Bones On Black Spruce Mountain Read Free Page B

the place. They unpacked. Seth put the folding saw together and looked around for poles with which to begin building the camp. He turned to see what Daniel was doing. Daniel had his fishing rod under his arm and was tying a hook on his line.
    "What are you doing?" Seth demanded. "I'm going fishing." "Fishing? We've got a camp to build. It's the middle of the afternoon. You're the one who rushed us over here to get to work."
    "Well, you build. I'll fish."
    "Come on! We can eat beans and bacon if we have to. Put away the fishing tackle and let's get to work."
    "It's not that big a job. We don't have to do everything together all the time. I'll help you when I get back. Up here I ought to be able to get a dozen in half an hour. I won't be gone long."
    "No sir, mister man, you're not going. I'm not your slave you know. You're going to help me here."
    Seth dropped the saw and grabbed at Daniel's fishing rod. Daniel pushed Seth away hard, knocking him down. As Seth got up, he saw Daniel's right hand ball into a fist, his knuckles whiten.
    Seth took a step backward. "What's the matter with you!" Daniel's hand loosened.
    "I don't know."
    There was a silence in which both boys stood shaking, looking at each other.
    "I'm sorry, Seth. I don't know what got into me. I'll stay here. We'll work on the lean-to together, then if we get done in time we can both go fishing."
    The two boys began gathering poles for the lean-to, but the incident had taken away the pleasure they usually felt in working together. Usually they got along well. Now something was different, something was wrong.
    Seth and Daniel had been good friends since the day Daniel was adopted by his parents five years before. There had been arguments, of course, and even an occasional fight, but never anything serious—except once. A couple of years ago, they had gotten into a fight, a real fistfight. Seth had given Daniel a bloody nose and Daniel had cut Seth's lip badly. But as soon as there was blood, the fight had stopped. Both boys were ashamed. Their feelings had been hurt more than their faces. They wanted to be friends; they were friends. They had vowed to each other never to do it again. A fight was not exciting the way it seemed on television, but ugly and brutal, something that made them feel bad about themselves. And yet all that after-noon it seemed Daniel was ready to break their vow, ready to fight again.
    Seth knew there were times when Daniel became so angry that he nearly lost control of himself; he'd seen it happen at school. But usually Daniel tried to hold back his anger; in fact, most of the time it seemed to Seth that Daniel was too controlled, too withdrawn and cool. But now Daniel's anger had risen into his throat. Seth could hear it in his voice. Seth felt that at any moment Daniel might explode, and it frightened him.
    Maybe Daniel was upset because their plans had gone awry. Maybe it was being so far from home, so totally alone in the wilderness. Or maybe it was something else, something Seth couldn't understand. Whatever it was, it bothered him. They had so looked forward to this trip, and now that they were actually doing it, it wasn't any fun. The bad feelings made everything difficult, and building the lean-to, something both boys always enjoyed, now loomed ahead of them like a chore. But like all chores, it had to be done.
    The boys were lucky enough to find two spruce trees close enough together that they could nail the crossbar to each tree about four feet above the ground. Then they placed the foundation logs, about four inches in diameter, on the ground to make a six-by-eight-foot rectangle. With baler twine they lashed the pole rafters to the crossbar so that they slanted downward to the back where the boys nailed them to the head log. They set small poles close together along the sides of the lean-to and trimmed them at the roof line. Later they would weave balsam fir and hemlock boughs between the upright poles to make sidewalls.
    All the