Free In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien Page B

down with a pencil and paper, letting the ideas come, cheerfully assembling a detailed list of all the fine lists he would make.
    The booze was performing acrobatics on his nerves.
    Nothing to it. Go with the lists.
    At four o'clock he folded the laundry and did some random dusting. The afternoon had cooled fast. Restless, woozy at the margins, he freshened his drink and carried it out to the sofa in the living room. There was still that ammonia after-scent in the air, an operating room smell, and for a second he felt an illicit little tug at his memory. Something about the events of last night. Antiseptics and jungle smells.
    He took a breath and lay back.
    Gradually a nice calm came over him, the chemical som
ersaults, and for a considerable time he permitted himself the luxury of forgetfulness, no lists, no future at all, just the glide, exploring the void.
    Â 
    And then later, half dozing, John Wade detected movement in the room. Like a breeze, it seemed, as if a window had been left open, a motion so delicate he would both remember it and not remember it. A mind trick, for sure, but he could not ignore the pressure of Kathy's fingertips against the lids of his eyes. The surface tension was real. He heard her footsteps. He heard the low voice that could be only Kathy's voice. "So stupid," she said, "you could've
tried me,
" and then came a fearful silence as she moved away, a drop in the temperature, a subtle relaxation in the magnetic force that one human body exerts upon another.
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    At six o'clock John Wade put on a jacket, fortified himself with a quick drink, and walked down to the dock. The evening had turned winter-cold. A wind was up, which put white-caps on the lake, and the timber to the west had darkened to a dirty shade of gold.
    What was necessary, Wade concluded, was the strictest allegiance to common sense. No cause for worry. Plenty of possibilities. He looked south toward the fire tower, then out at the whitecaps, then up at a sky painted in silky backlit blues. Already the first stars were out; in a half hour the darkness would be solid.
    He stood still for a time, studying the shadows, trying to figure things.
    "Okay," he said.
    Something wobbled in his stomach. It wasn't right—he knew that.
    Turning, he hustled back to the cottage, found a flashlight, and started up the dirt road toward the fire tower. He felt slippery inside, the vodka float.
    Multiple calamities had come to mind. A bad fall. Lacerations, broken bones. Kathy was smart, yes, but she didn't know shit about this wilderness. A suburb slicker. That was the joke between them: how she adored nature but didn't see why it had to be outside. Opposites were built into her personality. Contradiction was the rule. She enjoyed her morning stroll, the solitude and fresh air, but even then she conceived of nature as a department store with potted trees and a gigantic glass roof.
    Which could turn unfortunate.
    He moved fast, at times trotting, conscious of the approaching dark.
    After ten minutes the road curved west and dipped down into a shallow ravine. Off to the left, a narrow footpath led into the woods toward the fire tower. Wade paused there, switched on the flashlight, scanned the cattails and deep brush. He edged forward a few steps, using the flashlight as a probe. Tempting, he thought. Plunge in and head for the fire tower. Except he was no trailblazer. The path wound off into soiled twilight purples, lavish and darkly tangled, vanishing altogether after a few yards. Everything blended with everything else, trees and brush and sky, and already he was on the edge of lost.
    He stepped back onto the road and turned off his flashlight. There was a familiar breathing sound, something both distant and nearby.
    "Kath?" he said.
    He listened hard, shook his head.
    Right now, he reasoned, she'd be back at the cottage. Not probably. For sure.
    The notion calmed him. To be safe he hiked another quarter mile up the road, occasionally swinging