Nathan’s an interesting one.
He gives a sense of the wild man of Bourneo, always on some kind of adventure,
whether he wants to or not. But it’s really a question of catalyst, of company.
In the right group he becomes a light switch of laughs and strange, alarming
faces. But most of the time, he wanders off, in a boat, or on his own two feet.
Hunting, fishing, or just –ing. Most of the time you’d never know what he
actually did out there.
But once in a while, he’s
fasting for days, or sporting a Mohawk.
When the whole gang gets
together, that’s something. He loves to hunt. I wonder if it’s the challenge of
overcoming his opponent, or if he just enjoys nature.
“Let’s go driving,” he says
after the Thanksgiving meal. He means down a logging trail, never out of first
gear. Your head is bobbing against the ceiling as the car shakes like a tumbler
at a bar. We spent twenty minutes getting around a rock.
It was something to see. Just
imagining those trucks hauling logs on that dirt road, chewing it into dog
meat. A few were scattered about like the wreck of an old cabin.
He’d rather tie a chain to a
tree and drag his jeep over a hill, and almost burn out the engine, than turn
around.
