Mary and Alvin Ch. 11

Mary's giggles turned to moans. "Jeez," she said, in a long, sighing exhale.

Alvin gave out a ragged, breathy laugh.

"Say it," he said.

"No," Mary moaned.

Alvin shoved his cock into her hard. "Say it, Mary."

"Jeezum crow," she gasped. Alvin was still laughing when he came. Mary continued to push back against him until she came as well. He kept stimulating her clit, and she felt wave after wave of pleasure surge through her until it became almost unbearable and she begged him to stop.

Alvin rolled off her and and she nestled against him. From somewhere in the distance, they heard a series of deep howling sounds.

"Is that an owl?" Mary asked.

"Barred owl," Alvin replied.

"You can tell what kind of an owl it is?"

"Yes," Alvin replied, "and if you like, tomorrow night I can show you how they fuck."

"You fuck me just fine, my love," she said, and fell asleep in his arms.

****

Alvin unzipped the sleeping bag slowly, trying to get up without waking Mary. He managed to get it open far enough to slip out, but when he lifted his weight to stand, the air mattress tilted and she rolled over with a murmur. He paused for a moment and waited, but she was still asleep. It was dark in the tent, but a thin line of gray light penetrated the front flaps. The air was damp and Alvin felt stiff as he opened the tent and looked out. The sun was up, but a heavy fog shrouded the camp. He could barely make out the cabin, thirty yards away.

Mary blinked her eyes open and for a moment wondered where she was. Then she saw Alvin silhouetted against the opening.

"Hey, Mister Porcupine," she said, stretching.

Alvin chuckled and turned to her. "Good morning, baby." He sat on the edge of the mattress and leaned forward to kiss her forehead.

"Wicked foggy out there," he told her.

"Well, I could sleep longer, but I really have to pee."

Alvin found her jeans on the floor and handed them to her. While she wiggled into them, he stood up and began to get dressed.

"Could you pass me over my suitcase?" Mary asked. Alvin pushed it over to her, then went outside while she finished dressing. Somewhere nearby a chickadee began to sing, but the world was otherwise quiet and still.

Mary emerged from the tent. She gave Alvin a quick kiss on the cheek, then scampered to the cabin and went inside.

The cabin consisted of one large open room. There was a kitchen area near the door. Diana stood in front of an ancient gas stove, drowsily waiting for the coffee pot to boil.

"You're up early," she said in a quiet voice, "If you're smart, you'll grab a shower before the rest get up. There won't be enough hot water for more than two or three people."

"Oh, I will, thanks," Mary replied. "What will the rest do?"

"Wash up in the lake."

"Yeah, I'd rather not do that." The bathroom was on the opposite side of the cabin, past a long rough wooden table and a pair of worn vinyl couches. In the far corner, a pair of bunk beds stood in an alcove.

Mary used the toilet and brushed her teeth, then got in the shower. The water pressure was low, but the warmth felt luxurious. After only a few minutes, though, there was a knock on the door, so he hurriedly finished.

Charlotte was waiting when Mary opened the bathroom door. They exchanged greetings and Charlotte ducked inside. Diana was preparing breakfast. Mary joined her and in a few minutes they had a tray of sausage in the oven and Mary was flipping french toast on a cast iron griddle, while Diana woke the other campers. She wondered why Alvin had not come inside. She looked out the window and saw a battered pickup truck in the dooryard. Alvin stood next to it, his hands on his hips, talking to a small elderly man in a red and black flannel jacket two sizes too large for him and a frayed Red Sox cap. A huge black dog was dancing around the two men's legs.

Diana came up next to Mary and looked out. "Oh, Harry's here. I wasn't sure he would make it up."

Mary remembered hearing something about Harry. "He's your uncle?" she asked.

"Yes, my mother's older brother. Do me a favor, would you, dear? Laura is rousting the kids. Could you go over and bang on the camper and tell Tim and Molly that if they want breakfast they had better get up? I will finish in here."

"Sure," Mary said. She stepped out of the cabin. The big dog trotted over and began sniffing her.

"Fang!" the older man yelled, "Goddamn it, get the frick away from her. Go chase the goddamn ducks or something."

The dog looked at him and wandered away, exploring the ground with his nose. Mary walked over to Alvin and his uncle.

"This must be the new girlfriend," Harry said, looking Mary up and down.

"Yes, this is Mary. Mary, this is my uncle, Harry."

"Mary and Harry," the old man said in a thick Maine accent, "sounds better than Mary and Alvin, don't it?"

Mary laughed nervously and said, "Diana asked me to tell everybody that breakfast is ready."

"Don't have to ask me twice," Harry said, turning to the door. Alvin and Mary watched him go.

"I'm thinking ol' Harry liked the looks of you," Alvin said. "First Theo, now Harry."

"You're still my first choice," Mary said, kissing his cheek. "I have to go rouse Tim and Molly."

She went to the camper and knocked on the door. There was a muffled response she couldn't make out, but she was sure she had awakened them, so she walked back to Alvin. She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her chin on his shoulder.

"How are you doing, honey?" she asked him, "You're moving a little slow this morning."

"Just a bit creaky from the damp air,' he said, "I'll limber up once we get moving around."

They went inside and joined the family at the table. Everyone was chatting about how they intended to spend their day. The kids were all excited because Tim had promised to take them hiking in the woods, while the adults were mostly looking forward to a quiet day of relaxation. There was some debate about whether or not the lake was still warm enough for swimming. When Tim came in, Alvin asked him if he would help take the canoe up the river.

"How far up you want to go?" Tim asked.

"North Fork, I think," Alvin replied.

Mary asked how far that was. "Seven, eight miles," Alvin said, "Easy miles at that."

Mary had no idea how hard miles could be and still be considered "easy" by experienced canoeists, but she trusted Alvin to know.

When all the french toast and sausage had been eaten, the family began to scatter to it's various activities. The kids decided to brave the cold lake water while they waited for Uncle Tim to return from taking Mary and Alvin upriver.

Alvin and Tim came from around the cabin carrying a ten foot long green canoe. They hoisted it into the back of Alvin's pickup. Alvin fetched a cooler from the cabin, while Tim went and got a pair of paddles.

Tim got behind the wheel while Mary and Alvin climbed in from the passenger side. Theo ran up, begging to ride along, but there was no room for him.

As they began down the road, they saw a cloud of dust ahead, and pulled to the side. A car came towards them. It was Jennifer and Dani. They pulled up alongside the pick up.

Alvin leaned across Tim and celled out to Jennifer, who sat in the car's passenger seat.

"What kind of a farmer are you gonna be if you're always the last one out of bed?"

"That's why I don't plan to milk cows," she shouted back.

They waved goodbyes and all went on their way. A flock of wild turkeys scattered as Tim turned on to the highway. They drove for fifteen minutes, the woods broken only occasionally by a dirt road, until they rounded a curve and came to a crossroads. To their right, a narrow river emerged from the trees and wound alongside the road. Tim slowed and pulled over near where the highway crossed it.

The shoulder of the road dropped gently to the river's edge. Alvin and Tim lifted the canoe from the truck bed and carried it down to the water, setting it half in the river and half on the bank. Alvin put the cooler in the middle and strapped it down with bungee cords. He fished in his pocket and handed Mary a plastic baggie.

"Zip your phone in there. Take it out if you want to take pictures or anything, then zip it back up. Just to be on the safe side. You're not likely to get any reception anyway."

Mary did as instructed, and Alvin gestured for her to get in the canoe.

"Front or back?" she asked.

"You sit in front. The person in the stern does the steering and whatnot."

Mary stepped into the canoe. It wobbled a bit and she put out her hands to maintain her balance.

"You'll be fine," Alvin said, "take your time."

Mary sat down on the front seat and looked over her shoulder. Tim handed her a paddle. "Theo and I came through here a month or so back. Plenty of wildlife," he told her.

Alvin shook his brother's hand. "See you back to camp in a few hours," he said, and the two of them pushed the canoe forward. Alvin jumped in just as it cleared the bank.

They drifted for a minute, moving towards the center of the narrow river. Then the canoe turned, facing downstream. Mary saw Tim wave from the cab of the truck and drive off.

"Did you do that?" she asked Alvin, "Make it turn?"

"Yes, I did. Now look back here."

Mary turned and Alvin showed her how to hold her paddle. He gave her a quick tutorial in steering and turning. "But up to the front all you generally need to do is paddle. Switch from side to side as you feel comfortable, I will follow your lead. And rest whenever you want. I can paddle alone, we'll just move some slower."

Mary faced forward again and began to paddle.

"No, not short and choppy like that," Alvin instructed, "long, smooth strokes."

She adjusted her motion and Alvin said, "That a girl. Nothing like a long smooth stroke, is there?"

Mary lifted her paddle and splashed some water back at him. "Don't be a jerk," she laughed.

They soon were moving down the river at a slow but steady clip.

"What's the name of this river?" Mary asked.

"I already told you."

"I know, but I want to hear you say it again."

"The Passagaugus"

Mary grinned. "And how far are we going?"

"It's about seven miles to where it comes out to the lake, then it's a mile or so along the shore to camp. Ought to be able to do it in less than three hours if we don't dawdle." After a moment he added, "We are likely to dawdle."

The river flowed slowly for the first couple of miles, winding through a thick forest. Tim had been right about the wildlife. They had not gone more than a few hundred yards before they saw a pair of does drinking from the bank. Mary tried to get their picture, but only captured a blurry shot of their retreat into the trees. She did better a few minutes later. Alvin gently nudged her shoulder with his paddle. When she looked back at him, he put his finger to his lips, then raised it and pointed to a dead tree branch over the river ahead of them. Mary followed his finger and saw a bald eagle perched on the branch. It watched with regal indifference as they approached and then passed beneath it.

"I got a bunch of pictures!" Mary said, excitedly. She was not as lucky when a great blue heron broke from a stand of reeds less than ten feet from the canoe.

For a while a dirt road ran alongside the river. They passed a few houses, but saw no people. Alvin explained that they were probably vacation homes and the occupants were most likely back in Connecticut or New Jersey by now.

The water began to move faster.

"It's going to get a little bumpy," Alvin said, "just hold on and let me handle it."

Mary laid her paddle across her lap. Despite her confidence in Alvin, she felt a moment of fear when she saw the white water swirling ahead. But he skillfully steered the canoe close to the right bank, skirting the largest rocks. There were a couple of hard bumps, but they easily coasted clear of the rapids and into calmer water. The river widened here, and Alvin cut across the pool to a grassy spit of land. He grounded the canoe there.

"We call this the Beavertail," he told Mary, "good a place as any for our lunch."

Mary stepped out of the canoe and stretched. She looked around and saw a fire pit surrounded by large smooth logs.

"Seems like lots of people stop here," she said.

"Maybe too many," Alvin replied, bending to pick up a couple of beer cans from the grass. He dropped them into the bottom of the canoe and retrieved the cooler. They sat down, side by side on one of the logs. Diana had packed them a lunch of cold chicken and macaroni salad, left over from the previous night's supper. They ate and watched the river flow by and listened to a symphony of birdsong. Alvin identified the sounds of chickadees, phoebes and titmice.

When they were ready to resume their journey, Alvin untied the padding from the front bench of the canoe.

"What are you doing?" Mary asked.

"You paddled enough today for a novice," Alvin said. He dropped the cushion on the floor of the canoe in front of the rear bench. "Sit back here, with me."

Mary got in the canoe and sat on the pads. Alvin pushed off from the shore and climbed in behind her. He sat on the bench and she leaned back between his legs, draping her arms over his thighs.

"Oh, now this is how to travel," she said. Alvin leaned down and kissed the top of her head.

"Just don't jump up sudden," he told her, "or you might take a paddle to the head when I switch sides."

They passed easily through a second short stretch of rapids and continued downriver. The current had grown faster, but Mary still had plenty of time to enjoy the scenery and snap plenty of pictures. She got a shot of a pair of wood ducks, idling near the shore, and was quick enough to catch a dozen turtles, sunning themselves on a log before they all vanished beneath the surface. A great stand of birches caught her eye, their black and white bark a sharp contrast in a world of green.

Mary saw something floating in the water ahead of them. As they passed it, she saw that it was a small green and red apple. Before she could ask Alvin about it, she saw several more. Alvin anticipated her question. "River apples," he said. She thought he would tell her some tall tale about them, but he guided the canoe close to the shore and she saw a twisted tree hanging precariously over the river. It's branches were heavy with apples. Several more bobbed in the water beneath it and as they neared, another dropped with a plunk. Alvin had to duck as they passed beneath the tree. He reached up and picked an apple and bit into it.

"A little tart," he said, "not bad." He picked another and handed it to Mary. It was tart, but she didn't mind. The fact that they were eating apples they had picked in the wild seemed marvelous to her. She wondered how an apple tree came to be growing so deep in the woods.

"This was all farmland once," Alvin explained. "People think these woods are ancient, but they're not. Damn near the whole state was clear cut back in the day. Bangor was the lumber capitol of the world."

"Look ahead." He pointed to a tumbled stone wall that ran through the woods a few feet back from the water's edge. "That was a mill once. And you can't walk a mile in the Maine woods without coming upon a stone wall that was the border of a farm. And think of it. Every one of those stones come from a farmer's field."

"So what happened to them?"

"They moved on, to the Midwest or to Oregon. It's said that during the Civil War, many soldiers saw that life was not as hard elsewhere, so when the war was over they come back to grab the wife and the mule and headed straight out west."

"That's sad," Mary said.

"It is sad, Mary. When I am out here, I feel like I am in a hallowed place, like a memorial to all those hard lived lives."

Mary turned and looked at him. He was gazing off in the distance, lost in thought. Impulsively she took his picture. He looked at her. His eyes were misty. She reached up and put her hand on his shoulder. She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him.

"You haven't had the easiest life yourself, sweetheart," she said.

"Better than most, I reckon," he replied. "Got a lot better a few months back."

Mary settled back into her seat. "So did mine, baby."

The current slowed and the woods began to thin. The wall of trees was broken by areas of tall grass and stands of cattails. Suddenly Mary felt the canoe come to a stop.

"Did you do that?" she asked Alvin.

"Yes. Shhh." In a very quiet voice he told her, "Look to your right. Move slowly, no jerky motions."

Mary followed his instructions. They had come to a stop alongside a flooded field of reeds. Among the reeds, no more than thirty feet from them, stood a massive female moose. It was staring at them, chewing a mouthful of wet vegetation.

"Get your camera, just move slow," Alvin said.

The moose was much bigger than Mary had imagined one to be. She had always pictured a large deer. This animal was the size of a huge draft horse, of the Clydesdales she had seen on television. She was frightened, and her hand shook a little as she raised her phone and began taking pictures. As she did so, she saw movement in the reeds. From behind the moose, her calf appeared, wobbling on its long legs.

"Alright," Alvin whispered, "Best we move on if she's got her young with her. Don't want to agitate her." He began to paddle, but Mary had time to get several good pictures of the mother and her offspring together. She felt elated to have seen them.

A few minutes later, they coasted out the mouth of the river and into the lake. It seemed vast after the confined space of the narrow river. Alvin set a course along the shore. They passed a few cabins, all empty. Some would be used again when deer season started, Alvin explained, others were shut up for the year. It reminded Mary that she would soon be facing her first Maine winter.

The Faulkner camp came into view. Rachel was sitting at the end of the dock, reading her ever present book. It reminded Mary of her own teenage years. She had not been so deeply introverted as Rachel, but she remembered feeling awkward and insecure.

Alvin steered the canoe into the shore alongside the dock, jumped out into the shallow water, and pulled it up into the grass. Mary climbed out and stretched. Alvin took the cooler from the canoe and began to walk up the slope towards the cabin. Charlotte, Jennifer and Danni were all sunning themselves on the lawn, and murmured sleepy greetings.

"Hey, honey," Mary called to him, "I'll be up in a bit." She walked down the dock to where Rachel sat, dangling her feet in the water.

"Hi, mind if I sit down?" she asked the girl.

Rachel shrugged, "No, it's okay."

Mary kicked off her shoes and sat down. The cool water of the lake felt soothing. "What are you reading?" she asked.

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."

"Oh," Mary smiled, "I remember when that came out. My Mom took my brother Danny and me to Waldenbooks. You couldn't buy the book until midnight, so they had a big party and we got to stay up late. My Mom made me a costume and everything."

"Hermione?"

"Nope. Tonks."

"Cool!" Rachel laughed.

Mary was pleased to see Rachel's face light up. She stroked the girl's hair, then stood up. "Listen, Rachel," she said, "I have a bazillion books. Any time you want to come over and borrow some, I would be glad to let you take a look."

"Thanks, Aunt Mary."

Aunt Mary.

Alvin stood in the open back door of the cabin. He could not make out Mary's conversation with Rachel, but he saw her touch her head and he heard them laugh together. As he watched Mary walk towards him, he realized that his relationship with her had become something bigger than the two of them. She had a relationship with his daughters and with his siblings. His nieces and nephews were calling her Aunt Mary.