The log cabin’s roofline sags, along
with the windows, and the floor roller-
coasters enough to make first-time visitors
stumble. June is cool, and the fireplace is
always burning to provide enough heat to
chase the night chill away.
Will yawns, breathing in Rainy Lake
air and the scent of pine and fresh water.
He wished his alarm clock would relocate.
A bald eagle sits in the big pine tree outside
his window every morning and screeches
over the lake at 5:30 a.m.
Without fail, Will’s first words of the
morning are “That eagle is really annoying.”
Bald eagles have no respect for sleeping
teenage boys.
After twenty minutes, the fourteen-foot
boat slows and passes a line of houseboats
moored to the dock. Houseboats can be
forty feet long and hold six to ten people. A
water slide juts out the back of the boat for
quick dips into the lake on warm summer
days, and some even have hot tubs on their
roofs. Will’s boat crunches onto the small
sand beach. He tilts the engine up so the prop
doesn’t dig into the sand and anchors the boatout of the wave wash. He punches the time
clock as a Rainy Lake Houseboats dock boy.
“We have four houseboats going out this
morning,” his supervisor says.
Will nods and busies himself with the
normal day assignments. He scans a list to
see which boats have been rented. Gas tanks12