Walking in Circles - 9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

“Hey Jake, good morning. Stop, I’m up, ok, ok.” Why does he have to keep licking, God. He’s lucky I love him. “Where’s Sean?” Jake looked me in the eyes and turned to run out of the door. I heard him go down the stairs as I got dressed and wrapped a wolf skin across my shoulders. Before I left the room I put another log in the fire for Sean.

Downstairs, I had to add logs to the main fire and give it a stir. I peaked out the space between boards in the windows as I moved around the living room and into the kitchen. I grabbed a mug after I found the pine tea on the grill top for me. Delicious, Sean is a great guy and a great friend. Hmm, a great friend, but I think he’s probably more than that now. What I don’t know is how any of this works, let alone what happens when/if we get rescued.

Well, first off I need to find this boy so I can let him sleep. I checked the front door, still locked, so I went into the workshop where I found him sitting in the bay door staring into the darkness. He turned as I entered with a worried look on his face. Then he just turned back to the darkness. Oh boy, he really struggles with this. Hell, I think he worries more about it than I do and that’s saying something. Alright, time to set this shit straight. I leaned against the door frame looking at him, “I think I want you to hear me without saying anything, can you do that?”

Little dude just shrugged his shoulders, “That’ll work, look I don’t know how any of this is supposed to go. I didn’t know it would be like this and it makes me sick…”

“Fuck you, Zach.”

“Shut up for a second, I’m not finished. It makes me sick to think of not being with you. I am not gay for guys, but …” I leaned over grabbed his chin and kissed him on the lips. “I am gay for you, only you.”

Sean threw his arms around me and we just stood there like that till I saw the sun break over the trees. I patted him on the butt, “Go get some sleep.”

We kissed once more and off to bed he went. Jake followed Sean into the house. I grabbed bow and arrows, and a spear. I closed the bay door till I heard the lock click. Time to make my rounds and quick before the sun is all the way up. I got to the main path where a huge buck just stood there. He didn’t even move as I got my arrow in my bow. The buck dropped as soon as the arrow entered between his heart and his neck. I clearly saw him suffering so I pulled out my machete and slit his throat. The blood ran out quickly as I thanked him for his sacrifice. For the next hour I dragged him bit by bit till I got him in the slaughter house. I really want to try to mount this head, but we didn’t have any success trying to taxidermy the wolf heads. So at least with this one I will get antlers mounted. Sean doesn’t know it yet but I have been drying out the skull of the first wolf he killed. I am planning on making a desk for him and set it on that.

I grabbed the fishing pole, my bow and arrows, and a couple spears on my way to the lake. I thought even if I didn’t catch anything it would be a great place to run through some of this stuff. I found a couple of beetles as I found a spot on the rocks. The house was really looking great, and I think I will have a hard time leaving it when the time comes. The lake is almost like glass today and I haven’t seen a single fish go by. The sun felt fantastic and the air had a hint of coolness to it.

I know I am struggling with this Sean thing. But, look at that great house, we did this together. Sure I could have kept a distance as just friends, but then I don’t think he would have been as invested in our survival if we hadn’t been involved. Wait, I am not trying to say that’s why I wanted to get it on. It had been a long time without anything, you know what I mean man? That’s not it either. Sean is cool to hang with and I seen him looking at me, what’s the big deal about getting your rocks off with someone who wants it? So what if I noticed he’s a good looking guy, I’ve noticed lots of good looking guys before without being gay. I just want to see him smile, it makes me feel better when he looks at me ‘that way’. It isn’t like we’re in love. Ugh, whatever.

I was all in my head and not seeing what had drifted right in front of my face. Whoa, where the fuck did that come from? It looks like it has been bobbing in the water like this for several years. But, why hasn’t it just sank to the bottom? This thing looks like its gotta be 20 or more feet long. The nose and the front of the cabin of a kick ass boat, from back in the day, was just bobbing in the water. I am guessing the cabin has had enough air pressure in it to keep it floating. We NEED this boat! I took the fishing pole out of the water and tried to get across the rocks as fast as I could. As soon as I hit the sand I ran for the house. The bay door is closed tight so I had to push on the knob sticking out with force to make it slide, but the key is to put my feet in a sprinter position triggering a board that pushes the locking pin down. Without that it goes nowhere. I dashed in and grabbed the longest ropes we had.

After I got to the closest tree to the water I tied a slip knot around it. With a long ass rope around my neck and the one tied to the tree on my left arm I started wading towards the boat. It’s still pretty far away. Fuck I hope I have enough rope. I reached the end of that rope after I couldn’t touch the bottom anymore. Now I’m trying to keep my head up above water and tie the ropes tightly together. As I get to the boat I still have plenty of rope left to tie it to the deck cleat tie down and to a rail, in case it gives way. I try to peak inside but I am getting tired and I don’t want to put any weight on the boat, so I just swam back to shore. I released the knot and used the tree as a wench. I kept a loop of rope around the tree tied with a strong knot, just in case it pulls away from me. After what seemed like forever, I managed to get it grounded just off shore. It looks so big with more of it sticking out of the water now.

With the boat secured and the fact that it isn’t even noon yet, I am fucking exhausted. I mean it, I got nothing left. The house never looked farther away than right now. But, I just take it like a man and push on. Everything is still quiet so I decided to go up and check on Sean. Before I can make it to the stairs I can hear the shower running. Do I dare? Shit, who am I kidding? I am so hard right now and I haven’t even taken a step in that direction yet.

The door is open as I peek into the shower. Sean is running his hands through his hair and steam is filling the room. I practically rip my clothes off in the hallway and shut the door as I enter. Sean just smiled his crocked smile that turns me on. “Dude, I love your crocked mouth.”

“Is that your best line? Well, it works on me.” Sean nodded his head and I shoved my tongue into his mouth. We were so excited to repeat the day before. But, I am willing to bet that if we keep this pace, I’ll be dead in a week from sheer exhaustion. It hasn’t been easy getting to this place in my head, but free if judgement from others, my senses are magnified 100%. It’s as if I might never get a chance like this again and I am going to give it every ounce of energy that I have in me.

After we finished our attempt to procreate, I told Sean about the boat. He was so excited he threw open a window and stared. “What do you think happened?”

“I really don’t know other than it had enough air trapped inside to keep it from sinking completely. Let’s see if we can get it on the beach.” I shoulder butted him and he smiled. He closed the window and we went to the workshop to gather ropes. Sean came out of the woodshed with a piece of branch about 3 inches diameter and maybe 5 feet long. “What’s That for?”

“I want to try something. Let’s go.”

Sean dropped everything at the edge of the beach. As soon as he went in the water Jake came out of nowhere and jumped in with him. I stayed back working out how to get it on shore. Not long after, my wet boys were standing with me looking at it.

“Well, I am excited to see what we can do with it. We’re going to need to get it off the sand to thoroughly go over the hull. Say it’s not repairable, I would want to entertain the idea that we build a boat around it. Still, if it’s just not any good, I want the windows and anything metal or plastic.” Sean sounds excited.

“Yeah, what do you say we get it off to the side over there. There aren’t as many rocks, and it’s deepest over there for launching. I was thinking too, we could build a structure around it to work on it.” Sean nodded so we worked on pulling it along the coast instead of bringing it in. Then the deeper it would get, Sean and I would move our bench log so he would use the branch he brought as a lever. He tied the rope to the branch, then wedged it to the back side of the log. We both pulled and closer and closer we got to getting it beached. Boys a genius I tell ya.

All our efforts got the front of the boat just past the breaking waves on the beach. At this point we agreed to leave it tied to a couple trees and create something to get it completely out of the water. “Hey, I have another surprise. Come on, follow me.” Sean and Jake were 2 steps behind me. When we got in the house and to the door for the slaughter house Sean gave me the look saying, alright what is it. I gave him, you’ll see in one second. “Oh my God! How did you get it in here?”

I told Sean the story as we were getting ready for butchering this fine specimen. I am truly proud of this one. The speed we can do this now is incredible. I would have never believed I would ever do this, let alone Sean. Yet, here we are. There was still a decent amount of time left in the day for a short hike with Jake after getting all the meat stored. I even have the skin stretching. I need to clean it more tomorrow, but it’ll be fun to hike a bit.

“Which way do you want to go Sean?”

“How about follow the beach and cliffs along that direction?” Funny I had been planning that very thing and just kept getting distracted.

“Great idea , lead the way.”

Jake is getting so big, he is really starting to look like a wolf in my mind. I have to remind myself that he’s still a wild animal, so if he doesn’t want to do something or he wants to leave, we need to let him decide for himself. The dogs I’ve had before and my relationship with them was more parental dominance, this one is being formed with respect. Don’t get me wrong I do not fear him, I just don’t want him to feel anger or jealousy towards either of us.

“Hey Sean, do you smell that?” It’s a pungent familiar odor.

Sean sniffed the air, “Smells like mint. Look here it is, there’s lots of it. I knew I brought Jakes puppy carrier for a reason.” Then Sean winked at me and scratched Jakes head.

I made sure to grab some with good roots, maybe we can transplant it. We each took a leaf to suck on, pretty good just like that really. Moving on we were really climbing across rocks and close to the cliff above. I’ve been focusing on possible mollusk’s or crayfish when I heard Sean yell my name. I suddenly realized they had gotten pretty far ahead of me. “Zach, look up there!”

As I take each step I get a better view of a cave almost to the top. The landscape starts descending further out from there, but I don’t see a clear way to get to it. We stand put next to each other surveying the area. “What do you think Zach?”

“Well, we need to agree on some markers and come back up there. Maybe we can find a way down to it. But, it’s getting late, I think we should be getting back.” As I turned I saw what a white looking stone a few feet from us. I made my way to it and thought it was a crystal. Kinda cool, so I picked it up to show Sean. I handed it to him and went to scratch my nose, and that’s when I realized what it was. “It’s…salt. Sean that’s salt.” He looked like I was joking with him. He brought it to his mouth, stuck out his tongue and BAM his eyes got huge. “Do you see more?”

Hell yes we did. We had 6 large softball sized chunks and 2 pockets full of marble sized. We were giddy heading back to the house. As soon as we walked in I went out with two old pots and dug up some good dirt to plant the mint in. They were starting to look wilted by the time I got them in the pots. But after I gave them some water and placed them on both sides of the front door, they were already looking better. In fact they looked great in front like that.

I found Sean in the kitchen with some kind of stone bowl. He was using a oval / round stone to crush the salt in the bowl. “That’s pretty cool Sean, where’d you get the idea for that?” He stopped and looked at me like I must be joking. Well I looked back like fuck you.

Sean smiled, “ It’s a molcajete, native Americans used them to make all kinds of things. In fact I even made this from a lava rock I found which is traditional.” I watched for a while and was amazed at how much salt we actually had. I got more wood in the main fire and under the hot water tank. I was confused when I saw Sean grabbing meat jars and wiping salt on the meat. The pork jar was getting pretty iffy so I chopped up chunks and put them in Jakes dish. He wasted no time digging into that. The bacon was still good so I decided to fry some up with a couple small chunks of venison and raspberries. I put on the kettle with mint for tea. Before long we had a great meal and preserved meat stored in clean jars.

We’d been using a wax I found after boiling some berries, as it turned out the berries weren’t any good to eat but they made great wax. Well we use it as soap and candles, I even use it on some wooden things over the animal grease for better shine without the greasy feel. For the candles I made a collection of clay dishes for the wax and tiny cordage we’ve weaved. I sometimes put wood shaving dust in the wax as a scent provider. I got the idea after Sean mixed in wild flowers in the soaps we use. He even uses the old pots to transplant certain flowers he prefers to use. He puts them in strategic spots to mimic the light where he found them.

“High five buddy, to a great day.” Sean giggled as I grabbed him into a hug from behind. “I like the smell of your skin.”

“Zach, you really make me feel good.”

“I wish we could sleep together at night.”

“Yeah, but I kinda like my free time while you’re sleeping Zach.” He turned and kissed my neck. “Plus, we have Jake to cuddle with.”

“I know, but he doesn’t let me take advantage of him like you do.”
Sean wiggled free and we both laughed. “Come on Jake, how about keeping me warm for a bit.” And I winked at Sean. Jake got in our usual position where I put my arm out and he puts his head on it.