Chapter 1

“How about some more jerky?”

“Sure – why not?” You can never have too much jerky, right?

And that afterthought just about completed our shopping needs for the weekend at Brad’s cabin. Tim and I had been planning this weekend getaway for a long time. Our buddy Brad – actually, he’s Tim’s buddy more than mine, but we know each other and we’re friendly – has this great cabin in the pinewoods, about 2-1/2 hours from home, and he’s offered it to us, free, anytime that he doesn’t already have someone renting it. A week ago, he called Tim to tell him that the cabin was free this weekend and we were welcome to come up and stay there for as much of the week as we wanted.

We were at this backroad gas station-general store on the two-lane highway about 20 minutes from the cabin. It’s where we usually stop because it’s close to the cabin and it’s a good place to load up on beer and other cold drinks, ice, frozen pizzas and Hot Pockets, and anything we might have forgotten, like bug repellent, sun screen, or any fishing tackle we think we’ll need.

It’s off the beaten path, kind of a funky little place, and I think that’s why we kind of like it. There’s always an old guy there – I guess he owns the place – and sometimes we’ve seen a girl or young woman who looks like she might be related to the old guy in some way.

Anyhow, we’re out loading the ice and beer and stuff into Tim’s pickup when we hear someone crunching across the gravel parking lot toward us. We look over, and it’s a girl. It looks like the girl we’ve seen around the store sometimes, although we didn’t notice her today.

“Hey! You guys, looks like you’re headin’ off somewheres for a few days. Whereya goin’?”

Since we kind of knew her, we told her that we were headed off to a buddy’s cabin for three or four days of fishing and drinking and lying. We thought that last might get a laugh out of her. Nope, not even a smile. Totally deadpan.

By now, this was already more time than we’d spent with her in the past four years we’ve been coming up here, so I paused to take a look at her, really for the first time. In a word, she was – “unremarkable.” A little on the petite side – maybe 5’-1” – with very pale skin with almost no tan or anything. Her untended hair was brown with a slight coppery tinge, and that might explain the pale skin and the freckles scattered across her cheeks and the thin upper chest that peeked out from her worn-thin tee shirt.

She wasn’t exactly skinny – I guess you’d have to say that she was thin (or maybe slim, or slender – or are those just upscale words for “thin”?). Her chest − or at least, as much as we could see from the neck of her tee shirt – wasn’t bony; and her arms and the legs which extended below her Bermuda-length denim shorts were kind of average – not thin, not muscled. From what we could see in the loose shorts, her hips were narrow, but there was a slight roundness to her ass.

But the unusual thing was her expression. As I said, she didn’t crack a smile at our lame joke about spending our time lying. In fact, it looked like her thin lips hadn’t smiled a lot in her – I’d guess – 18 years or so.

Still trying to respond to her approach in some way, Tim said, “We’ve seen you around the store several times, haven’t we? You worked here long?”

“Yeah, my Grandpa owns the place and I help him out. We live in the house out back of the store,” and she pointed around a corner, and behind the “store” was a simple one-floor house that you can’t see when you’re driving in.

“Anyone else?” prying a little here.

“Nuh, just me and Grandpa.” She paused, and like she finally remembered why she came over to talk with us in the first place, she said, “So, are you guys meeting up with anyone else? Or is it just you two guys?”

We looked at each other, like, Where is this going?

I cautiously offered, “Nope, just us two,” and kind of let my words hang there.

With no change in inflection, she said, “Can I come along?”

Whoa! Where did that come from??

“You mean like – you need a ride somewhere, or something?”

“Nuh, can I come to your cabin with you? Like for the weekend. Or however long you’re stayin’.”

Tim and I looked at each other. Tim decided to play it cautious. He asked, “Are you sure it’s OK? Like, have you talked with your – Grandpa?” We really weren’t sure what kind of a situation we were dealing with here.

“Yeah, before I came out to you guys I asked him and he said he knows you guys so it’d be OK.”

Knows us? Granted, we’ve been in the store several times a year for the past four years or so, but − “knows us?”

Still not sure about ... about any of this, to tell the truth, Tim took another approach. “How about your Grandpa – won’t he need your help with the store?” We waited, hesitantly.

“Nah, it’s kinda slow now, so he says it’s OK.”

Now we had to make a decision. We had planned to come up here for some fishing and hiking, plus some “quality time” together. Now this ... this girl ... was asking to come along with us. Admittedly, the added presence of a female offered some expanded opportunities. I mean, however simple and sheltered her life might be, she has to have some idea of what would probably happen if a young woman her age spent several days – and nights – alone with two grown men. Nonetheless, this sure wasn’t part of the original plan.

Tim and I looked at each other, like, “Do we really want to do this?” and then each of us gave a “What the hell?” shrug and said to the girl, who’d been standing there, not moving, not saying anything, “Sure.”

Then Tim had an afterthought. “Don’t you have anything you need to bring with?”

“Nah. You guys got soap and shampoo and a spare toothbrush?”

Yes, yes, and yes, I had some extra toothbrushes that you get each time you visit the dentist.

“I guess so. So, ... you want to say goodbye.”

“Nah, I did already.”

I held the door open for her and she got in, and I got in after her, and Tim started up and off we drove to ... to what, we weren’t exactly sure, but it promised to be “different.” As we wheeled out of the parking lot and onto the highway, she said, “I’m Tanya.”

I said, “I’m Chase, and he’s Tim.” And that was the entire extent of the conversation for the next 22 minutes, until we pulled up at the cabin and Tim stopped the truck. We got out and began unloading our stuff. Tim went up and unlocked the door and started opening the windows to air the place out. He also went out back to flip on the electricity and switch on the pump for the well.

Without being asked, he girl started unloading groceries, immediately grabbing the full case of beer and humping it up the steps. Still holding the beer, she managed to open the screen door with one hand and edge her way in. By the time I grabbed my duffel and my tackle box, she had already plugged in the refrigerator and turned it on and was wiping down the inside with a wet dish rag. As soon as she finished that she started putting the beers in the fridge. I guess years of stocking the coolers at the store had taught her to make fast, efficient work of it. The next trip, and the pizzas and frozen stuff were safely in the icemaker compartment. She’d even put in our small “starter” bag of ice from the store.

The cabin was really just two rooms – the big front room, which included the kitchen and eating table and fireplace and wood burning stove, as well as the “big” bed. The other room was almost like an “annex” – it didn’t even have a door to close it off, and just a smaller bed and a dresser and clothes rack and a chair. There was an indoor toilet, but that’s all it was – a toilet, plumbed to a septic tank some distance away (Legal distance? Who knows?), and a tiny little sink, about big enough for you to wash your hands or brush your teeth, but not much more. If you needed more space to wash, you used the kitchen sink. If you want to take a bath –well, that’s what the lake is for.