Wayward Island

Wayward Island (Part 13) How Jake and Henry harvested ice for the ice house By Jake Preston

Reader restrictions: no minors, no readers who are offended by explicit descriptions of gay sexuality. The story as a whole is a psychological study of gay athletic hunks who love nerds, and the nerds who love them in return. The story also deals with the problems faced by gay guys who live in rural areas. If these themes don't interest you, there are many other great "nifty" stories to choose from. Send comments and suggestions to jemtling@gmail.com. Jake will respond to all sincere correspondents.

Donations to Nifty keep juices flowing and fires burning. Click "donations" at the Gay Male Stories headnote.

Henry Hasek wasn't born a hockey star. He played better than most of his teammates in Ninth Grade Hockey, but the next year he was almost invisible as a tenth-grader on the varsity team. His talent became apparent early in the season during eleventh grade, when his game as a forward sometimes resulted in last- minute scoring.

This was a remarkable achievement for a junior, especially in Hibbing, where (as in other Iron Range towns) hockey is king above football, basketball, and baseball. So far as I know, the only other places where hockey is so important are Bemidji and Canada. When I played defense for Bemidji State College, our hockey team played an exhibition game each year with the Main U (Minnesota). The BSC team won every year, because most of its players came from Hibbing and Winnipeg. Our victories were downplayed down-state, perhaps to avoid the embarrassment that a superior team from a small college was excluded from conference competition. But we knew who we were. The BSC-Main U exhibition game was well attended each year.

Henry's ambition was to play forward for Bemidji after graduating high school. He chose BSC for its hockey team. Even so, he was a serious student. His father Ben saw to that. Still, Henry's newfound fame brought him problems. Girls in high school expected him to ask them out on dates. He started dating, but stopped when he realized that the girls gossiped about how he didn't try to have sex with them. More than one girl's Mom hoped that he'd come back, since he was such a gentleman, but Henry had demons to fight.

Because of its history as a mining town, Hibbing is labor-union friendly. Republicans get few votes there, except from outlying farmers. Even so, it's a working-class town, an unfriendly environment for gay men. Henry was afraid that his teammates might learn he was gay, but he couldn't keep them at a distance. That would contradict team spirit.

So while Henry struggled to understand his emerging sexuality, he had to fake being straight in the limelight of emerging popularity as a hockey-star. During these weeks he had no one to turn to for advice. His mother had moved to California, and he had no clue that his Dad was gay too. An inverse relation between fame and loneliness developed when Henry's hockey-playing improved and his team racked up winning games. The more he got pushed into the center of attention, the lonelier he felt. It was like the loneliness of the long-distance runner, only worse, he thought. At least Colin Smith had the luxury of solitude when he fought his demons while running cross-country outside the walls of Ruxton Towers, the borstal where he was imprisoned for robbing a bakery.

It was never Henry's desire to be a publicized as a varsity star-that was the work of Hibbing's sports reporter and a television crew from Duluth. The media became the message. During after-game interviews, Henry recited the accomplishments of his teammates, mentioned their names, and always gave details about their contributions to the game. He had a very specific memory for this sort of thing; the gift served him well in his academic work, too. In particular he cited the defensive players and the goalie, whose talents are always taken for granted by spectators. A typical comment from Henry: "We wouldn't have won if Ronnie Arvila hadn't stopped the goal in that last play by Biwabik. It was Ronnie's game, not mine." No one but Henry and his teammates believed this. Henry thought it an exact description. To the sports reporters it was humility and grace, just another angle in their "Henry Hasek" stories, a prop in the fuss for fame.

I got to know Henry well. I remember that evening in late November when Ben first took me home with him. It was Henry, not Ben, who insisted that I stay the night. At the time, I hadn't a clue what was going on with Henry. Now I understand. It was a eureka-moment for Henry when he first saw Ben and me together. Suddenly he knew that his father was gay, just like him. He approved his Dad's choice, a handsome stud half his age. For the first time in his solitary life of gay sexuality, he wasn't alone in his body. Now he could confide in his Dad as a mentor. He adopted me as a role model, and counted on Dad to keep me around. A week later, he was stunned when Ben came home with Sam Black Bear. "Jake's a terrific guy, and I love him as a friend," Ben explained, "but I need to be with someone my own age. Try to understand, Henry. I know you like Jake and you wish he'd be around more often, but Sam is in love with me, and I'm starting to feel the same way about him. Besides, we'll be visiting Jake at the Wayward Island lodge. And at his cabin: he's cleared snow from the ice to make a skating rink, just for you."

Starting early in December, Henry's dad Ben, Sam Black Bear, and Red Hawk sat in the stands at each game. They attended the away-games, too. Some folks in Hibbing recognized them as a fan-club of three-including two guys from the Res, where (some said) they should stay. Were they friends of Henry's Dad? Some folks wondered, but after each game, the bonding of Henry and Red Hawk looked like more than friendship. Some folks speculated that Henry and Ben had cousins on the Res. They tried to remember is Ben's absent wife had Chippewa features. Others tried to put two and two together: Henry could have dated almost any girl in school, but instead he hung out with an unknown Ojibwe from the Res. Most Hibbingites never ventured there. That added to the mystery of Red Hawk.

"The Indians are helping Hasek rebuild his cabin," some folks said, flaunting their knowledge of current events in Ashawa. They wondered why Ben turned to the Res for help, but never gave a thought to helping him themselves. "Maybe he's into civil rights," some folks said. That was possible. During our on-going effort to collect logs and lumber for the new cabin, our lumberjack crew decided to start a Habitat for Humanity movement in Orr and Crane Lake. My cousin, Dave Prescott, became an enthusiastic supporter. He made it his one and only charitable cause. He watched them work on my land-Peter Brave Heart, Matt Aseban, Jim Beaver Trail, and Steve Waabooz-and offered them jobs on his lumber-concession. Peter and Jim needed jobs, and accepted his offer. Now I'm sorry for the snide remarks I made about Dave.

Red Hawk lived in Crane Lake and was a senior in Orr High School. This was good luck for him and for Henry. The distance between Hibbing and Orr made it easy to conceal their romance from the prying eyes of people who thought that their permission was required before two lads could sleep together. Not that they would ever grant permission, but when it came to morality, they were the arbiters of sex. "No wonder Bob Dylan left Hibbing and never looked back," I said when I heard about this.

Still, Henry's welfare concerned me. I was concerned about Red Hawk, too. A young man in love thinks he's invincible. More than once I admonished them, "Be careful!" I was afraid they'd get caught kissing below the stands or at the door to the school gym. That never happened. Henry was more or less outed by a chain of unrelated events that I never saw coming.

A boy in Henry's class named Kevin was known to be gay. He didn't flaunt his sexuality, he wasn't a fem, and he never came on to other guys, but his self-effacing manner betrayed him. When schoolmates taunted him, he neither confirmed nor denied his sexuality. He had no friends at school. One day after class in the schoolyard in January, Henry happened upon a bullying scene. Two boys were beating up on Kevin. Henry came to his aid and broke the nose of one of the bullies. Henry was summoned to Juvenile Court. All of us-hunks from Wayward Island and Crane Lake-crowded the courtroom, Mrs. Ravitch was there too, to vouch for Henry's character. His coach and his teammates came to show solidarity with Henry. I commissioned my lawyer, Tony Benson, to represent Henry. He insisted upon an investigation of bullying in the school. The Judge was astonished, and just a bit irritated at the crowd of supporters in his courtroom. To avoid further trouble, he dismissed the case on grounds that the police officer cited Henry but no other boys in the fight.

After that, Henry and Kevin were best friends at school. The gossip about Henry took a different turn. Was he Kevin's boyfriend? Or was his boyfriend that mystery-man from the Res? What's his name, anyway? Henry dated girls, didn't he? Sure he did, but that stopped after the incident with Kevin. The incident with two bullies, you mean. He beat up two bullies. Yeah, but that was to help a gay guy. What's wrong with that? He's just a kid. He doesn't act gay. Well, maybe not, but.... That was the gossip, in a nutshell. In Ashawa the Swedes call it skadeglädje, this wicked desire to ruin the reputation of a star and proclaim, rather biblically, how are the mighty fallen, or pompously, the higher they rise the further they fall. Schadenfreud. Even so, Henry's teammates respected him for taking a stand, and for giving two bullies the licking they deserved. They respected Kevin because Henry was his friend. Kevin's life was a little less miserable.

"Is there life after high school?" I asked one Sunday afternoon when we reviewed these events at the lodge. Our meetings in the lodge were regular events, each Sunday after church in Crane Lake. "Some guys never grow up. I know it seems hard now, since you're only a junior, but trust me, Henry, after high school you'll be in college and none of this will matter."

Things could have been worse for Henry and Red Hawk. At times they had places where they could demonstrate their affection openly: at Ben's home, of course, and the lodge, and Mrs. Ravitch's studio, and my cabin, where they met to skate and sauna. In the sauna, their scene was unabashed eroticism. When they were there, Ben kept his distance, but the other guys sometimes enjoyed the spectacle of their foreplay. "The puppies," we called them. Of course they had models: me and Red Feather, Randy and Billy White Cloud, Ben and Sam Black Bear, sometimes me and Roger. Henry never understood why I would have two lovers, and why Red Feather and Roger weren't jealous of each other. "Don't try to understand, just admire," Ben told him.

Once in my cabin, Henry got moody while he sat by the fireplace with me and Red Hawk. He said he was thinking about "coming out" in school. "Don't do that!" I said, "If you must, wait until next year, when you're a senior and you have just a few more months to go."

"My only true friends are you guys in the lodge, and Mrs. Ravitch," Henry said.

"That's not so," I said. "Remember how your teammates stood by you in Juvenile Court. At some level of consciousness, they probably already know you're gay, yet they showed solidarity with you. Think about Kevin, too. If things got bad for you, for him they'd be worse."

"Pretending to be straight all the time, it's exhausting," Henry said. "Besides, our neighbors in Hibbing see Sam and Red Hawk at my place. Who knows what they're saying?"

"Henry," I said, "if you're serious about coming out, don't do it without talking to me first. Most people are tolerant of gays as long as it's "don't ask don't tell," but they won't like it if you're openly gay. Think about Red Hawk, too. You shouldn't do anything like that without his consent."

Henry and Red Hawk looked at each other. "If you come out in Hibbing, I'll feel obliged to come out in Orr," Red Hawk said. "That'll be a total surprise. I'm not sure I'm ready." Red Hawk looked to me for support.

"You think coming out will ease your pain, Henry," I said. "That might be true, or it might not be. Do you really know the cause of your pain? Maybe it's that you don't get enough time to spend with Red Hawk. Maybe it's because you need a support group, and I'll bet Kevin does, too. It won't help if hostile people know you're gay. They'll use it as a wedge to take advantage of you. Besides, if you're openly gay, guys on opposing sides in hockey will start ganging up on you. They'll 'accidentally' stab you with their hockey sticks. I've seen that sort of thing happen over more trivial quarrels, even in high school hockey."

Henry looked thoughtful. Red Hawk seemed relieved that he had second thoughts, at least for now. "I couldn't take if you got beat up in a hockey game," he said. "I could take a lot of crap, but not that."

"Tell you what, guys," I said, "I'll talk to Billy White Cloud about using the Mission Church to sponsor a support group for teens in the region. You two and Kevin can be charter members. The meetings could alternate between the Mission Church and Mrs. Ravitch's home in Hibbing. You could meet here for skating, and at Wayward Island lodge for socials."

During the weeks of Henry's and Red Hawk's budding romance, "Apollo and Apelles" neared completion. The first panel featured Randy as Asclepius. He was on the far left, looking as if he would fall out of the painting. His face expressed terror, and pain from a bolt of lightning that opened his chest. The lightning bolt sundered Asclepius's clothing, so Randy got his shot at nude modeling, after all. It was a side profile, but partially frontal and faithful to Randy's nine-inch uncut cock. "Greek painters and sculptors did this often, representing male nudes in impossible positions that nevertheless seem natural," Mrs. Ravitch explained. In one hand Asclepius clutched a staff, entwined by an open-mouthed snake with defiant eyes, long fangs, and a double-pronged tongue aimed toward Zeus in the upper right corner. He looked down from Mount Olympus, angrily. At the center, Mrs. Ravitch painted a group of Asclepius's patients who were fleeing from the ruins of a hospital. Some were blind, lame, or wounded. On others the skin was marked with red or black blotches. In the far right, a horrified Apollo looked on Asclepius's tragedy. His recurve bow, clutched in one hand, repeated the position of Asclepius's staff. He knelt in a patch of delicate milkweeds.

The third panel was a cemetery scene with tombstones and a shrine at the center. It was a shrine for Apollo. His statue had come to life. At his feet lay Asclepius, wounded but still alive. Apollo held his recurve bow with an arrow aimed at the black-robed personification of death, red in tooth and claw from the sacrifice of a goat, whose carcass lay across an altar. Tom was the model for Death. His terrified expression mirrored that of Asclepius in the first panel.

For the central panel, the setting was Admetus's field of sheep and goats in Thessaly. Ewes nursed newborn lambs, and dams nursed kids and nannies- signs of prosperity that Apollo brought to Admetus. The field was powdered with hyacinths in clusters, and framed by cypress trees on each side, signs of Adonis's eromenoi, Hyacinthus and Cyparissus. At the center, lifelike at three-quarter scale, Apollo lay partly prone, partly on his side, while Admetus penetrated him from behind, intercursally. The upper half of his shaft was visible, several shades darker than his light brown body. Apollo clutched his recurve bow in one hand. Admetus clutched a thirty-inch arrow crosswise to the bow. Admetus's countenance expressed the resolve that he brought to his task as Apollo's erastes. As a first-time eromenos, Apollo grimaced in agony at the rupture of his virginity.

Red Feather and I met in the studio with Mrs. Ravitch to critique the painting. It looked finished to us, but Mrs. Ravitch wasn't satisfied. "Apollo's facial expression isn't right," she said. "He looks terrified, like Asclepius and Death in the first and third panels, but I'm not persuaded he's getting deflowered."

We got out the brandy and gazed on the painting. Mrs. Ravitch suggested a skull session. "We can talk about anything," she said. "Maybe some ideas about the painting will come to mind."

"Why male nudes, Anna?" I asked Mrs. Ravitch. Why not women as well?

"My reasons are philosophical, but it's a personal choice, too," she said. "For ancient Greek artists, Helen of Troy was the paragon of beauty. Renaissance artists revived this ideal, especially in Italy. Helen was an intriguing choice, because the Greeks imagined her affair with Paris as the cause of the Trojan War. Absolute beauty is enigmatically destructive, and unattainable. Greek painters and sculptors used three or four women as models for Helen, because no one real-life woman was perfect in beauty. The Greeks used the best qualities of several women to portray what they thought was perfection in beauty, but they almost always depicted her wearing clothes. Women are beautiful, but they almost always require fashion. For this reason, the presence of a woman in a painting symbolizes civilization. Besides that, a nude woman is beautiful in a limited range of poses. In most other poses, she looks awkward.

"The beauty of men is primal. They don't require fashion. If anything, fashionable clothing detracts from their beauty. Men are naturally more primitive, perhaps because they are less well developed on the evolutionary scale," Mrs. Ravitch continued. "That's what makes them so interesting."

"You mean we're all hairless apes?" I joked.

"Quite the opposite," Mrs. Ravitch said. "The hair of the ape is like fashion. A hairless ape would look awkward in any pose. 'Hirsute' is 'her suit'," she chuckled. "Forget about apes. Birds make a better analogy. In most species, the male is spectacular in his individuality, while the female is a generalized image of birdiness. Take the cardinals around here as an example: the male is bright red, with a crown, while the female is a rather dull brown."

"You speak like an anti-feminist, yet in your career you're the ultimate feminist," I said.

"Perhaps that's because I'm invested in male nudes," Mrs. Ravitch said. "Unlike women, men are flexible when it comes to poses. Naked men look awkward in some poses, like squatting when seen from the rear, but in most body- positions they appeal to the eye. For a woman you have to find 'her good side'. The range of poses is limited. And unlike Helen whose beauty must be reconstructed from a composite of several models, the dignity of male beauty can only be captured from a single model."

"What about Marilyn Monroe?" I asked.

"Ah, Marilyn Monroe!" Mrs. Ravitch exclaimed. Andy Warhol painted her dozens of times. Some critics think that this was a personal obsession. It wasn't. Marilyn Monroe was a technical study. She was Warhol's version of Helen of Troy. Instead of painting Helen from a composite of many models, he painted many pictures of a single model. He was looking for absolute beauty in her, but never quite found it. That's why he painted her many times over. Absolute beauty, as a universal idea, is unattainable, just like Socrates said. That's the meaning of Warhol's Marilyn Monroe portraits. They allude to ancient Greek portraits of Helen."

"And do you think that absolute beauty is possible?" I asked.

"I'm not a Platonist, my dear boy," Mrs. Ravitch said. "Absolutes don't exist, but perfect beauty is possible. Perfection takes many forms. It's easy to find in women wearing suitable clothing, and in male nudes. I've dedicated my artistic career to the dignity of the nude body, and I realized long ago that men make more interesting subjects than women, at least for me."

"Have you always used gay men as models?" I asked.

Mrs. Ravitch smiled. Red Feather sat beside me on the sofa. "I've worked with straight men and gay men," she said. "In Muyil Forest, when I painted the Water Hole Follies, I didn't know the orientation of any of the models. Most of them were straight, I suppose, including the guys who experienced anatomical hyperfunctions."

"Anatomical hyperfunctions?" Red Feather asked.

"I think Anna means that sometimes male models get unwanted hard-ons," I said.

"I call them hyperfunctions, not malfunctions, because it's perfectly natural, especially in young men who pose nude for a long period of time," Mrs. Ravitch said. "It happens quite often. Usually the model feels embarrassed, especially if another man is present. Early in my career, I tried to relieve the embarrassment by ignoring it. That never worked. I discovered that it was better to talk about it. I told the model that his extreme maleness made him hyperfunctional. That saves a guy's wounded pride. It also has the virtue of being true. As for gay versus straight, gay men are easier to work with. They're less distant. They're friendlier. They're willing to see themselves as partners in the project. Straight men act more like paid paragons."

I looked closely at Apollo's facial expression in the painting. I gave Red Feather a twenty-dollar bill and asked him to fetch a new bottle of brandy from the lodge. While he was gone, I told Mrs. Ravitch: "I have an idea about how to achieve the agonized look that you want, Anna." I told her about the night when Roger Johnson fucked me with a dildo. "That was agony," I said. "To model the scene, we'll need Roger's help. I wouldn't want Red Feather to see it, not the dildo action."

"Torn between two lovers," Mrs. Ravitch mused. "You know you'll have to give up Red Feather. I've heard from friends at Interlochen, and at Oberlin College. Technically, he's too old for Interlochen, but since he's still nineteen, they've accepted him for a summer workshop. It's intended for recent alums, but they're making an exception, just for him. It's only two weeks, but it'll look good on his resumé. As for Oberlin College, an acceptance letter is in the queue. He'll receive it soon, in the mail. That doesn't mean he's in the Music Conservatory. He needs to audition for that. We need to fly to Cleveland, and rent a car for a trip to Oberlin, preferably in February; in March at the latest."

Red Feather returned from the lodge, brandy bottle in hand. We broke the news about Interlochen and Oberlin. "So that's what you wanted to talk about while my back was turned!" Red Feather exclaimed.

Friday, after the hockey game in Hibbing, Red Hawk and Henry spent the night at my place, in two doubled-up sleeping-bags laid out by the fireplace. It was their pleasant duty to keep the fires going while Red Feather and I warmed each other in my bed. Ben stayed in Crane Lake with Sam Black Bear. Next morning they returned with the Chippewa elders to work in the woods. Red Feather and Red Hawk went to work with the volunteer lumberjacks. "I've got something else in mind for you, Henry," I said. "I'm harvesting ice for the ice house. I could use your help, buddy. It's something we do once a year, usually in January." Henry jumped at the chance to spend time alone with me. He loved Red Hawk, but I was his boyhood hero.

`We drove to the lodge, and borrowed Tom's truck, a Ford F-150. We drove across the ice to the far side of Wayward Island, in view of my cabin. I often use this spot for cutting chunks of ice from the lake. The ice was almost three feet thick. I demonstrated the process for Henry. First we cut a groove in the ice with an axe. When the groove was two feet deep, we used a chain-saw to carve out a square chunk of ice. We extracted the chunk from the water with an ice-prong. That was a two-man job, with one guy holding each prong-handle. We parked the truck a healthy thirty yards from our harvesting site, so hoisting the ice-chunks to the truck was a two-man job, too. Once we got the first ice-chunk, we didn't need the axe anymore. The chain-saw did all the work. "When I was a boy, they had to cut every piece with an axe," I said. "It took a lot longer." As it was, it took all morning to fill the truck with ice. After the first hour, I let Henry try his hand with the chain-saw. His first square of ice looked like it wanted to be a triangle, but he got the hang of it soon enough.

We drove the truck to my cabin and parked next to the ice house. We used shovels to dig a deep pit in the sawdust. There was still ice left over from the previous year. That's how effective sawdust can be in preserving ice. When half of the sawdust was mounted to one side, we slid the ice-chunks into the pit, one at a time, layer by layer. I showed Henry how to squeeze sawdust between the ice- chunks. "It's so the ice-chunks don't congeal into one thick layer of ice. Otherwise, we'd have to chop ice all over again, every time we need a new piece," I said. "We could do that, but it's more work than necessary."

We finished storing the ice in one-half of the ice house. We repeated the operation on the second half. We dug a second pit, and mounted the sawdust on the other side. By now our clothes were flaky with sawdust. We raised quite a sweat. "Looks like we're due for a sauna when we're finished," Henry said.

"I'm ready for a lunch break, and coffee," I said. I didn't agree to a sauna, but I didn't say no, either. We knew that the lumberjack crew would go to the lodge for lunch. That was Tom's contribution to the project of rebuilding Ben Hasek's cabin. It was nice, being alone with Henry. Our passage through the cabin was marked by a trail of sawdust, like the breadcrumbs dropped by Hansel and Gretel. Our conversation ranged freely, but returned to Red Hawk. We shared long silences, too, always the sign of security in a friendship. Henry liked it when we talked, but I think he enjoyed our silent companionship more.

While I was clearing up in the kitchen, Henry stood behind me and wrapped his arms around me. He pulled my shirt free from my belt and slid his hands over my abdomen and chest. He pinched my nips. His hands roamed back to my chest and my abdomen. "If you don't stop, we'll never be done with the ice house," I said.

"I want to see you naked, Jake, just for a moment," Henry said. I didn't say yes, but I didn't resist when he unbuckled my belt. He removed my shirt and lifted my T-shirt over my shoulders and head. He didn't toss these articles of clothing aside like Randy would have done. Instead he folded them carefully on the kitchen table. He knelt at my feet and removed my shoes and socks. He tugged at my jeans. I helped him pull them down. He pulled down my jockey- shorts. I stepped out of the rumple of jeans and shorts at my feet. He straightened the rumple, and folded my jeans, almost reverently, on the kitchen table. He gazed at my naked backside. I turned around and faced him. "You look better in real life than in Mrs. Ravitch's sketches," he said. Henry hadn't yet seen "Apollo and Apelles."

Henry moved in close. His hands roamed over my body. I let him kiss me. We shared an embrace.

"I don't want to be a prick-tease, Henry, but it's time we got back to work," I said. "You know that I love you, but we can't do this right now."

Henry agreed. Coming from his boyhood hero, the words "I love you" meant as much to him as his newly-won access to my body. He helped me get dressed. We returned to the task of laying ice-chunks in the ice house and layering them with sawdust. Our work was interrupted when Ma'ingan started barking. He growled: unusual for a laid-back lab. The intruder was Sheriff Nelson. Henry and I emerged from the ice house.

"Mr. Preston," the Sheriff said, "I've had a complaint that you're keeping an underage boy in your house for unnatural relations. You're under arrest. I've got to take you in." He gesticulated with a pair of handcuffs. Ma'ingan growled. Sheriff Nelson held his hand on his service revolver.

"Who made this complaint?" I asked. "It was your buddy, Willy Elbo, wasn't it."

"Let me put the dog in the cabin, and I'll go with you," I said. He put me in handcuffs, but agreed to let Henry lead Ma'ingan to the cabin. Henry was a quick thinker. His experience as a hockey player gave him grace under fire, as Hemingway would say. He snatched up his cellphone, and kept it on to record what happened.

The Sheriff pushed me into the back of his car and shouted, "Get in, Preston, fuckin' child molester," ordering me to do what I was already doing. He put Henry in handcuffs, too. "You, too, little Injun boy, get in," he said to Henry. The Injun boy didn't move fast enough to suit him, so Nelson hit him in the face. Henry cried out, maybe a bit louder than he needed to, and asked, "Why'd you hit me in the face, Sheriff?"

"Don't give me no lip now, Injun boy," the Sheriff answered gruffly. "I don't need no lip from no damn Ojeebie redskin queer." The Sheriff had mistaken Henry for Red Feather.

"How come you put this boy in handcuffs, if he's supposed to be a victim?" I asked.

"I don't trust either of you, queers and child molesters," Sheriff Nelson said. "You'll never see this place again, Preston," he bragged. "We know what to do with queers and child molesters. And you, worthless redskin, I'll bet your just as queer as this asshole Preston. Queers and child molesters, I'll bet there's a whole gang of them at that Wayward whatsit lodge." The Sheriff's taunts and insults continued, all the way to Ashawa. I suspected that he was high on some drug. I wondered of the Sheriff was Willy Elbo's heroin buddy.

Ashawa has a town hall that combines the mayor's office, the sheriff's office, and the volunteer fire department. The jail is in the basement. I had never seen it before. Henry and I were its only occupants. Sheriff Nelson was so eager to jail us that he didn't take time to search us. He put us in two windowless cells. Separated by a wall, we couldn't communicate with each other. "Don't we at least get a phone call?" I asked the Sheriff.

"The child molester wants a phone call. I suppose the Ojeebie queer wants one, too," the Sheriff said. "Well, no phone calls. I'll call Protective Services, that's it!

"I want to call my Dad," Henry said from the peep-hole in his cell door. Unknown to the Sheriff, he was already on the phone with Ben.

Minutes later, the Sheriff returned to say that the Protective Services officer was gone for the weekend. She couldn't see "Red Feather" until Monday, and even then, she'd have to drive here from Hibbing. "You boys will be guests of the town of Ashawa until then," the Sheriff said, "feeding off the government trough at taxpayers' expense."

Meanwhile, back at Wayward Bay, the lumberjack crew didn't return to my cabin until dusk. From the smoke they assumed that Henry and I were in the sauna. When they saw our ice-harvesting job left unfinished, they knew something was wrong. That's when Ben got Henry's call from the jail.

Mrs. Ravitch called my lawyer, Tony Benson. We had gone to school together, and knew each other well. Until now, his only business with me had been book contracts and real estate. When he showed up at my cell, I told him to talk to Henry first. In a low tone I said, "Sheriff Nelson thinks that Henry is Red Feather. He can't tell a Polack from a Chippewa. Don't clue him in." My lawyer went to the adjacent cell. Henry gave him the cellphone. "You'll find the Sheriff's comments very interesting," he told my attorney.

Benson went upstairs to talk to the Sheriff. A few minutes later, he came back to talk to me. "I can't reason with this guy," he said. "He won't even release Henry. It looks like you guys will have to spend the night here. I'll do my best to get you out tomorrow." I told him to call the mayor, and the Sheriff in Duluth. "When this is over, Henry will be suing the County for false imprisonment. And I'll be suing the County for false arrest."

I should explain that St. Louis County really has only one Sheriff, an elected official whose office is in Duluth. It's a desk job. The real law enforcement is executed by Deputy Sheriffs who are appointed by a county commission. They are in charge of local law enforcement, except in those few towns that are large enough to have police departments, like Duluth and Hibbing. These towns had Deputies, too, shared jurisdiction with municipal police. People in the North refer to Deputy Sheriffs as "Sheriffs," but they know they're really Dupties.

A crowd had gathered outside the town hall. It was our lumberjack crew, led by Mrs. Ravitch. Tom and Mrs. Ravitch were their spokesmen when curious townspeople stopped by. They spread the word about Willy Elbo's arson, and how he had put the Deputy up to jailing Henry, trumped up the charge against me. Their demonstration, a historical first for Ashawa, was joined by Ojibwe people from Crane Lake. Nelson's days as Deputy could be counted on the fingers of one hand, but Nelson was stubborn. The Sheriff in Duluth was at dinner and couldn't be reached-according to a voice on the phone. Henry and I spent the night in jail.

Henry and I discovered that we could communicate if we spoke loudly through our peep-holes. I asked Henry if he knew a play by Martin Sherman called Bent. He said he had seen the movie. "Think about the Dachau concentration camp," I said. "Think about Max and Horst. I'll be Max, and you'll be Horst. Try to imagine that we're together." We spent a restless night, making love intermittently in our shared imagination, just like Max and Horst at Dachau. Six blocks away, in an early hour before dawn, a small explosion shattered all the windows in the Chevrolet showroom on Highway 53. Sheriff Nelson found the remains of dynamite-sticks. The Sheriff couldn't pin that one on me, but he suspected my allies.

Next morning the Duluth Sheriff's office was bombarded with phone calls and emails from Ashawa, Crane Lake, and Hibbing. People protested the wrongful arrest of me and the false imprisonment of an Ojibwe boy. Many people had unrelated complaints about Nelson. The Sheriff got a call from the local Bureau of Indian Affairs office, urging him to look into reports of an apparent false arrest of a juvenile Ojibwe in Ashawa. He was concerned to learn from my attorney (Tony Benson) that the Sheriff had jailed a juvenile who was supposedly a victim, not a perpetrator, and alarmed when Benson said he could prove that Nelson jailed him for no other reason than because he was supposedly gay. "That's just the tip of the iceberg," Benson said. "We've got a huge problem on our hands Sheriff." The Sheriff sent one of his detectives to investigate.

The detective arrived at the town hall in Ashawa, accompanied by a court reporter. They had to pass through a crowd of demonstrators. The four Ojibwe elders demanded the release of their junior Shaman. Ben demanded the immediate release of his son, and informed the detective that Henry was working an ice- harvest with me, while he was dressing logs on my property. "So the boy's father was present the whole time while Preston and the boy were at work," the detective mused. A look of concern crossed his face. He told "Deputy Nelson" (so he called him) to meet with him and the principals at once in the town hall's conference room.

Henry and I were conducted upstairs to the conference room. When we got there, we found the detective seated at the head of a long table. A court reporter sat next to him; her task was to make an official record of the proceeding. "Deputy Nelson" sat opposite the detective, who introduced himself as Ron Matthews. Ben and Henry sat on one side of the table. Tony Benson sat between me and Tom, across from Ben and his son. Tom was present as a witness, since he had seen us off at the lodge when we started our ice-harvesting expedition. Matthews had prepared an agenda. He said we should start with issues that might be resolved quickly, and then proceed to more difficult problems. It wasn't a judicial proceeding, but he wanted to emphasize that it was a crime to lie to the police in a criminal investigation, so he required all the parties to swear a collective oath to tell the truth. "This is an informal conference, but it could be decisive, so we need some degree of formality," he said.

"First we must discuss the jailing of this boy," Matthews said. "Was the boy under arrest at any time?" The question was directed to Deputy Nelson.

"Technically, no," Nelson admitted. "But he was involved in the crime."

"The alleged crime," Matthews corrected him. "I has yet to be determined if there was a crime. What's your name, son?"

"Henry Hasek. I live in Hibbing with my Dad." Deputy Nelson turned beet red. He thought the boy was an Ojibwe named Red Feather.

"You're a forward on your school's hockey team, aren't you?" Matthews said.

"Yes, sir."

"How is your schooling going? Are you a good student?"

"Henry is a straight A student at Hibbing High School," Ben said. He beamed with paternal pride. Matthews looked at him earnestly. I knew what he was thinking: An abused child does not get straight A's in school.

"Well, Henry, you're released with apologies from the Sheriff's office. You're no longer a principal in this case. You're here as a witness."

"Thank you, sir," Henry said with characteristic courtesy.

"May I assume that Mr. Preston was under arrest?" he asked Deputy Nelson.

"For molesting a child," Nelson replied.

"What child?" Matthews asked.

"The child present in the room," Nelson said.

Matthews told everyone to leave the conference room, except for Ben and Henry (and the court reporter, of course). Later, Henry told me what happened. Matthews asked him if he has been molested by Mr. Preston at any time. "No, sir," he answered. "Jake was teaching me how to harvest ice for the ice house. My Dad was there, too, working with a lumberjack crew on Jake's land." Next, Matthews asked Ben if he had any reason to suspect that his son had been molested. "Certainly not," Ben replied. "Henry's a bright lad, and a tough athlete. He wouldn't tolerate anyone messing with him. Jake Preston has been our neighbor on Wayward Bay for years. He's a good neighbor, and a friend."

Matthews summoned us back to the conference. He asked Deputy Nelson "Did you observe behavior on Preston's part that gave you reason to suspect that he did something unlawful?" No. "Did you receive a complaint about a crime from a third party?"

"Yes, I did," Deputy Nelson said.

"Then you must name that third party now," Matthews said.

Nelson's face reddened again. "I received a complaint from a neighbor," he said.

"And the neighbor's name?"

After an awkward silence, Deputy Nelson said: "William Elbo. He's a respectable businessman in Ashawa."

"What was the wording of Mr. Elbo's complaint? For the official record, I need his exact words, insofar as you can recall them," Matthews said.

"I don't remember word for word," Nelson said. "He said that Preston was keeping an Indian boy at his cabin for sexual purposes."

"An Indian boy! Did he tell you the name of this boy?"

"Red Feather," Nelson replied.

Tony Benson asked for a private conference with Detective Matthews. He informed Matthews that Red Feather was one of the people standing at the entrance to the town hall. When they returned to the conference room, Matthews asked if there was a bailiff in the building. There wasn't. "There are no disinterested parties here, so I'll fetch Red Feather myself."

Red Feather joined our conference and was sworn in. Matthews asked him his age. "Nineteen," he said. "I graduated from Orr last year. I'm a music student, and next year I'll start college in Oberlin." Matthews thanked Red Feather and excused him from the conference.

Deputy Nelson protested: "Aren't you going to find out if this Indian boy was living with Preston? Something was going on between them."

"Red Feather is an adult," Matthews replied. "For the purpose of this inquiry, Red Feather's place of residence has no legal consequence." Matthews ignored the issue of sexuality. He knew from experience that no judge wanted that sort of thing dragged into his courtroom.

Matthews asked Henry to recall the events of the day. Henry's narrative was precise. Matthews seemed more interested in the details of ice-harvesting than anything else. Several times he asked Henry to elaborate on details about the ice house. He asked Tom to confirm Henry's account. "Jake and Henry came to the lodge around eight," Tom said. "They borrowed my truck and drove over the ice to Wayward Island. After that, I didn't see them, but I heard the chain-saw buzzing all morning. It takes a long time to cut ice from the lake. It's hard work. As a form of refrigeration it's old-fashioned, but it saves money on electric bills. Jake uses it for freezing fish and venison."

Matthews asked if anyone had anything to add. A long silence followed. It was broken by Henry: "Just this: Jake and I were still busy laying ice-chunks in the sawdust when Sheriff Nelson arrested us. We've been in jail ever since, so the work is unfinished." Ben and I beamed at Henry for thinking of this. The significance was obvious: Henry and I had spent the entire day working on the ice harvest.

"I'm satisfied that there's no reason to detain Mr. Preston any longer," Matthews said.

"What about the dynamite that blew up Willy Elbo's showroom?" Deputy Nelson protested.

"Ah, I heard about that," Matthews said. "Henry Hasek and Jake Preston were in jail at the time. Their alibis are unimpeachable."

"Seeing as how it was dynamite, the culprit must have been a miner," Nelson said. He looked menacingly at Ben.

"That's another matter. It's unrelated. You gentlemen are free to go. Mr. Preston, you'll be receiving a letter of apology from the Sheriff's office. You, too, Mr. Hasek," he said to Ben. "This concludes our conference."

We got up to leave, but Tony Benson said to wait: "Detective Matthews, I'd like a moment in private with you and Jake Preston. It's about something that Ben Hasek and his son should hear, too." The others left the room. Benson turned on Henry's cellphone and played the recording of Nelson's physical and verbal abuse. Detective Matthews listened intently, and took notes. Henry's face whitened. He was shaking. Ben put an arm around him. Matthews perceived that the boy was suffering from post-traumatic stress. He asked Ben if he needed a counselor to help his son. "I'll be all right with my Dad and with Jake," Henry said. Benson gave Matthews a tape that he had recorded earlier.

"About that dynamite in Elbo's showroom," I said. "I don't know what damage was done. You should see for yourself. It would be interesting to compare with Elbo's version when he files a claim with his insurance company." Matthews wasn't in a position to reply, but he knew (as I did not) that the showroom windows were shattered, but the cars on display escaped damage.

We escorted Henry from the town hall. Henry walked between Ben and me. We held his arms in solidarity, and for physical support, much needed at the moment. The people gathered at the entrance cheered, except for Mrs. Ravitch and Red Hawk, who were horrified to see Henry so shaken. They packed into my car for the drive to my cabin. Ben sat in front, with me. Mrs. Ravitch and Red Hawk sat in the back, with Henry between them.

Back at my cabin, Henry and Red Hawk finished the job in the ice house. "Talk about child abuse!" Mrs. Ravitch said when we were alone. From beginning to end, Ben and I told her all that transpired in the conference room. "These boys shouldn't be drawn into dispute between Willy Elbo and his neighbors," Mrs. Ravitch said. She meant Henry and Red Feather, who had just arrived with Tom. When Henry and Red Hawk returned from the ice house, they added a new layer of sawdust to the Hansel-and-Gretel trail that Henry and I had laid earlier. Tom and I prepared a light dinner with leftover ham from the fridge. Henry managed a few mouthfuls, but said he wasn't hungry.

"Let's go skating then," Mrs. Ravitch said, "just the three of us." Henry and I took turns dance-skating with Mrs. Ravitch, to the tunes of popular songs that we sung. Dancing in a chain and a circle of three, we made difficult moves look easy. Henry had a good singing-voice, but now it seemed thin. "You've got to spend time with this boy," Mrs. Ravitch said while I skated backward and she skated forward in a duet. "He needs his Dad, but right now he needs you even more. You were with him when he went through this trauma."

"He got upset when Tony Benson replayed Deputy Nelson on his cellphone recording," I said.

"That was just the catalyst. He would have been upset in any case," Mrs. Ravitch said. "Be kind to this boy, Jake."

We returned to the cabin. Tom drove Mrs. Ravitch back to the lodge. Henry told Ben that he should go, too. "We need to return Tom's truck. You can do that. I'll be okay here with Jake.... And Red Hawk," he added.

I took it for granted that Henry and Red Hawk would sleep by the fireplace, like they did the night before. Henry had other ideas. He wanted to sleep with me. He said "the two Miskos" (meaning Red Hawk and Red Feather) could sleep in my bed. I resisted, but Henry and Red Hawk had discussed this earlier. The sleeping arrangements had already been decided by them. Our evening was solemn, but whisky raised our spirits. Red Feather shared his news about the summer workshop at Interlochen, and his plans for college at Oberlin. We gossiped about hockey, and Willy Elbo's multifaceted villainy. I praised Henry and Red Feather for their intelligence as witnesses in the conference room. "You told Detective Matthews all he needed to know, without disclosing family secrets that might have given Nelson a wedge," I said.

It was time for bed. I emerged from my bedroom wearing pajama bottoms, and brought a pair for Henry. We unrolled a sleeping bag and laid it out by the hearth. We laid the second bag over it and zipped them together to make a double bed on the floor. The two Miskos retired to my bedroom. Henry got naked and added wood to the fire. I gazed at his body, youthful and athletic. His ass looked cute-two curvaceous white moons below the tan line, just the sort of thing gay Chippewas found attractive in white men. He said he didn't need pajamas, and asked me to take mine off, too. I struggled out of them in the sleeping bag, and tossed them aside while Henry snuggled beside me and zipped up his side of the bag. We lay side by side. Ma'ingan lay near Henry. With his front paws on the sleeping bag, the dog claimed his share of our makeshift bed.

"Are you OK, buddy?" I asked softly. "I am, now," he said. I lay on my side with my back toward him. Henry crept behind and flung an arm around me. He fondled my abdomen and chest while we talked about my college days at Bemidji State, and what it would be like there for him. I felt the warmth of Henry's erection in my crevice. It throbbed when we heard a rumble in my bedroom. "Red Feather is fucking my lover," Henry said. "I'm starting to understand why Dad needs more than one lover."

"Your Dad has only one lover," I said. "It's Sam Black Bear. They discovered each other after I had...."

"After you had sex with him," Henry said. "I know. It's OK."

Henry's hand roamed my torso. His fingers crept into my pits. He pinched my nips. He fingered my navel. He pulled at hair on my chest, my belly and pubes. His cock throbbed in my crevice. "I like it that you're so hairy down here, Jake," he said while his finger probed my thighs and found its way to my asshole. "You can fuck me if you want, Jake," he said. He pinched my nips hard. He sensed these were major erozones for me. Ma'ingan let out a moan. I could his tail thump-thump-thump on the sleeping bag.

"I won't fuck you, Henry. It wouldn't feel right," I said.

The bedroom rumble continued. From the groaning and moaning that came from the lips of Red Hawk, I figured that he had unleashed the fury of Red Feather's cock and was now getting punch-fucked, in three or four positions at least. The fire in the hearth crackled. Henry's cock throbbed in my crevice. His breathing got heavy. Ma'ingan wagged his tail and let out a deep-throated moan. The dog spread his body over one-third of our bed. Henry's cheek nuzzled my shoulder. I turned my head toward him, and we kissed. "Can I...." Henry didn't finish the question.

"Mmmm hmmm," I moaned. Henry was surprised.

Henry had smuggled a lube-tube to bed. In the firelight he searched for it. His hands roamed the sleeping bag, but he couldn't find it. "Ma'ingan is probably hoarding the lube, if that's what you're looking for, Henry," I said. Henry forced his hands under Ma'ingan's weight. The dog wagged his tail. The human touch always brought joy to this heart. He found the lube, under Ma'ingan's hairy belly. I remained on my side, but bent my top leg forward to let Henry lube my asshole. He finger-fucked me with one hand, and fondled my cock with the other. "This is the first time you've let me touch you this way, Jake," he whispered. "I've waited so long for this!"

Henry entered me fully with a single shaft-thrust, like Boy Robin the first time he fucked Bat Man. I groaned. I imagined Red Feather saying to Red Hawk, "Henry is fucking my lover." Henry followed up with a dozen vigorous jolts. "So this is how a hockey forward makes love!" I said.

"You want me to take it easy?" Henry asked.

"Don't do that, Henry," I said. "Tonight you're conquering my ass. Show me what you've got!"

"You're always telling me what not to do, Jake," he said as he fucked brutally. This gentle boy was wild in man-to-man sex. We paused for a rest. Henry felt Ma'ingan's hairy body along the length of his backside. The dog had crept into the sleeping bag, sidelong to his back and his butt. Silent oozing in bed was Ma'ingan's unique talent.

Henry flattened me and drilled from behind while his legs locked mine close at the thighs. My left arm stretched out. Ma'ingan nuzzled under it, and forced his muzzle under my hand. When I moved my hand, he moved with it. I fondled his hairy head while Henry fucked my tightened ass. We were trapped between Ma'ingan's warm body and the edge of the closed sleeping bag. Ma'ingan claimed possession of three-fourths of our bed.

Henry unzipped the sleeping bag, folded the covering aside, and flipped me over so he could mission me. Ma'ingan gave up his sidelong position and made a circuit around the room. When he returned, he hunched with his nose at the combat zone where my body folded under Henry, with my legs resting on his shoulders. We kissed while Henry missioned me.

Henry knew how to hump and then pause for intermissions in our love- making drama. "Do you think Ma'ingan understands what we're doing?" He asked.

"I'm sure he does," I replied. "Dogs hump each other in play all the time. This is just the human version." My erection had receded under the pressure intercursal intercourse. It returned with a vengeance in the missionary setting. Ma'ingan licked sweat from my left thigh while Henry rifled my ass in long steady strokes. "I think I can cum if you slow down, Henry," I said.

"Oh yes, I want that, Jake," Henry said. He helped me by fondling my balls and my cock while I jacked off. I moaned loudly. Jizzy fragrance wafted the combat zone. Ma'ingan forced his head between our bellies. He licked sperm and sweat from my belly and chest. He tilted his head and licked sperm from Henry's torso, too. Henry laughed at the tickling sensation.

"Are you done now, Ma'ingan?" I said, and pushed his head away. He responded with a deep doggie-grumble, his way of telling us that he would leave us alone, reluctantly and temporarily. "Now it's your turn," I said to Henry. "I want you to breed me. The goalie can't stop you. (I meant Ma'ingan.) Fuck me hard and shoot that puck in the goal."

Henry plowed into me. To prolong his pleasure and my agony he postponed his climax, but Nature took her course. His panting announced impending orgasm. His erection expanded in a hot surge; I could feel it. He gasped and moaned. His inseminating rod, so rigid until now, oozed silken spooge in my ocean, liquid with life-force. We lay together quietly while Henry settled down. He soaked his receding cock in the ooze while I tightened my sphincter around it. I thought I had him trapped inside me, but when he got soft he slipped out.

"Breeding is a miracle of Nature," I said. "Your little swimmers are riding on foamy surf to my bloodstream. You're part of me now, Henry."

We soaped each other in the shower, caring for each other as only gay man know how to do. For the first time, Henry had complete access to the sight and touch of my body, uninhibited by darkness, partial clothing, or limits on where he could touch me. I was the object of hero-worship for Henry, so this was a big deal for him. He got horny in the shower. His horniness spread to me. Wordlessly, I leaned against the wall in the shower and parted my legs. Henry stood behind me. Luckily my ass was well lubed, but it cost me some yelping and more than a few plaintiff groans. Because Henry had cum just a few minutes earlier, he had to hump me extra hard to cum a second time. I told him to ignore my agony. "If it hurts, that's because you've got such a big dick," I said. Afterward we went to sleep in each other's arms in the sleeping bag, with Henry in the middle between Ma'ingan and me.

Sunday morning, we woke to the aroma of coffee, bacon, and eggs. The two Miskos had prepared breakfast. When we awoke, they laughed at the spectacle. "Late sleepers! It must have been quite a frolic." During the night, Ma'ingan had squeezed between Henry and me and we all snoozed together, two men and their dog, packed like sardines.