“I thought you wanted to get lost lost.” He squatted next to her and ran his finger through the pine needles. She looked off into the blue spruce, then lay back and stared up at the treetops. Her blonde hair was spread out on the ground. Today she wore sandals and Leo noticed her toenails were clipped and clean.

“I’m glad you’ll be working for my dad. Now I know I’ll see you every day.”

“What about night?” Leo leaned over and kissed her on the mouth. He could hear the roar of the seniors in the stadium, and he pictured their mortar boards rocketing above them, spinning out and away to the bleachers behind. Allie pulled him on top of her and they kissed a long while, until there was blue twilight all around and Leo didn’t even think anymore about the erection behind his jeans, or that his hips were humping against Allie’s, and she was gently humping back.

5

Chick Donovan was a communist.

It was the second thing he said Monday morning after Leo walked up Spoon Hill with his bag lunch at just before seven. The sun was still low behind the trees at the ridge. The blonde logs of the cabin were bark-shaved, the lower ones wet with dew. Off to the side, a flatbed truck was parked behind the ten-year-old black Star Chief Leo had seen Allie’s mother drive. On the flatbed’s doors was “DONOVAN’S RENOVATORS,” and Leo looked for Allie. Last night, Sunday, as they lay on the grass of Thompson Green, she hugged him and whispered she’d have a nice cup of hot coffee waiting for him in the morning on the porch, but he didn’t see her now.

He turned and looked over the ground he’d covered. Down in Heywood the roofs of the store buildings were sunlit but the river behind them still moved through shadow. On the other side of town rose the wooded hills of the national park. The screen door slammed and Chick Donovan walked off the porch without touching a step. He was dressed in a work shirt, jeans, and boondocker boots. A square tape measure was stuck on his belt, and there was a pencil behind his ear pinched between his glasses frame and his head. He tossed Leo a set of keys and told him to light her up.

That was all he said at first. He sat on the passenger side and was quiet while Leo meshed the gears looking for reverse. When they got to the bottom of the drive, Chick pointed his thumb right and Leo steered the fllatbed in that direction. They drove along the river a mile, maybe more, and still Allie’s father hadn’t spoken a word since the cabin. Leo wondered if he’d gotten the time wrong and was late. Both windows were down and he could smell flowering blue dogwood, a hint of cow manure, though he didn’t see a pasture anywhere. He held the steering wheel at nine and three o’clock. It was smooth and hard and big as a tractor’s. He was relieved at how well he was handling it, wishing Chick Donovan would say something, and he did.