Homestead


 Contents
 
 Title Page
 Copyright Notice
 Dedication
 Epigraph
 Chapter 1. Pioneer Peak
 Chapter 2. Moose Lodge
 Chapter 3. North, Two Crossings
 Chapter 4. Against The Lean
 Chapter 5. Rut
 Chapter 6. Fools Fall
 Chapter 7. Bite The Day
 Chapter 8. Winter Circle
 Chapter 9. Cold Til Morning Come
 Chapter 10. Howl of The Blizzard
 Chapter 11. Swing High, Swing True
 Chapter 12. Fit to be Tied
 Chapter 13. Hands God Gave Us
 Chapter 14. Skin Over Bone
 Chapter 15. Yonder Spirits
 Chapter 16. Close Holler
 Chapter 17. Eye in The Grain
 Chapter 18. One Does with Warning
 Chapter 19. A Log Cabin, A Life
 Chapter 20. This Ole House
 Chapter 21. Through The Flare
 Chapter 22. What Could be Lost
 Chapter 23. Of The Days
 Chapter 24. Winterkill
 Chapter 25. In The Territory
 Chapter 26. A Given Name
 Chapter 27. Homestead Proof
 Chapter 28. Autumn Creek
 Chapter 29. Birch Bark Call
 Chapter 30. Lay a Hand
 Chapter 31. Salt and Smoke
 Chapter 32. Still and Watching
 Chapter 33. Ice, Snow, Tree, Sun
 Chapter 34. Rattle
 Chapter 35. Almanac
 Chapter 36. Old as a Mountain
 Chapter 37. Solstice
 Chapter 38. Harvest
 Chapter 39. Fireweed
 Chapter 40. Reckon
 Acknowledgments
 About the Author
 Newsletter Sign-up
 Copyright
 
 
 
 Guide
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Dedication
 Contents
 Chapter 1. PIONEER PEAK
 Acknowledgments
 Copyright
 
 
 
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 Begin Reading
 Table of Contents
 About the Author
 Copyright Page
 
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 For those who wander
 
 
 So my life was split up. The logic of it also. This is my proof. We lived at our homestead, well rid of the world.
 —WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS,IN THE AMERICAN GRAIN
 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER 1
 PIONEER PEAK
 
 
 JUNE 1956
 GOD MADE THE TREES and men make the kindling, they say. One hundred and fifty acres of white spruce and paper birch, alder, aspen, cottonwood, and willow—spears of evergreen pointed at the sky, and the pale and peeling bark, and the leaves of every branch—all for the taking if the acres are proved. Fell the trees and clear twenty acres of land to seed a crop, raise a cabin with nails and timber, and weather the seasons. This is the way to earn and own the deed.
 Lawrence stands where the cabin will stand, the marsh and muskeg easing miles toward the marine inlet of Knik Arm, and beyond, the sloped rock of the Chugach Mountains, and the soaring crest of Pioneer Peak cragged in snow, the highest point on the horizon. Here, in this place, the low rising to meet the bluff on the northern ridgeline, and to the south, the thick-lain woods that lead to the lake that has water for hauling. On these acres in Point MacKenzie, in the territory of Alaska, is where he will homestead.
 He had considered the map at the Bureau of Land Management as the man looked on, the parcels divided and numbered, free, and no price to be paid, though there were conditions. Traced his hand over the paper and waited for a feeling, a jolt of decision. So many prospects before him, and he closed his eyes, and asked for a sign, and when he looked again everything in him aimed toward the dot of a small lake. “You sure?” said the man, stern. “Most take more than a glance.” He was certain. With the weight of his left hand he wrote his signature, Lawrence J. Beringer, on the promissory title for lot 041180. Took the map he was given, and as he was leaving Lawrence heard the man say, “Bastard won’t survive the winter.” Grit in his teeth, the official papers in his grasp, and he drove to