Hatchet

Patience, he thought. So much of this was patience - waiting, and thinking and doing things right. So much of all this, so much of all living was patience and thinking.

He did not know how long it took, but later he looked back on this time of crying in the corner of the dark cave and thought of it as when he learned the most important rule of survival, which was that feeling sorry for yourself didn't work. It wasn't just that it was wrong to do, or that it was considered incorrect. It was more than that--it didn't work.

And the last thought he had that morning as he closed his eyes was: I hope the tornado hit the moose.

That's all it took to solve problems - just sense.

When he sat alone in the darkness and cried and was done, all done with it, nothing had changed. His leg still hurt, it was still dark, he was still alone and the self-pity had accomplished nothing.

He could not play the game without hope; could not play the game without a dream. They had taken it all away from him now, they had turned away from him and there was nothing for him now...He was alone and there was nothing for him.

He had to keep thinking of them because if he forgot them and did not think of them they might forget about him. And he had to keep hoping.

Things seemed to go back and forth between reality and imagination--except that it was all reality.

Brian looked back and for a moment felt afraid because the wolf was so... so right. He knew Brian, knew him and owned him and chose not to do anything to him. But the fear moved then, moved away,and Brian knew the wolf for what it was - another part of the woods, another part of all of it.

He could see it now. Oh, yes, all as he ran in the sun, his legs liquid springs.

the most important rule of survival, which was that feeling sorry for yourself didn’t work.

It was a strange feeling, holding the rifle. It somehow removed him from everything around him. Without the rifle he had to fit in, to be part of it all, to understand it and use it - the woods, all of it. With the rifle, suddenly, he didn't have to know, did not have to be afraid or understand. He didn't have to get close to a foolbird to kill it - didn't have to know how it would stand if he didn't look at it and moved off to the side. The rifle changed him, the minute he picked it up, and he wasn't sure he liked the change much.

Not hope that he would be rescued--that was gone. But hope in his knowledge. Hope in the fact that he could learn and survive and take care of himself. Tough hope, he thought that night. I am full of though hope.

Everything was green, so green it went into him.

I am full of tough hope

Maybe it was always that way, discoveries happened because they needed to happen.

He moved to the trees. Where the bark was peeling from the trunks it lifted in tiny tendrils, almost fluffs. Brian plucked some of them loose, rolled them in his fingers. They seemed flammable, dry and nearly powdery. He pulled and twisted bits off the trees, packing them in one hand while he picked them with the other, picking and gathering until he had a wad close to the size of a baseball. Then he went back into the shelter and arranged the ball of birchbark peelings at the base of the black rock. As an afterthought he threw in the remains of the twenty-dollar bill. He struck and a stream of sparks fell into the bark and quickly died. But this time one spark fell on one small hair of dry bark—almost a thread of bark—and seemed to glow a bit brighter before it died. The material had to be finer. There had to be a soft and incredibly fine nest for the sparks. I must make a home for the sparks, he thought. A perfect home or they won’t stay, they won’t make fire. He started ripping the bark, using his fingernails at first, and when that didn’t work he used the sharp edge of the hatchet, cutting the bark in thin slivers, hairs so fine they were almost not there. It was painstaking work, slow work, and he stayed with it for over two hours. Twice he stopped for a handful of berries and once to go to the lake for a drink. Then back to work, the sun on his back, until at last he had a ball of fluff as big as a grapefruit—dry birchbark fluff.

The memory was like a knife cutting into him. Slicing deep into him with hate. The

Well, he’d actually never heard anybody say it. But he felt that it should be true. There

If his mother hadn’t begun to see him and forced the divorce, Brian wouldn’t be here now. He

He could not at first leave the fire. It

He was out of food, but he could look tomorrow and he could build a signal fire tomorrow and get more wood tomorrow . . . The

about four inches down, he suddenly came into a small chamber in the cool-damp sand and there lay eggs, many eggs, almost perfectly round eggs the size of table tennis balls, and he laughed then because he knew. It had been a turtle.

It must have been a snapper

He widened the hole with his finger and looked inside.

No, not secrets so much as just the Secret. What he knew and had not told anybody, what he knew about his mother that had caused the divorce, what he knew, what he knew--- the Secret.

The burning eyes did not come back, but memories did, came flooding in. The words. Always the words. Divorce.

He had to keep thinking of them because if he forgot them and did not think of them they might forget about him. And he had to keep hoping. He had to keep hoping.

There were these things to do.