Deep Woods

Cal led me forward and showed me around while there was still enough light to see by. There was a chicken coop where chickens were just settling in to roost for the night. There was a lean-to for tools and a woodshed piled high with firewood ready for winter. A couple of things I had no idea about: a tall, narrow hut with a chimney and smoke drifting from it, and something big, round, and metal that was half-hidden under a tarpaulin. But I recognized the vegetable garden, with plants growing in neat rows, the herb pots and the fruit canes.

Finally, he showed me the barn. As soon as the door creaked open, there was a loud, commanding moo. Cal took me over to a stall where a large, black-and-cream cow was waiting for attention. She pushed her wet, pink nose into Cal’s hand and wouldn’t stop mooing until he expertly scratched behind her ears. In the next stall, a goat with a snow-white coat and curving brown horns put his front hooves up on the slats of the door and stayed there until Cal petted it. Back outside, he showed me around the back of the barn, where a pig pen held three snorting, boisterous pigs. Running along the back of the entire smallholding was a field of wheat, the golden stalks turning silver as the sun sank and the moon rose.

I turned a slow circle, taking it all in. “What do you do for power?” I asked.

“No power. There’s a wood stove for cooking, lanterns for light.”

“Phone?”

“No phone.”

“Water?”

He showed me the wooden doors that covered the well.

He was completely self-sufficient here, I realized. And utterly alone. “How far is the nearest person?”

“There’s a town, Marten Valley. I go there every three, four months for stuff I can’t grow myself.” He pointed. “It’s about six hours’ walk that way.”

“You don’t have a car?”

He shook his head. “No roads, out here. When I went to Seattle I borrowed one.”

It was beautiful, idyllic: a little home carved out right in the center of the forest. But...now that the animals had quietened down, it was so silent! Even a bird squawking, far off, seemed loud. I realized that I’d never been this far from people my entire life. It was achingly lonely and this was with Cal there. How must it be for him, not hearing another voice or seeing another face for months at a time? What the hell would drive someone to choose this kind of isolation?

He opened the door and, immediately, Rufus pushed past our legs and ran inside. He trotted to a corner where a blue blanket, tattered but soft with age, lay spread out on the floor. As he curled up and went to sleep, I looked around.

The inside of the cabin was one big room. The log walls had been stripped of bark and sanded down so they were glossy and smooth, and the cracks sealed up so that there were no drafts. There was a table and chair, handmade and as big and chunky as Cal himself. As much as possible, I realized, was made of wood. Because everything not made from wood—every nail, every pane of glass in the windows—would have had to have been brought from the nearest town, carried for six hours on Cal’s back. Building this place on his own, so far from any roads, was a monumental achievement. “It’s amazing,” I said.

Cal didn’t answer. When I looked at him, he was just looking around as if seeing the cabin for the first time: seeing it through my eyes. It slowly hit me that I was the first person, other than him, to ever see it. He’d had no one to share it with. The thought was heartbreaking.

One wall was dominated by a huge iron stove. “How did you get that here?” I asked.

“In the winter,” he said. “Boat brought it up the river, then I dragged it on a sled. Until then, I just cooked on a campfire.”

Nothing was electric, I realized. Nothing was even battery-powered. Everything was sturdy and easily repairable and probably wouldn’t have looked much different two hundred years ago. There was a cast-iron skillet, a stove-top coffee pot and a big, hand-cranked mill for grinding. There were oil-fired lanterns for when it got dark and blankets for when it got cold. It was basic but cozy. And very, very remote. For the first time since I got into the limo in Seattle, I felt myself relax. Cal was right: Ralavich would never find me, here.

“Let me see if I can find you something to wear,” said Cal. In the corner of the room, a chunk of wood had been nailed to the wall. He put his foot on it and used it to boost himself up to the rafters, then hauled himself up into the roof space. One end of the room had been boarded over and I realized he used it for storage. While he hunted for clothes, I checked in on Rufus. He was still asleep on his blanket, paws and tail occasionally twitching as he chased dream-rabbits. His blanket, I saw, hadn’t started out as one. I could see button holes along one frayed edge. The sleeves were missing, but it had been one of Cal’s shirts, once.