Early Autumn Part 14

"No. Susan told me that."

"Well, she's crazy."

"I know you don't know any better, but that's against the rules."

"What?"

"Speaking badly of another person's beloved, you know? I don't want you to speak ill of her." We were in Fryeburg Center.

"Sorry."

"Okay."

We were quiet as we drove through the small open town with its pleasant buildings. It was maybe fifteen minutes to North Conway. We bought Paul a pair of Nike LDVs just like mine except size 7, and a pair of sweat pants.

"You got a jock?" I said.

Paul looked embarra.s.sed. He shook his head. We bought one of them and two pairs of white sweat socks. I paid and we drove back to Fryeburg. It was ten when we got to the cabin. I handed him his bag of stuff.

"Go put this stuff on and we'll have a run," I said.

"A run?"

"Yeah."

"I can't run," he said.

"You can learn," I said.

"I don't want to."

"I know, but we'll take it easy. We won't go far. We'll run a little, walk a little. Do a little more each day. You'll feel good."

"You going to make me?" Paul said.

"Yes."

He went very slowly into the cabin. I went in with him. He went into his room. I went into mine. In about twenty minutes he came out with the new jogging shoes looking ridiculously yellow and the new sweat pants slightly too big for his thin legs, and his scrawny upper body pale and s.h.i.+very-looking in the spring sun. I was dressed the same, but my stuff wasn't new.

"We'll stretch," I said. "Bend your knees until you can touch the ground with both hands easily. Like this. Good. Now without taking your hands from the ground, try to straighten your knees. Don't strain, just steady pressure. We'll hold it thirty seconds."

"What's that for?" he said.

"Loosen up the lower back and the hamstring muscles in the back of your thighs. Now squat, like this, let your b.u.t.t hang down toward the ground and hold that for thirty seconds. It does somewhat the same thing."

I showed him how to stretch the calf muscles and loosen up the quadriceps. He did everything very awkwardly and tentatively as if he wanted to prove he couldn't. I didn't comment on that. I was figuring out how to run with a gun. I normally didn't. But I wasn't normally looking after anyone but me when I ran.

"Okay," I said. "We're ready for a short slow run. Wait till I get something in the house." I went in and got my gun. It was a short Smith & Wesson.38.I took it from its holster, checked the load, and went out carrying it in my hand.

"You going to run with that?" Paul said.

"Best I could think of," I said. "I'll just carry it in my hand." I held it by the cylinder and trigger guard, not by the handle. It was not conspicuous.

"You afraid they'll find us?"

"No, but no harm to be safe. When you can, it's better to deal with possibilities than likelihoods."

"Huh?"

"Come on, well jog. Ill explain while we run."

We started at a slow pace. Paul looked as if he might never have run before. His movements seemed unsynchronized, and he took each step as if he had to think about it first.

"Say when you need to walk," I said. "There's no hurry."

He nodded.

I said, "When you're thinking about something important, like if your father might try to kidnap you again, it's better to think of what the best thing would be to do if he tried, rather than trying to decide how likely he was to try. You can't decide if he'll try, that's up to him. You decide what to do if he does. That's up to you. Understand?"

He nodded. Already I could see he was too winded to talk.

"A way of living better is to make the decisions you need to make based on what you can control. When you can."

We were jogging up a dirt road that led from the cabin to a larger dirt road. It was maybe half a mile long. On either side there were dogberry bushes and small birch and maple saplings under the tall white pines and maples that hovered above us. There were raspberry bushes too, just starting to bud. It was cool under the dappling of the trees, but not cold.

"We'll hang a right here," I said, "and head along this road a ways. No need to push. Stop when you feel the need and we'll walk a ways." He nodded again. The road was larger now. It circled the lake, side roads spoking off to cabins every hundred yards. The names of the cabin owners were painted on hokey rustic signs and nailed to a tree at the head of each side road. We had gone maybe a mile when Paul stopped running. He bent over holding his side.

"St.i.tch?"

He nodded.

"Don't bend forward," I said. "Bend backward. As far back as you can. It'll stretch it out"

He did what I told him. I hadn't thought he would. An old logging road ran up to our left. We turned up it. Paul walking with his back arched.

"How far did we run?"

"About a mile," I said. "d.a.m.n good for the first time out"

"How far can you run?"

"Ten, fifteen miles, I don't know for sure."

Walking on a felled log, we crossed a small ravine where the spring melt was still surging down toward the lake. In a month it would be dry and dusty in there.

"Let's head back," I said. "Maybe when we get back to the road you can run a little more."

Paul didn't say anything. A redheaded woodp.e.c.k.e.r rattled against a tree beside us. When we got back to the road I moved into a slow jog again. Paul walked a few more feet and then he cranked into a jerky slow run behind me. We went maybe half a mile to the side road leading to our cabin. I stopped the jog and began to walk, Paul stopped running the moment I did.

When we were back to the cabin, I said, "Put on a sweat s.h.i.+rt or a light jacket or something. Then we'll set up some equipment."

I put on a blue sweat s.h.i.+rt with the sleeves cut off. Paul put on a gray long-sleeved sweat s.h.i.+rt with a New England Patriots emblem on the front. The sleeves were too long.

We brought out the weight bench, the heavy bag, the speed bag and its strike board, and the tool chest. Paul carried one end of the tool chest and one end of the weight bench.

"We'll hang the heavy bag off this tree branch," I said. "And we'll fasten the speed bag to the trunk."

Paul nodded.

"And we'll put the weight bench here under the tree out of the way of the heavy bag. If it rains we'll toss a tarp over it."

Paul nodded.

"And when we get it set up, I'll show you how to use it"

Paul nodded again. I didn't know if I was making progress or not I seemed to have broken his spirit.

"How's that sound, kid?" I said.

He shrugged. Maybe I hadn't broken his spirit

CHAPTER 17.

It took about an hour to set up. Most of that time was spent getting the speed bag mounted. I finally nailed through the strike board into two thick branches that veered out at about the right height. For me. For Paul we'd have to get a box to stand on. It took three trips in and out for me to get the weights out Paul carried some of the small dumbbells. I carried the bar with as many plates as I could on either end, and then went back and carried out the rest of the plates in a couple of trips.

"Now, after lunch," I said, "we'll work out for a couple of hours and then knock off for the day. Normally we'd do this in the morning and build the house in the afternoon, but we got a late start today because we had to get you outfitted, so we'll start the house tomorrow afternoon."

For lunch we had feta cheese and Syrian bread with pickles, olives, cherry tomatoes, and cuc.u.mber wedges. Paul had milk. I had beer. Paul said the cheese smelled bad. There were a couple of camp chairs outside the cabin, and after lunch we went out and sat in them. It was one thirty. I turned on the portable radio. The Sox were playing the Tigers.

Paul said, "I don't like baseball."

"Don't listen."

"But I can't help it if it's on."

"Okay, a bargain. I like the ball game. You like what?"

"I don't care."

"Okay. I'll listen to the ball game when it's on. You can listen to whatever you want to any other time. Fair?"

Paul shrugged. On the lake a loon made its funny sound.

"That's a loon," I said. Paul nodded.

"I don't want to lift weights," Paul said. "I don't want to learn to hit the punching bags. I don't like that stuff."

"What would you rather do?" I said.

"I don't know."

"We'll only do it on weekdays. We'll take Sat.u.r.day and Sunday off and do other stuff."

"What?"

"Anything you want. We'll go look at things. We'll fish, shoot, go to museums, swim when the weather's warmer, see a ball game in case you learn to like them, eat out, see a movie, go to a play, go down to Boston and hang around. Have I hit anything you like yet?"

Paul shrugged. I nodded. By two thirty the Sox were three runs ahead behind Eckersley and our lunch had settled.

"Let's get to it," I said. "We'll do three sets of each exercise to start with. We'll do bench presses, curls, pullovers, flyes, some shrugs, some sit-ups. We'll work out combinations on the heavy bag and I'll show you how to work the speed bag."

I hung a big canteen of water on one of the tree branches. It was covered with red-striped blanket material and it always made me feel like Kit Carson to drink from it.

"Drink all the water you want. Rest in between times. No hurry. We got the rest of the day."

"I don't know how to do any of those things."

"I know. I'll show you. First we'll see how much you can work with. We'll start with bench presses."

I put the big York bar on the bench rests with no weight on it.

"Try that," I said.

"Without any weights?"

"It's heavy enough. Try it for starters. If it's too light we can add poundage."

"What do I do?"

"I'll show you." I lay on my back on the bench, took the barbell in a medium-wide grip, lifted it off the rack, lowered it to my chest, and pushed it straight up to arms' length. Then I lowered it to my chest and pushed it up again. "Like so," I said. "Try to do it ten times if you can."

I put the bar back on the rack and got up. Paul lay on tie bench.

"Where do I hold it?"

"Spread your hands a little, like that. That's good. Keep your thumbs in, like this, so if it's too heavy it won't break your thumbs. I'll spot you here."

"What's spot?"

"I'll have a hand on it to be sure you don't drop it on yourself."

Paul wrestled it off the rack. It was too heavy for him. His thin arms shook with the strain as he lowered it to his narrow chest I had a hand lightly at the midpoint of the bar.