Cruel World(152)

“How would we survive there?” she finally asked.

“It’s got a population of moose as well as an interior lake with fish, not to mention Lake Superior on all sides. There’d be plenty of food. The island itself is fifteen miles offshore, and I don’t see any of those things swimming that far, especially with how cold the water temperature typically is. In the winter, we won’t have to worry about them at all since they’ll have to migrate south to keep from freezing to death. There’s visitor lodges there that we can live in, plenty of wood to burn.” He studied her face, how the sunshine lit her hair into a raven flare each time the wind caught it. “What do you think?”

She stared ahead at the water glimmering beyond the boat. He waited, content to watch her rather than the scenic landscape that slipped past them. After a time, she turned back to him.

“I think I’m in love with you,” she said. His jaw slackened and he blinked. Alice laughed, tossing her head to one side and leaned in, kissing him firmly on the lips. When she drew back, she smiled and stroked the side of his face. “Let’s go to your island.”





Epilogue





3 Years Later


The lure splashed, hitting the water in a spray that caught the late fall sunlight.

Ty began to reel, jigging the rod with an expert hand as he felt the bump of a fish testing the bait. He froze, slowly bringing up the slack line until it tightened, the jerking tug transferring through the rod into his hands. He snapped his arms up, setting the hook and began to reel again, the tension of the fish making him whoop with delight.

“Another one?” Quinn asked, casting his own line out again into the lake.

“Of course.”

“Oh listen to you, great white fisherman.”

“You’re just upset that a blind kid can out-catch you.”

“And you’re pretty cocky for someone who’s only been fishing for three years.”

Ty laughed and drew the whipping perch out of the water, catching it as it swung toward him on the end of the line. In a matter of seconds, he had the fish off the hook and strung on the shining stringer that trailed into the water at their feet. The other four fish swimming in place that were threaded there flipped indignantly until he released the chain holding them.

“So that’s four to one,” Ty said, baiting his hook before casting it out again in a graceful curve of line.

“You’re gonna beat me again,” Quinn said. He scratched at the thick beard covering his face, still not fully used to the feeling of it there even after growing it for over a year.

“Are you going to take me to shore when you go this time?” Ty asked.

“Absolutely not.”

“But I’m almost ten,” he protested, jigging his rod harder.

“You’re barely nine.”

“But you said yourself that you hadn’t seen one of them in almost two years.”

“That doesn’t mean that they aren’t there.”

Ty fell silent for a long time. The air was already cooling, winter’s breath coursing in from the west. Soon the snow would begin to fall, their journeys outside of the main lodge limited to gathering firewood from the extensive pile ricked against the back wall and to the portable fish house that they would erect once the ice was thick enough to stand on.

“Do you think we’ll ever live back on the mainland again?” Ty asked, pulling Quinn away from the preparations he was going through in his head. The question caught him off guard, and he looked at the boy, growing tall now, his steps steady and sure on any of the hiking trails that snaked across the island like a child’s treasure map.

“Do you want to go back?” Quinn asked.

Ty jigged the rod, tipping his head to one side, looking so much like his mother in the sun.

“Not really, I guess,” he said finally. “Do you think about them a lot, your dad, Teresa, everyone you lost?” Ty asked after another pause.

“Yes, I do.”

“And you miss them?”

“Very much.”

“But you’d never want to go back to your home where you grew up?”

Quinn wound in his line and secured it to the pole before coming close to Ty and embracing him.

“This is my home.”

They brought the fish up to the four-wheeler that waited for them on the trail beside the lake and climbed on, Ty holding onto Quinn’s waist as they rode back to the lodge. When the low buildings came into view through the trees, Quinn guided the four-wheeler close to the first one, stopping beneath the heavy boughs of a pine.