Leave No Trace 4

The Thing You Should Remember

He sees the plane, he sees his friends. The plane passes by over the rise that hides the pontoon boat from the island. Sten waves his paddle over his head and watches as the Barrows Bearhawk drones off into the distance. The plane has floats, it could have landed on the water; If it saw us. There is nothing he can do about it. Stephen and Lech are picking their way down the shoreline with their sleeping bags under their arms. Sten sets his raft in motion with a few hard strokes.

“Sweet!” Lech chirps when the three connect, “Crap! My bag is going to get wet,” Lech frowns.

Stephen just chucks his sleeping bag over to Sten, who drops it on the willow lattice woven between the pair of life vest pontoons. The other sleeping bag follows. Sten is sitting in the back now. He points his paddle either way to indicate where the boys should go. The extra weight pushes them down. When Lech sits down, the cold lake water rises to his waist for a moment. “Is your bag wet, Lech?” Lech turns back to grin at his friend. Sten taps the extra paddles on the raft.

Lech looks at his crude paddle. It is just a branch with a pine shake attached. “What’s holding this together?” Lech asks.

“A beaver.”

“I get to stroke a beaver before Junior High? Sweet!”

Stephen picks up his paddle and looks at it, then he looks at Sten. The raft is already turning from the island as Sten backwaters with powerful strokes. Stephen notes Howard’s famous knife strapped to Sten’s waist. He recognizes the belt. “I’ll explain later, we need to paddle,” Sten reads his thoughts.

Stephen nods and he begins to do his share. He made a raft and paddles, so we wouldn’t have to swim, Stephen thinks. Lech is paddling furiously, feeling the taste of freedom. Stephen looks back for just a second. Sten has a determined look on his face. Like the other two boys, his lower body is awash as the choppy water and breeze fight with the clumsy craft. Stephen checks to see if the sleeping bags have shifted on the little deck. He looks once more at the older boy. His shorts are soaked and his bare chest is crusted in water-glitter.

Stephen would like to ask Sten what he thinks of the airplane that passed over. Sten will say something later, when there is time. Stephen cocks his head at his friend and gets a grinned reply. Stephen pauses to check Lech’s stroke, then joins the effort. The thing, the quiet boy reminds himself, the thing you should remember about Sten is that he is Sten.

Smoke is in My Eyes

There is a powerful swell where the lake meets the Pontoon River. The water congregates in a basin, making up its mind, then carries on. It turns more than a little terrifying past the rocks the pontoon boat ground on. “Head to shore! Head to shore!” Sten yells hoarsely. The two boys have stopped to gape at the lost boat. With Sten’s urging, they tear their paddles back into the water.

Sten bounces across his flimsy bridge as if he is about to execute a dive. Stephen and Lech proceed more cautiously. There are things to do: the dead fire, wet clothes and sleeping bags. Once the damp bags are hanging from the Bimini, Stephen watches Sten coaxing the new fire in the barbecue. “Hope you guys can wait,” Sten says. Stephen squats down beside him, their elbows brushing. Flames already warm his fingers.

Lech has other interests. The small fire looks inviting, but Lech’s curiosity takes him to the bow. He stretches over the curving bench to see the boat’s pontoons hanging on the rocks. His curiosity takes him to the stern to check the outboard motor.

Sten sets the grate over the fire, even though it is not ready. He thinks better of it, and adds more wood. The pontoon’s bench locker pantry is animal-proof. Sten picks from a row of plastic bottles. Stephen does not comment when he shakes a handful of beaver-bits from a Gatorade bottle. Stephen pinches a piece from his cupped palm and tries it.

The Evinrude roars to life, startling Sten and Stephen. “She runs! She runs!” Lech grins from the helm. He looks at the gages for a moment, then shuts the motor off. Lech comes over to the fire and sits where smoke will chase the bugs away from his naked body.

Sten offers him the Gatorade bottle. “Usual rationing?” Lech asks.

“Not now,” Sten replies. “When the fire is ready, we can cook something fresher.”

Lech chews on the jerky, “oh god, pork!”

“it’s not —”

“pork,” Lech interrupts. He doesn’t want to know what he is eating. “Oh pork, how I have missed you so.” The boy shakes another handful of beaver-bits into his hand. His teeth grind away at the desiccated meat as he watches the fire. His eyes tear up and he swipes at them with a defiant glare at the boys. “Smoke is in my eyes,” he explains.

No Lone Wolf

Sten holds Harold’s knife, twisting it around so the boys can see it. Both halves of Sten’s mess kit are bubbling on the grill. Stephen pokes a scrap of meat and bone below the greasy surface with a twig. More substantial joints are sizzling beside them. Sten has told his story, telling the boys how he found Howard.

“Man, the Zit is certified psycho, who knew?” Lech is sitting, legs crossed. “The roadkill smells really good,” Lech adds.

Stephen stirs the other pot. “You didn’t find his satellite phone?” This is Stephen’s only comment.

“I’m such a screw up!” Sten groans.

Water under the bridge, Stephen can imagine the pressure Sten was under. “He might not have had it on him.”

“The psycho-Zit probably stashed it somewhere. I know there was a map. It isn’t over there,” Lech waves over to the pontoon boat helm. “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Lech finishes.

Sten drops his head and carefully makes another sliver of porcupine meat. A tear slips out. He has been so lonely. With a sniff, he smiles. “Hey, it’s really great you guys are here. ‘Nuff of this. I’ve got something for you.” Sten still has surprises to share.

“You’re blowing my mind, Otter!” Lech skitters around the barbecue to get closer. The three boys sit in a triangle, knee to knee. Sten sets three clean pudding cups down between them. He shakes a half full Pepsi bottle.

“And what’s in that?”

“Um, mix of Gatorade, Pepsi, Crush.”

“You’re going to poison us,” Stephen predicts.

“Then I’ll die with sugar and someone’s backwash on my lips,” Lech gloats. Sten pours a shot into each thin plastic cup.

“To us,” Sten raises his cup. Lech grabs his, and after a hesitation, so does Stephen.

The fire is now a perfect bed of coals, banked till morning. This far north, the light has not died, still, Sten’s day starts early in the mist-shrouded dawn. He is lying slightly dazed with Lech and Stephen finally beside him. He cannot quite settle because a sleeping bag has become unfamiliar. For better than a month he has curled against his fire, huddled in his fleece with Howard’s woolen scraps about his legs. He is a small animal, sensitive to the prowling forest, hypersensitive to any noise beyond the constant rush of water and the wind-disturbed trees.

His companions cannot settle because they have lost their cosy tents and the safety of the surrounding pack. Without the slick tent wall, Lech is up against the reality of the north. He does not like the unruly water, the way it vibrates the pontoon boat, the way it will obscure the heavy pads of a predator climbing up from the river. Stephen feels this too, but he lies between the other boys and he trusts Sten.

Boys like closeness. This is a wedge Vili uses. Gregarious Lech presses his back into Stephen and clutches the edge of the sleeping bag (to claim his share). Enigmatic Stephen turns toward Sten’s warmth. His forehead touches Sten’s shoulder and his security is an arm on his friend's chest. Boys need closeness with each other. It is the psychology of childhood. Wrestling, tackling, they are just kitten tangles validating acceptance and soothing the ADHD of boyhood. Sten is no lone wolf. He is the first to sob. His anguish sets Stephen off in sympathetic shivers. They cry unashamedly. Lech curls deeper under the sleeping bag, his tears a private thing.

He Needs Someone to Help Him

It is a dispirited gathering about the fire. It was thin Stone Soup because Stephen usually brings the most. “Tomorrow, you will need to gather more,” Vili’s oblique reference to the missing boy. He is parceling out the dried moose meat now. It will not last much longer. The boys are better fishermen, but no one fished today. “I’ll hunt tomorrow, across the island away from our end.” Some boys won’t look at him.

There are the brothers, Cam and Devon sitting across the fire. Ade is with them. The Scouts, Ronald and Mike, sit together. Little Bernie shadows Ronald now, holding his tentmate’s bow as if he is his squire. David, in Cam’s tent, is near the fire, pounding cattails between two rocks. Any starch he produces will go into the soup pot. Alistair sits glued to Vili and Denys sits chewing his nails. Joey sits alone.

Ronald and Mike blame Joey, of course. Joey had the fire roaring by the time the Scouts came back to camp, but the plane was a spot in the distance. Vili stopped the arguing. It was not good for the Cubs. Losing two boys was not good either.

“We should build a raft, go hunt on the mainland. There’s nothing on this island. Maybe we all go there like Otter, Steve, and Lech,” Ronald looks around to see if there is agreement.

“Yeah, let’s build a raft,” Joey agrees.

Ronald thinks he is a hunter, because he holds the bow. He is working on sharpening the blunt arrows. Joey is angry that Lech slipped away from him. It rankles that there might be three boys he can’t reach just across the water. Vili gathers his thoughts. “A raft is a good thought, Ron. It’s not safe to move the camp into the forest. The lake protects us from wild animals. I worry you could lose yourselves foraging.” There are no boundaries on the farther shore. Vili needs them here.

The plane’s oblivious passage is a rebirth for the man. “Don’t be discouraged, boys; another plane will come,” Vili works on his conviction.

“Why? Why would they come back here?” Joey asks with unwelcome skepticism.

“We are not that far from where we should have been. I mean where Mr Palmer told everyone we planned to go. That site was full, so we came here.” Vili gaslights through this. He turns to the littlest one. “Bernie, do you think your mom and dad --”

“I live with Mom.”

“Your mom,” Vili agrees, “do you think your mom will ever stop looking for you?”

“No”

“None of your parents will. Of course there will be another plane.” Vili’s gaze encompasses his little troop. “They will be so proud of how you did out here. That’s why we have to stay together. It is so important. Lech and Stephen forgot that. I’m afraid they drowned.” Bernie sobs at Stephen’s name.

“Maybe they got across. I mean, Otter is over there,” Ade points out. Vili gives him a disapproving look. “Just saying,” Ade shrugs.

“Oh I hope they are okay,” Vili continues charitably, “think about it though, cold and wet, no food, no protection.” He hefts the rifle cradled in his arm. “I feel bad for them.”

“I wanna go home. I don’t want to camp anymore!” Bernie drops the bow and hides his face behind his hands.

They all cry it seems. Vili is getting used to it. He has always preferred an older Scout troop because of this spontaneous crying the little boys do. Things upset them, they cry. Vili can see Bernie’s breakdown could become a tearful whirlpool that sucks the others down. Was Bernie always this thin? Vili seems to recall a round face behind the glasses.

The man is anorexic. Vili is almost feverish, like some aesthetic monk rejecting things of the flesh in his search for God. Only, now it is flesh that consumes him. He is Leaving Las Vegas, bingeing on his boys instead of liquor. Vili devowers-deflowers each Cub. He is willing the flesh right off his body so he can be shaped beautifully like them. What does anything matter, if this can continue for a few days more?

Vili goes to Barrie and lifts him so the crying moves to his shoulder. He says soft things in the right voice to comfort the boy. With Barrie pressed close, Vili returns to where he sat with Alistair. The sobbing does not stop, even as Vili kisses the boy’s hair and fluttering eyes. More soothing words and hugs. The boy does not keep himself clean. “Aren’t you a mess! It’s getting cold, isn’t it? Let’s see about this.”

The moms all send the Cubs in thick hoodies. Vili coaxes Bernie’s sweater over his head. “Alistair, Bernie is going to stay with us tonight. Go get some things and take him down to the lake for a good bath. You know what boys? It has been a terrible day. The plane, we lost more boys. Let’s all take a quick skinny dip, wash some hair,” Vili reaches over to ruffle Alistair’s mop. “Strip and grab your towels.”

The boys need to rely on each other. New tent mates; Vili announces this as he stands before the boys in his cutoff shorts, naked Bernie within reach. The little boy is moving to Vili’s tent for now. “David goes with Mike, Ronald, take Denys.”

“No,” Joey interrupts, “I’m taking Denys. Ron, you get Ade.” Joey stands his ground. The man didn’t take off his pants, so neither will Joey.

The boys run off to the water, leaving Vili, Joey and Denys. “I want to stay in Ron’s tent,” Denys starts. He has his arms crossed, just like Joey; stubborn boys. Vili waves Denys over with a gentle motion. He kisses the boy on his forehead and softly tells him he would like to keep him, but Bernie is upset. Vili motions Joey to come closer.

“You know Joey has a lot of responsibility. If I was gone, he is the one who would have to take care of you. He needs someone to help him, like Alistair and you were helping me.” Vili puts his hands on both their shoulders. The hand comes off Denys’ shoulder and reaches down to open Joey’s pants.

For Joey, it’s like being back in the church basement after a troop meeting. He is special to the man again. Joey understands more now, but the old feelings return each time the man touches him this way. Vili kisses the top of each boy's head in blessing. He moves behind Denys, hugging him a moment, then hands push down on shoulders. “Joey needs you to help him,” Vili urges. The man strokes the eleven-year-old’s jaw and pets his neck and collarbone as Denys starts to help Joey.  

Vili touches the side of Joey’s head. Vili tells Joey that Denys is his gift to give. Joey was his first boy. The other boys are splashing in the water. Alistair will settle Bernie down, make him ready in the tent. Vili is light headed. They say imminent death gives a sense of freedom, sometimes. Practicality is melting away as Vili’s fever grows stronger. Life slipped over the cliff when he decided to shoot Howard in the face; now there is just the exhilarating arc of the fall as they all hold hands. The dissolving boundaries are compelling. Soon, it will be the nine-year-old. For now, it is the music of naked boys, malleable Denys, gagging between them, and Joey’s face reflecting Vili’s lust. “Denys will help you, like you helped me today,” Vili promises the convulsing teenager.

A Customary Stirring

Sten is back with a rabbit, limp in one hand. He holds the bow in the other. Two arrows are tucked into the web belt holding up his tartan kilt. He is not so much the mighty hunter as he is the crafty trapper. Sten still dreams of taking down a drowsy deer at dawn. The recurve bow he carries is as unlike a compound hunting bow as his supple tween slenderness is like Vili’s strength. Sten is learning rabbit habits, so his snares are better placed.

The butcher shop is paces up river from the pontoon boat. The carnage of his cuts draws other prey within the compass of his bow. Stephen watches Sten strip before his friend squats over a stone with the hunting knife.

Stephen could tell Sten was awake before he opened his own eyes. Sten lay under his arm and Lech had turned Stephen’s way in the night to seek warmth or reassurance. Stephen felt secure between them. Sten is a year younger than Ronald. With his eyes closed, Stephen can feel the difference in the two boy’s bodies. His hand goes down to the dawn-woken, bladder-swollen element. It rubs against his palm, and follows Stephen’s fingers. This is a quiet tent time, a customary stirring in the dawning day. Eyes wide shut, Stephen compresses his fingers. Sten’s hand is clasped over Stephen’s fist. Then before Stephen can retreat, Sten’s hand falls away again. Stephen’s eyelash flutters against Sten’s shoulder. The only other movement is Stephen’s hand and the steady rise and fall of Sten’s chest.

Crying in the night, the morning intimacy, these pass unremarked between the three boys. “The water’s up,” Lech observes.

“That’s good.”

“That’s bad. It will be harder to get her out onto the lake. It’s cold.” The fire has been built up so the rabbit meat can be turned to soda pops. Sten flops the congealed stew from the Rubbermaid container, left to cool in the river, into his handy cook pot. “Vili never thought of that,” Lech realizes.

“What are you thinking?” Stephen asks Sten at the railing. The sun has burned the mist off the water.

“We won’t last the winter, they can’t find us.”

“We won’t last the fall.”

“Why doesn’t Vili want a fire?”

“the plane went by so fast, there wasn’t time”

“they wouldn't stop looking, not yet.”

“Are you okay (with me)?”  Stephen asks.

Sten just rests his arm around his friend’s shoulder. It is the companionship-consoling boys might do when the game does not go their way. “I’m really glad you guys came,” Sten replies glumly.