Outdoor Fun: Vol 6 by Alex Cahagan

Author:Alex Cahagan [Cahagan, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-03-31T23:00:00+00:00

94: The Price of Secrecy

Fourth of July was always one of those holidays my husband and I liked to celebrate. The only bad thing was the years it fell on inconvenient days of the week; Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. It was tough to party all night when work awaited the next morning. Luckily this year was one of the years where the holiday fell on Friday, providing the best possible scenario. A night to party and two days to recover!

Even given ample time to prepare, Will and I began our day early, waking before eight to start the preparations, which would include a two-hour drive to the lake house where our guests were supposed to gather ten hours later at six that evening. We had a lot to do, so while he readied things at the house, I headed to the store to fulfill the last-minute party needs. We had roughly twenty guests coming, a mix of his friends and mine, couples and singles. The large lakeside parcel provided the perfect place to host the gathering. It was remote enough that there was no fear of bothering the neighbors with our fireworks, and we had enough open land for everyone to camp if they wanted to stay safe.

Very few expressed a desire to drive more than two hours back home after a night of drinking. Earlier in the week, Will ensured the property was looking good. We never allowed the grass to get overgrown, and from the house, there was a lush stretch of green extending to the lake. The distant sides of the property were forested, shielding us from neighboring houses up and down the street. The area wasn’t overly commercialized, and the houses were older, modest spreads, the property likely worth more to would-be developers than the homes built decades earlier. One day they would make us an offer we couldn’t refuse, but for now, we enjoyed our escape from everyday life in Columbia, SC.

Hosting a large group, everyone was bringing something. Will and I agreed to provide the keg, which we delivered to the lake house at three that afternoon. We shifted into preparation mode full time, but this isn’t to say we weren’t testing the tap occasionally as the afternoon wore on. I accomplished little that didn’t involve my having a beer in hand, and the same went for Will. When I moved onto the deck after finishing my indoor preparations, the first thing I saw was Will swinging an ax.

It felt like the first time I had stopped all day, and it was worth it, watching my shirtless husband splitting logs. The crack of the ax hitting the upright log on the chopping block sounded like a gunshot. The split pieces crashing into the piles echoed, and the halves clattering to rest preceded a reload. I had no idea how long he had been working, but he had a sheen of sweat on his upper body. He reset another log on the chopping block, shouldered the ax, and brought it down, exploiting the full power of his upper body.

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