It all seems new, Roy said.
It’s a well-built cabin, his father said. The wind won’t come through these walls. We’ll be comfortable enough as long as we keep wood for the stove. We have all summer to prepare things like that. We’ll put away dried and smoked salmon, too, and make some jam and salt deer. You’re not going to believe all the things we’re going to do.
They started that day by cleaning the cabin. They swept and dusted, then his father took Roy down a path with a bucket to where a small stream fed into the inlet. It ran deep through the short meadow, making three or four S-cuts in the grass before feeding out through the gravel and dumping a small fan of lighter stuff, sand and dirt and debris, into the saltwater. There were waterbugs on its surface, and mosquitoes.
Time for the bug dope, his father said.
They’re all over the place, Roy said.
All the fresh water we could ever want, his father said proudly, as if he had put the stream there himself. We’ll be drinking well.
They put repellent on their faces, wrists, and the backs of their necks, then set to wiping down everything in the cabin with bleach and water to kill all the mildew. Then they dried it with rags and began bringing in their gear.
The cabin had a front room with the windows and the stove, and it had a back or really side room with no windows and a large closet.
We’ll be sleeping out here, his father said, in the main room by the fire. We’ll put our stuff back there.
So they carried in the equipment and put it in the closet, the stuff that was most precious and most needed to stay dry. They packed in the supplies, the canned goods along the wall, the dry goods in plastic in the middle, their clothes and bedding near the door. Then they went to gather wood.
We need dead stuff, Roy’s father said. And none of it will be dry, so maybe actually we should just gather a little to take inside and then we should start building something off the back wall of the cabin.
They had brought tools, but it sounded to Roy as if his father were discovering some of this as he went along. The idea that dry wood was not something his father had thought of ahead of time frightened Roy.
They brought in a twisted pile of odd branches, stacked it near the stove, then went around back and discovered a piece of the wall that jutted out into a kind of box and was in fact for firewood.
Well, Roy’s father said, I didn’t know about that. But that’s good. We’ll need more, though. This is just for a little summer trip or a weekend of hunting. We’ll need something all along this wall. And Roy wondered then about boards, about lumber, about nails. He hadn’t seen any lumber.
We’ll need shingles, his father said. They stood side by side, both with their arms folded, and stared at the wall. Mosquitoes buzzed around them. It was cold here in the shade even though the sun was high. They might have been having a discussion about some kind of trouble Roy was in, they were so removed from what they were looking at.
We can use poles or saplings or something for the supports, his father said. But we need some kind of roof, and it has to come out a ways for when the rain or snow is blowing sideways.
It seemed impossible. All of it seemed impossible to Roy, and they seemed terribly unprepared. Any old boards lying around? he asked.
I don’t know, his father said. Why don’t you take a look up around the outhouse and I’ll poke around here.
Roy felt there was a kind of leveling. Neither knew what to do and both would have to learn. He hiked the short distance to the outhouse and could see the plants already ground down by their passing. They would wear paths in everything, everywhere they went. He circled the outhouse and stepped on one small board that had been overgrown. He pulled it out, scraped the dirt and grass and bugs off it and saw that it was rotten. He tore it apart in his hands. Inside the outhouse was a roll of toilet paper with water stains at the edges and a seat nailed onto the wooden bench and a smell different than a portable toilet because it didn’t smell like chemicals or hot plastic. It smelled like old shit and old wood and mildew and old urine and smoke. It was grimy and damp and there were cobwebs in the corners. He saw two pieces of board about two or three feet long, stacked behind the toilet, but he didn’t want to pick them up because he couldn’t see well in the shadows and he didn’t know what they had been used for or whether they had black widows on them. One of the daughters of his father’s neighbors in Fairbanks had been bitten by a whole family of black widows when she’d put her foot into an old shoe in the attic. They had all bitten her, six or seven of them, but she hadn’t died. She’d been sick for over a month. Or maybe this was just a story. But Roy had to leave suddenly. He jumped back fast, let the door on its spring slam itself shut, and wiped his hands on the thighs of his jeans as he backed away.
Find anything up there? his father called.
No, he shouted, turning back down toward the cabin. Just two small boards maybe, but I’m not sure what they’re being used for.
How’s the outhouse? His father was grinning when Roy got to him. Is it going to be something to look forward to? The big event?
No way. It gives me the creeps in there.
Wait till you have your butt hanging out over the void.
God, Roy said.
I found a few boards under the cabin, his father said. Not in great shape, but usable. It still looks like we’re going to have to make a few boards. Ever made boards before?
No.
I’ve heard it can be done.
Great. He could see his father grinning.
The first bit of home schooling, his father said. Board-Making 101.
So they cut up what they had and looked out in the forest for support poles and a log or tree big enough and fresh enough for boards. The forest was dimly lit and very quiet except for dripping and the sounds of their own boots and breath. Some wind in the leaves above, but not steady. Moss grew thickly at the bases of the trees and over their roots, and strange flowers that Roy remembered now from Ketchikan appeared suddenly in odd places, behind trees and under ferns and then right in the middle of a small game path, red and deep purple in stalks thick as roots, waxy-looking. And fallen wood everywhere but all of it rotten, coming apart in dark reds and browns as they touched it. He remembered nettles in time not to touch the hair that looked like silk and he remembered what they had called conks on the trees, though that word seemed strange now. He remembered knocking them off with rocks and taking them home to engrave on their smooth white faces. What he remembered most was the constant sense of being watched.
He stayed close by his father on this initial trip. He was alarmed that neither of them was carrying a gun. He was looking for bear sign, half hoping for it. He had to remind himself constantly that he was supposed to be looking for wood.
We’re going to have to cut fresh, his father said. Nothing here will be new enough. The wood rot sets in too fast. Is any of this coming back to you? Are you remembering Ketchikan?
Yeah.
It’s not like Fairbanks here. Everything has a different feel. I think maybe I’ve been in the wrong place for too long. I’d forgotten how much I like being by the water, and how much I like the mountains coming right up like this and the smell of the forest. Fairbanks is all dry, and the mountains are only hills and every tree is the same as every other tree. It’s all paper birch and spruce, pretty much, endless. I used to look out my window and wish I could see some other kind of tree. I don’t know what it is, but I haven’t felt at home for years, haven’t felt a part of any place I’ve been. Something’s been missing, but I have a feeling that being here, with you, is going to fix all that. Do you know what I mean?