The Survivors (7 page)

“Absolutely, son. Raring to go,” Artie says, taking out one earbud. “Just tell me what to do.”

It's supposed to funny, but his father doesn't smile. Here in the north woods he's a fish out of water. That, and being humiliated by the biker family back at Birch Bay, has broken something inside him. He looks older and smaller these days.

“Home remodeling 101 starts in five,” Miles says.

“Be with you as soon as I finish my coffee,” Artie says, holding up one of Mr. Kurz's tin cups.

Outside, in the hazy sunlight, Miles sets to work on the addition—the “kids' bedroom.” It's a lean-to, ten feet by ten feet, on the side of the cabin. The roof joists slant down to the vertical stud walls. Mr. Kurz's cabin is made from hand-hewed logs, the adze marks still visible on the thick, gray wood. The Newell addition is built from boards found in the various lumber piles.

Artie soon appears. “Tell me what to do,” he says, kicking at some boards.

“General carpentry,” Miles says. “A new career for you if the music thing doesn't work out.”

It's a gesture to his father, a joke—his Shawnee Kingston Band is a well-known group in the Midwest—but Artie pauses to stare at his gloved hands. “Don't let me cut off any of my fingers.”

“I won't,” Miles says.

They start the work together by sorting boards. Mr. Kurz had his own sawmill, with a gas-powered engine (rusted and dead). Around it are stacks of graying planks, boards, and slabs—some with rotted wood on top but with solid ones deeper in the pile. Behind the big, rusty circular saw blade is a mound of dust. Like the wood, it is gray, but only on top; if you kick away the crust, the sawdust is yellow and piney-fragrant underneath.

“Here's a couple of good ones,” Artie says, and begins to drag them out.

“Too thick,” Miles says. “We need boards, not planks, for the roof.”

They work in silence, carrying boards together, one of them on each end, as they stage them beside the skeleton frame.

“Your mother told me she met some family in a canoe,” Artie says.

“Got caught, you mean. I wish she'd pay more attention.”

“She's a city girl. Like me,” Artie says with a glance to Miles.

“Well, we're country people now,” Miles answers.

“More like forest people,” Artie says, pausing to look around.

“But forest people with plenty of food,” Miles says. “If there's any time to be off the grid, it's now.” He motions to his father to pay attention to their work.

“True,” Artie says. “But try not to be so tough on them,” he adds, meaning Nat and Sarah. “They're doing the best they can.”

“We all have to be on guard all the time,” Miles says. “The minute we let down our guard, something bad will happen.”

His father stops. “You know, Miles, it's good that you're protective,” he says. “But I don't want you to obsess on our safety.”

“Somebody has to,” Miles shoots back.

His father purses his lips as if about to say something. Instead, he lifts another board.

“Remember our trip up here from the city?” Miles continues. “Our ninety-dollar breakfast at the Golden Arches? Those dudes who chased us at the Dairy Queen?”

“Yes,” his father says, “but we have to believe that most people are basically well-intentioned.”

“You sound like Anne Frank,” Miles says, “and we all know what happened to her.”

Artie grunts and lifts his end of the stack of three boards. They drop the boards onto the pile and keep working. With hammers, they nail boards horizontally onto the vertical studs and make a rising exterior wall.

After a while, his father straightens up to wipe sweat from his face. He looks at their work. “Aren't board walls going to be cold this winter?”

“We're going to insulate the walls,” Miles says.

“How? With what?” Artie asks.

“The old way,” Miles says.

Artie scratches his head and looks around.

“Don't worry, I'll show you,” Miles answers.

After an hour they take a short break and sit down. They inspect their work, which is most of the outside wall. “Now we have to do the same thing on the inside wall,” Miles says.

“That will leave an air space,” Artie says.

“Exactly,” Miles says.

“How are we going to get insulation inside there?”

“You'll see,” Miles says.

“And what about windows?” Artie asks.

Miles pauses. He actually hadn't thought about that. “Windows let in the cold,” he answers.

“We—you and Sarah—need a window,” Artie says.

“Okay, okay,” Miles says.

It's a half hour of work, but he boxes in a square big enough to escape through if they had to.

“I still don't see how we can insulate the space now,” Artie says.

“Here,” Miles says, handing his father a shovel and an old pail.

“What's this for?”

Miles points to the sawdust pile. “We have plenty of insulation!”

Atop a homemade ladder, with his parents providing a bucket brigade, he pours sawdust down into the channels between the walls. Bucket after bucket. As it sifts down, it fills all the cracks.

“What's for supper?” Miles says later.

“Chili and rice,” Nat says.

“Veggie chili, I suppose,” Miles says.

“Yes, sorry,” Nat says.

“When it gets colder, we're going to eat venison,” Miles says.

“Not me!” Nat says.

“We'll see,” Miles says to his mom.

“Forget it,” she says.

“Remember when you hit that deer with your BMW?”

“Please. That was horrible and expensive.”

“I'm just saying—if somebody had eaten that deer, you wouldn't have hit it with your car.”

“Well, we don't have a car, so no need to worry about hitting a deer,” she answers.

“Speaking of which, we'll need a snowmobile for this winter,” Miles says.

“Huh?” Nat says.

“A snowmobile? I thought you wanted to be green,” Artie says.

“There's green, and there's getting to town once a week when the snow comes,” Miles says.

“Good point. I guess your motorbike won't work,” Nat asks. Miles convinced his parents to spring for one not long after they arrived at Mr. Kurz's cabin.

“Not in deep snow,” Miles says.
I've seen it snow at least a little every month of the year up north. Some winters it was halfway up the cabin wall. But snow is a good thing in deep winter. Keeps the ground warm—the critters, too. Deer curl up to sleep. Partridge fly right into it and bury themselves for the night. Sleep like babies....

Artie looks at Nat. “A snowmobile might be a good idea—especially for emergencies,” he offers. It's the first time he's actually made a suggestion or had an opinion.

“Like a run to town for pizza,” Miles adds.

They continue lifting pails of sawdust. Working together is something they never did back home in the suburbs. There, everybody was always heading off in a different direction.

“By the way, I saw that dog,” Nat says.

“Where?” Miles quickly asks.

She gestures to the edge of the woods. “He was just sitting there, watching us. When I looked at him, he got all scared and disappeared. I took some scraps up there for him to eat—he looked really hungry.”

Miles kicks the ground. “Do not feed him! The last thing we need around here is a stray dog.”

“Sorry,” Nat says quickly. “But I couldn't help myself. He's so sad looking.”

“He's a wild dog. He could be dangerous.”

“Maybe we could tame him. Make him a watchdog,” Artie says.

“I'm the watchdog,” Miles says.

FRIDAY AFTER SCHOOL, SARAH DOES
not take the bus home. She has been invited over to Mackenzie's house to spend the night. Sarah was not wild about the whole idea, but staying in a house with actual plumbing helped her decide.

First, however, she has to wait until Mackenzie is done with after-school tennis practice. She watches while the girls' team volleys back and forth. Very few of them have any kind of follow-through on their shots, and the coach, an older woman teacher perched on a stool, either doesn't notice or doesn't care.

“Come on, Sarah, want to hit a few?” Mackenzie teases.

“No thanks, it's not really my game,” Sarah calls back.

“Come on, Sarah,” Rachel adds, clearly dying to take a breather.

“Why not?” Mackenzie says. “There's an extra racket in the bag.”

Sarah shrugs. “I'm not really dressed right.” She has on her jeans.

“Just a couple of volleys,” Mackenzie says.

Sarah stretches briefly, then picks up the racket. She spins it in her hands, taps its head on concrete to test its heft, then plucks at the nylon mesh to test its tension.

“Okay, here goes nothing,” Sarah says. Out of habit from playing with Nat and Miles on their home court, she flips a dead ball off the concrete, then tosses it up. Her serve feels good—she has a momentary sensation of being home. Mackenzie strokes the ball back to her. Sarah ranges left and returns the volley. She remembers to be clumsy—at least in her footwork—but her arm does not obey. With a smooth, level sweep, she returns the ball.

“Hey, that was nice!” Rachel calls. She stops to stare.

Mackenzie returns the ball, harder this time.

Sarah goes right and turns over a nice forearm stroke that Mackenzie just barely manages to return. It's an easy play for Sarah; she could nail it in the corner where Mackenzie would never reach it, but she pretends to stumble and draws up short.

“Sorry!” she calls to Mackenzie.

“Hey, that's all right. I've been playing for years,” Mackenzie says.

They do a few more volleys, during which Sarah makes sure to miss a few more shots. “That's it for me,” Sarah calls, and walks off the court. As she returns the racket to a big gym bag, the tennis coach walks over.

“What are you doing?” she says. She is not smiling.

“Uh, putting away the racket?”

“No. Out there.” The coach nods toward the court.

“Sorry! I know I'm not on the team, but they asked me to volley.”

“Not that. I mean, pretending that you can't play.”

Sarah is silent.

The teacher allows a faint smile and takes off her sunglasses. She has steely blue eyes that penetrate Sarah's gaze. “You play, don't you?”

Sarah shrugs. “A little.”

“So why not come out for the team?”

“Sorry, can't. I have to go home after school.”

“What's your name, by the way?”

“Sarah. Sarah Newell.”

“And you're a transfer student, right?”

The coach is trying, but Sarah feels trapped. Vulnerable. She's starting to think like Miles. She nods.

“So where did you move from?”

“Park Rapids area. I'm on open enrollment.”

“Great,” the coach says. “Good to have you here. I know a tennis player when I see one.”

Sarah glances away. Mackenzie is watching them even as she strokes and volleys.

“Maybe you and I can hit some balls someday—by ourselves, I mean,” the coach says. “Just for fun.”

“Sure. Okay.” Anything to end this conversation.

“So, don't be a stranger, all right?”

Sarah nods, then hurries off to the side, where she hunkers down in the corner, draws up her knees, and watches the bright balls dart back and forth.

That night she goes home with Mackenzie. The Phelpses' house, with a brick front and three-car garage, is big for Bemidji but would be a loser house back in her suburb. They go in through the garage door; inside, filling up two of the empty stalls, are several dozen five-gallon red plastic gas jugs. They're arranged in tidy rows, like a secret garden.

“My dad,” Mackenzie says with a shrug. “He knows this gas guy.”

“But you have a Blue Star,” Sarah says. It just pops out.

“Yeah, but we still have to look out for ourselves, he says.”

Inside the house, Mackenzie drops down to hug a yapping little white dog. “Hi, Mitzy!”

“How was practice today?” her father asks immediately. He's a thick, balding guy who still has on his tie from work.

“So-so,” Mackenzie says with a shrug. She drops her duffel bag—
plop!
—on the floor.