Free Bones On Black Spruce Mountain by David Budbill

You'll never know what I'm talk-ing about. Coming here was worse than staying there. How was I to know they were going to keep me? How was I to know? All I knew was it was another place to stay for a while, get kicked around, get kicked out."
    "You make it sound like your folks were going to treat you like a stray dog!"
    "No kidding."
    Seth was beginning to understand a little the depth, • the fury, of Daniel's bitterness.
    "But you knew they were going to adopt you! They said they were."
    "Said? Said! Shit! Listen, you don't believe what people say. You don't believe anything they say. People talk all the time. What good are words? Words are just words! When I first came here everybody got all excited. Your folks, my folks, you, Mr. Bateau, everybody; everybody but me." Daniel jabbed his forefinger hard into his chest.
    "I remember how your mother jumped around when she first met me. She acted like an idiot. I thought she was crazy. And your sister trying to hold me on her lap! A new toy. I felt like telling all of you to save it. When your father came up to me and put out his hand and said, 'Daniel, I'm glad to meet you,' when he said that, do you know what I wanted to do? I wanted to look right up into his face and say, 'You go to hell!' All that talk didn't mean squat to me. I didn't believe it. Like a stray dog you said? That's exactly what I felt like."
    Daniel's whole body was shaking. Then in a voice so bitter and angry that it became soft, Daniel said, "Only stray dogs don't move around twelve times in eight years."
    Seth stared at the ground between his legs,
    "God."
    There was a deep silence between the two boys for a time; then, in a voice filled with pleading and tenderness, Seth said, "But . . . isn't it better now? I mean, you've been here five years. They really are your parents. They really do love you. Isn't it better now?"
    It was a long time before Daniel answered. "Yes . . . it is . . . a little. It's a little better. But no matter how hard I try to forget, I can still remember. That's no better, and it never will be either."
    It wasn't what Seth had hoped to hear.
    "There's only one difference between me and that boy, Seth. Just one."
    "What's that?"
    "I lucked out. He didn't."
    Both boys sat in silence for a time. Then Daniel began again. His voice had changed because his anger was gone, not gone away from him, but gone back down into him.
    "That's why I didn't want to believe the story. It was just too terrible to be true. I had to refuse to believe it. I just couldn't admit it was true, not even the tiniest bit, because . . . ah! I don't know how to say it . . . because . . . the story could have been about me!
    "Don't you see, Seth? If I hadn't lucked out, if I'd kept running, that boy could have been me!"
    Then, abruptly, in a voice that made Seth shiver, Daniel said, "No more! I don't want to talk about this anymore!"
    Daniel sat slumped and sullen. Seth tried to think of something to say, some question to ask, something, anything, to help Daniel escape from his memories.
    "How come he had two places? How come we found all his stuff one place and his bones another?" Seth asked.
    Daniel smiled. He knew what Seth was trying to do and he was grateful.
    "I think the cave was his lookout. He could have found that place first and hid there while the search parties were looking for him. Then he built that mound, but he always went back to the cave because he could look down from there on the farm. He could see people. Maybe he even spent the whole summer there, sort of like a summer place. That explains the howls."
    "How does it do that?"
    "You know how people used to say they'd hear howls from the mountain only in the summer during haying? Well, probably the boy sat up there and watched. You know haying is the most sociable time of year, when everybody gets together. The boy watched all those people working together all day, sweating out in the sun and then when the hay was in, when they got together