, Glover Mountain, on the west side of the pond, was now a black silhouette. The north end of the pond, a half-mile distant, was no longer visible. To my right, a small peninsula jutted out from the base of Hobb’s Hill. A dense stand of fir trees thrust their pointed tops into the night sky.

I held my breath and listened. Nothing stirred. There were no sounds from crickets or humming insects. No drone from a distant highway. No songbirds or croaking frogs. There was no sound at all. I exhaled loudly and clapped my hands together. The sound echoed quickly and disappeared into the woods.

I need some sleep, I said to myself, but I doubted I would get it. I had lain awake for most of the last two nights. The first sleepless night started with Riley growling. In the darkness, I lay in bed listening. There was something outside walking around the boathouse. It moved slowly, deliberately. It was heavy enough to snap a twig outside the wall behind my head. I shone the flashlight out the window next to my bed but saw nothing. I turned off the light and prayed for whatever it was to go away. It didn’t. Instead, a second something started walking around the other side of the boathouse.

Riley was growling again, back on his feet, pawing at the ground under the door. Then he started barking and banged his head against the doors, trying to get out. The noise stopped with the barking. I waited in the darkness, my heart in my throat. Riley snorted then returned to the bed I had made him in the corner by the doors. My heart rate returned to normal, and I had just started to doze off when the scraping noise returned. Something was scraping or gnawing at the boathouse doors, trying to get in. The dog started barking furiously again, pawing the boathouse doors, trying to get at whatever was outside.

No, boy, down, get down.

I pushed my way between the dog and the doors, holding Riley by the collar with one hand and the flashlight in the other. I let go of his collar and grabbed a canoe paddle resting against the wall. I unhooked the door latch and eased the two doors open with my toe. Riley wedged his nose between them and muscled his way outside.

Riley! Get back in here!

The dog scrambled around the side of the boathouse, his nose skimming the ground. Barefoot and in my underwear, I went after him. There was a yelp. The flashlight beam found the dog with a face full of quills. Two porcupines, their quills flared, lumbered off into the woods behind the boathouse.

The dog rubbed at its face with its paws, trying to dislodge the quills. I began pulling them out with my fingers. I held the flashlight in my mouth because I needed both hands, one hand to hold down the dog, the other to pluck the quills. The quills in the nose and muzzle were easy to pluck. But several were inside his mouth. Feeling the quills stuck on his tongue, Riley tried to swallow. I had him pinned on his back, holding him down with my own weight. I got two, then four quills. Saliva ran down the handle of the flashlight.

Riley was breathing hard and had given up, trying to wrestle free. I got all the quills out except two, which were sticking from the roof of the mouth, near the back of the throat. As soon as I got my hand back there, he would thrash his head from side to side. I took the flashlight out of my mouth and tried to calm him down.

Gently rubbing his gums with my fingers, I pinned Riley’s tongue down with my middle finger, then grabbed two quills at the back of his throat with my thumb and index finger. I stood up, and Riley sprang to his feet. I tossed the quills into the bushes. I got the dog inside and went back to bed. I had just started to doze off when the gnawing returned. The porcupines were back.

Exhausted and angry, I staggered out of bed and pushed open the doors of the boathouse like a gunslinger bursting through the swinging doors of some Old West saloon. One porcupine started to waddle off into the woods, but porcupines don’t move very fast. I had the canoe paddle in my hands, and I swung it like a baseball bat. The broad side of the blade struck the creature in the face, driving its nose up into its brain, ending the first Night of No Sleep. I buried it behind the outhouse the next morning.

The second Night of No Sleep was not as exciting, but the result was the same. I had not taken care to close the boathouse doors before I had gone to bed. As soon as I got into my sleeping bag, I was set upon by mosquitoes. They went for my ears, my face, my neck. Even after putting on bug repellent, they kept me awake, humming close to my ears and face before the repellent drove them away.

Then, in the middle of the night, there was a loud thud on the roof of the boathouse. I sat straight up in my bed and listened as whatever it was rolled off the roof and landed outside the wall opposite my bed. I knew I should investigate, but I was too afraid. I sat on the bottom bunk with my back against the wall. There was a window between the top and bottom bunks. I looked out from time to time but saw nothing. The gray light of dawn came over Hobbs Hill. I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, the morning sun was high in the sky and Riley was licking my face. There was nothing on the ground outside the boathouse except a small tree limb. Hardly big enough to account for the crash I heard during the night. I never did find out what it was.

Now night was on me again, and with it came fear. The woods were closing in on me. But I had good reason to be afraid this night, because my fears were rooted in more than gnawing animals or unexplainable bumps in the night. That afternoon, I had taken Riley for a walk to the north end of the pond. We doubled back along the east side of Hobbs Hill. We unexpectedly got to the old logging road that led to Hatcher Pond. I didn’t think we had backtracked that far, but no matter. It was an easy walk back to the boathouse.

As we were walking up the road, we rounded a slight bend. Suddenly, two hunters stepped noiselessly out of the woods and onto the road about fifty feet away. They didn’t see me until they heard the jingle of Riley’s dog tags. They were bow hunters, dressed from head to foot in camouflage fatigues. There was black-and-green camouflage paint on their faces. They each held laminated fiberglass bows with green plastic arrow holders clipped to the sides. The arrows were long and had aluminum shafts. On one end were multicolored fins; on the other were metal tips with three razor-sharp edges converging at the tip.

The hunters were in my path. I had to walk right by them. Riley trotted up to the one on the left and sniffed him, tail wagging.

He’s friendly, I said.

The two men looked at me as I grabbed Riley by the collar. I looked up at the man on the left, waiting for some acknowledgment. A smile, a nod, anything. All I got was a stare, his eyes peering out from beneath the brim of his hat. I couldn’t hold his gaze. It was sharper than the tips of his arrows.

C’mon, Riley.

When I had walked down the road apiece, I glanced back over my shoulder. The two hunters were standing right where I had left them. They were both looking at me. The hunter on the right was removing an arrow from the holder. I picked up my pace, taking long strides until I reached the pond. For the rest of the afternoon, as I cleaned out the boathouse, gathered firewood, and made dinner, I replayed the encounter in my mind. Who were they, and why did they act so strange? I searched for a reasonable explanation why two men would be bow-hunting in May, but I could not find one. There was only one explanation that fit. The men were poachers.

That would explain their appearance and behavior. I had stumbled on them while they were hunting illegally. It also explained the bows and camouflage. Bows don’t make noise and attract attention like guns. And if someone did spot them, the camouflage would make it easy for them to disappear into the woods. I was sure they were poachers, and I had seen them only a few hundred yards from Hatcher Pond. They were probably hunting on my grandfather’s property. As they watched me walk down the road, maybe they were wondering what I might say to the authorities. As I ate dinner, I had a much more uncomfortable thought. Maybe they were also wondering what they should do about me.

I tried not to think about it as I got my toilet kit and towel from the boathouse and walked to the end of the dock to wash up. It was part of my nightly routine, and it was important to stay with the routine. I knelt down and dipped my hands in the pond water when I suddenly heard it.

Ka-chink!

A peculiar noise, not loud but very distinct, echoed across the pond. I stopped washing my face and listened. I couldn’t tell where it came from. I looked at Riley. He was licking what remained of his food in the bowl. Maybe it was his dog tags rattling against the rim of the bowl. Quietly I rinsed my face and stood up. I patted my face with the towel and brushed away the mosquitoes attempting to light on my skin. The night sky was filling up with stars.

Ka-chink!

There it was again! I felt my heart beating faster. I scanned the woods with the flashlight. There were only the motionless trees and low-growing vegetation along the shore. Did it even come from the woods? I wondered. Was I hearing things? I turned to the left and trained the beam toward the boathouse. There was the picnic table, Riley lying next to it, and the short path to the dock. I thought of lighting the gas lantern, which would give me more light. When there was light, I was less afraid.

Ka-chink!

It sounded louder this time. Sweat broke out on the back of my neck. My mind raced through several possible explanations and rejected every one of them. It was a metallic sound. Not the sound of an animal or a tree branch creaking in the wind. It was the sound of metal striking metal. It was a human sound. I trained the beam on the road into the boathouse. My hand started to shake.

Hello! Who’s there?

My voice sped across the pond and into the woods, echoing softly. Riley picked up his ears and looked at me, his eyes glowing eerily in the beam of light. Gary? I called out as forcefully as I could. Gary, is that you?

The only reply I got was the eight hoots of a barred owl from the far end of the pond. Heart pounding, ears straining, I froze, listening for a clue.

Ka-chink!

The dog climbed out from under the picnic table, looked toward the woods, and growled a low growl. Then he started barking. I wasn’t hearing things. Riley heard it too.

Cold water hit me in the face. I sat up and smacked my head on the thwart above me.

Tom!

My eyes slowly focused. Gary was in the water, looking at me, hair dripping, hands gripping the gunwale of the canoe. I didn’t recognize him at first without his wire-rim glasses. Riley was licking his face. What are you doing in the bottom of the canoe? Didn’t you hear me hollering? I climbed out of the canoe and rubbed the sore spot on my head. I was wearing all my clothes.

No. I must have been really out. I didn’t get much sleep last night. I tried to pull myself together. I didn’t want to tell Gary what happened. The bugs were really bad, I lied. I paddled out to the middle of the pond so they couldn’t get me. Gary climbed into the canoe, dripping water into the keel. He was only wearing a pair of boxer shorts.

What happened at the boathouse? It looks like a bomb hit it.

That wasn’t far from the truth. The flashlight batteries were almost dead, and I was terrified at the thought of being in the dark. I ran inside the boathouse to get the gas lantern and tripped over Riley’s dish. I found the lantern, but it needed fuel. I spilled more on the ground than went into the tank. I furiously worked the finger pump, feeling it stiffen as the fuel tank filled with pressure. Then I heard it again.

Ka-chink!

I swore it was getting louder. I was in a panic, and I opened the valve on the lantern before I lit the match. I should have done it the other way around. As I fumbled with the matches, the chamber inside the glass globe was filling with gas vapor. In the dark, I finally lit a match and inserted it under the glass.

FWOOOMP!

A mushroom of orange flame leaped out from the top of the lantern and sent me sprawling backward. The lantern was engulfed in flames and began licking the inside of the boathouse doors. The compressed air hissed as it sent more fuel into the rising flames. The gas I spilled on the ground now caught fire and was burning the paint off the side of the lantern. I sprang to my feet and pulled my sleeping bag off the bottom bunk. I threw it over the lantern and stamped the flames on the ground with my feet.

The fire was out. I pushed open the doors, and the smoke drifted out. I looked up at the night sky. No moon, but the stars were blazing. I gathered up my smoldering sleeping bag and the dog and paddled the canoe out to the middle of the pond. Whatever was out there, it wasn’t going to get me. I didn’t hear the noise again. I fell asleep as it started to get gray in the east.

I had trouble lighting the lantern was all I told Gary. I could not bring myself to tell him I almost burned down the boathouse because of a noise I couldn’t explain.

You used the fireplace to cook, didn’t you? You should have had a bucket of water ready for emergencies.

I used my sleeping bag. Look, I feel bad enough about what happened. Don’t rub it in. Anxious to change the subject, I asked Gary when he arrived. He was shivering. I handed him the scorched sleeping bag, and he wrapped it around him as I paddled toward the boathouse.

About an hour ago. I think I wrecked my car on the way in.

You tried to drive in? I asked in disbelief. The road into Hatcher Pond was not a road; it was a scar left long ago by loggers who were more interested in harvesting trees than building roads. It was over a mile of rocks, ruts, and mud.

When I looked in my rearview mirror at the load I had, I decided to chance it. The thought of carrying all that stuff a mile in to the pond was too much. Food, clothing, books, tools. I bumped and scraped my way for a half-mile, smelling my clutch burning up. I stalled in a ditch at the bottom of the second hill. I came to get you to help me unload. And then I got to the boathouse. Cold ashes in the fireplace. The boathouse doors open and scorched. The mattress half-hanging off the bed. No sign of you anywhere. Then I looked out on the pond and saw the canoe with only Riley in it. I thought you’d drowned.

So you swam out to rescue me. Thanks, Gary.

Don’t thank me. Just don’t pull another stunt like that again. I was scared out of my wits.

That makes two of us.

What do you mean?

Nothing.

We reached the dock, where Gary had tossed his clothes before leaping into the water. As he stood on the dock and got dressed, I got the first good look at him in five months. I was nineteen and he was twenty-one, but now I felt a lot younger, more like a little brother. He was taller than me, about six foot, and broad-shouldered. But he looked…I don’t know, more mature or something. Especially when he put his glasses on and combed back his reddish-blond hair. Maybe college gave him that look.

It was hard not to be jealous of Gary. It was obvious to me, and probably everybody else, that he’d won all the marbles. Tall, good-looking, all-league hockey player in high school, president of the math club, National Honor Society, the whole enchilada. He capped off high school by winning a scholarship to Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. He was studying to become a civil engineer.

Me, about the only thing I had in common with Gary was the color of my hair. I was shorter, narrower in the shoulders, and thicker through the middle, although I never thought of myself as fat. But I never held anything against Gary. I was glad when he did well. I’m not the jealous type, which was why we always got along. But he could get bossy, and that worried me. It was just going to be the two of us in that boathouse all summer. We had some catching up to do as we walked down the road to his car.

How’s Dad? He drive you up?

Yeah. Two days ago. And he wasn’t happy about it. He got hurt. A wrench popped off a nut he was trying to unscrew, and he bashed his hand. Sprained his thumb and fractured his index finger. I could tell he wanted me to stay behind and give him a hand at the garage, but I didn’t. The drive north was pretty awkward. Gary wanted the details, so I told him.

Our dad, Ed McNally, is a big guy, a hardworking guy, about two-ten and barrel-chested. He was at the wheel of the dented Ford F150 as we drove north. His thick fingers gripped the steering wheel, which was covered with a film of grease and dirt except where his palms had worn it smooth. I sat in the passenger’s seat. Riley was in the back of the truck along with my gear. The windows were down, and despite the wind and noise in the cab, the silence was uncomfortable.

Tom, have you given any thought to what you’re going to do after the summer? he asked me. It was the first words either of us had spoken since we left home, and we were almost to Brattleboro.

Nope.

He cranked up his window so I could hear him better. I left mine rolled down.

I’d like you to think about going back to the tech institute.

I slumped down in my seat. I knew where this conversation was going. Another one of my father’s earnest attempts to have a heart-to-heart with me.

The institute was a disaster. I’ll never show my face there again.

You’re exaggerating.

I looked through the windshield. The hills of Southern Vermont were rising above the ribbon of highway carrying us north.

I did fine until they handed me the manuals. Then I almost blinded someone. I’d call that a disaster.

The memory was still painful. It only happened six months ago. I was at the Career Technical Institute with a team of classmates in automotive repair. We were removing the cylinder head from an Oldsmobile Cutlass so we could replace the valve lifters. It was the biggest challenge we’d had. There were twenty-one steps in the repair manual. We took turns reading the manual so everyone could get a turn doing the hands-on stuff. When it was my turn to read, I stumbled, backtracked, hesitated, stumbled again. Everyone was staring at me from under the hood, waiting. I was hurried, frustrated, nervous. I was an accident waiting to happen.

Disconnect the fuel lines, I blurted out, and when they did, the first line shot a jet of gasoline into the face and eyes of a kid named Steve, who was leaning over the engine. He was gasping, rubbing his eyes while people were trying to flush them with cups of water from the drinking fountain. In the rush and excitement of getting him to the emergency room, no one noticed I had not read the part in the manual that said the fuel lines were under pressure that had to be released before the lines could be disconnected. They found out eventually, of course. I added the tech institute to the list of schools I’d quit. I took a job at a car wash. It was dull and boring, but at least I didn’t have to read anything. I pushed buttons, poured detergent into the machines, and scrubbed bugs off grilles. Still, my dad wouldn’t give up on me.

You don’t use manuals that much, he said, gesturing casually with his bandaged hand. Sure, once in a while, you have to look up some specs, some tolerances. But not that often.

I rested my arm on the open window and let the wind blow up my sleeve, billowing my shirt. There was no point in arguing. We had been down this road before. He’d say I hadn’t tried hard enough, that I quit too easily. I’d deny it and tell him I was perfectly happy washing cars. Our voices would get louder and louder. Then we wouldn’t talk to each other for a couple of days.

I didn’t want to leave for three months on a sour note. But I knew what I knew. The institute had taught me one thing. Cars were so advanced now some of them even had sensors in the windshield that turned on the wipers when it started raining. My father was living in the horse-and-buggy days of auto repair. Like most everything, if you couldn’t read, you couldn’t do the job. Whether it was a repair manual or a balance sheet, numbers, or letters, it was all the same to me. Gobbledygook.

Chapter Two

We reached Gary’s car, a ten-year-old Volvo station wagon with faded red paint and treadless tires. The rear wheels were resting in a ditch. The back bumper was only inches from the ground, weighed down by the load inside. Gary lifted the hatchback and reached in with his arm, feeling around until he found a black vinyl tube about three feet long.

Here it is. Two months’ work. Wanna see?

I had pulled a box of cooking utensils from the passenger’s seat and was ready to head back to the boathouse. But Gary was anxious to share the contents of the tube with me. He pulled a stopper out of one end and withdrew a set of blueprints, carefully spreading them out on the hood of the car. He used four cans of stewed tomatoes to hold down the corners. The edges curled stubbornly up. The paper crackled as Gary ran his palms over it, smoothing it, caressing it.

I had a little help, especially from a secretary in the engineering lab who let me use the blueprinting machine. But other than that, they’re all mine.

They were the plans for what brought us to Hatcher Pond for the summer. A building, cut from the forest. Made out of logs. A new cabin to replace the musty, leaking, spider-infested, dirt-floored boathouse. The pages covered the hood of the car like a blue ocean. That was appropriate. There was an ocean of difference between my brother and me. The blueprints told the story the gulf between us.

The drawings were precise, as blueprints should be. Thicknesses, dimensions, angles, and degrees of pitch. But they were also clever, even to an uneducated slob like me. Some of the drawings showed the same thing from different angles. The notches that would hold the logs together were shown from the outside corner, the inside corner, and in cutaway, as though Gary was playing with the design like a cat would play with a mouse. My brother possessed an ability so alien to me I would fly to the moon on fart gas before I could do anything like it.

Well what do you think, Tom.

I don’t what to say, Gary. This is amazing. Where did you get all this? Where did it start?

Gary took off his glasses and wiped them on his shirt. It’s a long story.

I’m listening.

I started studying climatic conditions. Average winter temperatures. I needed that to determine the depth of frost penetration so I’d know how far down the concrete footings would have to go. I also looked at snowfall records so I could determine a roof pitch steep enough to shed a winter’s worth of snow. Then I looked at trees, especially the eastern spruce, since that’s what we’re going to be using. It’s strength when subjected to horizontal loads. And vertical loads, when the bearing end is parallel to the grain. When I had an idea for a basic design, I sat down at a drafting table and I—

No. I don’t mean all that engineering stuff. What started all this? About building a cabin, I mean.

Gary leaned forward and rested his elbows on the blueprints. His eyes narrowed. He stared intently at the drawings. He started talking, like he was talking to the drawings, not me.

I couldn’t get a summer job. I sent out résumés and cover letters to a couple dozen engineering firms asking for an internship. But I didn’t get a bite. Not a single one, he said bitterly. Then I saw this book in the school bookstore about building with logs. I thought, if I can’t get a job, maybe I can do this. Maybe I can build something that might actually use some of what I’ve been learning. He tilted his head to one side and looked at me. So what do you think?

You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?

Gary removed the tomato cans and carefully rolled up the blueprints. You have no idea how serious I am. And we don’t have much time. We have to get to work right away. I’m not going back to school with my tail between my legs. All my classmates are going to have something to show for the summer. He held up the black vinyl tube. And so am I.

I was surprised by Gary’s intensity. I sensed something was bothering him, and I found out that night what it was. We finished eating dinner, and I was cleaning up. We were both dog-tired. We’d made six trips between the car and the boathouse, carrying food, tools, boxes of books, sheets and towels, gasoline and oil for the chain saw, and thankfully, mosquito netting for our beds. We got it all put away inside the boathouse, on shelves, under the bunks, hanging from the rafters. We weren’t able to start the car. It was still stuck in the middle of the road.

Gary was sitting at the picnic table, looking at the survey map of the property on the west side of Hatcher Pond. The map showed six lots totaling almost 250 acres owned by our grandfather, Jerry Costello, my mother’s father. Gary was searching the map for a cabin site. I was waiting for a pot of water to heat up over the fire so I could finish cleaning the plates. I hadn’t seen anyone for three days, and I wanted to talk. I asked Gary how he did on his final exams. He looked up from the map and stared out at the pond.

I don’t want to talk about it.

I shrugged my shoulders. The water was about ready anyway. The dog hadn’t been fed either. If he didn’t want to talk, I wasn’t going to push it. But he was still staring into space when the dishes were done. I suspected the exams were still on his mind. I stood at the end of the picnic table and started fixing Riley’s dinner.

I may have flunked my most important exam, he said quietly. I looked at him and nodded but didn’t say anything. I spooned dog food out of a can. Material Mechanics. It’s a required course for civil engineering majors. There were problems on tension, compression, and shear, then on deformation and material failure. I slogged my way through those. But I didn’t feel confident. Then I got to a problem that was worth 20 percent of the exam. I had to calculate the reaction to stress of a concentrated load on a cantilever beam and a propped cantilever beam. He took off his glasses and rubbed the corners of his eyes. We were given the dimensions of the beam, the modulus of elasticity, the pounds per foot of the load, and the supporting forces located along the longitudinal plane.

You didn’t know it? I tried to sound sympathetic. Gary leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. He put his glasses back on and looked out at the pond again. I put the bowl of food down, and the dog started eating noisily.

My professor spent so much time on combined stress. I spent a lot of time studying combined stress. When I was getting ready for the exam, a simple concentrated load hadn’t seemed very important. But suddenly it was important. Very important.

So what did you do?

I took a deep breath and fought back the panic I felt rising in my chest. Then I closed my eyes and thought of this place. Hatcher Pond. That calmed me down. I checked my watch. I had twenty-eight minutes. I made some notes in the margin of my exam book. I tried to take stock of what I knew. I knew the reaction in the cantilever beam was determined using the principles of static equilibrium. Then I—

What does that mean? I interrupted. It always amazed me there were people in the world who knew how to do this stuff.

It’s complicated. I don’t think you’d understand.

Try me, I snapped back. I hated it when he pulled that crap. Never letting me in the clubhouse.

Gary turned in his seat and used his hands to illustrate. When in equilibrium, the forces supporting the beam and the loads placed on it equal each other. Each of the opposing forces is determined algebraically. When added together, the sums must equal zero.

Wow.

Yeah, but I couldn’t remember if the propped cantilever beam was statically determinate. If it wasn’t, then I couldn’t calculate the stress reaction on the basis of statics alone. Then the panic came back. I started to wonder if I had it backward. Maybe the propped cantilever beam was statically determinate and the other one wasn’t. He stood up abruptly and threw his hands in the air. I don’t know. I probably blew it. I just hope, if I set up the equations correctly, I’ll get some credit. But like I said, I don’t want to talk about it.

Gary went inside the boathouse and returned with the chain saw. It was inside a plastic carrying case resembling a pregnant violin. He undid the snaps and lifted out the saw, painted bright red. The color of danger, I thought. There’s no such thing as a beige chain saw. Gary filled the fuel tank, then tipped the saw on its side and filled a separate reservoir with bar oil, which lubricates the chain.

"What are you doing?

It’s never been started. I just bought it three days ago. He placed the saw on a flat spot of ground between the picnic table and the fireplace. He pulled out the plunger, engaging the choke, and then flipped the grounding switch to on. He locked the throttle in the full position. Gary jerked up on the starter rope, and the saw sputtered briefly. He pushed in the choke and pulled again. The saw roared to life, shattering the quiet calm. Riley jumped up from under the picnic table and ran terrified behind the boathouse. I covered my ears.

The saw was screaming at full throttle. Gary was having trouble releasing the throttle lock. The chain was a blur as it spun furiously around the blade. Gary finally released the throttle lock, and the saw slowed down to a merciful idle. He goosed the throttle again, and the sudden torque caused the blade to jerk up toward his face. Holding it away from his body, Gary revved it a few more times then turned it off. Blue exhaust from the saw mixed with smoke from the campfire and was carried aloft by the heat. The silence that had been shattered closed over Hatcher Pond once again. There was only the hiss from the gas lantern. I stood there with my ears ringing but said nothing. Gary put the saw back in its case and looked at me. The dying flames from the fireplace gave his face an eerie look. He picked up the saw and started for the boathouse.

Tomorrow, he said, we start cutting down some trees.

I woke up feeling rested for the first time in three days. It was dark inside the boathouse and quiet except for Gary’s rhythmic breathing. I sat up and looked out the window. It was gray outside. Dawn was approaching.

I unzipped the mosquito netting and felt around for my clothes. The air was damp and chilly, so I put on my wool plaid shirt, which hung from a nail next to my bed. I didn’t want to wake up Gary. I quietly laced my boots and tiptoed over to the opposite wall, where I found Gramp’s fishing pole. Riley lifted his head as I opened the boathouse doors. Hey, boy, want to go for a canoe ride? I whispered. He put his head back down between his paws and closed his eyes. Not interested.

I shivered as I walked down the path to the dock. The planks were wet and slippery. A thick mist hung three feet over the water. Nothing stirred. I placed the rod carefully on the bottom of the canoe and climbed in. I untied the leader and pushed off. I could feel the moisture from the seat seeping into my pants. Picking up the paddle, I plunged the blade deep into the water and pulled hard. The canoe knifed silently through the water. I could not tell where I was going. The fog was just above eye level. I could barely see the bow of the canoe.

I had never seen Hatcher Pond like this. The mist covered the water like a cotton shroud, fraying at the edges near the shore, where it crept in among the tangled spruce boughs. The air was cool and sweet. I took a deep breath, and it went right down to my toes. I stayed close to the shore for a few hundred yards. It felt like I was seeing this place I had known for so long for the first time. I appreciated Hatcher Pond in a way I had not felt before. There was just me and the trees and the mist and the water. No schools, no jobs, nobody fretting about my future. And I saw as never before how completely unspoiled it was. There were no motorboats, no cottages spaced fifty feet apart. No turquoise sliding boards corkscrewing their way into the water. No rafts held afloat by rusty fifty-five-gallon drums.

I chuckled at myself. Gary and I had wanted all those toys when we were kids. We begged Gramp to buy a boat with an outboard motor so we could race from one end of the pond to the other. Paddling a canoe had seemed like the ultimate in boredom and wasted energy. Now, as I sat on the caned seat of the wood and canvas Old Town, I marveled at how easily and quietly it glided through the water with a single stroke of my paddle. The thought of an outboard motor on Hatcher Pond was obscene to me now.

I swapped the paddle for the fishing pole. I didn’t expect to catch anything. Because it was so hard to get to, Hatcher Pond wasn’t stocked by the state fish-and-game department with trout like it did at other ponds and lakes. There were mostly bottom-feeders, bullheads, and suckers. Once in a while, you could hook a perch big enough to eat, if you didn’t mind all the bones.

I had no bait, but there was a silver spinner with a three-pronged hook clipped to the swivel. I unhooked the lure from the guide ring and drew the pole back slowly over my right shoulder, then snapped it forward. The lure disappeared into the mist. I heard a tiny splash about thirty feet away. I looked around as I reeled in my line. The sun had crested over Hobbs Hill. Shafts of light were coming through the trees and striking the mist, making it glow. The cottony wisps climbed into the sky in a delicate ballet and slowly evaporated.

Light was the difference between heaven and hell at Hatcher Pond, and at this moment, I was in heaven. I could not imagine a more beautiful place than where I was right now. Bright, open, peaceful. Night was a different story. Mysterious, claustrophobic, intimidating. But I had to admit this much to myself: Being alone for two days really woke me up. I saw and heard everything. The smell of the mountain air, the call of the owls at night, the wind in the trees. Even the quiet had aroused a delicious excitement in me when it wasn’t freaking me out. My senses were aware as never before. Would it have been the same if I had not been alone? I doubt it.

I put down the pole and picked up the paddle. By the time I reached the far end of the pond, I could see both shores clearly—the pointed tops of the fir trees back from the water’s edge giving way to the hardwoods farther up the slopes of Hobbs Hill on the east side and Glover Mountain on the west. There was a new smell in the air. I stopped paddling and sniffed. Woodsmoke. Gary must be cooking breakfast. The thought of food made me realize how hungry I was. As I made my way back along the west shore, I came to a small spit of land forming a shallow cove. A few deadfalls lay half in the water with a carpet of lily pads in between. It looked like a good spot for a fish. I decided to try my luck one more time.

I swapped my paddle for the fishing pole and snapped a short cast between the two deadfalls. The bail clicked into position as the spool began taking up line. The rod stiffened, and I tugged, but the tip of the rod bent over and didn’t budge.

Damn. Snagged it, I cursed myself. Then it happened, suddenly, like a shoelace breaking. The snag pulled back so hard the rod almost jumped out of my hands. What the! I tightened my grip as the end of the rod twitched violently from left to right. I grabbed the crank handle and furiously reeled in the line, pulling the rod into my shoulder at the same time. About ten feet from the canoe, the water broke like a small geyser as a monstrous fish climbed out of the water, tail and head alternately twisting and kicking. It looked all of twenty inches.

I held the handle in a death grip as the fish plunged back into the water. The rod was arched over, the tip pointing straight down. The line slanted in toward the canoe. He’s going under the boat! I gasped. I turned in my seat and tried to bring the rod around the stern to free the line. As soon as the line cleared the stern, it shot forward at a sharp angle. The fish was headed for open water, pulling more line off the spool. While trying to hold on with my left hand, I fumbled with the brake on the spool, trying to unscrew it and loosen up on the drag. I doubted the line was strong enough to hold a monster like this, and unless I could relax the tension on the line, it would snap like a cheap piece of string.

I managed to loosen the brake, and a few more feet of line paid out before it stopped. I decided to take up some slack and made three turns on the crank handle. There was another violent protest from beneath the water as the fish changed direction and headed back for shore. The line angled in toward the canoe. He was headed under the canoe again.

Oh no, you don’t! I pulled the rod into my shoulder and cranked like mad. The water broke again, this time only five feet from the canoe. The fish rose up out of the water, kicking and writhing. My jaw dropped when I saw it up close. It was green on the top and sides and had two rows of sharp tiny teeth. The lower lip stuck out underneath the upper one. Two angry black eyes were on either side of a flat narrow head.

A pike! I couldn’t believe it. Without even trying, I had hooked a prize freshwater game fish. My heart was pounding with excitement. I kept up the tension on the line, which was now moving toward the bow. But with my weight in the back of the canoe, the bow was sticking up in the air. Unless I stood up, the line was sure to get caught on the bow as the fish swam for the shore. I stood up, knees bent. As the canoe wobbled from side to side, I lifted the rod high enough for the line to clear the bow. I didn’t want him in among the dead trees lying in the water.