Chapter 1

I had taken two weeks off to vacation at the lake. It was going to be sort of a working vacation, since I would be working on Uncle Ed's cabins. Uncle Ed is my wife's uncle, who has more money than he knows what to do with. He owns a whole resort on the lake, complete with about twenty cabins. He usually sets aside ten or so cabins in the middle of the summer for all of the shirt-tail relatives to use and a sort of loose family reunion ensues every summer.

This summer was a little different for me. Louise was spending the summer in Germany, working on her PhD, doing research in some old university there. I had agreed to spend the two weeks at the cabins hooking up Uncle Ed's new satellite dish network to all the cabins. In return, I was getting not only free room and board, which was usual, but the use of Ed's sailboat, and basically any damn thing I wanted from the marina, all on his account. Not that this would affect Ed in the least: he would be in Africa the whole summer, and I couldn't hope to put a dent in his bank account anyway. He just traded stuff like this with me because he liked to wheel and deal and we had struck this deal a year ago over a card game. The work was no big deal. The sailboat was. It was a big, fine sailboat, the biggest on the lake, and great fun to sail if the breeze came up.

I was going to miss most of the family get-togethers this summer, as I was showing up a little late, and most of the crew was packing up and heading out. I did show up in time for the feast that usually marks the end of the vacation for most of the relatives.

When I drove up to the main lodge, the whole group was out front by the beach, enjoying what might be the last of the warm weather. The picnic tables were stacked high with food, and about twenty-five of Louise's relatives were yukking it up over beers, brats, and potato salad. The sun was shining and the breeze coming in off the lake carried the aroma of fun and relaxation: fishing and sailing; warm days on the beach, and cool nights by the fire. All my thoughts of work and stress just melted away.

I parked my van next to the lodge, one of those huge log cabin constructions. Fred waved from the picnic table. Fred was the caretaker of the lodge and cabins. He managed the rental of cabins and the rooms in the main lodge. We had known each other for many years and had similar tastes in beer, fishing, and sailboats.

"Dave! Grab a plate!" he said, handing me a cold beer. "Good to see you! How was the drive up here?"

"No problem, Fred. Just a little slow 'cause of the road construction." I started loading up my plate at the food table and checking to see who was here that I knew. Louise's extended family was big enough that I only got to see some of them every few years or so, and it looked like this crowd was mostly those that I had only met once or twice. I did recognize Albert and Edna, distant cousins of Louise, who lived in Canada. It had been a long time since we had visited them. I waved at Albert, who held up his beer and continued to munch away on a bratwurst. Edna didn't even see me so I sat down by Fred and started chowing down.

"How's life treatin' ya, Fred?" I asked.

"Not bad, Dave, not bad. It's been an easy summer, and the next couple of weeks three of the cabins will be empty, so I'll probably be able to catch up on my boat a little bit."

Fred was about sixty years old, and had been building a sailboat for the last twenty. It was almost done, and Fred was planning on retiring on it. (It had never sailed, and was not likely to soon, at the rate that Fred was working on it. He always talked about working on the boat, but he seldom did, even though it was almost finished.)

Fred was a roly-poly bear of a man; gone gray, but not gone soft. Just slowed down somewhat. Even at that, he made running the resort seem more of a hobby than work, and somehow everything got done; and Fred still had time to talk to everyone; and fish off the dock; and sit outside the lodge and sun himself.