The Survivors by Will Weaver

taking out one earbud. “Just tell me what to do.”
    It’s supposed to funny, but his father doesn’t smile. Here in the north woods he’s a fish out of water. That, and being humiliated by the biker family back at Birch Bay, has broken something inside him. He looks older and smaller these days.
    â€œHome remodeling 101 starts in five,” Miles says.
    â€œBe with you as soon as I finish my coffee,” Artie says, holding up one of Mr. Kurz’s tin cups.
    Outside, in the hazy sunlight, Miles sets to work on the addition—the “kids’ bedroom.” It’s a lean-to, ten feet by ten feet, on the side of the cabin. The roof joists slant down to the vertical stud walls. Mr. Kurz’s cabin is made from hand-hewed logs, the adze marks still visible on the thick, gray wood. The Newell addition is built from boards found in the various lumber piles.
    Artie soon appears. “Tell me what to do,” he says, kicking at some boards.
    â€œGeneral carpentry,” Miles says. “A new career for you if the music thing doesn’t work out.”
    It’s a gesture to his father, a joke—his Shawnee Kingston Band is a well-known group in the Midwest—but Artie pauses to stare at his gloved hands. “Don’t let me cut off any of my fingers.”
    â€œI won’t,” Miles says.
    They start the work together by sorting boards. Mr. Kurz had his own sawmill, with a gas-powered engine (rusted and dead). Around it are stacks of graying planks, boards, and slabs—some with rotted wood on top but with solid ones deeper in the pile. Behind the big, rusty circular saw blade is a mound of dust. Like the wood, it is gray, but only on top; if you kick away the crust, the sawdust is yellow and piney-fragrant underneath.
    â€œHere’s a couple of good ones,” Artie says, and begins to drag them out.
    â€œToo thick,” Miles says. “We need boards, not planks, for the roof.”
    They work in silence, carrying boards together, one of them on each end, as they stage them beside the skeleton frame.
    â€œYour mother told me she met some family in a canoe,” Artie says.
    â€œGot caught, you mean. I wish she’d pay more attention.”
    â€œShe’s a city girl. Like me,” Artie says with a glance to Miles.
    â€œWell, we’re country people now,” Miles answers.
    â€œMore like forest people,” Artie says, pausing to look around.
    â€œBut forest people with plenty of food,” Miles says. “If there’s any time to be off the grid, it’s now.” He motions to his father to pay attention to their work.
    â€œTrue,” Artie says. “But try not to be so tough on them,” he adds, meaning Nat and Sarah. “They’re doing the best they can.”
    â€œWe all have to be on guard all the time,” Miles says. “The minute we let down our guard, something bad will happen.”
    His father stops. “You know, Miles, it’s good that you’re protective,” he says. “But I don’t want you to obsess on our safety.”
    â€œSomebody has to,” Miles shoots back.
    His father purses his lips as if about to say something. Instead, he lifts another board.
    â€œRemember our trip up here from the city?” Miles continues. “Our ninety-dollar breakfast at the Golden Arches? Those dudes who chased us at the Dairy Queen?”
    â€œYes,” his father says, “but we have to believe that most people are basically well-intentioned.”
    â€œYou sound like Anne Frank,” Miles says, “and we all know what happened to her.”
    Artie grunts and lifts his end of the stack of three boards. They drop the boards onto the pile and keep working. With hammers, they nail boards horizontally onto the vertical studs and make a rising exterior wall.
    After a while, his father straightens up to wipe sweat from his face. He looks at their work.