In the few weeks he’d been at the cabin, Isaiah had grown accustomed to awakening at 6:00 AM, so his father no longer needed to call him.
At breakfast, Isaiah wondered if he should tell Walter about Kieran, but decided to wait, at least until Kieran explained why he should not.
When he finished breakfast and two mugs of coffee to warm himself up, he cleared away his and Walter’s dishes, putting them in the sink to wash after supper. He made a sandwich to take with him, grabbed his towel and soap, and walked out the door into bright sunshine, being careful, as usual, not to slam the door. Walter never seemed to care where he went during the day and Isaiah felt no need to tell him.
Arriving at the stream, he carefully looked about for Kieran before removing his clothes. He had become used to the chilly water now, and he jumped in, sat on the bottom of the stream, and let the water flow around him. He washed himself carefully, and then just sat for a few minutes, enjoying the gentle motion of the stream on his body.
“Are ya just gonna sit there all day?”
Isaiah grabbed his towel from the bank, holding it front of his nakedness as he stood and climbed out of the stream.
Kieran laughed. “Ya don’t need t’ cover up, ya know. I’ve already seen ya naked several times, an’ ya don’t have anythin’ I don’t have except maybe those few hairs down by yer privates, so relax.”
Isaiah knew he was blushing bright red, but he was proud of those hairs, and each morning he checked to see if there were more. So far he could count them on the fingers of both hands.
He quickly toweled himself off as best he could then wondered how he could put on his clothes without putting down the towel.
“C’mon,” Kieran said. “Just bring yer clothes with ya. I wanna show ya a much better spot than this.”
Still embarrassed, Isaiah nevertheless slipped on his sneakers and, holding his clothes in front of him, followed Kieran on a faint path paralleling the stream.
About ten minutes later, he heard water rushing. Kieran started up a steep incline, then stopped at the top.
Standing beside Kieran, Isaiah could see the water funneling through a narrow chute in the rocks and falling into a pool below.
“Join me,” said Kieran, stripping off his clothes. He climbed into the stream, sat down, and rode the rushing water through the chute and into the pool, where he turned, laughing up at Isaiah. “It’s great!” he said. “Jump in.”
As soon as he saw Kieran naked, Isaiah’s cock had begun to spring up. Feeling shyer than ever, he hesitantly put his clothes down on the bank, kicked off his shoes, and followed Kieran down the chute and into the pool, finding the slide in the water exhilarating. He was relieved to realize that, in the cold water, his cock calmed down.
“Let’s do it again,” laughed Kieran.
So up they climbed. This time Kieran insisted that Isaiah be the first down the chute. As Kieran followed he yelled, “Whoooooa!” and in a moment, they were laughing together in the pool.
“Besides bein’ fun,” said Kieran, “this is a much better place to clean yerself because ya can get in all over.”
When they reached the top of the hill, Isaiah grabbed his soap and soaped himself up before following Kieran down the chute, yelling as he went. Back at the top, Kieran asked, “Can I use yer soap?”
Isaiah nodded and gave it to Kieran, who soaped his arms and chest and legs and privates before asking, “Can ya do my back?” Kieran turned around and Isaiah did as he was asked. “Now my ass.” Hesitantly he soaped Kieran’s bottom, aware that both he and Kieran were growing hard.
“Thanks,” said Kieran, smiling at Isaiah. “That’s the first time I’ve had soap since I ran away.”
Once again, Isaiah followed Kieran down the chute into the pool, where the cold water again quickly quieted their erections.
The two boys happily rode the chute several more times before climbing out onto a large boulder and sunning themselves to dry.
As they lay together, Isaiah said, “I’ve a couple of questions.”
“Fire away.”
“Okay. Why did you run away, and why do you want me to keep you a secret?”
“Well, those two questions really go together. I’ll start by sayin’ that my mother was a Penobscot and my father was born in Ireland. So that’s why I have the darker skin and the red hair. And my name, too, which my father gave t’ me. It means ‘small dark one.’
“We lived in Allagash ‘til I was ten. Then one day my parents got in the car, dropped me at school, and drove off. I never saw them again. Nobody seemed t’ have any idea where they went or what happened. Their car never turned up. I was suddenly all alone.
“‘Til the town’s policeman could figure out what t’ do with me, he put me with an older couple who were supposed t’ care fer me. But I soon learned that their idea of ‘care’ included beaten’ me and lockin’ me in my room whenever they went out. When I complained one day, the man slapped me hard across my face.
“I decided right then t’ leave, but even at ten I knew that I had t’ plan carefully and take things with me.
“I borrowed a book from the library called Surviving in the Woods. Luckily fer me there was a list in the back of the book of what I should take with me. Besides food and water, it listed things like matches, spare clothes, rope or twine, a flashlight, bug repellant, and a knife.
“So I packed everythin’, includin’ the book, in my small duffel bag and my school backpack. I had t’ steal the bug repellant from the local store and the man’s huntin’ knife from his room, and I’m sorry about that, but I was desperate. Then I waited fer a full moon and, after the couple was asleep, I slipped out the back door and ran t’ the woods, where I began t’ run and walk as quick as I could so I could be far away by the time people missed me. When I was runnin’ in the dark I fell a couple of times and the second time I think I broke a finger, but I kept goin’.
“I guess they didn’t miss me too much ‘cause I never saw any sign that they was lookin’ for me.
“I found a place t’ shelter that first day and then walked farther in the night.
“The book had a section on first aid, so I learned t’ try t’ straighten my finger and put a splint on it. It hurt like hell, but I finally managed. Even so, my finger’s still crooked.” He held it up.
“By the end of the third night, I hoped I had walked away far enough, so, usin’ the book I brought, I tried t’ build a little shelter. My first tries were pretty bad but, it was fairly warm out so I didn’t need shelter ‘til it rained. I kept workin’ at it. and now I’ve got three shelters. Two I use in the summer dependin’ on where I am. The third and best is mostly fer winter.
“Fortunately fer me, there was a lot of good information in the book, like how t’ make a snare, how t’ make a spear that was balanced fer throwin’, how t’ keep warm and dry in winter, how t’ build a fire, and what small animals I could eat. The book even recommended skunk, but I’ve never been that hungry!
“Anyway, four years later, here I am. And here is where I wanna stay. I don’t ever wanna live in a town again. That’s why I need ya t’ keep m’ secret. If people learned where I was they’d take me away. After all, I’m still a kid.”
Isaiah listened intently, and he quickly agreed to keep Kieran’s secret. He asked, “You couldn’t have been wearing those clothes when you ran away, they’re too big for a ten-year-old. So where did you get them?”
“Okay, I gotta admit t’ doin’ a little stealin’ now and then. It’s amazin’ what people leave out on their clotheslines overnight. When I needed clothes, I went back t’ Allagash and gathered some new clothes at night. I suppose people eventually missed the clothes, but I’ve never heard. My biggest problem has been winter jackets, shoes, and boots, but I found a clothes drop bin in the market parkin’ lot, so I was able t’ find everythin’ I needed there.”
“So you catch all your own food and skin it and cook it?”
“Yup. It keeps me busy so I don’t have much time t’ feel lonely. I also know what plants are edible so I eat them too. Sometimes, ‘specially in the winter when it’s cold and it gets dark early, I think about my parents and miss ‘em. I wish I knew what happened to ‘em. I don’t know if somethin’ bad happened or if they just decided to go off and leave me, and I can’t really remember anymore what they looked like. D’ ya ever miss your mom?”
“Oh, yes, most of the time. I mean, I know she was a junkie and literally killed herself, even if it was an accident. But I also know that she loved me. There were so many times when I was little that she held me and comforted me.” Then he added with a smile, “I’m afraid Walter doesn’t really fill that role.” They both laughed.
Steering the conversation to a safer topic, Isaiah asked, “Do you catch fish?”
“Sure. Have ya ever heard of ticklin’ fish? Ya can rub their bellies and they go into kind of a trance.”
“Really? How do you get near enough to tickle their bellies?”
“It takes some practice, but it’s pretty easy fer me now. Let’s get our clothes and I’ll take ya t’ my fishing spot.”
They quickly dressed and Isaiah followed Kieran part way back along the path, where Kieran turned toward the stream. Before them was a small pool of very clear water. Kieran cautioned him not to let his shadow fall on the pool, “’Cause it could spook the fish.”
At first Isaiah could see nothing, but then he began to make out the shapes of fish, barely moving. He watched as Kieran lay on his stomach and the fish swam under the bank. Slowly, Kieran put his hand in the water without making a ripple. Just as slowly, he felt under the bank until his hand was beneath a fish. Then he reached up to the belly of the fish and began tickling it. Finally, he moved his hand around the fish and pulled it out of the water. Even then the fish didn’t move for a few moments. It was a beautiful brook trout, about 11 inches long. After they both admired it, Kieran released the trout back into the water.
“Why didn’t you keep it?”
“ ‘Cause I don’t need it right now, and one of the things I learned from the book was t’ never kill an animal that ya aren’t gonna t’ eat right away. I guess that way ya don’t cut down on the supply. That fish or another’ll be around when I need it. Tomorrow ya can try it, but the pool’s been disturbed now so it won’t work.”
The two boys spent the rest of the day together. Kieran was a good and gentle teacher, and Isaiah was a quick learner. He realized he had also been longing for company. Part way through the day, Isaiah offered Kieran half his sandwich. Although Kieran thanked him, he turned it down, saying he didn’t want to get back to liking store-bought food.
By the time Isaiah left Kieran to return for supper, he had seen two of Kieran’s shelters and had begun to master the art of making a snare.
After supper and doing the dishes, he again sat outside, listening to the nighthawks and thinking about all that had happened that day.
Lying in bed that night, he thought about seeing Kieran naked, and he immediately grew hard. Removing his pajamas he satisfied himself and then went to sleep.
At breakfast in the morning, Walter asked Isaiah what he found to do in the woods all day. Isaiah told him everything about bathing at the water hole and sliding down the chute, about seeing animals and birds and naming a few of them. The only thing he did not tell Walter about was Kieran. If Walter suspected, he said nothing, just nodding his head from time to time.
After putting the breakfast dishes in the sink, Isaiah went out and met Kieran at their swimming hole. Isaiah had gotten over his embarrassment at being naked with Kieran and now accepted it as right and natural. Again they slid down the chute several times, and again Kieran asked Isaiah to soap his back and buttocks. Isaiah did and then asked Kieran to soap him in the back. Again they both grew hard until they were in the cold water.
Isaiah had brought a sandwich and Kieran had brought some dried meat, so they ate their lunch on the boulder as they sunned themselves and dried off. Then they lay back, just enjoying the togetherness and the warm sun. As they sunned themselves, Kieran said, “I know ya grow hard an’ I grow hard. D’ ya ever rub yourself down there?”
Isaiah reasoned that Kieran’s knowledge of the facts of life was severely lacking. After all, he had never had those “Human Sexuality” classes in middle school, and, as embarrassing as they were, Isaiah had soaked up the knowledge that was being offered.
Kieran knew that the penis was for making babies as well as peeing, but he had no idea how that really worked.
“Yeah, sometimes,” Isaiah said. “Who am I kidding,” he wondered? “I jerk off all the time.”
“An’ d’ ya shoot stuff out?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, is that normal? What is that stuff that shoots out? Is it okay ta’ do that?”
Isaiah thought about how to answer, but he decided that the truth, so far as he knew it, would be best. “Yeah, it’s normal. I guess all boys do it when they get to be our age. The stuff that shoots out is carrying the sperm. If you were inside a woman and shot it, the sperm would go in and fertilize an egg. But it’s really okay to do it for yourself. I usually call it ‘jerking off’ although I read in a book once that boys in England call it ‘wanking.’”
They both giggled self-consciously. Then Kieran asked, “D’ boys ever do it fer each other?”
“I don’t know. It’s pretty private but I bet that would feel good.” That’s as far as the conversation went that day.
Later they dressed and Kieran took Isaiah to the fishing hole. He instructed him to lie flat and not let his shadow appear in the water. Isaiah did as he was told and tried, very slowly, to put his hand in the water without causing any ripples. But he slipped a little and made ripples, and the fish swam away.
“That’s okay,” said Kieran. “It takes a lot of practice. We can keep trying.”
Then Kieran showed Isaiah where his other shelter was. It was inside a rock formation that could be entered only by sliding sideways through a narrow crevice between two rocks. Kieran said, “This is the one I usually use in the winter. It’s bigger and it’s just about waterproof. I can build a fire t’ cook on and t’ warm me up. C’mon in.”
Isaiah followed Kieran in. The top of the shelter was a large boulder, wedged in above the rocks which formed the sides. There was a small crevice where the roof met the back and where smoke could find its way out. They sat facing each other and talking about things in the forest, the animals and birds, the trees, the flowers. Kieran seemed to know a lot about them, although for many of them he had his own names.
“I’ve never had a tree book or a flower book except fer what my one book tells me, so I have t’ kinda make-up names that seem right t’ me. Like that tree there’s a ‘red bark,’ and that one over there’s a ‘cone tree.’ I know other trees have cones too, but the name just seemed right fer this one and its kin.”
“If you wanna learn what they really are,” said Isaiah, “I could probably get books from the library when I go to school in the fall.”
“Naw, that’s okay. I kinda like the names I gave ‘em. They seem like friends that way. I do know most of the animals, but there’s one little one that runs around in the meadow. It’s almost like a mouse, but it isn’t one.
“Could be a vole,” Isaiah offered.
Kieran liked that, so from then on the little animal was a vole.
In the middle of August, the days grew noticeably cooler, and it was becoming difficult to enjoy bathing in the stream, but they decided to keep it up until Isaiah went to school, although they didn’t bathe on rainy or cloudy days. They needed the sun to warm them up.
One day, they climbed out of the pool shivering. Isaiah had brought his towel, so he dried off and then gave it to Kieran. After that, they lay close together in the sun on the boulder.
After they were silent for a time, Isaiah asked, “Do you remember when you asked about boys rubbing other boys’ privates?”
“Yeah,” Kieran said quietly.
“Wanna try it?”
“I dunno. D’ ya wanna?”
“Yeah, but only if you want me to.”
Finally Kieran said, “Okay.”
By then, both boys were hard. Isaiah rolled onto his side so he was facing Kieran. He felt a frisson of fear. What if Kieran didn’t like it? What if Kieran thought it was sick? Isaiah wondered if he was, indeed, sick or if this was something okay to do. His heart was pounding as he reached over and took hold of Kieran’s cock. He just held it for a few seconds, waiting to see if Kieran pulled away. He had not realized that holding Kieran’s cock would feel so good—hard yet soft, warm, and most of all, alive. When Kieran didn’t pull away or tell him to stop, he began to gently move his hand up and down. A shudder went through Kieran’s body. He seemed so ready it was no time at all before he shot cum all over his stomach and chest. When the throbbing had stopped, they lay there for several minutes.
Then Kieran asked, “D’ya want me t’ do that fer you?”
Isaiah still wondered if what they were doing was bad or sick, but he nodded, so Kieran took his cock gently and began pumping. Isaiah came almost immediately, arching his back and gasping as he did.
When the throbbing stopped, Kieran said, “Well that was fun.”
“Yeah,” Isaiah agreed, smiling.
They both rolled on their backs and lay without speaking. Isaiah continued to worry if what they had done was wrong, but he had to admit that it felt even better than when he did himself. The feeling of Kieran’s hand on his cock was so warm and sensual.
After a while, they rose without speaking, put on their clothes, and walked back along their little path.
As they walked towards a little clearing, they heard a bird calling from ahead. They both knew the call and Kieran said he called it a redbird. Isaiah, who habitually carried Walter’s field glasses with him, tried to find the caller in a tree. He had become better at finding birds in the glasses, and this time he found the red bird with the black face, the red bill, and the red crest.
“It’s a cardinal,” he said.
“Have ya seen other birds?”
“Yeah,” Isaiah answered. “Ones like sparrows and chickadees. Crows of course. I’ve seen a bluebird in the meadow several times.”
“What d’ they look like?”
“Well, they’re blue on the back and wings with orange throats, kinda rust-colored I guess, and white bellies. They’re pretty little birds.”
The next few days they spent trying to find and name birds. They saw gray jays and blue jays, barn swallows and tree swallows, a flicker, downy woodpeckers, once, a pileated woodpecker, and twice a red-tailed hawk.
It was only a week or so later when the boys were lying on their rock, drying off after bathing and swimming, that Kieran asked, “Have ya ever kissed anybody?”
“Nobody but my mom.”
“Me either.”
Again there was silence until Kieran finally said, “I wonder what it feels like.”
“Don’t know.”
“Aren’t ya curious?”
“Well, I wasn’t, but now that you bring it up I guess I am. But where could we find girls?”
“We don’t need girls. We’ve got each other.”
“Really? Boys don’t kiss boys. Men don’t kiss men,”
“Oh, I bet some do.”
“Well, I’m not one of them.”
“Why?”
“It’s just not right. It’s not the way it’s supposed to be.” But even as he was saying this, he felt a tingle of excitement.
“How would we know unless we tried it?”
Without another word Kieran leaned over, took Isaiah’s head in his hands, and bent towards his mouth.
Isaiah struggled to get away.
“It’s okay,” Kieran whispered. “I’m not gonna hurt ya.” He moved his face forward again, and slowly he kissed the struggling boy on the lips. Isaiah’s tingle of excitement grew and grew, reaching into his crotch. He became very quiet, and in a few seconds he was kissing back. He savored the taste of Kieran’s mouth, the closeness, the intimacy.
When they broke the kiss, without removing his face from in front of Isaiah’s, Kieran said, “There, that wasn’t so bad was it?”
Looking deeply into Kieran’s glowing green eyes, Isaiah sighed. “Oh, God no! I loved it! Can we do it again?”
With that, Kieran leaned forward and again they kissed, this time longer and harder.
“Oh wow!” exclaimed Isaiah when they broke apart. “Who would’ve guessed it was so good!”
Isaiah somehow knew that jerking someone off was one thing, but perhaps the kisses maybe meant more. But what? Again he wondered if they were wrong to be doing this.
In the days that followed, he found that, the more serious things got, the more he couldn’t wait to see his friend again, and he found that Kieran felt the same way.
At the same time, neither of them spoke of the kiss. It was as though each had private thoughts that he didn’t want to share yet with the other.
They didn’t kiss often. Perhaps they wanted kissing to remain special. But they did jerk each other off nearly every day.
The end of August came, and with it, the beginning of school. Before school began, Walter gave Isaiah a haircut. It certainly wasn’t a professional job, but it worked for the moment.
Isaiah had a vague memory of where the school was, but he had no idea how he would get to it. Somehow, Walter did know, and he took Isaiah to the consolidated high school in Fort Kent the day before school began. The school secretary welcomed them and found out where Isaiah had gone to school so that she could get his records. Then she gave them a little tour. Isaiah was overjoyed to see that the gym had showers, because bathing in the stream had continued to get colder and colder.
Walter and the secretary talked about transportation, Walter learning where Isaiah could catch the bus in Allagash.
After they returned home, Isaiah went to find Kieran, who was waiting for him in the best of the shelters. Kieran looked at Isaiah, front and back, and asked, “Who cut yer hair?”
“Walter.”
“Sorry t’ say it but I think he needs practice. I guess I’m just gonna let mine keep growin’.” He pulled his pony tail around to the front and Isaiah offered to braid it for him. Although he had never braided anyone’s hair before, he had watched girls at school do it for each other, and he thought he knew how to do it. He removed the cord of plant fibers which held the hair in a ponytail. Then he worked at it for a while and got almost to the end before asking, “Do you have any more of that cord?”
Kieran produced some and Isaiah tied the strands of the braid together.
At the end of the afternoon, as they kissed inside the woods, Kieran said, “I’m gonna miss ya while yer at school.”
“I’m gonna miss you too, but we can meet up for a while when I get home and on weekends.”
Kieran agreed and they parted, he vanishing into the woods and Isaiah heading into the cabin.
After finishing supper and the dishes, Isaiah sat outside as was his habit. It grew dark earlier now, and he tried to find constellations in the sky. He decided maybe he could get a book from the school library, and he and Kieran could find them together.
There was a quarter moon shining that night. As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he was aware that he wasn’t alone in the meadow. He could barely make out whatever it was and knew that it wasn’t Kieran because it was much too big. He listened as he heard whatever it was chewing and occasionally snorting. Slowly he rose and moved cautiously toward the creature. Finally he turned on his flashlight and saw a full-grown bull moose. It seemed huge in the dim light. The moose looked up, startled, and then made its way out of the meadow, never rushing, never losing its dignity. The awestruck boy stood in the dark, listening to the moose move slowly through the woods.
He smiled to himself, went quietly into the cabin, and climbed into bed.