A Walk in the Woods

filter water, so I wouldn't have to do it in the morning, then stripped to my boxers and
waded a couple of feet into the dark water to have a wash with a bandanna. If Katz had
been there, I'd have had a swim. I tried not to think about him-- certainly not to visualize
him lost and bewildered. There was, after all, nothing I could do now.
Instead, I sat on a rock and watched the sunset. The pond was almost painfully
beautiful. The long rays of the setting sun made the water shimmer golden. Offshore, two
loons cruised, as if out for a spin after supper. I watched them for a long time, and
thought about something I had seen on a BBC nature program some time before.
Loons, according to the program, are not social creatures. But towards the end of
summer, just before they fly back to the North Atlantic, where they pass the winter
bobbing on stormy waves, they host a series of get-togethers. A dozen or more loons
from all the neighboring ponds fly in, and they all swim around together for a couple of
hours for no discernible reason other than the pleasure of being together. The host loon
leads the guests on a proud but low-key tour of his territory--first to his favorite little
cove, say, then perhaps over to an interesting fallen log, then on to a patch of lily pads.
"This is where I like to fish in the mornings," he seems to be saying. "And here's where
we're thinking of moving our nesting site next year." All the other loons follow him around
with diligence and polite interest. No one knows why they do this (but then no one knows
why one human being would want to show another his converted bathroom) or how they
arrange their rendezvous, but they all show up each night at the right lake at the right
time as certainly as if they had been sent a card that said: "We're Having a Party!" I think
that's wonderful. I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't kept thinking of Katz stumbling
and gasping and searching for a lake by moonlight.
Oh, and by the way, the loons are disappearing everywhere because their lakes are
dying from acid rain.
I had a rotten night, of course, and was up before five and back on the trail at first
light. I continued on north in the direction I guessed Katz had gone, but with the nagging
thought that I was plunging ever farther into the Hundred Mile Wilderness--not perhaps
the best direction to go if he was somewhere nearby and in trouble. There was a certain
incidental disquiet at the thought that I was on my own in the middle of nowhere--a
disquiet briefly but vividly heightened when I stumbled in my haste on the return descent
to the deep, nameless valley and came within a trice of falling fifty long feet, with a messy
bounce at the bottom. I hoped I was doing the right thing.
Even flat out it would take me three days, perhaps four, to reach Abol Bridge and the
campground. By the time I alerted authorities, Katz would have been missing for four or
five days. On the other hand, if I turned now and went back the way we had come, I
could be in Monson by the following afternoon. What I really needed was to meet
somebody coming south who could tell me if they had seen Katz, but there was no one
out on the trail. I looked at my watch. Of course there wasn't. It was only a little after six
in the morning. There was a shelter at Chairback Gap, six miles farther on. I would reach
it by eight or so. With luck, there might still be someone there. I pressed on with more
care and a queasy uncertainty.
I clambered back over the pinnacle of Fourth Mountain--much harder with a pack--and
into another wooded valley beyond. Four miles after leaving Cloud Pond, I came to a tiny
stream, barely worthy of the term--really just a slick of moist mud. Speared to a branch