“WANT TO HELP ME WITH some firewood?” her father asks from the doorway to the bedroom.
Sarah shrugs. “I guess. It’s not like I’m doing much.” She puts down her vampire novel, which she has reread for the tenth time.
Outside, they haul and stack dead limbs that her father has cut and sawed by hand.
“Do you miss regular school?” her father asks.
She shrugs angrily.
“You probably met at least some nice kids there,” he says, taking one end of a heavy limb; together, they swing it onto the pile.
“Sort of,” she mumbles.
“Any boys?” her father teases.
“The main reason I liked school was for the toilets and hot running water,” she says sharply.
Her father keeps working in silence.
“I mean,” Sarah continues, “how are we going to, like, bathe when it’s winter?”
“Bathe? I thought you’d never ask!” Miles says as he comes around the side of the sawmill. He’s totally sweaty but as happy as a clam.
“In the river, I suppose,” Sarah says. “Cut a hole in the ice. Jump in. Well, forget that.”
“No, no, no,” Miles says impatiently. He gestures to them, then calls for Nat. “I have a surprise for you!” he announces to his family.
Sarah brings up the rear as they follow him around the corner of the sawmill. Attached to one side of it is a lean-to eight feet square. Board walls. Wooden door. A small iron pipe poking through the roof.
“This thing you’ve been working on,” Nat says, “what is it?”
“Step inside and you’ll see,” Miles says. He couldn’t be more pleased. This whole environmental disaster has been just perfect for him, Sarah thinks.
Cautiously, Nat opens the door and goes in, followed by Artie and Sarah. There are four sturdy wooden benches, like bunk beds—one on each wall.
“I don’t get it,” Sarah asks. “We already made an extra bedroom.”
“It’s a sauna,” Artie says. He smiles widely.
Miles beams from the doorway. “Exactly! That’s how people bathed in the old days. Take a sauna, then take a roll in the snow.”
“A roll in the snow?!” Sarah says.
“It would certainly get you clean,” Nat says, looking directly at Miles.
Who of course misses her point.
“Do you guys like it?” he says enthusiastically.
“It’s great,” Artie says. “I thought you were building a storage shed or something.”
Miles is so pleased he actually giggles.
“It’s certainly … rustic,” Nat says.
They all look at Sarah. “That’s, like, a woodstove?” she asks, pointing.
“Exactly,” Miles says, leaning down beside a small iron drum. “I recycled this little barrel. Cut a hole on top for a stovepipe, another one down low for air and to get sticks of wood in. It works great! When it’s twenty below zero, we can have family sauna nights!”
They all look at one another.
“Will we … all fit?” Nat asks politely.
“Hey, we’re in here now,” Miles answers. He steps all the way in, then pulls shut the door behind him.
Instantly it’s pitch-dark in there, except for a few pinholes and slivers of light. Miles swears. Sarah would laugh if she weren’t so claustrophobic.
“Lights! Dammit—I forgot about lights!” Miles says.
“Candles would work,” Artie offers.
“I have to get out of here!” Sarah says, stumbling against Miles as she escapes. The door clatters open; light spills back into the small, boxy sauna.
“What’s wrong with her?” Miles says.
“Leave her be,” she hears her father say.
At supper Miles can’t stop talking about the sauna; Artie and Nat try to humor Sarah.
“Don’t,” she mutters to them. “My life is over, okay?”
They continue eating. The meal is river fish, rice, beans, and goat’s milk. Emily is not giving much milk these days, but there’s still a big glass to share. Sarah flashes on dinners back home-home: the giant kitchen with designer copper pots hanging above the stainless steel cooktop; the big dining-room table that they hardly ever used. They usually sat at the counter in a row, nobody really facing anyone else; or else they had “bowl dinners” so they could watch television while they ate. Here they bump knees. They can’t avoid one another.
“I’m really sorry about school,” Nat says again to Sarah.
Sarah shrugs. “I suppose I could do school online—but, oh, I forgot. We don’t have internet because we don’t have electricity,” she says sarcastically.
“You could do alternative school with me!” Miles says.
“In my next life, maybe,” Sarah mutters.
“Hey, the AEC is not that bad,” Miles said. “There’s some fairly cool teachers there.”
“Forget it!” Sarah says, and stomps off to her—their—room. She lies there thinking about Ray: the dark wing of hair that kept falling over his right eye. His bony but square shoulders. His long fingers. How they always felt burning hot when he touched her arms or hands. Or, one time, her face.
The next morning, Miles disappears on his motorbike. When he comes back a couple of hours later, he is secretive but pumped about something.
At lunch he says to Sarah, “I got you something!”
“Huh?”
“An early Christmas present,” Miles says. “Sit here. Close your eyes.”
Sarah glances around the overly warm cabin. Art’s veggie chili is cooking on the wood range.
“It’s okay,” her mother says.
“Hold out your hands!” Miles says.
She does. Then her fingers close around something smooth, heavy, and hard—like a piece of pipe or a round chair leg. She opens her eyes.
“Your very own shotgun!” Miles says. He’s vibrating with excitement.
“Gee, thanks,” Sarah says gingerly; she holds the gun away from her body.
“Careful!” Nat says.
“It’s not loaded,” Miles says with annoyance.
Just in case, Sarah keeps the muzzle end pointed to the ceiling. “Ah, it looks a lot like your old shotgun,” she says. “The one that creepy Danny gave you.”
“It is,” Miles says. “I got another gun for myself: a twelve-gauge pump that holds five shells. But this .410 single shot will be a perfect starter gun for you.”
“And just how did you get another gun?” Nat asks quickly.
“Get another gun? This is America!” Miles answers.
“Seriously,” Nat says.
“Old But Gold,” Miles says. “Anybody can buy a gun there.
“So start getting comfortable with it,” he says to Sarah. “Shooting practice begins right after lunch. Then next week we can go deer hunting together.”
Sarah glances again at her parents, who are of no help.
She takes her time eating. Miles wolfs down his veggie chili. “See you outside in five!” he says brightly.
After Miles is gone, her mother says, “You don’t have to do this.”
Sarah shrugs. “It’s no big deal,” she says, and carries her bowl to the washbasin.
Outside, Miles shows her how to hold the gun. How the safety works. She is wearing homemade earplugs made of toilet paper spitballs; his voice sounds far away.
“Ready to try it?” Miles has set up a rusty tin can as a target.
She nods.
Standing close behind her, Miles helps her fit the stock against her shoulder. “Put your cheek right on the wood,” he says.
She does.
“Okay!” Miles says.
She closes her eyes and very slowly squeezes the trigger, hard and harder. “Nothing’s happening!” she says.
“The safety—click it to the off position,” Miles says.
“I thought I did that,” Sarah mutters.
“Must not have been off all the way,” Miles says easily.
She takes another breath, looks down the barrel with both eyes open (as per Miles’s instruction), and jerks the trigger.
Poom! The tin can goes flying.
“You hit it!” Miles says.
“Lucky shot,” Sarah answers.
“No way,” Miles says. “You’re a natural. I can tell.”
She shoots several more times and hits the can each time. Soon it’s all torn and jagged.
“Right now you’re shooting fine shot,” Miles explains. “Each shell has a bunch of little pellets in it. They spray out in a pattern about this big around.” He holds his hands apart, thumbs curved, to make a hoop about the size of a basketball.
“Duh. So that’s why I’m hitting the can every time.”
“Sort of,” Miles replies. “Now we need to practice shooting slugs.”
“What’s a slug?”
Miles holds up a .410 shell, which is about the size of his pinkie finger. “See this?”
She looks closer at the business end of the shell; a little rounded gray knuckle peeks out from the plastic sleeve.
“This is the slug,” Miles explains. “It’s one bullet. A single piece of lead. You wouldn’t want to shoot at flying ducks with a slug because you’d never hit anything. A slug is more for deer and, well, self-protection.”
“For shooting people, you mean?”
“If you had to,” Miles says. He sets up another target: a bright aluminum pie plate. He instructs her to sight down the barrel by closing one eye this time. She aims, tries to hold steady, then fires at the plate. She misses twice but hits it the third time.
“Bingo!” Miles calls. He hurries over to retrieve the plate, then brings it back to Sarah.
There’s a perfectly round hole in it about the size of a dime. On the back side, the aluminum is not peeled away or torn; the thin metal is just gone.
“Let me try it again,” she says. Miles hands her another shell.
This time she imagines the pie plate as Bill Phelps’s thick face. She rocks backward.
“Bull’s-eye!” Miles calls, and slaps a one-armed hug on her. “You’re a natural.”