American Youth (eBook)

The two boys walked the high ridge at the center of the wood road, avoiding the muddy ruts along the sides. Loggers had powered their hulking machines along the makeshift pathways--the huge skidder tires clawing deep cuts into the soft earth. The men had taken the timber of any value and only the undesirable trees remained: the young, the mangled and twisted, the rotten and sick. The boys made their way through the difficult clutter of leftover branches that now thatched the forest floor. The sun broke the sparse canopy and beat on their sweating necks.

Terry caught a toe on the cut end of an exposed root and stumbled into several lurching steps. His backpack rattled. The other boy sidestepped the splintered butt of wood and quickly tiptoed around a small birch stump. Terry stood a head taller than the boy and he was half again as broad, but he wore his body like an oversize suit. The boy was still small and nimble, but he wasn't happy about it. He looked at Terry's body and he wanted one of his own. Terry's neck and arms were thick like a man's. The backpack looked like a child's toy, dangling between his broad shoulders.

Terry tripped again. 'Cocksucker,' he said. He hopped the rut at the side of the path and took a seat on a broad stump. The cut wood was still pale and creamy. White sawdust clung to the dead leaves on the ground like early snow. Terry bent over his knees and clutched the laces of his work boot. He wore them untied and loose, as was the fashion in their school for boots and high-tops. Now he straightened his leg and leaned back, pulling the boot tight. He bow-tied the laces and set to his other foot.

The boy eyed Terry's hands and forearms as he pulled. They were covered in coarse red hair that matched the color of his closely shorn scalp. The boy's arms were undefined. What hair he had on his body was blond and thin.

Terry grunted when he stood. He hopped back on the trail. The boy was six months his senior, but Terry's size earned him the lead through the maze of skid roads. When Terry wondered which way to proceed, the boy pointed knowingly from behind. He'd grown up hunting the Darling land with his father and uncle. But several years back, Mr. Darling had died and his children had sold the property to a developer. Within weeks, no trespassing signs surrounded the four hundred acres. Within months, the land had been subdivided and the town's zoning board confronted with plans for a handful of upscale housing developments.

In effect, the boys were trespassing, but there was no one around to catch them. When the economy had gone bad and stayed bad, the development stopped. The groaning cement trucks quit their runs in and out of the new neighborhoods. The swarms of subcontractors disappeared and the developer's Mercedes no longer made its rounds about town. It was rumored that the money from the recent logging contract was all he had left to fend off foreclosure.

The boys walked out into the clearing of Woodbury Heights, the last of the developer's projects. He'd pushed the road into the woods, paved it, and even managed to cut several of the prospective house lots before the recession settled in. Piles of soil and unearthed boulders now cluttered the landscape. Leafless trees lay prone, their roots reaching elliptically into the air. The deep black of the new pavement stood out from the mess of the rest of the scene.

The boys made their way to the culvert at the end of the road. The August sun hung heavily on the two and came back at them from the hot blacktop.

'You sure?' the boy said.

Terry nodded. He slid his arms out of the backpack and pulled out three glass bottles.

'How you...