Loon Lake by E. L. Doctorow

elaborate camps there thus inventing
the wilderness as luxury.
Loon Lake a high mountain retreat cratered as purely cold and
clear in the mountains as water cupped in your hands.
    I n the morning the old man, Bennett, gave them all woolen ponchos and took them for a speedboat ride on the lake. She sat up front between him and Tommy. Tommy put his arm around her but she preferred to lean forward in the lee of the windshield where she avoided the wind if not the cold space it left as it blew by.
    The little flag in the stern flapped like a machine gun. In the back seat there was no protection at all and they were truly unhappy. The cigarette was whipped out of Buster’s mouth and taken in the air over the wake by a black-and-white bird, some sort of gull. She saw that, having turned to smile back at them, her knee just touching the old man’s pants leg, and Buster, looking startled, saw it too. It seemed to fall away into the sky; He faced her stupidly, his mouth still open and a piece of cigarette paper pasted on his lower lip.
    She knew Bennett was showing off for her, rearing the mahogany speedboat through the waves as if it were Buck Jones’ Silver. The sky was very low and the tops of the hills around the lake were shrouded in clouds. The clouds drifted through the trees and she was startled by that intimacy. She thought clouds should stay up in the sky where they belonged.
    They had come to the closed end of the lake. The old man throttled down and the boat settled flatter in the water. There were marshes here and dead striplings poking out of the water. He headed straight for the trees and she felt Tommy clench up until a notch appeared in the shoreline. They went into a channel at slow speed and rode serenely by a beaver lodge of wet dark sticks and mud. The old man pointed it out.
    She imagined the beaver pups inside their lodge lying on shelves just out of reach of the wavelets lapping their feet.
    Then they were out in an even bigger lake with the hills somewhat farther away and a broad stretch of sky higher over everything. It turned out the old man owned this lake too. She wondered if he trained the crazy bird who came down from the sky for a cigarette.
    ——
    Later, in the boathouse, Buster was so relieved at having survived travel on water that he told everyone about the bird.
    That was a loon, the old man said, a kind of grebe. They all respectfully considered this intelligence.
    You knew that didn’t you Buster, Tommy said.
    They put their ponchos back on the wall pegs and reclaimed their fedoras. There were other speedboats in the boathouse, each in its own berth. There were racks with wooden canoes. It was a brown log boathouse with casement windows in the same style as the big house up the hill.
    There was a man there to take care of everything.
    Bennett led the way. She noted how easily he moved up the path, his back straight, beautiful white hair. These people knew as no one else how to take care of themselves. He was dressed for the outdoors, with boots and a red plaid flannel shirt.
    She held Tommy’s arm and enjoyed the warmth of the land on her back. It looked as if the sun might burn through the clouds. She felt good. She felt like dancing. She watched her own feet walking in their strap shoes. They were grown-up-looking feet. She was arm in arm with Tommy, pulling him in close, trying to match strides up the hill. She watched his small black wing-tipped shoes pacing along, their shine ruined, and the cuffs of his pin-stripe flapping dust from the ground.
    Up ahead the party was met by a fat guy. He saw her and stood as if struck by lightning. He had been coming down to the lake but turned now with another glance at her over his shoulder and ran along behind the old man.
    She held Tommy’s arm, held him back and let them all go out of sight up the hill.
    You’ve got to be joking, Tommy said.
    She rubbed against him. She kissed him and ran her tongue over his lips and leaned back from him