Mn Bts by Janice Willard When I bought the forty acre parcel of Adirondack pine forest, it had a clearing around a two-bedroom log cabin which could only be accessed from a rutted dirt road. The county promised to pave it once a lumber company was finished logging, but never did. I wanted a retreat, a quiet place to make art or write without neighbors, traffic or power lines. I had a gas generator for heat, electricity, and plumbing and a large fireplace with a never-ending supply of wood just outside my door. My dog and I walked some part of the land almost every day. On our excursions I found a grove of maple trees planted in a circle which produced buckets of sap that I collected and cooked down for syrup in the spring. Deeper into the woods I discovered some wild blackberry and strawberry patches that the deer and I shared during the summer. In a field just beyond a small creek that split the property in half, I explored an undamaged brick chimney standing amid the remains of a burnt-out homestead. Behind it was a family cemetery with ten headstones too weathered to read. While hiking the northern five acres one afternoon, I found an old rusted VW beetle that appeared to be planted in the side of a grassy hill. The roofless car was retrofitted with a thick tin slab for protection from the elements. It sat adjacent to a large wooden cable spool, draped with a piece of red and white oilcloth anchored by a cast iron frying pan. There were two flannel shirts and a pair of bib jeans hanging on a rope tied between pine limbs. A large pair of blue moonboots sat near the stone fireplace with no sign of their owner. At first I was upset that someone, maybe a hobo, seemed to be living on my property. The realtor never mentioned it. The bank inspector never saw him, but a few locals knew of a gaunt white-bearded man living for years in the woods “out that-a-way.” I decided to talk to the sheriff in town next time I needed provisions. I continued my walk another mile or so until I came to a cold pristine mountain spring. There were several corked glass bottles wrapped in rags lined up in neat rows. I could see my “intruder” was using the water but barely left footprints or disturbed the environment. I took a pencil and pad out of my pocket and left a note under a rock. “Dear tenant, I’m okay with you using this water. There’s more land here than I need. Please allow me peace and quiet and I will do the same.” I filled my water jugs and walked back just before sundown. The next morning outside my screened porch door I found a large soda bottle filled with
Santa Fe Literary Review
49