Tonight he had had trout for dinner, fresh from the creek, rolled in oatmeal and pan-fried in bacon drippings. The last of his bacon, he noted. It cast a cloud over the rest of the meal, because he would soon have to run up the flag on the roof to signal a need for supplies. He wished Bob DeCreft hadnt sold out to that woman pilot. Still, shed kept the rates low, and she never offered to make conversation. He appreciated the courtesy. Sometimes, instead of landing, she dropped the mail off in the front yard, like today. He appreciated that, too.

She even brought him a box of books once, stuff the Newenham Public Library was throwing out, probably in order to make room for more Jackie Collins. There was a whole collection of Thomas Hardy in the box, a writer previously unknown to him. He was grateful, and the feeling made him uneasy. Next time she dropped off the mail he put a Coors box full of smoked salmon in the back of her plane. Paid in full, was what he was thinking.

She never made a big deal out of it, said the next time she was there, “My boy and I liked the salmon, that was all. Yes, she was tolerable. Knew how to keep her distance. Knew how to leave him his privacy, and that was what he craved more than anything.

He took the single chair from the kitchen table out on the porch and tilted it back against the wall. Coffee warm in the mug cradled in his hands, he looked up and waited for the stars to come back into the night sky. He missed the stars when they were gone in the summer, effaced by the constant sun which lurked above or just below the horizon the day round. When it got dark enough for the stars to come back, it was the signal for all the hunters and the fishermen and the backpackers to head south for the winter. Welcome to Alaska, now go home. Pete thought that made a fine state motto, although it might have made the Department of Tourism a little irritable.

A star winked into existence over the clump of tall spruce at the edge of the yard. Betelgeuse. Or was it Rigel? He could never keep the shoulder and the knee of Orion straight, but that was what star maps were for. He opened the book on his lap to commune with the ancient Greek astronomers who had remade the heavens in the images of their gods.

One great thing about the Alaskan Bush, at least in summer, you never had to make a dry camp. You could go on forever, stream to creek to river, so long as you had water to drink and bathe in.

The trouble with following the water was that other people did, too. You had to be careful how you approached the sound of water rushing between banks. Even here, even in what most people still considered to be Sewards Icebox, the last frontier, the back of beyond, a few found their way to the call of a clear sky and clearer water, where a man could find peace and a way back to the basics. Food in your belly, clothes on your back, a roof over your head, all those things were readily available if you werent shy of hard work. The rest was gravy.