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her husband inherited the place and none of them had ever been made sick by the water. If anything it
was probably one of the healthiest, most unspoiled places left in the country, or so Jack always insisted.
You be back before sundown, she said unnecessarily. Chad knew the rules. Despite his age he was an
experienced solo hiker, precocious and care-ful. He d been taking short walks on his own since five. By
the time he was twelve he d be going out overnight. She tried not to think about the passage of time as
she turned back to the chopping board and began sweeping minced onions into the ground chuck.
Chad carefully packed his sandwich, the apple, and the two largest sugar cookies he could find, slipped
the brown sack into his pack, and headed out the front door before his mother could change her mind.
His father was still slaving over the plane engine, occasionally utilizing words which Chad knew he ought
not to be hearing but which he was by now familiar with. Words he never dared use in the presence of
adults or his blabber-mouthed sister, who would gladly repeat them to his mother in the expectant
ecstasy of seeing him punished. His father didn t introduce him to cursing. The Bible took care of that. He
would gladly have suffered fire and brimstone and plagues of locusts in place of a fourteen-year-old
sister. Unfor-tunately that was the affliction the fates had chosen for him.
Yet when he could get away from her, away from the cabin where she holed up with her magazines and
poetry for most of the summer, it no longer seemed so important. Nothing was more important than
anything else when you were eight, precocious, and intensely curious. Everything was new and fresh: the
next tree, the next rock, the next beetle making its laborious way through the gravel that lined the
lakeshore. The tadpole swimming in the sunlit water. The ghost birds that you couldn t see who left their
songs hanging like windblown transparencies in the evening air. The world was a wonder.
As much as he enjoyed his explorations he was still disappointed no one else came to build a cabin by
the lake. His father explained that it was no longer permitted and that if Grandpa Carson hadn t built his
before the government regulations had been put in place concerning this region, they couldn t live here for
the summer either. Besides which not everyone could afford or knew how to fly a floatplane. The rugged,
precipitous terrain that enclosed the lake made that and walking the only ways in. There were plenty
of other lakes, some much prettier, all more accessible. So few people came here.
The isolation was what made their annual summet stays so pleasant to him, he d tried to explain to his
son. Flying big planes was hard work and he delighted in the solitude they found here in one of the
least-visited parts of the country. The lake was narrow and twisty, difficult to land upon. Only the fact
that he was a professional pilot enabled them to visit here with compara-tive ease, and he still had to
make every approach with the utmost care.
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His mother also enjoyed the peace and quiet while his sister wanted only a place to read and practice
her poetry. Chad had snorted derisively at that. What could you expect from an older sister, or from any
girl? Poetry!
Except Mom. Mom wasn t really a girl. Mom was Mom, and that was different.
He wondered how far he d get today. His parents insisted that whenever he went off by himself he keep
the lakeshore within view. It limited his options considerably.
There were so many streams he wanted to follow, so many talus slides worth scrambling up. His father
wouldn t listen. This way, he d explained patiently, if Chad hurt himself (as if he could possible hurt
himself!) it would be easy for them to find him simply by following the shoreline. So he kept the cool
water within sight, according to the rules, sometimes teasing the limits by walking uphill until only a tiny
patch of blue was visible through the trees and delighting in the little thrill this near denial of parental
authority gave him.
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