Arthur knows better than to be out in the woods during a pitch-dark night like this. The night sky at his new place has about as many stars as the Barge ever had on deck, but they don't matter much if the moon is a small sickle in the sky. But he'd ventured out too far to shoot a buck, but winter is setting in and he's going to need the meat when wild berries run out and his little vegetable garden isn't yielding many winter crops yet. He's going to have to pickle the stuff, and smoke some, and share whatever he's not going to eat soon with Jake.
They see each other every few weeks, for beer and food and stories. What Jake gets up to from week to week, Arthur doesn't know, and that's mutual. It's not that kind of a friendship, which is just fine with him. He owes him a great debt, besides: when Arthur got here six months ago (time has a funny way of passing off-Barge, of course), half his cabin had already been built. They finished it a month later, and he's spent most his time since exploring the area, preparing the vegetable patch, picking out the right trees for the next year. He hasn't heard from the old crew. But then, he hasn't reached out, either. He knows John's alive, and he's with his family, and that's that.
Every few weeks he gets maudlin enough to have a drink of whiskey and wonder if a letter to Dutch could end up anywhere near him. He's written it once or twice, even. But he never gets all the way to town to post it, so that's something.
He's got the deer slung over his saddle as he trudges through the woods, and freezes up right away when he sees movement through the windows. Jake? He wouldn't. Not during a dark, cold night. He ties the horse to a tree, gets down his rifle, and stalks up to the house. He'd like to take a peek, more than anything.
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Arthur knows better than to be out in the woods during a pitch-dark night like this. The night sky at his new place has about as many stars as the Barge ever had on deck, but they don't matter much if the moon is a small sickle in the sky. But he'd ventured out too far to shoot a buck, but winter is setting in and he's going to need the meat when wild berries run out and his little vegetable garden isn't yielding many winter crops yet. He's going to have to pickle the stuff, and smoke some, and share whatever he's not going to eat soon with Jake.
They see each other every few weeks, for beer and food and stories. What Jake gets up to from week to week, Arthur doesn't know, and that's mutual. It's not that kind of a friendship, which is just fine with him. He owes him a great debt, besides: when Arthur got here six months ago (time has a funny way of passing off-Barge, of course), half his cabin had already been built. They finished it a month later, and he's spent most his time since exploring the area, preparing the vegetable patch, picking out the right trees for the next year. He hasn't heard from the old crew. But then, he hasn't reached out, either. He knows John's alive, and he's with his family, and that's that.
Every few weeks he gets maudlin enough to have a drink of whiskey and wonder if a letter to Dutch could end up anywhere near him. He's written it once or twice, even. But he never gets all the way to town to post it, so that's something.
He's got the deer slung over his saddle as he trudges through the woods, and freezes up right away when he sees movement through the windows. Jake? He wouldn't. Not during a dark, cold night. He ties the horse to a tree, gets down his rifle, and stalks up to the house. He'd like to take a peek, more than anything.