North Woods by Daniel Masonb EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author:Daniel Masonb
- Language: English
- Genre: Contemporary Literary Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
THEY had come to the spot in the freshness of June, chased from the
village by its people, following deer path through the forest, the valleys, the
fern groves, and the quaking bogs.
Fast they ran! Steam rose from the fens and meadows. Bramble tore at
their clothing, shredding it to rags that hung about their shoulders. They
crashed through thickets, hid in tree hollows and bear caves, rattling sticks
before they slipped inside. They fled as if it were a child’s game, as if they
had made off with plunder. My plunder, he whispered, as he touched her
lips.
They laughed with the glee of it. They could not be found! Solemn men
marched past them with harquebuses cocked in their elbows, peered into the
undergrowth, stuffed greasy pinches of tobacco into their pipes. The world
had closed over them. Gone was England, gone the Colony. They were
Nature’s wards now, he told her, they had crossed into a Realm. Lying
beneath him in the leaves, in the low hollow of an oak, she arched her neck
to watch the belted boots and leather scabbards swinging across the wormy
ceiling of the world. So close! she thought, biting his hand to stifle her joy.
Entwined, they watched the stalking dogs and met their eyes, saw
recognition cross their dog-faces, the conspiring shiver of their tails as they
continued on.
They ran. In open fields, they hid within the shadows of the bird flocks,
and in the rivers below the silver veil of fish. Their soles peeled from their
shoes. They bound them with their rags, with bark, then lost them in the
sucking fens. Barefoot they ran through the forest, and in the sheltered,
sappy bowers, when they thought they were alone, he drew splinters from
her feet. They were young and they could run for hours, and June had
blessed them with her berries, her untended farmer’s carts. They paused to
eat, to sleep, to steal, to roll in the rustling meadows of goldenrod.
In
hidden ponds, he lifted her dripping from the water, set her on the mossy
stone, and kissed the river streaming from her tresses and her legs.
Did he know where he was going, she asked him, pulling him to her,
tasting his mouth, and always he answered, Away! North they went, to the
north woods and then toward sun-fall, trespassing like fire, but the
mountains bent their course and the bogs detained them, and after a week
they could have been anywhere. Did it matter? Rivers carried them off and
settled them on distant, sun-warmed banks.
The bramble parted, closed
behind them. In the cataracts, she felt the spring melt pounding her
shoulders, watched him picking his way over the streambed, hunting
creekfish with his hands. And he was waiting for her, winged in a damp
blanket which he wrapped around her, lowering her to the earth.
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