Leave the Living by Joe Hart Read Free Book Online

car, its steel bones covered by a tough, black canvas skin that flapped in the icy breeze. A scoop shovel protruded from the bank outside the little house, and a long ice saw stood beside it, its ancient teeth hooked and flecked with frost.
    He gained his bearings and realized his father was right. They always put the house on the edge of the drop-off, which was another fifty yards at least from the spot it sat now. The water couldn’t have been over seven feet here, not as prime as the border of deeper water where the larger fish liked to glide. He unzipped the small access and stepped inside.
    The space within the house was a mere eight-foot square. An extension of the fabric that covered the rest of the frame layered the floor, giving way to a wide patch of exposed ice that was used to spear through. The ice was skimmed over but not more than an inch thick. Without thinking about it, Mick plucked the heavy ice chisel from where it rested against the wall and began to punch the hole open. In less than a minute, the block was free, and he pushed it beneath the ice, shoving it out of the way. The water was clear and cold. It radiated a chill even from a standing distance. He wondered what it would be like to fall into its biting embrace, how the sting of liquid would be so cold it might seem hot. The bottom was as close as he’d estimated, and he shook his head, wondering why his father would ever agree with Gary to move the house here.
    Mick stood there and took inventory. Everything was present to begin spearing. The wind shoved at the hide of the house, and he considered just leaving it at its current location. It would be some work to move it the fifty yards to the better spot, not to mention cut the new hole. He could sit down right now, fire up the gas sunflower heater in the corner, drink his beer, and toast his father. The slanted writing on the sheet of paper still lying in the kitchen floated through his mind, the last chore not crossed off. What would he do with it when he climbed back to the house? Throw it away? Burn it? He imagined them both, hesitating for only a moment before turning toward the door to gather up the equipment.
    Within a half hour, he had the house moved and the hole cut. A lone white pine that soared above the others lining the bank could still be seen through the haze of snow, and it was this that he used for a landmark to place the house. With a shove of the chisel, he pushed the much more considerable ice chunk down and out of the view of the lake bottom. The freezing water flooded the area for a moment, soaking into the snow and melting it away before beginning to solidify. When it had drained back, he situated the house properly and secured it down, throwing shovelfuls of snow against its sides to bank the structure solid. When he at last stepped inside, his face was numb and his fingers were beginning to tingle though the rest of his body was overly warm from the exertion. With a flick of a switch, the heater began to redden at its top, pouring heat into the little hut.
    It was already dark inside and became like midnight when he zipped the door closed to the prodding weather. The open hole glowed and threw translucent light up onto the black walls as if he were somehow suspended upside down in a cave and it was the promise of escape seeping inside the oily gloom. Mick situated a small chair beside the open water and sat, picking up a pail of large potatoes. After a moment of searching, he came up with a folding knife in one of the coat’s pockets, most likely the object that had tapped against the beer bottle. He began to slice the potatoes into thin discs that he dropped, one after another, into the water. The bright flesh of the vegetable flashed and flipped over and over until it reached the muddy lake bottom where it rested, allowing him to see if a fish passed between him and where they lay, shining through the murk like huge cataract eyes.
    The space was beginning to heat up,