In the morning, Roy remembered the crying, and it seemed to him that this was exactly what he was not supposed to do. By some agreement he had never been witness to, he was supposed to hear it at night and then by day not only forget but somehow make it not have happened. He began to dread their nights together, though they had had only two.
His father was cheery again in the morning and cooking eggs and hash browns and bacon. Roy pretended to be sleepier than he was and having a harder time awakening because he wanted to think and he wasn’t ready yet to join in on the cheer and the forgetting.
The smell of the food cooking, though, got him up finally, and he asked, So are we doing the radio today?
Sure, and the wood shed and smoker and why don’t we build a little summer cottage?
Roy laughed. It’s true there are a lot of things.
More than eggs in a salmon.
They ate on the porch again, Roy thinking it would be a lot harder in bad weather, when they’d have to sit cramped in that little room inside. This morning was overcast as it was, though it was still warm enough for only a sweatshirt. He remembered it had been gray like this or drizzling most of the time in Ketchikan. He liked how it looked on the water, how the water became a molten gray, the sea heavier than anything and impossible to see into, and how the salmon and halibut rose up out of this.
After breakfast, they set about installing the antenna but could not find a way onto the roof. They didn’t have a ladder, and there was no lip at the edge, nothing to hold on to, no high rails or other walls to brace against. His father stepped away from the cabin and walked around it several times.
Well, he said, without a ladder, I guess we’re not going up there. And even then, I’m not sure how high a ladder is going to get us.
So they strung the antenna along the edge of the roof. It turned out that the antenna was only a long cord on a spool anyway, so the solution seemed fine. But when his father set up the radio and tried the reception, they couldn’t hear anything clearly. It was only static and ticking and odd warped sounds that reminded Roy of old science fiction, of black-and-white TV, Ultraman and Flash Gordon. And this was supposed to be their only contact with anyone else.
Are we going to be able to talk with anyone? Roy asked.
I’m working on it, his father said, impatient. Hold it down for a sec.
It doesn’t seem like it’s changing at all, Roy added after another few minutes of warping.
His father turned and looked at him tight-lipped. Go do something else for a little while, okay? You can work on sawing the shingles.
Roy went around back and looked at the shingles and started in on one, but he didn’t feel in the mood, so he found an elbow in one of the larger branches that came out at forty-five degrees. He sawed about eight inches from either end of the elbow and started carving the piece down with his pocketknife to make a throwing stick. He wondered if there were any rabbits or squirrels up here. He couldn’t remember. He’d make a fish spear, too, and a bow and arrows and a rock hatchet.
He worked on the throwing stick, flattening the sides and rounding the ends, until his father came out, saying, I can’t get the damn thing to work, and then saw what Roy was doing and stopped. What’s that?
I’m making a throwing stick.
A throwing stick? His father turned away and then turned back. Okay. That’s fine. Never mind. You know, I’m losing it here already, and the whole point was to relax and find a different way of living, so fine. Let’s quit this project and just take a break.
He looked at Roy, who was wondering whether his father was really speaking to him.
Why don’t we go for a hike? he said. Get out your rifle and shells. We’re gonna take a look around today.
Roy didn’t say anything, because the whole arrangement felt too shaky. He wasn’t sure they wouldn’t have a different plan in a few more minutes. But his father went inside, and when Roy followed him, his father was in there taking his own rifle out of its case, so Roy went for his, too, and stuffed some shells in his pocket and grabbed his hat and jacket.
Better bring your canteen, too, his father said.
When they set off, it was still before noon. They entered the hemlock forest and followed a game trail up and down small hills until they came to spruce and cedar at the base of the mountain. The game trail they were on petered out and they were hiking then on blueberry and other low growth, trying to keep their footing in the scrub. The earth beneath was uneven, spongy and full of holes. They passed hemlocks again and rested to look out over the inlet. They were both winded, already at least five hundred feet above their cabin and the mountain above them so steep they couldn’t see its top but only the curve of its flank. The cabin below looked very small and difficult to believe.
The other islands, his father said. You can see them much better from here.
Where’s the mainland?
A long ways behind us, past all of Prince of Wales Island and some other islands, too, I think. In the east. That’s one thing we won’t see much of, is the sunrise. We’re in shadow until midmorning.
They stayed there a while longer looking out and then grabbed their rifles and started climbing again. Small wildflowers crumpling beneath their boots and hands, moss and the blueberry that wasn’t yet in season and odd grasses. There were no animals around that Roy could see, and then he saw a chipmunk on a rock.
Hold on, Dad, he said, and his father turned. Roy reached back and flung his stick. It went wide of the chipmunk about ten feet, bounced several times, and stopped about fifty feet down the mountain.
Oh, man, he said, and he left his rifle, retrieved the stick, and returned.
I guess we won’t count on that getting dinner for a while, his father said.
As they rose higher, they started hearing more wind and a few small birds flitted past. They still weren’t on any kind of trail.
Where are we going? Roy asked.
His father kept hiking for a while and finally said, I guess we’re just going up to the top and have a look around.
Farther up, though, they hit the cloud line. They stopped and looked down. It was overcast everywhere, and no bright light, but the low areas were clear of fog and cloud, at least, and warmer. Here on the edge great fans of cloud reached down and then were blown past. Above only a few faint outlines and then everything was opaque. The wind through here was stronger and the air damp and much colder.
Well, his father said.
I don’t know, Roy said.
But they continued on higher into the clouds and cold and still there was no trail. Roy as they passed tried to make from the dim shapes around them bear and wolf and wolverine. The cloud enclosed him and his father in their own sound so that he could hear his own breath and the blood in his temples as if it were outside of him and this too increased his sense of being watched, even hunted. His father’s footsteps just ahead of him sounded enormous. The fear spread through him until he was holding his breath in tight gasps and couldn’t ask to go back.
His father kept hiking on and never turned. They climbed past the tree line and past the thick low growth to thinner moss and very short hard grasses and occasional small wildflowers showing pale beneath. They hiked over small outbreaks of rock and finally mostly rock and they climbed up steeper cairns holding the ground above with one hand, their rifles in the other, until his father stopped and they were standing at what seemed to be the very top and they could see nothing beyond the pale shapes below them disappearing after twenty feet, as if the world ended in cliff all around and nothing more could be found above. They stood there for a long time, long enough for Roy’s breath to calm and the heat to go out from him so that he felt the cold on his back and in his legs and long enough for the blood to stop in his ears so that he could hear the wind now passing over the mountaintop. It was cold, but there was a kind of comfort to this place in the way it enclosed. The gray was everywhere and they were a part of it.