Simon sat and watched, his fingers cramping from the cold, his booted heels knocking together absently. The cigarette burned down and Jacob juggled it so his mittens wouldn’t burn, puffing on it twice before dropping it in the snow. He beat his muscled arms against his sides and walked back to Simon and the tools. Simon stood but Jacob sat him down again with a wave of his wide palm as he bent to grab the ax.

“You stay here,” he said.

He walked back to the base of the jack pine and cast a glance skyward at the widow-maker. He stood next to the trunk and scooped as much loose snow away from the base as he could, then he scalped the bark from the chosen side with the ax so the angle and depth of the cut would be more visible. He looked up once more and then down again before he raised the ax, turned sideways and then spun at the top of the back swing. Simon watched his father’s top hand slide up on the handle and pop back down as the blade thudded into the trunk.

The tree shuddered and in an instant the poplar slid free and screeched toward the ground. Jacob had raised the ax for the second stroke and as he heard the branches popping overhead he raised his head. He dropped the ax, spun around and started to run. His feet slipped and he fell facedown in the snow just before the poplar landed on him. The snow whooshed out from the impact, then all was still.

Simon jumped and tried to run but floundered and went down. He rose, pumped his knees to his chest and fought his way there.

Jacob didn’t move as Simon dropped to his knees and scooped the snow away from the buried shape of his father’s head. He trenched through the snow and cleared it from the corded neck muscles. It steamed off his father’s skin as Simon whispered over and over, Dad Dad Dad Dad Dad, but there was no movement. Simon lay flat to reach under his father’s head and swept the snow away but he couldn’t hold it up. Simon put his hand on his father’s forehead and swept the snow some more and kept saying dad dad. Jacob said nothing back and Simon pinched the snow from his eyes and nose and mouth. Still Jacob didn’t move. Blood bubbled like soap from between his lips and leached into the snow.

Simon was frantic. He scooped the snow away from Jacob’s body. Then he saw what the tree had done. The branches had snapped against Jacob’s body and two of them had broken and pushed through. One had been driven through his left shoulder blade and the other by his right kidney.