Fires. Essays, Poems, Stories

once and saw the girl watching him from the kitchen window. By the time he got to his door and dropped the wood, he hated her.
    He lay on the bed for a long time and read old Life magazines that he'd found on the porch. When the heat from the fire finally made him sleepy, he got up and cleared off his bed, then arranged his things for the next morning. He looked through the pile of stuff again to make sure he had everything. He liked things in order and didn't want to get up the next morning and have to look for something. He picked up the Scotch and held the bottle up to the light. Then he poured some into a cup. He carried the cup over to the bed and set it on the nightstand. He turned off the light and stood looking out the window for a minute before getting into bed.
    He got up so early it was still almost dark in the cabin. The fire had gone down to coals during the night. He could see his breath in the cabin. He adjusted the grate and pushed in some wood. He couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten up so early. He fixed peanut butter sandwiches and wrapped them in waxed paper. He put the sandwiches and some oatmeal cookies into a coat pocket At the door he pulled on his waders.
    The light outside was vague and gray. Clouds filled the long valleys and hung in patches over the trees and mountains. The lodge was dark. He moved out slowly down the packed, slippery-trail toward the river. It pleased him to be up this early and to be going fishing. Somewhere in one of the valleys off behind the river he heard the pop-pop of shots and counted them. Seven. Eight. The hunters were awake. And the deer. He wondered if the shots came from the two hunters he'd seen in the lodge yesterday. Deer didn't have much of a chance in snow like this. He kept his eyes down, watching the trail. It kept dropping downhill and soon he was in heavy timber with snow up to his ankles.
    Snow lay in drifts under the trees, but it wasn't too deep where he walked. It was a good trail, packed solid, thick with pine needles that crunched into the snow under his boots. He could see his breath streaming out in front of him. He held the fishing rod straight ahead of him when he had to push through the bushes or go under trees with low limbs. He held the rod by its big reel, tucked up under his arm like a lance. Sometimes, back when he was a kid and had gone into a remote area to fish for two or three days at a time, hiking in by himself, he'd carried his rod like this, even when there was no brush or trees, maybe just a big green meadow. Those times he would imagine himself waiting for his opponent to ride out of the trees on a horse. The jays at the crowded edge of the woods would scream. Then he'd sing something as loud as he could. Yell defiance until his chest hurt, at the hawks that circled and circled over the meadow. The sun and the sky came back to him now, and the lake with the lean-to. The water so clear and green you could see fifteen or twenty feet down to where it shelved off into deeper water. He could hear the river. But the trail was gone now and just before he started down the bank to the river, he stepped into a snowdrift up over his knees and panicked, clawing up handfuls of snow and vines to get out.
    The river looked impossibly cold. It was silver-green in color and there was ice on the little pools in the rocks along the edge. Before, in the summer, he'd caught his fish further downriver. But he couldn't go downriver this morning. This morning he was simply glad to be where he was. A hundred feet away, on the other side of the river, lay a beach with a nice riffle running just in front
    of the beach. But of course there was no way of getting over there. He decided he was just fine where he was. He lifted up onto a log, positioned himself there, and looked around. He saw tall trees and snow-covered mountains. He thought it was pretty as a picture, the way the steam lay over the river. He sat there on the log swinging his legs back and forth while he threaded the line through the guides of his rod. He tied on one of the outfits he'd made up last night. When everything was ready he slipped down off the log, pulled the rubber boots up over his legs as high as they'd go, and fastened the buckle tops of the waders to his belt. He waded slowly into the river, holding his breath for the cold water shock. The water hit and, swirling, braced against him up to his knees. He stopped, then he moved out a little further. He took the brake