She kissed him. “Come with me, Jack.”
* * * * *
SNOW, just a dusting, lay upon the meadow the following morning but it was gone before lunch. Dee replaced the stitches in Jack’s shoulder and he spent an hour butchering steaks out of the tenderloins. Made a dry rub from the available spices in the kitchen and worked it into the meat.
He found a wiffle ball set in the shed. They used empty milkjugs for bases and weeded a pitcher’s mound and held a series, boys versus girls, that concluded in game seven when Cole knocked a line drive over third base and brought Jack home.
The afternoon, Jack spent sitting on the porch drinking beer and watching Dee and the kids play out on the meadow. He wouldn’t allow himself to think back or forward, but only to register the moment—the wind moving through gold aspen leaves, his skin warm in the sun, the sound of Cole’s laughter, the shape of Dee when, every so often, she would turn and look back toward the porch and wave to him. Her shoulders were brown and the details of her face obscured by distance and the shadow of a visor, though he could still pick out the white brushstroke of her smile.
As another day set sail, he grilled the elk steaks and a rainbow and surprised everyone with a bottle of 1994 Silver Oak he’d found hidden away in a cabinet over the sink. They gathered at the kitchen table and ate by candlelight, even Cole getting his own small pour of wine in a shotglass. Toward the end of supper, Jack stood and raised his glass and toasted his son, his daughter, his wife, each individually, and then said to everyone, his voice only breaking once, that of all his days, this had been the finest of his life.
* * * * *
ANOTHER fall day in the mountains, Jack fishing alone with his thoughts and the sound of moving water that never seemed to leave him now, even in dreams. Imagining what winter might be like in this place. An entire season spent indoors.
He caught two brookies before lunch and stowed them away in the cooler. The exhaustion from two days ago still lingered. He found a bed of moss downstream and took off his disintegrating trail shoes and eased back onto the natural carpet. There weren’t as many leaves on the aspen as there had been just a week ago when they’d arrived, the woods brighter for it. He could feel the moisture from the moss seeping through his shirt—cool and pleasant—and the sunlight in his face a perfect offset. He slept.
Walked home in the early evening, the inside of the cooler noisy with the throes of four suffocating fish.
Called out, “I’m home,” as he climbed onto the porch.
Set the cooler down, kicked off his shoes.
Inside, Dee and the kids played Monopoly on the living room floor.
“Who’s winning?” he asked.
“Cole,” Dee said. “Na and I are broke. He’s bought every property he’s landed on. Owns Community Chest and Chance. I just sold him Free Parking.”
“Can you even do that?”
“I think he’s paying us not to quit at this point. It’s all very ridiculous.”
He bent down, kissed his wife.
“You smell fishy,” she said. “How’d you do?”
“Four.”
“Big ones?”
“Decent size.”
“We can eat whenever you’re ready.”
Jack showered and dressed in a plaid button-up and blue jeans that were perhaps a size too small and still smelled strongly of their prior owner. Tinged with the remnant of sweet smoke, cigar or pipe. Something crinkled in the back pocket as Jack walked from the bedroom to the kitchen, and he dug out a receipt for a box of tippet from the Great Outdoor Shop in Pinedale, purchased four months ago with a credit card by Douglas W. Holt.
A three-course meal: freshly-baked bread, one can of broccoli cheddar soup, a rainbow trout, seasoned and grilled. They had learned to eat slowly, to stretch out each course with conversation or some other diversion. That afternoon, Dee had perused a shelf of old paperbacks in the game closet, picked a David Morrell thriller, and now she read to them the first chapter during the soup course.
After supper, she boiled a pot of chamomile tea.
“That soup was excellent,” Jack said as she carried four steaming mugs over to the table, two in each hand. “You really outdid yourself.”
“Old family recipe, you know. The Campbells.”
“Who’s that?” Cole asked.
“Mom’s kidding around.”
“But seriously, Jack, the fish was incredible.”
He sipped his tea. Could’ve been stronger, but it felt so good just to hold the warm mug in his hands which were still raw from long hours of casting.
“Busy boy today, huh?” Dee said. “Four fish and how much wood did you cut?”
“I didn’t cut any wood.”
“Of course you did.”
He flashed a perplexed smile. “Um, I didn’t.”
“Are you joking?”
“About what?”
“Cutting firewood.”
“No, why?”
“I heard a chainsaw.”
Jack set his mug on the table and stared at Dee.
“When?” he asked.
“Late this afternoon.”
“Where was the sound of the chainsaw coming from?”
“The driveway. I thought you were taking down more trees.”
Cole said, “What’s wrong?”
“Jack, you’re playing around, and all things considered, what we’ve been through, this isn’t funny at—”
“I fished all day. Naomi, did you take the chainsaw out?” But he knew the answer before she spoke, because the mug was rattling against the table in her trembling hands.
Dee started to rise.
“No, don’t get up.”
“We have to—”
“Just listen.” Jack lowered his voice. “If people have found the cabin, then they’re probably watching us right now through that window at your back, waiting until we go to bed.”
“Waiting for what?” Naomi asked.
“Everyone drink your tea and act like we’re wrapping up a nice family evening.”
His mouth had run dry. He sipped his tea and let his eyes move briefly past Dee’s shoulder to the window behind the kitchen table, the only one in the house they hadn’t shielded with a blanket since it backed right up against the woods. Nothing to see at this hour, the sun long since set. Wondered if someone crouched out there in the dark at this moment, watching his family.
“You’re sure you heard it?” he said quietly. “The chainsaw?”