As quietly as possible the boy climbed the steps to the cabin and crept across the porch, avoiding the board that always squeaked. Silently he opened the door and stepped into the dark room, then crossed it towards his bedroom.
“What’re ya doin’ sneakin’ in like that?” his father asked. The boy couldn’t see him in the dark but he knew the man was likely in his old, dilapidated recliner and more than likely holding a beer can.
“I’m going to bed and I didn’t wanna disturb you.”
“Well, I’m disturbed. I don’t want ya out there at night. It’s dangerous. There’s bears out there.”
“I was just looking at the stars for a few minutes,” the boy replied. In truth, he thought, it was probably more like a few hours, him lying on his back on a blanket in the meadow and staring up in fascination. Gazing up at that endless, black space strewn with stars made him feel that his own problems were insignificant. At such times he could go into a sort of trance, lifting his mind out of his body and sending it rising into the cosmos. He only returned to himself when his body began to feel the cold of the night.
He passed into his room and quietly closed the door while his father continued to consume beer, one can after another. That was as predictable as the movements of the planets.
In the dark he undressed. He didn’t need the bathroom because he’d already peed in the meadow. Shivering a bit, he climbed into bed and snuggled into his quilt. Soon he was in a dreamless, comforting sleep.
The boy was a bit small for his fourteen years, and he hadn’t really begun to fill out yet. His jet black, wavy hair was long enough to cover his ears and the back of his neck. It hung over his brow nearly to his right eye, complimenting his constant, beautiful smile that could cheer up nearly anyone.
The boy had lived with his mother in Massachusetts. His parents had divorced before he was born and he had never seen his father. Then one night in June, when he came home from a Scout meeting, he found his mother on the floor with a needle in her arm.
“Shit!” he yelled. “What’ve you done?” She had overdosed. That’s what she had done, he knew. And that’s what the doctors at the hospital told him an hour later. It certainly wasn’t the first time, but this time the doctors had been unable to save her. Sitting alone in the hospital waiting room, the boy shook with sobs of grief and anger. Over and over he thought to himself, “She promised me she’d stop. She promised! She promised!”
A social worker took the boy into her office and asked if there were any family members he could stay with for a few days. He told her that the only relative he knew of was his father, who lived in the woods up north, in Maine, but he had no idea how to contact him.
She found a family for him to stay with until the authorities could reach his father. Reluctantly, he went with her in her car, first to his home to pack a few clothes, and then to the foster family’s home. The family had two boys and a girl, all younger than he. The parents he judged to be probably in their forties. He slept on a cot in a room with the two boys. He wished he could have some privacy, but that was not to be. The boy decided that the family was okay, but they expected him to earn his food by cleaning, washing windows, and doing a lot of other chores while their own children did nothing but play. He didn’t know until much later that the parents were paid to take him in.
Somehow the authorities contacted his father, and on Friday about a week later he suddenly appeared on the doorstep of the family’s house with the social worker. The boy watched as the adults filled out forms and signed papers. As the boy and his father walked out to the pickup truck, the boy notice that his father walked with a limp. He wondered why but decided it wasn’t the time to ask. They returned to the boy’s home and packed up his belongings, storing them in the back of the truck.
The next day was the funeral. The boy fervently wished that the coffin hadn’t been open. He didn’t want to see her all prettied up by the funeral home. “That’s not the Mom I knew,” he thought. “She looks like a complete stranger.”
The boy sat with his father at the funeral home and again at the cemetery, not crying until the coffin was lowered into the ground and dirt was thrown in on top of it. He felt the thud of each shovelful in his stomach, barely managing not to vomit.
After the funeral, the boy and his father set out for the man’s home in northern Maine. The man said there was a map in the glove compartment if the boy wanted to follow the trip. He pulled it out and found the highway they were on. He followed along off and on as they took Route 95 north through Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and into Maine.
At one point he asked, “What should I call you?”
“What d’ ya mean?”
“Well, should I call you Dad or Father?”
“Neither. We hardly know each other yet and I certainly haven’t been much of either a dad or father t’ ya. Just call me Walter.”
“O…kay… Walter.” The boy tried it out and it felt all right, so Walter the man would be.
As they crossed a bridge at Portland, New Hampshire, the boy saw a sign that read, “Welcome to Maine.” Not realizing how big Maine was, he at first thought that they would soon be at his father’s cabin. But then, when he unfolded the Maine part of the map he saw that they probably still had a long way to go.
That evening, they stopped at a motel with a little restaurant in Bangor. The boy thought the food was terrible and the bed was lumpy. To make things worse, his father snored all night.
There were times, as they drove farther north, the boy felt completely enclosed by trees. Miles of them. At a town named Sherman, they picked up Route 11, still heading north. Occasionally the trees gave way to farms.
“What do they grow this far north?” the boy asked.
“Mostly potatoes,” came the brief reply.
Continuing on, they came to the end of Route 11 in Fort Kent, where the boy saw signs for Canada pointing to the right. Instead, Walter turned left, onto Route 161. As they left Fort Kent, Walter said, “That’s where you’ll go t’ school.”
In about half an hour they arrived at the small town of Allagash where Walter said, “This is where you’ll catch the school bus and where I usually come fer supplies.”
They drove on to a road which turned north, crossing a small bridge over the Allagash River. They stopped at a national forest control house where Walter spoke to the ranger before they drove on dirt roads heading north and east. Walter took several turns, and each time he did, the roads grew smaller, bumpier. It seemed to the boy that the roads must have gone for years with no repair.
Finally they turned onto a road which was little more than two ruts. The middle of the road was high and sometimes scraped on the bottom of the old truck, but Walter just kept driving. The boy bounced up and down as the truck took the potholes, bumps, and weeds, hardly even slowing down.
At last the truck pulled into a meadow in front of an old log cabin with a shed behind it. The one good thing the boy could say about the cabin was that it seemed pretty solid. He soon learned that it had indoor plumbing, which the boy appreciated, especially when it got to be winter, although he often urinated in the meadow or the woods.
They hauled the boy’s belongings into the cabin and Walter led the way through a living room and into a small room which he informed the boy was his bedroom. It had a twin bed, a small dresser, a few shelves, a tiny closet, and one window. The boy tried to turn on the light on the dresser but nothing happened.
“That’s ‘cause the generator’s not on,” Walter chuckled. “I only put it on fer a while at night. No point in wastin’ propane. If ya need light at other times you’ll use a lantern. You’ll soon learn that everythin’ we use, food, propane, kerosene, whatever, we’ve gotta truck in here, so we don’t waste nothin’. Got that?”
The boy nodded and then unpacked his belongings, putting the picture of his mother on top of the dresser and his clothes inside it. He wondered how he could charge his computer if the electricity was off most of the time, but then he realized that, way up there in the woods, he most likely couldn’t get online anyway. He felt very tired from all the driving so he lay down on the bed and was instantly asleep.
Walter woke him for supper, which was hot dogs and beans. He liked hot dogs and beans, so to him it was a good supper, although he wondered if the man ever ate vegetables.
Of course, since Walter had left home before the boy was born, they knew very little about each other. The little the boy had learned about Walter from his mother wasn’t complimentary.
Walter stood a little over six feet but he tended to slouch. He was skinny as a sapling with thin, sinewy arms which were surprisingly strong. His face was narrow with a big, hooked nose, dark, almost black, eyes, and a narrow mouth. He wore his graying hair in a ponytail and shaved about once a week. Usually he wore a red and black checked wool shirt and faded jeans and he nearly always had a knit cap on.
Walter wasn’t much of a talker, and as soon as supper ended he took a six-pack of beer into the living room, propped his left leg up onto an old footstool, and began to drink. The first night the boy just sat at the table until Walter asked if he had finished the dishes yet. The boy replied, “No, sir,” and headed to the sink. Walter had turned on the generator so there was enough hot water for him to wash up.
“Ya can cut out the ‘sir’,” Walter called. “I had enough o’ that in the army.” The boy wondered if that was when his father had injured his leg, but again he didn’t ask.
Finishing the dishes, the boy asked if there was anything else his father wanted done. When he was told no, the boy suggested that he might go outside and look around a little before it got dark. Walter nodded and the boy went through the screen door, letting it slam it on his way out.
“Don’t slam the fuckin’ screen!” Walter yelled.
The boy yelled back, “OK” and listened for the man to yell more, but he was silent so the boy went out into the meadow. He had never been in a wild meadow like this before. There were wildflowers of all colors and numerous plants he decided were weeds. Some of the weeds had prickly round or oblong pods on them which stuck to his clothes. It was certainly not the sort of place where he would want to walk barefoot. He heard two crows yelling to each other in the treetops and many small birds chirping and cheeping.
He walked across the meadow and entered pine woods. In the treetops he heard the two crows talking to each other. There were some huge trees as well as smaller ones. The floor of the woods surprised him because it was quite clear of underbrush. He supposed that the trees kept the sunlight from getting to the forest floor and feeding the weeds. He listened to the birds as he walked on what appeared to be an old path. There were little rustlings away from the path and above him a squirrel chittered.
When it began to grow dark the boy returned to the cabin, being very careful not to slam the door. Walter was asleep in his recliner, his leg still propped up and empty beer cans on the floor beside him.
After washing and brushing his teeth, the boy put on his pajamas, and climbed into bed.
For a long time he lay awake, enjoying the warmth and familiar smell of his quilt and listening to all the unfamiliar sounds coming through his open windows ‒ birds, toads, insects, all making their own symphony. One of the birds kept calling “pea yah, pea yah.” He finally fell asleep, and the next thing he knew, Walter was shaking him awake and asking if he was planning to sleep all day.
When the boy looked at his watch, it was only 6 o’clock, but he yawned, stretched, climbed out of bed, and began his first full day in the north.
Staggering out of his room, still in his pajamas, he asked, sleepily, “Where’s the shower?”
“Isn’t one,” Walter chuckled.
He thought about this for a moment before asking, “So how do I get clean?”
“If yer that dirty, ya grab a bar of soap and a towel and go ‘long the path through the woods t’ the brook.”
So off the boy went. As he followed the dim path, the early morning light filtered through the trees creating patches of light and darkness on the ground. The cool breeze blowing gently in his face gradually woke him to the sights and sounds around him. About a half mile through the woods he came upon the brook, which was chuckling and burbling cheerfully. It was strewn with rocks of many sizes and, where the sun dappled it, it sparkled brightly. The boy smiled at the sound, but when he put his hand in the water he pulled it out quickly. The brook was ice cold. Sighing, he took off his pajamas, knelt down, got the bar of soap wet and began to wash himself. When he finished, he didn’t know how to get the soap off except to cup his hands and pour the icy water all over himself. It wasn’t very efficient and it was frigid, especially on his privates, but it seemed to get the job done. He dried himself as well as he could with the worn towel, put on his pajamas, and headed back to the cabin, shivering all the way.
When he got to the meadow he stood in the early sun trying to warm up. His father was standing on the porch watching him. “A little chilly is it?” he laughed.
The boy laughed through his chattering teeth and said, “Y…y…yeah.”
“You’ll get used t’ it here or go dirty I s’pect.”
The boy nodded, passing the man as he went into the cabin. In his room he put on the warmest clothes he could find.
After a breakfast of oatmeal and a little sausage, he put the dishes in the sink to be washed after supper and went outside, wondering what there was to do in such a solitary place.
Walter was sitting on the porch. “In the winter, you’ll need t’ clean the lanterns before ya go t’ school, he said. Then he asked, “Did ya hear the nighthawks last night when ya went t’ bed?”
“I heard something. I didn’t know they were nighthawks.” The boy wondered how his father could have heard anything after four cans of beer.
“Yep, they hunt about dusk lookin’ for little rodents t’ eat. There’s a bird book in there if yer interested.”
The boy thanked him and went into the living room to examine the shelves of books he had only glanced at the night before. He found the bird book on a shelf to the right of the fireplace, took it outside, and sat on the edge of the porch. He looked up “Nighthawk,” and read what the book had to say about them. Since he’d never used a bird book before it intrigued me. There was a little map by a picture of the bird which apparently showed where nighthawks could be found. He explored the book some more, looking for other birds which he might find there in the north. When he asked how far north they were, Walter said that if they’d gone another few miles east they’d have been in Canada.
“There’s a pair of field glasses hangin’ on a hook inside the door if ya wanna go lookin’ fer birds,” the man said.
The boy retrieved the glasses from inside and came out again. He said he was going to walk in the woods some and asked if the man wanted to go with him.
“Nope. I’ve seen all the woods I need t’. And really, this leg o’ mine doesn’t take well t’ walkin’,” So off the boy strolled, the strap for the field glasses around his neck and the bird book in one hand. “I’ll have to ask him about that leg,” the boy thought. “Now that he’s mentioned it maybe he’ll tell me about it.”
As he walked he heard plenty of birds, but they were really difficult to find in the trees. Finally he saw a little brown one land in the path ahead of him. He tried to look at it in the glasses, but before he could find it the bird flew away. He kept walking, sometimes having to climb over or go around blowdowns. He saw a few more birds but again he couldn’t see any through the glasses, although he was sure a couple of them were blue jays. He was beginning to get hot and frustrated. Then he began to get hungry and realized he didn’t know just where he was.
He guessed the sun must be high in the eastern sky and he knew he had walked pretty much south, because that was the direction the cabin faced, so keeping the sun on his right, he began to walk back toward the cabin, hoping he was heading north. He didn’t come out at the cabin but he did come out at the far side of the meadow and made his way to the cabin.
Later, after a supper of burgers and canned corn, the boy washed the dishes and went out for a walk again while the sun was still up. This time he tried to keep track of where he was going so he could get back to the cabin. After a while he sat down on a rock to rest and closed his eyes to listen to all the sounds around him ‒ birds, insects, and animals scurrying through the woods, all heard but never seen. Finally, he returned to the cabin and went to bed.
In the night he awoke, startled by a cry coming from his father’s room. He went into Walter’s room to see if he needed help. The boy found his father sobbing in his sleep. The boy wondered if he should wake him up but he decided not to. So he went back to bed, lying awake for a long time listening to the sobs slowly subside and grow quiet.
After breakfast the next morning, the boy asked, “Walter, will you tell me what happened to your leg?”
Walter was silent for quite some time before he sighed and said, “Well, I guess I’d better get it over with. I was a soldier stationed in Afghanistan. One day we were out on patrol and the man to my left stepped on an IED. D’ya know what that is?”
The boy shook his head.
“Well, it stands for Improvised Explosive Device. It killed the man who stepped on it and blew the lower half of my left leg completely off. If it hadn’t been for a medic we had with us, I’d ’ve died right there. I was taken back t’ headquarters where the doctors worked on me before I was shipped Germany and later back t’ the states. Eventually, I was fitted for a prosthetic leg. I have t’ tell ya I saw some pretty awful things in Afghanistan. But I don’t wanna talk about that, ever. Have ya heard me cry out in my sleep sometimes?”
The boy nodded.
“Well, I was diagnosed with PTSD. I sometimes have horrible dreams. Anyway, that’s why I left yer mom. It wasn’t her fault. It was me and my freakin’ out all the time. So that’s when I come up here.”
“I’m sorry,” the boy said quietly.
“Well, it is what it is, I s’pose. So if sometimes I seem grumpy, just remember I’m still tryin’ t’ get used t’ bein’ with someone again.”
The next week passed with the routine of breakfast and walks in the woods. The boy decided it might be better to bathe after breakfast when the sun would be higher and could warm him. He continued to look for birds and even saw a few, although he still found it difficult to see them through the field glasses. In the evenings after supper he washed the dishes and went out into the meadow for a bit.
One evening, as he was sitting on the cabin steps with his eyes closed listening to the night sounds, he thought he heard a rustling in the woods across the meadow from him. When he opened his eyes he was startled to see a boy standing at the edge of the woods. He judged the boy to be about his own age. When the newcomer saw that he had been seen, he lifted his hand in a little wave and melted back into the woods. The boy wondered if the rustling he had heard was deliberate, because the stranger made no sound as he vanished.
“That’s odd,” the boy thought. “I didn’t know there was anyone else living near here.”
The next evening, the same thing happened, although this time the boy was able to wave back before the stranger disappeared.
On the third evening, the boy waited nearer the edge of the woods. He waited some time before the strange boy silently appeared, quite near to him this time.
The first thing that registered with him was that the boy standing before him was odd but also quite beautiful, although he would not have used that word, for at that time he still believed that boys couldn’t be beautiful. The stranger’s skin was a dark copper. His mouth curved up in a natural smile. He had high cheekbones and a nose which turned up a bit at the tip. He was wearing an unbuttoned red plaid shirt similar to Walter’s and no undershirt, so his chest showed clearly. It was well-muscled and more mature than the boy’s. The new boy’s legs were covered in what looked like very old blue jeans and he wore battered, holey sneakers. The two most remarkable things about him were his green eyes, which seemed to shine with a light of their own, and his bright orange-red hair, which he wore long and in a ponytail similar to Walter’s. He had a few twigs and leaves in his hair and his clothes, and the boy wondered if he had been rolling on the ground.
When the stranger saw the boy gazing at him, he smiled and even laughed a little. “What’s yer name?” he asked in a quiet, musical voice.
“Isaiah,” the boy said.
“Okay, ya can call me Kieran.”
“What a strange name,” Isaiah thought. He’d never known anybody by that name before.
“So how are ya settlin’ into these woods?” Kieran asked. “D’ ya like the cabin?”
Isaiah wondered how Kieran knew about him and the cabin. Had he been spying? Had he seen him get lost in the woods? Even worse, had he watched him bathe in the morning? He felt shivery and embarrassed at the thought of it.
But all he said was, “Where do you live?”
“Oh, around an’ about in the woods,” Kieran replied.
“Not in a house?” the boy asked.
“Nope. I don’t like t’ be closed in.”
“Don’t you get awfully cold in the winter?”
“Oh, I’ve shelter whenever I need it. This is a big forest and there are lots of places to shelter ‒ or hide,” he added.
“Where are your parents?” the boy asked.
“They died a long time ago. I’ve been on my own ever since.”
Isaiah wondered if he was telling lies. He decided that Kieran probably lived in a cabin pretty close to Walter’s and was just pulling his leg.
“O…kay,” he said. He was beginning to get nervous, so he added, “I need to head back our cabin now.”
“Fine,” Kieran said. “I’ll see ya tomorrow. But I need t’ ask ya somethin’ before ya go.”
“Okay.”
“I took a big chance lettin’ ya see me. In fact, yer the first person who’s ever seen me in these woods. I need t’ ask ya not t’ tell anyone about me. Not even yer father. It’s for my safety.”
Isaiah wondered why he couldn’t tell his father, but he only nodded.
While they had been talking, it had grown dark, and the boy suddenly realized he had come without a flashlight. What was he to do?
“D’ya need help getting’ back t’ yer cabin?” Kieran asked.
Sheepishly the boy replied, “Yeah, I guess I do.”
Kieran took him by the hand and led him through the woods. Isaiah felt self-conscious holding his hand, but at the same time, it was warm and firm and comforting.
Soon they arrived at the edge of the meadow. The boy thanked Kieran.
Kieran let go of the boy’s hand, smiled, and disappeared into the woods, again without a sound.
Before going into the cabin, Isaiah peed in the woods, wondering if Kieran was watching him. If he was, he didn’t either hear or see him.
Once again, he entered the cabin as silently as he could, being careful not to slam the door. Walter was again in his recliner, snoring peacefully, empty cans on the floor beside him.
Isaiah undressed, put on his pajamas, and climbed into bed. He listened to the birds and other night creatures as he wondered who this strange boy who called himself Kieran really was. Finally, he snuggled down in his quilt and drifted off to sleep.