Matt cleared his throat and regretted his words as soon as they passed his beer-moistened lips: “If you don’t like rabbits why would you kill the fishers and coyotes? They eat rabbits,” he said.

Sanders turned to him, anger welling in his eyes. The target of his anger was not Matt, however. It was the animals. Always the animals.

“Because the fisher and coyote eat the fawns. And I don’t want nobody eating my deer. I eat venison year ’round. Why go to the store when I got a supermarket up here, eh?”

Matt’s beer was losing its flavor, or maybe it was Sanders’ attitude that was spoiling it. Melinda emerged from the bathroom in nothing but a peach-colored towel, her hair slicked back.

“How about a sauna?” she said.

Sanders’s mood changed at once. “You bet your Swedish ass I do,” he said. “Come on Matty, let’s check out the new hot box. Put her together this spring.”

He wanted to fish, and to kind of get away from Sanders, but Sanders was a good craftsman and Matt had always wanted a sauna. He felt better when he walked out of one—somehow more pure. “Just for a second,” he said.

They exited the cottage and followed a quaint slate path to the back yard. Birds flittered deep in the forest. The Silver River gleamed to the right, no more than twenty yards from the cabin, its high banks corralling water past balsam fir and sugar maple. Everything was bathed in gentle canopy shade.

As expected, Sanders had done a fine job with the sauna. He’d carved a moon with two stars above the soft, lush cherrywood door. Overall, the fit and finish was notable.

“Come on in,” Sanders said, a big grin stretching out his handlebar. After opening the door for them, Sanders stripped down to his checkered boxers. “You aren’t coming in here like that, are ya?” he asked Matt.

“Yeah, I’m only in for a second, then I need to get fishing.”

Sanders hung his clothes on two wooden dowels. “Well I never heard of a guy going into a sauna fully rigged up,” Sanders said.

Melinda took a seat in the corner, not taking up much room and tucking the pink towel underneath her. Sanders stood in the middle, and Matt sat near the door. This was a practice of his since his high school days.

Sanders gulped his beer, belched, then gripped a wooden ladle and dipped it into a construction bucket filled with river water. “We need to get her going, eh?” Sanders said, his bony knees popping as he took his long steps towards the heating unit.