Read Online The Rest is Silence by Scott Fotheringham - Free Book Online Page A

When he came back, Mom’s good humour had evaporated. She wanted to go home.
    Before they were done packing, a ranger came by our site to tell them that the stream by the gate had flooded its banks and the road. They weren’t letting any vehicles cross it.
    â€œWe can’t leave?” Mom’s voice cracked.
    He told them they hoped the water would recede soon and we’d be able to leave. When it didn’t recede by the next day, the rangers brought in two girders to span the rushing flow, laying them on top of the road. Anyone leaving would have to drive carefully with the wheels of their car in the grooves of the girders. My parents packed up in a hurry and we joined the line of cars and tent-trailers waiting to cross the crude bridge. The rain had finally eased, but the stream continued to flow across the road, carrying branches, leaves, and plastic bags with it. I sat in my mother’s lap. When it came our turn to go, Dad turned to her.
    â€œDon’t squeeze so tight.”
    â€œLet me out,” my mother said.
    â€œYou think I’m going to drive across that with the two of you in the car?”
    My mother huddled with me under her slicker, watching as Dad negotiated the girders and crawled across the bridge. He got out and hurried back to help us walk across. All I remember of that trip is clinging to her neck as the silver water rushed over the tops of the rusty girders and around her black rubber boots. And one more thing: I was happy in her arms.
    When we got home she vowed she would never camp again.
    I clean up the fallen branches on the paths and in the garden beds. When it gets sunny I hang my clothes and sleeping bag to dry.
    As daunting as it can be to be caught in a storm, I find it thrilling. When it ends, the elation is unlike any feeling I know, and I have a renewed faith that something is looking after me. Somehow I know it won’t be a storm that kills me.
    The last few days have been gorgeous, and it’s easy to forget the discomfort when it’s sunny and warm. It’s as if the summer sky’s fire has licked the branches of the maples and birches, burning their leaves yellow, orange, red. The full moon last night brought the first fall frost. Today I am harvesting potatoes, carrots, and turnips. I loosen the soil along each row with a digging fork. Then I press my hands into the ground and pull them out. The potatoes, Century russets I planted in May, are my buried treasure. I lay the huge bakers in piles beside each row to dry in the sun. Once they are dry, I rub each potato between my palms to loosen the dirt. They fill a feed bag, more than fifty pounds. It turns out I have had less success with the carrots and turnips. The carrots are hairy and small, hardly worth saving. The turnips didn’t like the rocky, shallow soil and are the size of malformed baseballs. I take them all next door and put them in Martin and Jen’s root cellar anyway.
    Deer season has opened and sporadic gunshots resound in the woods behind my tent. I walk along Lily Lake Road in the gloaming to find an apple for my dessert. There is an old wild tree growing in the ditch by the road, gnarled and twisty, but replete with large green apples. I shake a low branch and half a dozen apples thump to the ground around me. I stroll farther along to the stream that passes beneath the road, and there, not more than twenty feet into the woods in front of me, a coyote is huddled over a carcass. It crouches as if to pull another bite off the bones. Coyotes are usually shy, and they run if they see me. This one doesn’t budge. It is the size of Lucy, with short grey-brown fur and a menacing gaze. Its hackles are raised as it stares back at me, and mine, if I can call them hackles, are raised too. I jog home along the dirt road, looking over my shoulder as I go.
    I light a fire in the evening light and cook my dinner in the outdoor kitchen. I sit down to eat rice and beans when