Lake Florence is not large, maybe three miles around, and though there is no trail, you could complete the wobbly circle with one half day of steady walking and a strong case of poison oak, the thin line of boils a persistent reminder of your exploits. Don’t ask me how I know this.
It has been almost 25 years since I last visited here, in the summer of 1954, as a towheaded boy of 13. This strikes me as the age when one’s horizon begins to spread beyond the boundary of the one crystalline day you find yourself in at that moment. A flailing jump off the end of the dock in freshly laundered briefs is accompanied, perhaps in mid-air, by the thought of the swimsuit hanging from a nail in your closet, unused for three years, and your mother’s admonitions. The insults you so freely hurled at the girl in the next cabin are now clouded by the mild torment of her breasts, inexplicably enlarged since last summer and now constrained in articles of clothing wholly unfamiliar to you. A stick that you have carefully crafted into a knife takes on a dimension of killing.
Actions begin to have ramifications, and it is at this age when you begin to sense their horror, the effects of all those things you cannot see or guard against.
I came to the lake for five successive summers, three months each time, a span that could inscribe memory like tree rings in the mind of a boy. This could be measured in the precise feel of the weathered grain on a porch Newell post, or the location of the missing cork in the handle of a favorite fishing pole, or in the uprooted flagstone 100 yards down the path to the lake, which required an exuberant leap when taken at speed and with clear water ahead. It could be measured with a scientist’s precision, laying face-down on the end of the dock and peering into the cold blue water, every species known, the aquatic grasses waving back and forth and revealing each one in turn: tadpoles, minnows, large, slow-moving trout confident in their invincibility. A boy could know the world above and below the water equally, and hold them in the same esteem.
There is, in fact, no more precise or photographic memory than that of a boy set free in the woods for a long, hot summer.
In those days my grandfather owned the lodge, which meant that I ranged about in an untethered way that kept me perpetually close to trouble. I befriended whatever children happened to be staying at the lodge that summer. These relationships displayed the closeness that is imparted by woods and water, but also the distance that comes from knowing that summer must end, and that your newfound friends will depart like sparrows to their distant lives in the city. In this way a boy learns that emotion can be invested like allowance, amassed for a greater result, or squandered. The loss of it could be painful.
But there was one who always did come back: James Woolery. He visited for two weeks each summer with his parents and sister, Jane. They were from Texas, which to me made them exotic. They always stayed at the stand-alone cabin closest to the Lake—my favorite, thanks in part to its distance from the main house, parents, and the potential for doing chores.
I’m thinking that Jane may be the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. I’m also at an age where I think this makes her especially deserving of torment.
With my influence, James is far more interested in what is under the house than in it: the selection of abandoned tools and farm implements, the remnants of an old motorcycle, an assortment of sleds and bikes. And the highlight: snakes. We love snakes, and we particularly love that Jane does not love snakes. In the mind of a boy, there is no temptation so powerful as a girl with a known phobia. Jane finds snakes in her bed, under her bed, in her purse, and in her boots. As far as James and I are concerned, snakes are one of the last truly defining differences between boys and girls, offering a clear sight line into a world that is getting increasingly murky.
“You boys have something to do with this?” It’s James’ Dad, having recently been introduced to the contents of Jane’s left boot.
I’m thinking there are explanations for this, ones that he might even accept. Snakes are everywhere at the lodge, and Jane keeps her boots on the front porch. It could have just crawled in there.
“You ever seen a snake crawl in a boot by itself?” Mr. Woolery cuts me off at the pass.
“No sir.
“Me neither. How you figure it got in there, then?
“There’s lots of possibilities,” offers James.
“Name one.“
James looks in my direction, expecting salvation, but I can’t help him now. As far as I’m concerned he set that trap, put it down under his own foot, and stepped right on it.
“Here’s what I’m going to do for you tough guys,” says Mr Woolery, confident in his victory. “First, you’re gonna clean and polish Jane’s boots. Then you’re gonna sweep this cabin. If Jane has any particular favors she needs done, you’re gonna do those, too. That should take you most of the afternoon. If it doesn’t, come see me, and we’ll find a few other things to fill ‘er up.
“I’m thinking that might be sufficient to convince you to reconsider your attraction to snakes.”
I am, in fact, at an age where I am reconsidering just about everything, the mysteries spinning outward like line from a reel that’s been cast. I am wondering, for instance, how a man can so easily catch two boys at the thing they think they are best at. I am wondering how Jane got so pretty in the span of one year. I’m thinking that a snake in her boot does not necessarily seem like the right way to show my affection, but since I don’t know what is the best way, it will have to do.
I’m thinking there are things a boy can know with surety, like the best rock to dive from on the east shore, or the small drainage that will produce the biggest wriggling trout at the end of your line, or the exact hour that the mosquitoes make their appearance in July. I stack these things in my mind like a cairn; they indicate direction.
These other things are off the trails that I know and they puzzle me. I try to understand but when I cast that line it snags, or comes back with no bait. Or the trail dissipates in the forest without any purpose that I can tell. I try to stick to the Lake shore and the mud banks that define it. But I keep ending up on these spur trails, and they lead to Jane, or the stern look of Mr. Woolery, or to my mother, who wants me to wear swim trunks instead of briefs, or to the ache I feel in my stomach when another kid flies an errant path back to the city.
And so I’m wondering: Can you ever know a place so well—every polished stone of it—that even the spur trails are familiar and purposeful? I figure a boy can know something that well if he tries hard enough, the mysteries dissipating and receding like a stone that is thrown and skips five whole times before sinking to the bottom.
I’m thinking I can throw a stone like that. I’ve done it dozens of times.
I am here now with my wife of 10 years, Susan. It was only recently that I learned the old lodge was again taking visitors, and so convinced her to go. I am anxious for her to see it, though I am aware that she does not carry the same book of images that I page through daily. She does not know the things above and below the water as I do, or the knots used to secure a lure, or how to execute a J stroke from the stern of a canoe to stay on course. These are the things I know. I am thinking that if she can know them, too, she will know more of me.
I try to resist the urge to describe everything as it was, and how it is now, though it seems to me they are much the same. The knotty wood furniture is still there, and the black-and-white framed hunting portraits, and even some of the well-worn throw rugs in front of the fireplaces. There was a time when these things were in my family. You could even say I owned them. So to sit in one the big chairs is to reclaim something. I grasp the weathered arms so hard that my fingers turn white with the effort, as if the strength alone could ensure that I won’t have to surrender this place a second time.
“Can we rest a bit?” It’s been a long drive from the city; we’re both tired. Susan is especially tired.
“Sure. I’ll check in, then we’ll lie down for a while. Maybe later we’ll take a walk—I’ll show you around the place?
“Sure, but don’t let me stop you if you want to go now. I just need some time to settle in. Been a hard week.” There’s been a lot of hard weeks for Susan lately. Her job in the city has been working her pretty good, and it seems like that’s about all she has anymore—hard weeks.
I walk down to the cabin where the Woolery family stayed, and to the dock, now rebuilt, that provided me with so much flight time. The water is as clear as I remember, and as full of life. I see the fish in their inexplicable movements, gliding and arcing through the water, an impossibility of propulsion. The minnows stirring small clouds of dirt from the Lake bottom.
It seems every memory I have is somehow related to this Lake, the images coursing through my veins like the streams that replenish it. I collect these pictures like cinema, stacking them like cordwood against an uncertain future.
When I get back to the room, Susan isn’t resting. She’s on the hotel phone, talking to someone at work. When I enter, the conversation comes to a speedy conclusion, like a animal brought up short by the smell of something several feet off the trail.
“How was your walk? Is everything as you remember it?” she says.
“That sounds like a dangerous comparison to make, so I’m trying not to. How was your nap?”
“Nap? Oh yeah, that. I ended up talking to people at work most of the time. Loose ends. You ready to show me around now?”
For some reason I’m thinking of this one argument James and I had, about nothing at all. In my mind I was already moving on to the next thing when the punch came, a colossal blow that felt like it would knock my jaw off its hinges, white light and stars all around, knees buckling.
From that point I figured you should always stay a few feet from a guy, because you never know what synapse will flash in the brain, somewhere in a dark hemisphere, and the speedy and violent conclusion will drop you like a landslide. Right then I decided I was never going to take another blow like that. A guy who was light on his feet could guard against such a thing, or at least be leaning toward salvation when it came, one quick step from the sheltering woods.
On Sunday mornings my parents always took me to church, about five miles distant, so on those days I would reach for the black suit of clothes that waited stolidly in the cedar-lined closet, looking like a preacher poised to deliver a sermon.
On this morning we’ve got 20 minutes to spare, so I’m off like a thief through the tall trees and down to the Lake shore, the trail a blur of greenery. There’s a pole in my hand, as there almost always is. In my mind I can already feel the pleasure of that one thin line on my index finger where the monofilament rests gently. For that is my favorite moment. The bail of the reel has been drawn back, leaving the spool open to the infinite possibility of the next cast, the exact moment of release a determining factor in how and where the lure will land, and whether it will bring the sought-after flash of silver and the small splash that signifies a fish on the end of the line.
I’m sitting on the edge of the dock. I figure I only have time for a few casts before church. I send the first one out about 40 feet, a test of wind and current. No expectations. The second one lands gently, almost noiselessly, in the flat water.
I’m holding on tight when the strike comes, clean and hard, the flank of the big fish showing itself for a second before it turns and runs for deeper water. I’m used to light fish that are incapable of breaking the line, so the drag on the reel is set tight. When the end of the slack comes, my arms go straight with the force of it. At that moment only about half of my skinny, 13-year-old ass is situated firmly on the dock, and the fish pulls the other half off without seeming to notice.
Even though I am wearing my Sunday clothes, the water is colder than I remember. The weight of those black lace-up shoes is pulling me down fast, but this doesn’t worry me. The pole is still in my right hand, and I’m sculling with my left. The water surrounds me like a friend.
There is a moment, just before I am able to push off the bottom and come back up for air, when I look up, through the trail of bubbles, and see the clear blue of the morning sky, wavering through the prism of the deep lake. I am thinking that my mother will be angry, and my father merely exasperated, as he always is. I will need to borrow some clothes from James, which means I must suffer the embarrassment of having to recount the incident. All things taken together, there will be hell to pay.
But that is not all I am thinking. I am thinking there is something perfect about a boy in his Sunday clothes, yanked off a dock by the fish of his dreams, sinking to the bottom of a mountain lake with his favorite pole firmly in hand. It is an incident that is exquisite in its chaos, all the forces of childhood conspiring at once. The fish has by now broken the line and gone. My clothes are ruined. We will be late for church, if we make it at all. As my feet touch bottom, I wonder if anything could ever be quite this good again.
In the morning Susan and I sign out one of the old wooden canoes and head across the Lake. Though it has been 25 years, every aspect of that boat is familiar to me: the smooth, lacquered cedar ribs that press up against my bare feet; the gentle give of the caned seats; the coarse, weathered feel of the paddle in my palm; the pleasurable ache in my biceps as I pull hard against the resistance of the water.
Susan has never been in a canoe, and so paddles with the irregular, choppy strokes of a novice, fanning the water on both sides in succession, her arms quickly tiring, puddles collecting in the bow. From the stern I assume most of the work, using a feathered stroke to steer, trying to match her erratic rhythm and make the tip of both paddles touch the surface at one, precise moment. I remember now that a skilled paddler can compensate for any inabilities of the person in the bow—and derive pleasure from it. Done right, the paddle goes noiselessly into the still water and emerges trailing only a few stealthy drops, the noise hissing and soft as a breath.
Our course is meandering but steady toward the opposite shore.
“Should I only be paddling from one side?” she asks. I’m pleased with the question, and that such a small thing should matter to her. It matters to me. Everything about this boat matters to me. I figure a person could invest a lifetime in the art of paddling a canoe and still not make it run true.
“Paddle any way you like,” I tell her. “I’ll match you.” It comes as a relief to be able to help her in this way.
“OK, but right now I’m tired. Mind if I rest a while?” With that she slides down between the gunwales, resting on two flotation cushions, her head on the small daypack I brought.
She reaches inside, pulls out a lumpy apple, bites into it.
“Did you ever think you’d come back here, like this?” she says. “The two of us together, I mean?”
“I’d always hoped for it.” It’s true. A person could go his whole life and not complete the short loop trail that returns to the things of his youth.
“Well, I’m glad we did it,” says Susan.
“Are you?”
“Of course I am. This fills in the gaps.”
“Do I have many? Gaps, I mean?”
“A few.”
“And do you like what you see, now that they’re getting filled in?”
No answer is forthcoming, and I realize that she has drifted off to sleep, aided by the rhythmic slapping of the water against the bow. I lean back and close my eyes, knowing there is nowhere that the boat can drift that will put us at risk.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been resting, and it startles me to realize I’m still in the canoe, like a dream from which you wake without knowing the town or country you reside in. Susan is sitting up in the bow. In the moment before she senses I am awake, I see that she is looking down, into the clear depths. It’s an expression I’ve never seen before—unwavering, concentrating on everything and nothing at once. Maybe a little disconsolate—I can’t be sure.
“You OK?”
“What?” The question surprises her. “I’m fine. Just a little queasy, that’s all. Not accustomed to boats. Mind if we head back? I think I need to lie down.”
I let her rest and assume all the paddling myself as we make our way back to the lodge. The wind has picked up, and I stroke hard into it, the bow of the canoe hunting back and forth as we carve an erratic path across the Lake. Susan is quiet.
For some reason I am thinking about a river trip I did with my father. We had just navigated a difficult section of rapids and were in a self-congratulatory mood, the paddles laid flat across the gunwales, our heads back, inclined toward the broad expanse of sky. In that one moment my world went from blue to green, the bubbles my only indication of which way was up. The boulder had been just a few inches below the placid surface of the river.
After that, I always figured it was the flat water that you should fear most, after the visible danger was past. You could steel yourself for a roiling rapid, or maybe even do some reconnaissance if you knew it was coming. Those things seemed easy, like a sum of small numbers. The solution could be determined from what was in front of you.
But in flat water, there was nothing you could add up or be sure of. There were things just below the surface, stealthy and dark, devilish in their intent, that would invert your world in the space of one short breath, leaving you struggling to find the sky.
The forest around the Lake is cavernous with cedar, a tree that bestows sanctuary and fear simultaneously. A boy of 13 could choose either, and be attracted to both.
James and I move in and out of these woods freely, wearing them like a cloak against the intrusions of parents and responsibility. We come out of the woods for meals, or at the urging of parents, but most of all to enjoy the company of Grandpa, who brings us into his confidence to reveal hidden treasures of the old lodge: old tractor carcasses being overtaken by weeds, basement passages, abandoned floats, animal traps, outboard motors, pumps and generators long since disabled by wind and weather, bearskins, animal trophies glowering down from the rafters. We are fascinated with the detritus of the unseen, the past tenants of these cabins.
Grandpa could almost always be found in his wood shop, amidst the sawdust and chips. There, he introduces us to his aging lathe with its myriad knobs and adjustments, and show us how to turn a rough cedar bowl. He teaches us the rudiments of a dovetail joint, and how to repair a wobbly chair leg, and replace the cane seating on one of the canoes. And one summer, he shows us how to make small animal figures on the jigsaw, using old patterns from a woodworking book. Our job, once the outlines are cut, is to smooth the rough edges with our knives and coarse sandpaper, giving the figures a dimension of life. This occupies us for the better part of a summer, and by the end we have coaxed a living shape from the wood.
On this day Grandpa has agreed to meet James and me in the wood shop, but he is late in coming. We mill around the place, fascinated with the assortment of planes, levels, files, and other tools. We look at the many shapes of wood scraps, latent with the potential to come alive in some new form.
On a shelf behind the workbench, I find a small bottle, which I try to open with a child’s inquisitiveness. It resists. Suddenly, the top yields, flying across the shop. To my horror, small white pills go in every direction, landing like snow in the sawdust and dirt. As we scramble to pick them up, the door creaks open.
Grandpa sees the open bottle on the bench, and the dust-covered pills we have so far collected.
“Idiots!” he says. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
We can only look down.
“That’s my heart medicine. You know I had a heart attack last year. Without those pills, I could die.”
“We’re sorry,” I say. “I just….”
“Sorry doesn’t help here,” he interrupts. “Sorry couldn’t save my life if those pills were gone and we couldn’t get to town for more.
“Sorry is also what you might be if your Dad were to know about this.
James tries to intervene on my behalf, but Grandpa cuts him off.
‘I don’t need to hear from you,” he says flatly. “I don’t need to hear from either of you right now. Just leave.”
It doesn’t take long for news of this incident to circulate to my father. It takes me almost the remainder of the summer to work through the list of punitive chores that are assigned to me: sanding, painting, applying lacquer to the interiors of the wood canoes, cleaning gutters, weeding. A litany of punishments.
I wonder if I am the only boy who does not know that a bottle of pills can spread like death across the dusty floor of a workshop. Surely James knows these things, and Jane. It should be the most obvious thing in the world and yet I alone do not know it. I look around and wonder what else contains such dark potential—rocks, rivers, the artifacts of this lodge, all familiar to me but now somehow beyond my reach and understanding. It’s like that certain depth of water where you suddenly are deprived of sight and must inch along, feeling the objects of the lake bottom as you go for direction. At the precise moment you wrap your fingers around some mossy object, your chest tightens, the little stab of pain telling you it’s time to ascend for air.
The mountains rise steeply around the Lake, their shadows darkening big crescents of water as the sun moves through its course. In a canoe you can pass between light and shadow and in the space of two paddle strokes the temperature will change with the force of a season. When this happens you will be glad of the clothes you have brought. Nature here is callous in its severity. At the start of a hike a T-shirt and shorts will seem like enough—two hours later you will be racing for the lodge, teeth chattering, spring snow and fat drops of cold rain darkening your shirt, palpable in their force.
Susan and I decide to climb Old Borax Peak, its jagged fingers gesticulating wildly above the Lake, conveying a message of harshness and beauty. In most people’s minds the Lake is inseparable from Old Borax—twin icons that tumble together like rockfall in any description of the place.
In between two of the mountain’s spikes there is a gentle saddle, which you can reach in an hour and a half of steady walking. There is no trail, but there are contours and subtle signs that will get you to the summit if you know them. I am anxious to see if these cairns can be summoned from memory to form a path to the top.
I struggle a bit at first to find the way—enough to make Susan uneasy.
“Are you sure this is right?” She looks anxious. Every day here has been uncharted territory for her.
“I think so. Let’s keep going for a while.” I remember that most of the route follows contours, the pitch steady but not too hard. In several instances, the views open to the glistening Lake below, the lodge barely visible at the far end. With such significant landmarks, it’s hard to get lost on a large scale. But on a small scale, you can spend a lot of time going in circles, familiar landmarks showing themselves again and again, ridiculing your lack of significant progress toward the summit.
We pass in and out of the shelter of trees, the vegetation changing as we ascend. The ground yields easily under our boots, the grass still moist in places where the snow has only recently receded. In some spots our feet sink several inches, and before long I sense the dull cold of water sponging in and out of my socks.
“Uhh.” I hear Susan stop abruptly, drawing a rush of air into her lungs. When I spin around, I see the bear about 100 feet to our left, rummaging for berries. In the next second, the stench of the huge animal reaches my nostrils.
We’ve been spotted. I raise my hand in a calming motion to Susan and point down the way we have come. The bear, with an air of disdain, watches us turn and begin our descent. I am hoping there is no cub nearby, or worse—that we are between the cub and its mother. I take cautious but steady steps, looking over my shoulder, listening for footfall. There is none.
We descend wordlessly, looking back every once in a while to confirm our escape. Upon reaching the Lake, Susan is breathing heavily. She leans into me, in a sense of surrender, her head on my shoulder.
“We’re OK,” I tell her. “It’s over.”
“Were we in danger?” she asks.
“Yes,” I tell her. “We were lucky.”
“Really? I wouldn’t know.” Something has changed in her voice; she’s on the other side of fear now, looking back. She seems excited, maybe even a little intoxicated by the memory of what we’ve been through.
“You don’t ever want to know more about bears than that,” I tell her. Her inquisitiveness scares me a little. “More knowledge like that could kill you.”
“I know,” she says, her voice still animated. “But it was a beautiful animal, wasn’t it? So massive. She looked at us as if we were nothing—miserable excuses for human beings. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so insignificant.”
“Good thing, too,” I tell her. ‘I have no interest in being significant to a bear.”
“I guess so,” she says with resignation, then pauses. “You’re being awfully rational about this.”
“Am I?” I’m sorry to have deflated her in this way, because it’s the most excited I’ve seen her since we arrived at the lodge. “Look, I liked seeing the bear, too. She was beautiful. It must just be my upbringing. Bears and beehives. We were always taught to keep our distance.”
That evening, all she can do is talk about the bear. Up until this moment she’s seemed indifferent about the trip; now she’s exuberant, talking to other guests and hotel staff about the experience. She surprises me by saying she wants to go hiking again the next day. The event has been electrifying for her; I’m guessing she wants more of the same.
After dinner, in the quiet of our rustic room, she folds herself into me as if in a state of surrender—to this place, to the bear, to what we have become. The shades are thrown back and through the window, I can see the stars in their low arc. In these mountains the night sky is not defined by constellations alone; the stars are not singular, but rather fill the atmosphere like mist, from horizon to horizon. One cannot imagine this great arc of sky providing a roof for any other place—it covers these mountains alone. Our lovemaking is also singular to this place. It seems to me we have never made love except in this place, all other experiences falling away, dissolving into the dawn with their companion stars.
Susan falls asleep easily after the events of the day. As I lay back, I have the sensation that I am utterly alone, even though all the things I have known are close at hand and seem to yield to my touch: this lodge, my parents and Grandpa, James, Jane, Mr. Woolery, the fish of my dreams, a bear on the trail. Susan. I paddle through these experiences and they recede in my wake. When I look back there is barely a trace, and when I turn around again to face forward, the bow is vacant, where once all these people and memories had been. And so I have learned to use artful strokes from the stern, keeping a course that is rough, but true.
I find it difficult, paddling through memories in this way. My arms ache with the effort. Suddenly, the bow runs up on the muddy bank, and all motion ceases. I am jerked forward out of these thoughts and have to grasp the gunwales to steady myself.
After the incident in the wood shop, and armed with the knowledge of every footpath in a three-mile radius, I take pains to detour around Grandpa. I fear his glowering looks and the words he does not have to say. To him I am uncaring, wild, prone to recklessness, willing to risk a man’s life for the mere inquisitiveness of a boy.
Nonetheless I am saddened by the turn of events, and find myself looking for small openings that might allow me back into his life.
As I skirt past the wood shop this day, I see a single, naked bulb burning—normally an invitation to enter for some conversation amidst the sawdust and wood chips. But not today. On this day it feels good to be speeding past, toward the comfort of that cold water. In my mind I can see my canoe where it rests amidst the grasses, tethered lightly to a stake. I can feel the lacquered wood slats under my calloused feet, and how they transmit the penetrating cold of the Lake. I long to push off from the muddy bank, the boat released on its passage, drawing only inches of water to support my weight alone, the wind buffeting us like a leaf, thoughts receding like drops from the feathered edge of the paddle.
Just then, with the sound of the table saw retreating behind me, I notice a thing, in the way that only boys can. The saw is screaming out a monotone, without the usual change in pitch that occurs as the blade bites into the soft wood, then retreats, then bites again. I hear just the one high note, the saw running free and unencumbered.
I stop and listen again. Still no change—just that ghostly whine. I am leaning toward the Lake, yearning for it now. I’m thinking it would be the most natural thing in the world for a boy to run toward what he knows best, taking the woods and water as his friends, wrapping himself in the things that are familiar and purposeful. A boy could lie flat against the earth, sweaty and covered in loam, the trees casting their long shadows over him like deadfall, hidden from penetrating gazes, safe enough to live a million years in that one place.
I do not know this saw’s song, but it calls to me. I’m half listening now, not wanting to hear all of it, but it’s part of a disorderly chorus that’s been heckling me all summer. I stop, turn, and walk toward the shop.
When I enter, the small building is empty, even though the big table saw is still spinning crazily. I switch it off and look around. Though the incident with the pills has caused a falling out between Grandpa and me, I have many memories of this place. I envision Grandpa in his accustomed spots, at the workbench, or talking distractedly while running a three-foot length of board through the saw, chips flying outward like fireworks, settling on his shirt and hair.
As I imagine these things, I hear a guttural noise to my left. I spin around and see Grandpa, sitting on the floor, his back against the wall that is festooned with the many lengths of wood levels, their green, water-filled glass eyes staring insistently outward.
He is ashen, and looks at me blankly. A pool of blood has reddened his shirt and collected in small puddles on the floor, mixing with the sawdust and chips like paste. He is holding his right arm up with this left. At the base of his thumb, where it joins the wrist, I can see the white gristle of tendons and bones where the saw found its mark. I imagine Grandpa hearing a door slam, or perhaps spying the flutter of a red-tail hawk out the window, then looking up briefly as the blade encountered soft grain and sent the wood shooting forward, his hand riding with it, not a single note changing as the teeth encountered the soft flesh.
I struggle to overcome the wave of nausea that is rising within me. There are choices to be made—always choices. I think about the fact that it’s the tail end of the tourist season and there are not many guests at the lodge. My parents have gone to town for supplies. It occurs to me that I have never seen anyone look like this man before, an image of death, ghastly and drawn, almost inert. I think about the fact that I have no experience of blood, or of old men inching toward death and in need of salvation. I am at an age where all these experiences are coming hard and fast, and I am powerless to stop them. I could turn and go for help and no one would blame me. It has been a summer where so many things have produced an urge to flee. I could tear through the woods on the trails I know so well—but I would only run headlong into myself.
I decide to stay.
“You OK?” I feel like an imbecile but I cannot think of anything else to say.
“Been better.” His voice is faint, his breathing labored. His eyes seem intent on closing. “We’re going to need to wrap this thing.”
I look around the shop. There are a few first aid supplies on a shelf, but no dressing large enough for this wound. There is also a box of rags, some of which are freshly laundered, normally used to apply stain to unfinished wood. I take one, wrap it around his arm below the cut, and pull it taught.
“Uuumph,” says Grandpa, his face tightening with pain. “Good start. What’s next, doctor?”
I manage a slight smile, and am pleased that he is alert enough to apply some of his wry humor to the grim situation. The only other thing of use in the shop is an old bottle of hydrogen peroxide, which I recognize because my mother frequently applied it to my small cuts and scrapes. I imagine her dabbing it on my arm, envisioning the way it sizzles and pops on an open wound—like water sprayed on a hot griddle.
“This may hurt,” I tell him, unscrewing the top and soaking one of the rags with the clear liquid.
“As opposed to what I’m feeling now?” he says.
I don’t give him a chance to say more, but quickly wrap the rag around his wrist, trying to get on the other side of the pain as quickly as possible. He recoils, then draws in a deep, wounded breath. His eyes squint shut, deep creases forming at the corners. He holds them tight for a second, then surfaces again, hunting for air.
“That was fun,” he says, almost whispering. “Can we do it again?”
I smile and sit down next to him on the floor, the pain flattening us both hard against the wall.
“You know there’s no one at the lodge right now,” I tell him after a few minutes. “Not much help around the place at the moment. Could be a problem for us.”
“Already thought about that,” he says. “Your Mom and Dad should be home in an hour, and they’ll be able to take me to the hospital. In the meantime….”
“I’ll stay here with you,” I offer.
“I figured you would,” he says. “I knew you would. Seems like you’re the taker and giver of life this summer, pretty much. At least when it comes to me, you are.”
“Guess so,” I say, though I’m worried that the latter might be a premature conclusion. It’s not something I want to think about, regardless, this business of giving and taking lives.
I notice that his arm is dropping.
“Hold that up, would you?” I tell him. “You’re supposed to elevate things like that. At least, that’s what Mom says.“
“You’re Mom—my daughter—she’s a smart lady,” he says. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d inherited a piece of that or whether you’d been left out of the action.”
“Look Grandpa, about that thing with the pills…”
He interrupts me. “You ever think about the fact a man can cut 10,000 board feet of lumber, and never once break the skin, then all of a sudden he strays for one second and just about loses a hand?” He’s going in another direction, and there’s no road back that I can see. I’m glad of it. Half a sentence was sufficient, all things understood and forgiven.
“I never did,” I say. “Of course, I’ve never strayed.”
“That was pretty close to funny,” he says. “Within throwing range, at least. Congratulations.
The arm is dropping again, and I reach over and hold it up myself, using my bent knee as support. His eyes are closing, but I am close enough to feel his breath, regular and strong.
We’re there for 30 minutes before I hear tires on the gravel. Grandpa seems to be fast asleep, but he stirs awake at the familiar noise. He looks over at me, unsure for a moment, the atmosphere thick with pain. I wonder if he recognizes me, and if he does, if I’m the boy he knew a month ago, or the new one that saved his hand. I see the big ocean waves of hurt recede for a moment, then a flash of recognition.
“You got any more jokes to tell on the way to the hospital?” he says with a half smile.
We sit close on the long ride into town. There’s plenty to think about. I’m struggling to recognize the boy I’ve become. It seems like I’ve passed though a dozen seasons in the space of one summer. I’m weathered and worn like a streambed, trying to find its course. But I’m facing forward, the car rattling over the rough roads through a tunnel of green. The Lake, the lodge, the many people I have known all in their places but receding like the moon at dawn, vanquished by the blazing sun. And above it all, Old Borax casts its long shadow across the still Lake.
Susan seems calmed by our week here, adapting to the pace of the lodge and the country that surrounds it. But she is quiet at lunch in the restaurant, and insists on returning to the room afterward. I decide to poke around the old place, feeling strangely buoyant, all things as I remember them—a seemingly triumphant leap across the decades.
The path from the dining hall leads directly to the old woodshop, and I find myself heading that direction without really thinking about it. The door is unlocked. I look around and much is as I remember it, the place unkempt and largely unused. There is the old wood lathe, the standing drill—and the table saw, ferocious in its stillness.
I walk over to the long workbench where Grandpa and I spent so many hours together. Light pours through the window in broken rays, penetrating the cobwebs and dust. On the sill, I see a small figure outlined by the light, and pick it up. My hands cradle a thing I have not touched for 25 years but that once consumed all my attention: the rough-hewn animal figure, a dog, that we worked on for the better part of a summer. I turn it over and there is just enough light to make out a child’s initials scratched roughly in the bottom. I put it in my pocket without even thinking.
When I enter the lobby, the receptionist calls out. “Did you mean to catch the shuttle to town?” he says.
“What shuttle?” I ask.
“The one your wife just left on, to the airport. Had you been planning to go with her?”
I walk quickly down the hall, past the black and white hunting portraits, and unlock the door. Susan’s things are gone. A note, written on the hotel stationary, is on the bed table.
I realize that there is nothing there that requires reading, or that is not known to me already. In my pocket, my fingers enfold the tiny animal figure, tightening around it. I feel the corners that are supposed to be round, but instead are abrupt and edgy—a boy’s work. I withdraw the figure without looking at it, and place it gently on the note—a man’s work. Only a man could have wrought the string of events that culminated in this day, the sequence spinning wildly forward for 25 years, nudged toward its inevitable outcome, cut on the rotating blade of the seasons.
I know that saw’s song—the change in pitch that occurs as the blade bites desperately into the wood. I realize there are those things that can be mended through force of will, and courage—things that can be tied up with quick thinking and a rag, judiciously knotted to prevent a life from being extinguished, the stain of it all indelible on a rough sawdust floor, and in the mind of a boy. But there are also those things that are carried on a strong current, inexplicable in its force, which cannot be nudged one inch. These things carry their own inertia, and all the energy of a man and a woman cannot allow them to stand upright in the tremendous current, the smallest act of resistance flattened like tall grass in the river’s flow, an entire world harbored in the sanctuary of the tall blades.