No matter how much he won or how famous he became, this axiom remained the core of his identity. He grew up near Philadelphia, eventually took the head men’s basketball coach job at Villanova (a Philadelphia school), and tried to recruit the best local talent to field his team. When offers came from bigger schools and the NBA for more money and recognition, he chose to stay. Paradoxically, by limiting himself to his local area he was able to build one of the top programs in the country, beating many of his rivals who sought to find advantages across a much wider scope of possibilities.

Everything You Need Is In Your Backyard

Before Villanova, it was Hofstra in New York that gave Jay Wright his first head coaching job. He quickly realized going against the most-recognized and best-funded programs for the top recruits across the country was a fool’s errand. So he took the opposite approach. He was already in New York, a place abounding in basketball talent. Why not establish his program as a great place for New York players to come play ball?

The plan worked. His last three seasons saw his team go 72-22 and win back-to-back conference titles and berths in the NCAA Tournament. His ultimate reward was the head job at Villanova.

Narrow Focus = Better Fit

Back in his old stomping grounds, Jay had a vision for how to return Villanova to the top of college basketball. While he relied on his old New York connections to elevate the team initially, he ultimately wanted Villanova to dominate the local recruiting scene. He knew there were players with the attitude and toughness he was looking for right there in Philly. So he gave his coaches instructions to find nearby players of high character and talent who could shoot and had a “winning pedigree.”

This narrow focus gave him a couple magnificent advantages. One, his players came from a common background and school of thought. This allowed them to gel on and off the court quickly. Two, recruiting a specific type of player gave player development a clarity and direction other programs struggle to find. His teams won nine straight BIG EAST regular season or tournament titles and two national championships. He won 72.4% of his games at Villanova. By the time he retired, he was one of the most respected coaches in his sport, more so for how he did things than his success.

The players on Villanova’s national championship teams grew up, on average, less than 200 miles away from campus. The players on the two teams they beat to win those championships grew up, on average, at least double that distance from their campuses.

So, by limiting himself by geography, character, and player type, the path to success became clear. Important decisions don’t need to be as difficult when there is a simple lens of priority to look through.

Limits Are Your Friend

Potential is always exciting. The idea of a new job, new relationship, new city, new hobby. All of them open up a new world of opportunity and possibility. However, when we try to do too much, we can quickly get bogged down. We can lose our sense of direction in pursuit of the next shiny thing.

Prioritizing values and narrowing focus simplifies decision making and keeps us on track. Jay Wright coached at Villanova for 21 seasons. The first 17 were a relatively slow burn of steady progress. But the last four comprised one of the most successful stretches in college basketball history. He took the focused route and built an absolutely devastating program while his top competitors fought it out over the next best guy year after year.

Sometimes the solution to a problem isn’t finding the better thing somewhere out there. Instead, it’s seeing the value in where you are and what you have and making it the best it can be.

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The external push came from a couple guys who wanted to turn his memoir into a movie. Don put his writing projects, which were also struggling for traction, on hold while he learned about storytelling. As they worked through how to change the story of the real Don’s life to make fictional Don more interesting on the screen, real Don noticed many of the storytelling elements were absent from his own life and explores how things might change if he treated his life like a story he was writing.

Step 1: The main character needs a goal. Like a really hard one.

In general, characters in stories aren’t all that interesting until they need something. They have to kill the dragon, get to Boston, find a spouse, steal the money, win the trophy, etc. This need forces them into action. It gives them an orientation, something to aim at. But it also needs to be difficult. No challenge means no risk. No risk means no transformation.

In pursuit of a more interesting life, Don takes aim at a variety of challenges. He chooses the goal of finding his estranged father, something he had never seriously considered. He signs up to hike Machu Picchu. He rides a bike across America. Each of these forces him out of his comfort zone. He has to have difficult conversations, strike up friendships, train his body. As he moves through these challenges, the cloud begins to lift and he feels a sense of purpose again.

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Step 2: The main character has to struggle.

Unexpected road bumps and derailments test a character. They force him to adapt, learn, and develop new competencies. They also reveal deficiencies of character. Ultimately, the challenges bring about transformation, which is often the payoff of a good story.

Don asks a friend of means to look into his father’s whereabouts. The search brings the news that his father had died in the years since they’d last seen each other, which Don had suspected. However, this news is followed up by a phone call from his mother informing him that his father is alive and well. This forces Don to decide whether to leave the comfort of a resolved situation or step back into the story see what he can find. He chooses to live out the story and pursue whatever healing he can.

Step 3: The main character is different at the end than he was at the beginning.

Admittedly, this involves more trust than anything. You can take direct action to walk out your door and start training for a hike up Machu Picchu, but whatever changes occur within your character as a result are things you find rather than create. But it’s somehow just as reliable as the other steps. When we go through difficult things, we inevitably change, mostly for the better. We see new things and discover new skills and all the while feel a sense of purpose in our actions.

In the book, one of Don’s friends has the most profound experience of transformation. His daughter is wandering, doing drugs, dating a terrible guy. He doesn’t know how to help her. All the basic parenting stuff isn’t working. Then Don walks him through the elements of a story. The friend realizes he hasn’t given his daughter and family a good story to live out. So he signs them up to fundraise to build an orphanage in Mexico. His family’s initial response was a couple days of silence. They hadn’t been consulted. But pretty soon his wife tells him she’s proud of him for doing this, and his daughter gets excited about it. She dumps the lame boyfriend, cleans up her act, and dives headfirst into the efforts.

How To Become A Main Character

If you’ve recently felt adrift and are now wondering if anyone would enjoy watching your current life in movie form, don’t get too discouraged. Much of our lives does not make good fodder for storytelling. Our default tends toward mundane. But there is good news! Adventures are around you in abundance. You just need to pick the one you want.

First, pick something difficult. Successfully finishing everything you start is overrated. Remember, you’re in this for challenges and change, not gold stars. Anything that will legitimately test you is good. It could be physical, financial, intellectual, skill-based. Whatever you want.

Next, tackle an obstacle. Did you pick finishing that 5k next month? Sweet. Lace up the sneakers and jog around the block. Who cares when you last did that. Do it now. Want to do a big motorcycle trip? That’s sick, bruh. Start the savings account for a bike and put some money in it.

Whatever you have to do, just start. Pick up the phone and make that call. Grab paper and pen and start writing. Grab your kid and go buy the lumber to make the ramp. Start struggling. If it hurts a little, you know you’re on the right path.

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The Jacksonville Days

Before head coaching in the Big Apple, Tom Coughlin spent years under the tutelage of Bill Parcells. As is often the case, he learned more personality than playbook from his championship-winning boss. When the Jacksonville Jaguars came on the scene as an expansion franchise in 1995, they hired Tom Coughlin to lead the team and, if all went well, make them relevant. Coughlin delivered in his second season as the team won its last seven games and made the playoffs. In his first five years, they made it to the AFC Championship game twice.

Three years later he was fired.

Old Shtick

There were a few reasons the Jaguars decided to part ways with the only coach they’d known. A true Parcells disciple, Coughlin was not only the head coach but also the general manager, meaning he was in charge of player contracts. Salary cap issues had forced him to cut and trade many of the team’s top players without replenishing the talent pool. But the main issue was his regimented coaching style.

Coughlin was famously strict. He instituted what became known as “Coughlin Time”. Players were expected to be five minutes early for everything. So if a player walked into a 9 o’clock meeting at 8:57, he was considered late and fined. For professional athletes, he knew going after their checkbooks would get the quickest results. While this style was effective at getting a young, brand-new team moving in the right direction, it wore thin on the veterans who led the team.

They went 19-29 in his last three seasons.

Second Chance

After a yearlong sabbatical of study and reflection, Coughlin was brought back to the New York Giants where he won a Super Bowl as an assistant coach in the hopes of bringing championship glory back to the storied franchise.

Coughlin’s reputation preceded his arrival to the Giants. Strict rules backed by rigid enforcement has long been the secret sauce that gets young, talented teams to play beyond their years. But that’s not who those Giants were. Coughlin was walking into a veteran-led locker room that knew its championship window was near, a true group of professionals who were well-versed in preparing to play NFL football.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, by the middle of the season star defensive end Michael Strahan wanted the coach gone. As it turns out, grown men who are accustomed to showing up on time and doing their job do not like getting fined for not being five minutes early.

Meanwhile, Coughlin’s demeanor was creating problems outside the locker room as well. The New York media didn’t like his terse answers and generally gruff approach to questions. At the end of his first season, his workplace relationships were so strained his family felt the need to sit him down for a talk. That intervention proved momentous.

Time For an Adjustment

With ownership’s backing, Coughlin was set to come back for the next season, But instead of pressing on trusting his same old methods to come through, this time he did what many in his same position don’t. He listened. First to his family, then to his team. He heard the hard truth: he was getting in the way and making things harder than they needed to be. He then accepted this reality and changed how he did things.

There’s no shortage of reasons people in all walks of life don’t follow the same course: pride, need for control, distrust of others, etc. It takes humility to acknowledge the people around you are right and you need to change. At that time, Tom Coughlin was able to find that level of humility, and by doing so, change the Giants’ fortunes.

It is important to note that the changes he made were mostly minor tweaks, but changing the right little thing can have much more impact than attempting a reinvention. For instance, the five minutes early rule remained, but instead of fining a player who was only three minutes early, Coughlin was more apt to simply remind him of the rule and encourage him to be a little quicker the next time. He let the players see more of his personality. Instead of trying to embody his idea of what an NFL head coach should be, he grew more comfortable being himself and having a laugh every now and then. He even changed his approach to the media. Instead of treating questions like poisoned darts shot by his sworn enemies, he approached reporters like acquaintances he would be seeing on a regular basis who are just trying to do their job. Which they are.

The result was a more cohesive team that could focus on its opponents and assignments instead of how to avoid fines and keep the coach pacified. The unnecessary burdens lifted. They won two of the most memorable Super Bowls ever, and Coughlin even became one of the most likable coaches in the sport.

Why Did These Changes Work?

It’s tough to say with total certainty. Sometimes when leaders make significant changes to their approach they are called out for being phony or superficial or needing to be liked. Coughlin avoided such accusations by making changes on the periphery. Clear communication, discipline, and attention to detail were still hallmarks. The core of his identity and philosophy stayed in tact. He compromised where it made sense but kept his message the same. That made the difference from a disgruntled group nearing burnout to a committed team happy to give their best.

Is All Change Temporary?

After retiring from the Giants, Coughlin’s career had one more notable act. He was welcomed back to the Jaguars, this time in a front office role. It was a three-year stint that included an appearance in the AFC Championship game. Interestingly enough, this new position included the power to fine players. In his last two seasons, the Jaguars, one of thirty-two teams, accounted for over 25% of player grievances filed with the NFL Players Association. Once this was revealed, Coughlin was fired, putting an end to one of the most successful coaching/leadership careers in NFL history.

Though understandable considering Coughlin was in his 70s while the Jaguar players were a generation younger even than those he coached in New York, it’s worth noting the difference between those two tenures. It seems reasonable that someone who had learned to compromise before would quickly recognize when to do it again. But that’s not how it happens. Each situation is unique even for those with experience. The decision to change and adapt has to be made new over and over. It’s not a default mode.

Each of us has ruts to deal with, the innate personality quirks or old habits that have gotten us this far. As helpful as those things can be at times, they tend to eventually conspire against us. The struggle to learn and grow and change the things that used to work is ongoing. May we all find the humility to know we need to change and listen to the voices encouraging us to be better.

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Jacob’s father was a general contractor, a build anything type of guy who prided himself on quality and precision. At age eight, Jacob tagged along to various job sites, watching and helping when he could. On the days his dad was out of sight, perhaps on a roof, he made his own projects. Bird houses, boats, whatever his imagination could conjure from the scraps laying around. He did anything but sit idle.

Now, Jacob’s life is busy. He’s a civil engineer: “I just tell people I’m a glorified plumber.” There’s the chain of storage sheds he manages that’s looking to expand and a couple other roles he’s taken on that demand time and attention. Oh and don’t forget about the whole married with three kids thing. But serious woodworking requires time and space. After working his way from garage to rented space, he built a sizable shop next to his house so he could carry on with the craft.

He leans back in the chair in his Timber and Ash office and combs his fingers through his hair. It’s the first warm day hinting at spring, and out in the satellite neighborhood where he lives and creates there is no foot traffic or neighboring business disturbing the peace. It’s quiet here. He smiles and says, “It’s nice. I like it.”

Tables, benches, and bookshelves have all taken shape through Jacob’s skill since then. He decided early on to make quality and precision his guiding lights. They’ve served him well but carry a unique cost of their own. He shifts uncomfortably when he speaks of his own perfectionism: “I’m OCD to the max with things.” Early on he went to a trade show and brought along some cutting boards to sell. He’d used 1200 grit sandpaper on them and a finish that gave them the look and feel of glass. At best it was overkill, but in a way they worked. People picked them up and said they’d never seen anything like them. Being overzealous can have its rewards.

There’s a lot of alone time in custom woodworking. “Sometimes at night, after the kids are in bed, I’ll just come out here and work,” he says. “It’s like meditation for me.” Balancing the pursuit of perfection with the novelty of new challenges, he keeps moving forward. He feels closer to his dad as he does so: “I know if he were here, he’d be out here all the time, helping out.”

Most of his clients are people in their mid-30s to mid-40s. They’re married, established in a career, first or second time home owners who want to buy something that will last. So they come to him for what he’s good at: “traditional furniture built with minimal hardware to last eight generations.” Fifteen years into this adventure, he’s beginning to enjoy the longevity of his handiwork. He can see things he built eight years ago still in use at the businesses that bought them. They’re still eye-catching pieces people enjoy and talk about.

Timber and Ash projects vary in complexity. He still does the little things, like the boxes of cutting boards ready to be picked up, a simple project to nudge things toward the black. But what really excites him is a one-of-a-kind piece. Perhaps his biggest so far is a set of three, eight-foot long, seven-foot wide tables that can be combined into a 24-foot conference table with an inlay running through them that mimics the path of the Red River through Grand Forks.

It’s taken patience and practice to get here. He found his education in online articles and books and magazines from the 50s to the 70s, back when longevity was broadly desirable. In contrast, he finds many of the YouTube carpenters to be full of it. It would be easier, faster, and in the short-term possibly more profitable to take some shortcuts. “In woodworking, there’s so many ways to cheat,” he says, recalling some of the things he’s seen over the years. But he’s also observed “doing that isn’t going to bring out the best in yourself.”

Hours of intensive work have been abandoned just before the finish line only to see a project restarted. Even recently, three thousand dollars worth of material was thrown out because of a flaw that could’ve been fixed to the client’s satisfaction, but it would’ve bothered Jacob. Those speed bumps are frustrating, but they end up being lessons. The drive to always find something to improve has built his reputation and kept new projects coming in.

Beyond just making cool things, there’s an inner tension being worked through as well. The struggle against needing things to be perfect. True to its nature, wood rewards flexibility and adaptation. Jacob says, “When I started doing this, I wasted a lot of time chasing perfection when wood is not perfect. It has inherent flaws in it. And you just need to know how to deal with it.” There’s some amount of inevitable waste. Everything is trial and error. But that’s where the best things come from.

So the instinct to build pushes him on. The challenges refine him. They reveal his shortcomings and give him something to chase. In that process, he can contend with his own drive and perfectionism. There’s a peace in the grain of those boards if he can find it.

Jacob’s work can be found at Timber and Ash.

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A couple days after my tepid response, I realized my aversion to talking with strangers is stupid and probably making me miss out on things. I blame . Her book is an excellent account of the good things you can find if you’re willing to push yourself. So the next time I saw Jason, I told him to count me in.

We were both right. Absolutely no one was interested in my cards. After three hours, I sold 0 cards for a grand total of $0. But I also had fun. I was able to connect in a quick and authentic way with people I’d never seen before and haven’t seen since. There may have been a lesson or two learned as well.

You notice quickly at a card show that all age groups are represented. It’s a crowd of people who share a general interest but each tends toward a small niche. This can make it difficult to know at a glance who is a seasoned vet and who is brand new. One problem with that is you can tend to think of kids as young and inexperienced and therefore worthy of a break of some kind. This is not the case. A kid about twelve years old came to my table wanting to trade. He had two terrible cards. They are worth nothing and will continue to be worth nothing. It’s easy to tell kids carrying hundreds of dollars worth of cards in cases that you’re not interested in their stuff, but for some reason the kid who only showed two cards and had the nerve to ask again after a refusal wore me down. I told him he could have two out of my cheap box. He immediately identified the best two and skipped off. I think I could hear him whistling.

Lesson: don’t be fooled. Kids are just ruthless adults.

Since it was clear nothing of interest was going to happen at my table, I took a couple strolls around the event. One of the dealers was an older guy who asked where I’m from. I told him the Black Hills originally. He said I’d probably been through his hometown of Hillsboro. I wracked my brain trying to imagine a map of all the little towns in western South Dakota I’ve passed through. None of them start with an H. Then he offered me a lifeline. “Yeah, it’s about halfway between here and Fargo.” To make the geography simple, I was thinking of towns no less than six and a half hours from where we were standing. He was thinking of a town thirty minutes away. Since the interstate does indeed go through the middle of his hometown, I had to confess I had driven through there. He smiled and handed me a business card for his combination fireworks/sports cards establishment. “And if you stop by and I’m not there, give me a call. Day or night. I live about five minutes away.”

His building is right next to the interstate. It is to my own shame that I admit I have not been there.

I met a couple guys my own age. They were cool. We talked about our favorite players and the joy of finding a sport your wife is happy to watch. Since selling was not in the cards, I bought and traded, tried one deal that got shot down. But the sting of rejection made the whole ride more visceral, which felt good. It pays to get out of my box.

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It’s been a while, perhaps too long. In my defense, I’ve been trying to do something very difficult that does not come naturally: follow through on my own advice. The past few weeks have involved identifying a single “rabbit” to chase. Hopefully, I will have news on that front soon. But for now, it’s high time we try something fresh around here.

My best ideas often result from combining two previously unrelated and mundane components. For the series, I will combine these two:

1. I am a simple man of simple taste.

2. I love me a good curated list.

The problem we are trying to solve through this? Nothing really. Just trying to bring some color to life through some cheap thrills. So without further ado:

Crazy Love by Michael Buble (especially the physical copy you can check out at your local library). I listen to most of my music on streaming services and enjoy it. But I’ve noticed that when I listen to a playlist I often end up just skipping through songs looking for…well, I guess…I’ll know what I want when I hear it! Eventually I wondered if I even still have the capacity to listen to a full album by a single artist. This is where the magic of the FREE public library comes in. I check out three or four CDs, listen to them in the car for a couple weeks, then swap out for a new batch. This album is a certified banger. It’ll make you feel like James Bond as you drive around. What more could a person really want?

The Story of Aston Martin by Peter Tomalin. My wife picked up this little tome for me at HomeGoods for a cool $5. Cars used to be so much more beautiful. Sigh. This is the perfect sized book to carry around and read while waiting in lines or on a porcelain throne. It also has a section dedicated to James Bond. So that’s kind of a theme here. I wonder if they need a new actor for that role?

Orville Redenbacher kettle corn with semi-sweet morsels on top. This is a favorite nighttime treat for me and the missus. The key is to sprinkle the chocolate chips in at multiple levels as you dump the popcorn into a communal bowl. Slightly messy but so, so worth it.

The Washington Post’s sports cull is a bigger red flag for society than you might think. This is a really interesting article from The Observer about the general collapse of sports writing and what it means culturally. Paul Hayward notes that many of our best authors from the last century wrote about sports at some point in their careers. He’s essentially making the case that if sports coverage is reduced to “churn and burn” content that focusses on gambling (my least favorite thing in sports right now) and data instead of the resonance of the human stories inherent within it, then we should expect similar fates for news coverage of all kinds. When we lose sight of what makes a human endeavor most compelling, the struggle against internal and external forces, then those enterprises become little more than commodities. Essentially, we lose the soul of the thing.

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I was in college the first time I heard sports talk radio. This would have been at the end of 2013. The town I grew up in had limited options for FM stations: two country, two rock, three Christian, and one pop. If you were not sufficiently entertained, that was your problem. To be fair, I never willingly listened to AM radio, but from what I could gather there was only NPR and stuff for farmers.

So when a buddy and I took a road trip to see our beloved Kansas Jayhawks play at the famed Phog Allen Fieldhouse, we were eager to hear other people do what we did most days: sit around and talk about sports. It took close to 700 miles before we found the sweet sounds of dudes talking about sports. In fact, part of that trip was spent desperately trying to find anything other than Counting Stars by OneRepublic. I vividly remember scanning the channels somewhere between Lincoln and Kansas City when we found no fewer than three stations playing that song at the same time. Good song, but nothing is that good.

We stumbled across what we thought would be our saving grace as we skirted around KC looking for the home stretch to Lawrence. I don’t remember the channel or if it was part of a national network. It had local vibe to it, not syndicated. When we realized what we’d found, we celebrated as if we had just picked up a twenty dollar bill. Who knew what excitement lay immediately before us?

So you can imagine our disappointment when the host of the show, who was interviewing a professional coach of some sort, sounded like he was explaining healthcare coverage for the millionth time. Here he was, working a job that either of us would have killed for, clearly just mailing it in. We were shocked. We’d never thought of the possibility that someone could have a job like that and not be deliriously happy at all times. In the years since, I’ve come to understand perhaps what that guy was going through.

Let’s face it: Disillusionment happens. It happens to all of us, probably in a recurring way. There are a million reasons for this, but we don’t need to discuss those today. Instead, I want to offer ideas on how to handle those moments when doing the thing that once excited us has turned into activated drudgery.

Step 1: DO NOT disillusion those around you

Whatever you do, don’t whine on the job. Especially not to people who are enjoying the same job or think they might enjoy it. You don’t want to be the guy dragging the team down. Keep it to yourself on the job and complain to your significant other or a good friend. Someone with a little distance from the situation who cares about you. Sometimes giving a small voice to the frustration is all you need.

Step 2: Change something…anything

Monotony is the gateway to boredom, which is the introductory course of disillusionment. The same old thing can get a little stale. Mix it up, but start small. Rearrange your work space so it gives you a fresh feeling. Put your goals or something else that inspires you where you can see it more easily. Try a new routine as you settle into work. Build in some anticipation by planning or trying something new for lunch. Try a new method or project that will challenge you to think from a different perspective.

Anything that can shake things up and maybe bump you out of your rut.

Step 3: Expand or shift your responsibility

Maybe it’s time for you to move up. You’ve done what you can in your role, and now it’s a little boring. Look around for a new problem to solve. Propose a detailed, realistic solution you could play a significant role in. Sometimes the lack of an engaging problem to solve is the root of the issue. Find a better problem.

Step 4: Go back to the beginning

Revisit the reasons you had for starting and see if they still appeal to you. Maybe you wanted to build something or have access to a special room or make an impact but you’ve gotten distracted by the cares of the job. Remind yourself why you’re there in the first place. Maybe a rediscovery of ideals or ambition is the shot in the arm you need. Or you might find that you’re ready to dream a new dream, which would be a really good thing to know about yourself.

Step 5: Invest yourself in something else

Did you know your job doesn’t have to be your primary source of fulfillment? In fact, it doesn’t even need to be a major part of your identity. This one can be tough for me to remember. If I’m going to do something for eight hours every day, I want to feel like it matters and some sort of progress is being made consistently. But it’s good to remember there is more to life. Maybe instead of grinding on and grabbing the next rung on the ladder, it’s time to dial it back a bit. Quit bringing little extra projects and concerns home. Let the job just be a job. Protect your off time and use it to live your life. Learn some dance moves, volunteer coach your kid’s team (or even better, some team full of kids you don’t know), build your model medieval castle you always dreamed of. Whatever weird thing you’re into, get going on it. No one else will do it for you.

Step 6: Time for a new gig

If none of those float your boat, there’s a good chance it’s time to dust off the ol’ resume and get back out there. No one said you could only have one career. You figured out how to do whatever you’re doing now. You can figure out something else.

I hope that radio guy ended up alright. I’d like to think he rediscovered his love of sports and fascination with the characters. He got to speak to unique people in a way few do. Or maybe it was just the wrong gig. Maybe he restores old furniture now while he listens to games on the radio. Who can say? But there is one thing I know. He had options and agency. I hope he used them.

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Over here at Paperback Pirates, we (I) enjoyed another good year of reading. There was less emphasis on volume and more of a follow-the-whims kind of vibe going. I think it served me well. Of the twenty-four books I read last year, here are five I can heartily recommend.

Born To Be Hanged by Keith Thomson

Obviously, we unashamedly endorse all things pirate here at Paperback Pirates. But I also happen to believe this book is uniquely fun. As I was reading it, my recurring experience was one of pure adventure. There’s princesses, gold, battle ships, fights with the Armada, you name it. For context, I started reading The Wager this year, a book I’m sure is good and will circle back around to finishing at some point, and it came nowhere near holding my attention like Born To Be Hanged. Five gold, silver, and pewter stars for this one.

The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo

Every once in a while it’s good to take a break from the heavy ideas and get some pure entertainment. This is the only one of Yokomizo’s books my local library has. It was on the book club table, a curated collection various groups are reading at any given time that is great for discovering new reads. The main character is essentially the Japanese Sherlock Holmes, iconoclastic and brilliant. While very entertaining, I must admit the crime is a little far-fetched and the narrator has a habit of directly telling the reader when he is borrowing stylistic devices from European writers (i.e. “you didn’t see this coming because I learned this trick from Agatha Christie”). I’ve never read anything like it.

Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L’Amour

As far as writing careers go, Louis L’Amour’s was one worth emulating. Perhaps the only thing more prolific than his writing was his reading. He kept detailed lists of what he read each year for from 1930-1935 and 1937. This lists alone are worth the price of admission. It’s also a great picture of a way of life for young men that has all but vanished in modern America. L’Amour spent his young adulthood traveling, working, and, of course, reading widely. If you like real life adventures and book discussions, this is for you.

The Hunters by James Salter

I discovered James Salter by way of Wright Thompson mentioning him in an interview. This was my first experience with him, and I enjoyed it immensely. It’s about fighter pilots during the Korean war and the egos and insecurities they carried. His style is excellent. He tells a tight story with psychological depth. His heroes tend to be deeply flawed but have a way of finding redemption. This one has some grit and sadness but also a glimmer of hope. Strongly recommend.

The Mythmakers by John Hendrix

I decided to quit being such a snob and give graphic novels a shot. They inject some pleasant variety into my literary diet. I found this one gave me something to think about in between reading sessions. It’s the story of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien’s friendship as told by a wizard and a lion, obviously. I learned a fair bit. The second half of the friendship was far more distant and cold than you often hear. But the light shines bright and hope for what friendships will be in eternity is a nice note to end on.

Honorable Mentions

The Last Ronin - Graphic novel about the last surviving ninja turtle

The Count of Monte Cristo and To Kill A Mockingbird - always recommended

The War of Art - Very short sections. A nice kick in the pants to start your writing session

Thank you so much for reading! Let me know if you have any recommendations in the comments.

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But then I reloaded.

For the rest of the session, which again was not long due to it being bone-chilling cold out, we couldn’t tell if I was hitting anything. We all figured I was shooting too low on a torso-sized paper target that was only twenty feet away. I never fixed it. Thus collapsed my confidence and delusions of grandeur.

Sin - Missing the Mark

The definition of “sin” circles back through my life like the one ceiling tile in your basement that looks different from all the rest. You forget about it for quite some time, but then you’ll notice it again and not be able to unsee it for a few weeks.

The term “sin” comes from archery. It means missing the mark. In my experience, life involves a lot of sinning.

Knowing whether you’re sinning or not can be a simple equation. What am I aiming at? Am I hitting it? Admittedly, this can be a harsh way to look at yourself. If the only acceptable result is hitting the bull’s eye, on any given day there are a number of moments I can look at and shake my head. Too often my rate of success in real life mimics that of the shooting range.

However, I’d sure like to hit those targets some more and feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to. I want to write better, teach better, take care of my home better, and do all the other things better, too.

But how? I recently saw a clip of Jack White offering an insight into this dilemma.

Obsession

The White Stripes were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, and Jack gave the acceptance speech. In his speech, he encourages young artists to “get obsessed” and share their creative works with the world. He then reads an allegory he wrote and indicates that he thinks The White Stripes made God smile in some sense with the music they created. I don’t know much about Jack White’s theology, but I think he’s onto something here.

When I was back in South Dakota over Thanksgiving, I watched my brother-in-law paint for a couple minutes. I think he would agree painting is an obsession for him, considering it’s how he makes a living. That day he was painting a deer. He did the nose first and then worked out from there. When he had the eyes down, he looked from his painting to the picture on his phone and back again. The nose was off. He said it was too low and he needed to move it. So that’s what he did. With a few strokes the nose had been adjusted and no one could see the previous error.

This is what thousands of hours of obsessive work on a skill can do. You can see where you’re missing the mark quickly and make the necessary adjustments to get back on target. Over time obsession and focused practice pay out in confidence and competence. You get to a point where you know what to do and you’re comfortable doing it.

Obsession is attention. When someone is obsessed with an activity, they give it their full focus. Mistakes are noted, corrections are found and remembered, and each iteration yields some type of new insight. Over time, all of this attention and effort tends to culminate in a single “bulls-eye” effort. Most writers write dozens of short stories and then a few novels before their first big success. Jack White wrote hundreds of songs before Seven Nation Army came along with its bag of fame and fortune. The road to perfection is not only narrow but rather long and arduous.

But does obsession scale? Can perfecting a single skill translate into other areas of life? Are the people who are best at the single thing they care about most the best people?

The answer to the last question is an easy no. But the others are difficult to answer. There’s something so obviously commendable about someone who diligently works on something they care deeply about. If that obsession can translate, it would have to be intentional. There’s nothing about trying to perfect a golf swing that makes someone a better parent. But if that parent were aware of their own obsession with golf and asked himself, “What if I looked at my child’s undesirable behaviors the way I look at my own golf swing,” they might find a fresh perspective, one that values observation and patience over the reactionary approach we are all tempted by.

A Savior Who Sympathizes

Even the most obsessed among us stumble from time to time. Not every Jack White song is a hit. No one rewatches Michael Jordan games when he wore number 45. Some James Bond movies are duds.

In Hebrews 4, we are told that we do not have a great high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness. Jesus understands our inadequate efforts, the limits of our time and attention. His grace then fills the space between our efforts and the target.

So He calls us to live in that tension. Striving, obsessing, making every effort to be perfect but gratefully accepting His grace as the only way to make us so.

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This saying fit into Tony’s general philosophy of simplifying training to a single goal and pursuing that one thing every day. I was already headed down the simplification path, always trying to find ways to make teaching and grading more efficient. The rabbit thing clicked with me. So I took the idea and have attempted to utilize it as widely as possible in the years since. Lately, I have relied on this thinking to push forward my passion projects. Here are a few of the lessons I’ve learned along the way:

1. Ignore Most Rabbits

There’s no shortage of people out there happy to tell you what you ought to be doing. Some of them even have pretty good ideas. Get to $1 million net worth as soon as possible. Start a business, doesn’t matter what it is. Get in the best shape of your life, every meal and spare minute. Read fifty books this year because your brain needs it.

Any of those ideas can breed excellent results and are probably worth a shot if you have nothing better to do. However, if you have a strong inkling of what you want, your first step toward it might just be ignoring other people’s good ideas.

Instead, identify the small handful of things that interest you and narrow your focus onto them1.

2. Rank Order Your Desired Rabbits

One of the first areas I employed this principle was in essay grading. Typically a high school essay can be graded on format, structure, argumentation, citations, and grammar. When I applied the red pen to all of the above, the average 2-3 page essay took fifteen minutes to grade. Eighty of those papers could eat up the time between dinner and midnight for a week. Upon return to their owners, there was a glance at the grade, and the paper was promptly deposited in the trash. Needless to say, this left me looking for a better way.

The math teacher at that school suggested only grading one of those aspects on any given essay. Simplify. Focus on one thing that can be improved. I tried it out and found that student writing improved significantly faster when focusing on one thing at a time. All the elements are still addressed, but we follow a logical order that gives each its time.

On a more existential level, figuring out how to spend your life requires the same discrimination and hierarchy. What’s the thing you most want to do? What other things do you want but not quite as much? Make them into a list. Remember, keep it narrow. You’re only chasing one at a time.

So, let’s say you’ve identified three or so rabbits. Time to rank them. Which one is most important right now? For example, my current rabbit desirability rankings:

1. Substack newsletter

2. Sci-fi story

3. Sports card collection

3. Carve Out Time To Chase

Time is hard to come by. Work and family eat up most of each day, as they should, and there is a never ending creep of distractions keen on sapping your drive and focus. So how do you make time to pursue your chosen targets?

In my experience, there is Made Time and Found Time. This is a tried and true method available to virtually anyone. For me, Made Time looks like getting up early and working on things before the family and work obligations start. Sometimes it’s rearranging your daily schedule to open up some gaps. This is where the concept of time blocking comes in handy.

Found Time comes from those moments when things don’t go according to plan. An appointment gets cancelled, you decide against taking that course you’re already signed up for, a rainy day wipes out your plans. Sometimes things just don’t happen when you thought they would. Those are good times to make a little progress.

4. FOCUS!

Doug Collins always said that basketball players “make layups with their eyes.” Focus determines whether talent and skill translate into success or fall flat.

So let’s say you’ve picked your rabbit for today. Your time is blocked off. For the next fifteen minutes, half hour, hour, or whatever you’ve carved out, you have one simple job. Get after it. Write your story, lift your weights, buy the stock you researched. Focus on that rabbit to the exclusion of everything else. Getting lost in the chase for a little bit can be pretty fun.

Every day isn’t about reaching the goal but rather doing the things it takes to reach the goal. All the little work sessions you put in are arguably more real and desirable than the thing you’re chasing anyway.

5. Don’t Forget To Celebrate

Inevitably, you’ll look around and see other people seemingly achieving what they want, possibly even what you want. Don’t worry about that. Look back every once in a while and take stock. You’ve been making progress, and it’s likely more than you realized. That’s good. Take a minute to celebrate.

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It’s been wild and crazy times here in beautiful Grand Forks. (Also, if you haven’t ever been here to visit, please do so. We may not get many visitors but we treat them well.) We were on the road and then school was starting and I’m now a second grade soccer coach because opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated, or maybe because no one else would do it, and fall has sprung upon us with its beauty and cool weather and germs. So hello, it’s good to be writing to you again.

Lost in that run-on sentence is the fact that I am back in classes with students every day. I was excited for this year. My incoming class of sophomores had a good reputation and has lived up to it. The curriculum foundation set last year will reduce my workload significantly. I even caught myself smiling a couple times just thinking about being back in the classroom.

So I was as surprised as anyone last week when about ten days into the school year I was watching a video about how I needed to set up my sessions for a standardized test I was to administer and in a flurry of frustration hurled an empty water bottle across my room at my lone trash can. The bottle missed. I marched across the room, picked it up, promptly spiked it into the can, and walked across the hall toward the restroom thinking something has gone very wrong.

This might be a good time to mention I was alone in the room for all of that.

Now, I can only imagine you have had a similar experience at some point in life. You were excited or at least felt good about a situation or project only to find yourself annoyed beyond reason. Maybe you spent months preparing for an exciting only to start out and realize none of your plans will work and you are back to square one. It’s a bummer. The ensuing reaction though is where trouble sets in. For me this time around looked like a lot of complaining to anyone who would listen. Bad attitudes, unnecessary set-up work to administer tests, general frustration around scheduling. There was a two week period when everyone who spoke with me got to hear about my problems.

Then I had a conversation that turned it around. I was describing how one class’s academic make-up made it impossible to teach the curriculum I had developed over the last year and a half when my friend said, “Yeah. You’ll have to simplify that.”

I suddenly realized I had wasted two weeks doing things I knew wouldn’t work and then complaining about it. That comment also revealed what I should have been doing the whole time.

Instead of focusing on all the circumstances that led to my frustration (insufficient class time and unclear communication), I should have focused on what in that moment was annoying me. Had I done so, I would have quickly known that I was annoyed because the plan I had was not working and I was trying to force it through.

With that realization in mind, the next step forward was clear: change what I’m doing. Accepting that shifted the feeling in my body. Instead of pressing up against a brick wall, I was suddenly trying to pick a path through difficult terrain. I had something engaging to do.

Now, this did not solve all my problems, but it did offer a more useful purchase for my energy. I have more agency. I can make the chaos feel a little more productive.

In fact, it happened again last night. I was listening to a podcast and a guy said he quit his job to start his own business because he wanted to work for himself. I found this profoundly annoying. Why? Well, it took a minute to realize, but my first thought after hearing that was “That’s risky. Not a safe bet. Don’t do it.” I don’t like the part of me that always wants to play it safe, but too often I still listen to it. There again, it wasn’t really the circumstance that sparked my frustration but my own inner dialogue. Maybe I need to take a risk.

So let it happen. Be annoyed. Allow yourself the initial reaction against the things that bug you. But then pause and identify not the circumstantial cause but the inner friction that needs addressed. You might find it’s time for action.

Recommended Reading: Love Clint

October baseball is here! It always reminds me of my favorite manager, Clint Hurdle. I love this piece. It’s all about making small, consistent connections with the people around you. He’s one of the most beloved figures in the MLB world, and this piece shows why.

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I ran over to Chase. By the time I got there his face was red, nearly crying. I opened the backpack and grabbed a bottle of water.

“Take your jacket off,” I said. “Let’s clean it up.”

He shook his head and bit down and for the first time I realized how much pain he was in.

I leaned and looked down over the edge. The snow was disturbed where the cat had slid through. I looked closely hoping to see red dots, evidence that I had at least nicked it and not completely missed. There was none to be found.

I turned back to Chase. The blood was oozing out between his fingers, running down the sleeve, staining the light tan shell a deep crimson. His eyes were pinched shut as tears ran down his face, and he breathed through clenched teeth.

“We need to clean it,” I said, knowing not to push it too hard or draw attention to his pain. He sobbed and nodded and tried sucking it up. I unzipped his coat, working around his arm, careful not to look in his face. We got his good arm free. He leaned forward, and I pulled the jacket off the bleeding arm as gently as I could. He gasped through spit and snot the whole while.

I was going to give him a break, but he started pulling up the bottom of his sweatshirt, which needed to come off, too. I guess he wanted it over with. We worked the sweatshirt off. He must have been at that point where the mind accepts the pain just enough to work around it.

“Stupid lion,” he said as he wiped the tears and snot from his face.

“What happened in there?”

“Well, it’s pitch black for starters. So I had to walk in a little ways. I could hear it in there. It was growling, and I knew it saw me. Then I saw its eyes kind of glowing. So I took my shot. I saw it in the flash. It was pissed. That’s when I got out. I don’t know how I missed it.”

I unscrewed the cap on the bottle. “Ready?”

He took a deep breath. “Yeah.”

I poured the water over the wound. It’s the only time in my life I saw actual human muscle tissue. As surface blood washed off fresh blood flowed in to replace it. I did a couple rinses and didn’t know what else there was for me to offer.

“We have to get you home, man. You’re losing a lot of blood.”

His face scrunched against the pain. “I know.”

I looked down at the sweatshirt with the sleeve half ripped off. “Do we have a knife?”

“Try the little pocket.”

I unzipped it and found a decent folding knife. I took it out and opened it and cut the sleeve the rest of the way off.

“Good idea,” Chase said.

“Thanks.” I wrapped across the inside of his arm and held the two loose ends up. At this point I was purely going off what I’d seen in old Westerns. “This might hurt a little.”

“Do it.”

“You want a stick or something to bite on?”

He looked at me like I was an idiot. “Just hurry up.”

I flipped one end around the other and cinched it tight. Chase’s eyes popped open as he hollered and swore. I doubled the knot and waited for him to compose himself.

When he was ready, we slipped his sweatshirt back on and then his jacket. I cracked another bottle and told him to drink it all. He finished and looked off in the direction the lion had run. “I hate that lion.”

“Me too, man. But you’ll get him another day. You ready to go?”

He nodded. “Don’t forget the pistol.”

I picked it up. Dried blood filled much of the pattern in the grip. I flicked the safety on and emptied it and wiped off what I could. I set it all neatly in the bottom of the bag.

Thinking the end of the hunt would bring the relief of not having to carry a loaded rifle any longer, I took out the clip.

“How many rounds do you have left?” Chase asked.

I looked at the clip in my hand and did the math. “Should be three, right? I started with five, and I shot twice.”

“Fill the clip back up.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. We’re in the woods. Might need it.”

I grabbed a couple shells from the box and slid them in the clip and popped it back in.

The backpack felt lighter slinging it over my shoulder. Holding a loaded rifle still felt a little awkward. In fact, I’ve never been totally comfortable holding a loaded gun.

I helped Chase up, and we began the long walk home. The day had warmed, melting some stretches of our path of muck and mud. We didn’t talk. If we got to a steep or slick spot, I would slow down and let Chase lean on my shoulder. Every time a branch hit his arm or he took a jolting step, he’d mutter some curse directed at the lion.

The way home felt far longer than the hike out. As the adrenaline of tracking wore off, we grew hungrier and more fatigued. There were places I didn’t remember and landmarks I thought were much closer to each other. Every time I felt lost, I’d look back and Chase would point in the right direction.

We sat on a couple rocks to eat. We finished what little was left of the biscuits and water. I looked at Chase. Blood was still running down his arm onto his hand.

“We need to get you to a hospital.”

He nodded.

The dried blood on his jeans and hand reminded me of that morning. “I’m sorry about Tracker.”

That was the only time I ever remember seeing him cry about something that wasn’t excruciating physical pain. He wiped away the tears. “Thanks.”

We didn’t talk much after that either. The trail back continued to be steep in places. It kept us slow. The sun dropped over the top of the mountain, and we felt the temperature sink with it. We were back in the clearing. I pointed to the tree where my bullet hit.

“You shot high at the cave, too,” Chase said.

“How do you know?”

“I heard it whistle over my head.”

That was tough to argue with, so I didn’t. I scanned the trees as we walked across the clearing. This day felt ten years old.

A little beyond the clearing I turned and checked behind us. I didn’t know why. For the first time I noticed how tired and pale Chase was. A little later I thought I heard him stop on something. “You alright?”

He just groaned.

A few steps later I could’ve sworn I heard something. I stopped and turned around. Chase walked up and pointed in the direction of the house. He put his good hand on my shoulder and leaned into me.

He whispered, “That way.” I could feel him growing delirious. There was nothing straight behind us. But I glanced up the hill and saw it. I didn’t need to get the lion’s attention because it was looking right at me.

“It’s here,” I said.

Chase turned and blinked. The lion was maybe fifty feet away. I levered a round into the chamber and brought up the rifle.

“Wait,” Chase said.

He pointed at a fallen tree the lion was approaching. “When he walks around that, he’ll be sideways to you. Then shoot him.”

I waited. Just like he said, the lion walked toward the bottom of the trunk.

“Aim low,” Chase said. “Right behind his shoulder. But try to hit the bottom of his chest. You’ll hit his heart.”

I breathed deep and steadied the rifle. The knotted roots sticking up hit the cat for a second, but it came out sideways just like he said.

“You got this.”

Its face was turned toward me, staring me down. The front legs and those powerful shoulders emerged. I lined up my bead just behind the mass of muscle outlining the shoulder. It was almost past the roots. I had to go quick. I dropped the bead to the bottom of its chest, took a quick, short inhale, and let it out slow. The trigger squeezed nice and easy until the bang rang through my ears and the recoil hit my shoulder.

I saw the side of the cat ripple from the impact. It was like the bullet triggered something in it. The lion bolted in a straight line, flat out speed. It tore off through the grass and trees. I’ve never seen another living thing move like that. It ran toward some fixed point in the distance.

We watched it go. Chase put his hand on my shoulder. “You got it!”

The lion ran through the trees, so we only saw it in flashes. Just when I thought we’d lose sight of it for good, we heard it collapse onto the forest floor.

“Come on,” Chase said. He appeared to have momentarily regained his bearings. We walked out to it, about a hundred yards. There it was. Stiff, bloodied, and running no more.

Chase walked over and pressed his boot against its back I guess to show me it was dead.

“You nailed it, man. Look at that. Right through the heart.”

“I aimed low.” I couldn’t believe we’d actually done it.

We stood there in silence. A breeze was blowing through. It sounded like the trees and rocks and snow were exhaling along with us. Before long I started crying. Tears were rolling down my face and wouldn’t stop. Chase said nothing. I kept wiping my cheeks with the sleeve of my coat.

It was getting darker. Our journey had come to a close. Chase spat on the lion. “I hate that thing. I’m glad it’s dead.”

I nodded. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

Chase went to the hospital and got put back together that night. Even still his parents were not happy with any of our decisions that day. My mom gave me a speech the whole way home and grounded me for two weeks. Dad wasn’t so upset though. In fact, I think he was impressed.

Once high school started, Chase and I saw each other less and less. We grew up and made our own lives. Once every few years someone will get married or there will be a big reunion. We’ll both show up. The bottom of his scar sticks out below his short sleeves, purple against the rest of his arm. It always reminds me of that day and Tracker and the lion. We share a nod and get caught up.

I don’t have kids, but I plan to someday. I hope to take them out to the ranch. Chase runs it now, and I know he always keeps a horse.

The End

Part 1 Recap: Twelve year old Aiden goes to visit his cousin Chase and uncle Jett on their ranch in Montana for a weekend in February. While there Chase shows Aiden his new horse Tracker. Aiden and Chase are obsessed with the horse. The next morning while Chase’s parents are on a trip to town, Aiden and Chase discover a mountain lion burying a fresh kill. The lion runs away, and the boys discover the lion killed Tracker.

Part 2 Recap: Chase and Aiden track the lion through the snow and into the woods until they come upon a clearing where the sun has melted away the previous night’s snow. They search around the edges for tracks but find none. They realize the lion must be in the trees just in time to find it watching them from above. Both of the boys shoot just as the cat leaps from the tree.

The cat landed and dashed away, disappearing into the trees. My heart pounded in my ears. I couldn’t believe we’d actually tracked down a mountain lion. We found it. And we wasted a good chance.

I lowered my rifle and wiped my hand over my face. “That was crazy.”

Chase just pointed up to where the cat had been sitting. “You still shoot high.” He seemed unmoved by the whole thing.

“Chase, he was right there!”

“I know. And you missed him.”

“So did you.”

“Nah. You had the shot. I just hoped to scare him off.”

“Yeah, right.”

A little smirk showed up on his face. “Fine. But he was already jumping by the time I shot. You could’ve had him.”

“I know.”

“Just aim a little lower. It’s like last summer when you kept shooting over the targets.”

“Sure. Sorry I blew it.”

“No worries. I’m telling you. He’s going to the cave, I just know it. I can get him in there.”

I didn’t like the sound of that at all. “Where is the cave?”

“It’s somewhere further up on a hillside.”

“Have you ever been there?”

“No.”

It seemed to me his confidence was a little higher than it deserved to be. “Then how are we supposed to find it?”

“Same way we found this place. We’ll track him there.”

We stepped over to where the cat had landed. Sure enough. There were the fresh prints in the snow. I squatted down and spread my fingers wide and placed my hand on the track. It looked just like the little tracks a neighborhood cat makes on the hood of a dusty car, but way bigger. I could smell him there. The scent was faint but clearly that of an animal. It was nerve-wracking to be that close to him even just touching his track. But it made him more real. He wasn’t a killer phantom coming and going under cover as he pleased. He was a living, breathing thing that we could track down and hunt, if we were up for it.

My heart slowed, and I realized how insanely hungry I was. “How about we eat some biscuits?”

We decided to eat while we walked so we wouldn’t lose any tracks to melting snow. It’s crazy to say biscuits and water is a great meal, but on that day, I couldn’t imagine anything better.

The lion kept going further up, and the climb was getting to us. I unzipped my jacket and let the cold air wrap around me. That woke me up a little.

“So what’s this cave supposed to look like?” I asked.

“I don’t really know. The opening must be small though. I think Dad said Grandpa had to crawl in or something.”

I realized the more questions I asked the worse this whole chase-the-lion-into-the-cave idea felt. So I shut my trap and hoped we’d just lose the trail and go home. Not that I didn’t want to finish the adventure and terminate that lion. It just seemed like the cost of doing so might be more than I really wanted to pay.

The climb continued. We munched through most of the biscuits. Chase wanted to eat them all, but I cut him off. Lion or not, we had a long journey back to the house.

Chase kept on ahead, and I followed with the backpack. I figured it must be the afternoon because my shadow had shifted to being on my right more than my left. My mind wandered into historical hypotheticals like how many mountain lions the first guy out here had run into and how long it would take to cut these trees down to make a house and whether I’d be better off just digging into the side of the hill for shelter. But what if I came home one day and a mountain lion had moved in.

Chase broke my daydream.

“I think that’s it,” he whispered.

I pulled up my gun thinking he meant the cat, but I didn’t see it anywhere.

Chase squatted down and motioned for me to do the same.

“See up there? The tracks are going right towards that opening.”

I saw the tracks leading ahead. The opening Chase pointed to wasn’t what I had expected. It was small, only a couple feet high, and rimmed by a couple large rocks still topped with snow. There was a narrow ledge running across the mouth of the cave and then the hill dropped off steeply. I remember thinking that falling down that stretch of mountain was nearly as dangerous as whatever was in that cave.

“Give me the backpack,” Chase whispered. We were both squatting low to the ground. He took out the pistol and a magazine and checked the rounds and slid the clip into the handle. His thumb released the slide, putting a round in the chamber. I set the bag to the side and checked my rifle.

Chase wiped his hand on his sleeve. “Okay. I’ll sneak up there and go in the cave. You stay here. Be ready. If I scare him out, you shoot him. Just don’t shoot me.”

I nodded. “Got it.”

He licked his lips and wiped his hand on his sleeve again.

“Okay. Be ready.” He kept as low as he could and crept along the tracks.

I was still squatting until I realized this was no position to shoot a rifle from. So I sat flat on the ground. Pretty quickly I realized how difficult it would be to shoot from there, and I felt like easy pickings for a wild cat. I decided to kneel on my right knee with my left knee up as a rest for my arm to aim the rifle. This felt good.

Like I said, the cave was a little higher on the hill and to the left. I watched Chase make his way up. He must have seen tracks leading into the cave when he got close because he started nodding his head and raised his pistol.

I grasped the stock behind the trigger and aimed for just in front of the mouth of the cave. With the narrow ledge and steep descent, the lion would almost have to walk out and sit there for me to have a decent shot.

I lowered my rifle so I wasn’t aiming at Chase who had reached the mouth of the cave. He stopped next to the opening and took a couple deep breaths. I was nervous for him, my own palms sweating. He looked down and picked up a rock with his free hand and weighed it. It looked like he might toss it into the cave first, but he must’ve thought better of it. He set it back down, keeping whatever element of surprise he had.

He put his left hand on the ground, pistol in his right, and made his way into the cave. The opening was just tall enough for him to crawl in without having to get on his knees. I watched him slowly disappear up to his right boot. He stopped there, and I could see him shift his weight back as he braced for the shot.

The pop of the pistol was amplified coming out of the cave. Chae shuffled back a couple steps. His upper body reappeared in a flurry of movement. He stepped to the side of the opening where he held the little rock before. I pulled up my rifle, aiming for the little ledge.

The mountain lion flew out of the cave like a golden flame from a cannon, a full flurry of rage. It swiped at Chase as it spewed out, sliding across the ledge. It’s momentum took it past the edge. I remember it spilled over in slow motion, its forepaw scraping, trying to pull it back.

I took the shot.

The cat’s paw slipped off. It tumbled down the hillside a moment. I thought I’d hit it. But just before it slammed into a tree, it found its footing and leapt away. Back into the forest.

I looked at Chase. The pistol was on the ground next to him. He was grabbing his upper left arm, grimacing in pain. His hand was already covered in blood.

To be continued…

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Part 1 Recap: Twelve year old Aiden goes to visit his cousin Chase and uncle Jett on their ranch in Montana for a weekend in February. While there Chase shows Aiden his new horse Tracker. Aiden and Chase are obsessed with the horse. The next morning while Chase’s parents are on a trip to town, Aiden and Chase discover a mountain lion burying a fresh kill. The lion runs away, and the boys discover the lion killed Tracker.

Chase took off in a sprint back to the house.

I followed him around the corner toward the mud room we had come through just an hour before. He had already opened the gun safe and pulled out two rifles. He held one out to me. It was the one I had used the previous summer shooting targets. I stared at it.

“Why are we going after it?” I asked. “It ran way.”

“It killed Tracker.” He looked like he couldn’t believe I was hesitating.

“I’ve never hunted anything,” I said.

He eased up a little. “That’s fine. You just have to stick with me. Now come on. Or are you going to make me do this alone?”

Chase always used to talk me into things. We got stuck driving a four-wheeler through a mud pit a couple years before because Chase assured me we’d make it through. He even tried to rope a beaver in the yard once while I stood by with a gunny sack so we could relocate him to his dam. Turns out those things slip right through a lasso. But this was the last time he talked me into something I was truly scared to do.

I grasped the barrel of the gun just above his hand. We held it together a moment and nodded. We were in this.

He grabbed his rifle and a pistol and saw me looking confused. “In case we get close.”

He set the pistol in the bottom of a backpack and ripped a couple water bottles out of a package by the door and set them in on top. Thinking of the head start the lion had and how fast it was, I ran to the kitchen and loaded all the leftover biscuits from the night before into a bag. With the food, guns, and ammo ready, we headed out.

The climb up the hill was slower with all the stuff. From the top we could see out over the low forest and mountains, darker and menacing now that we knew they held a killer. We sped down to the cache. Chase was ahead of me and got to Tracker first.

“Don’t look,” he said.

It was ridiculous of him to try to protect me from seeing it. We were basically the same age. So I came and looked anyway. I immediately regretted it.

He barely looked himself. Tracker’s hide was caked with blood and dirt. The eye just staring up at the Montana sky was the worst. I don’t know why those things are so hard to look away from, but in a sense I was glad I looked. It made me really hate that lion.

“Come on,” Chase said, calling me back to our purpose.

The tracks were plain enough in the snow. We followed where it plowed through the grass and got into the trees. We held our rifles in our hands as we took the first steps into the forest.

Every tree and bush looked like the perfect place for a lion to lie in wait. Chase stopped short, though I didn’t realize until I walked right into him, the side of my rifle hitting his back.

“Look,” he said, pointing up ahead of us.

The tracks were clear in the snow, extending straight away and then bearing left toward the hills.

“My dad told me about a lion that used to come around when he was a kid,” Chase said. “It took him a while to track it. Said it was in a cave up on that hill. Said his dad had to go in after it.” He swallowed and studied the tracks. “I bet this one’s holed up in the same spot.”

I knew Grandpa to be something like a character from an old Western, all tough and rugged. But I’d never heard this story before. “He killed it in there?”

“Yeah, he shot it.”

“He shot it while he was in the cave?”

“How else would he do it?”

“But what if it ricocheted?”

Chase shrugged. “Tough to miss when you’re that close, I guess.”

I thought then what I still think now: chasing lions into caves is insanely dangerous and unwise, but sometimes it’s the best option.

We followed the tracks, and the sun climbed in the sky. It must’ve been in the 20s because it was warm enough that nothing hurt and the snow getting direct sunlight was melting. We ascended little by little as we went. From time to time I could see the little creek running at the foot of the mountain through the trees. It kept getting further away.

The tracks took us to a clearing on a gentle, east-facing slope. Sparse grass and rocks mostly. Whatever snow had fallen on it the night before was melted off. The trail was gone with it.

“See if you can find any tracks,” Chase said.

We scoured the area we knew the lion had to walk through. There was absolutely nothing.

“Where is he?” I said.

“I don’t know. Not around here. There’s nowhere to hide.”

We looked around. It was a little unnerving not having the tracks. If nothing else, they told us where the lion wasn’t. But I was still pretty sure we were a ways behind and probably not in imminent danger.

“Let’s split up and trace the outline,” Chase said. “You go along the edge of the tree line that way, I go this way. There’s still snow in the shade. We should see prints where he left the clearing.”

I started left, and he started right. There was plenty of shade in the trees, and the snow came up close. I wasn’t seeing anything. Just snow and rocks. I turned and checked a few times that Chase was still there, partly out of concern for his safety but mostly because I doubted my ability to find my way back to the house.

We finally converged again on the other side.

“You see anything?” Chase asked.

“No.”

We were standing on bare earth. About eight feet away the tree line started again and the snow beneath it.

“Is he in a hole?” I asked.

“I think we would’ve seen that.”

“So he vanished,” I said.

We stood there and looked over the clearing, befuddled.

Finally, Chase spoke in a low voice. “The trees.”

My hair stood on end. We’d walked that whole tree line and hadn’t even thought to look up. We both reflexively pulled our rifles up toward our shoulders. I scanned the trees along the line I’d just walked. Nothing unusual. Then I spun to look at the trees closest to us. Nothing there.

I searched out every branch to be sure he wasn’t hiding behind the pine needles. Just when my nerves started to relax, the corner of my eye caught something.

It looked like it dropped off a branch. I lost it a moment, but nothing had fallen. Rather, there was something swinging like a pendulum. The swaying tail led up to the lion lying there, watching us. My arms were heavy, and my gun didn’t move. The big cat didn’t react until I looked in its green eyes. It pulled its front paws up under its shoulders and leaned forward. The whiskers, still faintly red, parted, and it let out a hiss.

That hiss gripped me. It rattled between my ears, scrambled my thoughts. My arms went numb. I didn’t know where I was aiming.

“Shoot!” Chase shouted.

Both rifles cracked, and a round slammed into the trunk of the tree as the lion leapt away deeper into the woods.

To be continued…

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I remember being twelve, not all the specifics but just the general feeling of it. The days blend together in memory, but one weekend stands out. I still think about it most days, not ruminating but just that it happened. Sometimes it seems like it wasn’t real. I didn’t think to save anything. But I see Chase sometimes still, and if he’s wearing short sleeves, I can see the bottom of the scar.

That year I spent a late winter weekend at my uncle’s ranch. It was a two-hour drive. He was my mom’s little brother, and I never knew what he would say or do next. I sat in the car with knots in my stomach until my mom dropped me off, excited for whatever adventure might come but dreading it at the same time.

My cousin Chase always made the trip worth it. He was a year older than me, thirteen at the time. He was always stronger, more muscular. But I could beat him in a race.

He had just gotten a new horse and took me to the corral to show me. The ground was hard, frozen by the long winter, the uneven grooves worn in by the tractor last fall forcing my focus always on the next step. We climbed the fence for a better view. Inside the dirt was fresh everywhere that horse had been worked. He was on the far side standing perpendicular to us, so we could see his profile. He was a painted horse. White and burnt orange. Chase whistled and called him over.

“Tracker!”

He was as tall as us up there on the fence. His breath pressed through my jacket onto my chest. I’ve always been nervous around horses. Kind of like standing near the edge of a cliff. It’s exciting, but I feel small. Chase must have felt different because he’d pull Tracker in and scratch him behind the ears like he was a little puppy.

Chase looked at me. “Should we ride him?”

We went up to the barn on the north end of the corral. Uncle Jett was in there putting something away. He was tall and strong and always had his jeans just kind of stuffed into the top of his boots. He looked at me and nodded. “Aiden.” Uncle Jett talked in a friendly but distant way that always kept me from saying too much.

“Hey, Dad. Me and Aidan want to ride Tracker.”

Uncle Jett kept his eyes on me a moment, studying something. Finally he said, “You start lifting or something?”

“No. But I’m supposed to start next year.”

“Hmm. You look stronger.”

My chest swelled up. “I’ve been doing pushups. Fifty every day.”

“That’d be it then.”

That was how Uncle Jett was. Brief moments that could make you feel like a million bucks and then prolonged periods of absolute minimum communication.

He looked at Chase and nodded his approval that we could ride Tracker. Chase called him in, and Uncle Jett helped get the saddle on and cinched tight.

Chase started slow around the corral a few times and then picked up the pace. He looked natural. I always used to wonder why they lived so far out in the country away from ball games and theaters and fast food. But that day it made sense.

Uncle Jett leaned against the open barn door and watched. He didn’t give a word of instruction. Didn’t look proud or worried or happy or anything. Just stood there and watched.

Chase brought Tracker around and hopped down and told me it was my turn. He gave me the quick tutorial. Hold the reins firm but not tight. Use your legs to tell him what to do. Don’t be afraid to give him a little kick to get going. “And most important, it’s all about confidence. Think like you’re in charge, then he’ll follow you. Right, Dad?”

“Yup.” Uncle Jett was still leaning against the door.

The truth is I wasn’t confident at all, but Tracker didn’t seem to mind. A couple laps in I decided to go for it. At first he didn’t respond to the prodding of my soft, rubber-soled sneakers. So I tried again, this time with more conviction and better results.

We took off down the long side of the corral. That was the first time I ever felt like that, wind in my face, being carried along. The closest thing to it is a dirt bike, but those don’t move and breathe under you. This was a living magic.

I brought him back around and hopped off. Chase was smiling at me. “How was that?”

“Awesome.”

We had biscuits and gravy for dinner. Chase told me his parents would go to town in the morning. When they got groceries, it was enough to last at least a month. Tracker had been turned out to the pasture for the night. We had strict instructions not to ride him or any other animals until Uncle Jett was back around. That evening we played cards and went to bed, and all I thought about was Tracker.

By the time we turned off the lights, I knew I had never wanted anything as badly as I wanted a horse of my own.

Chase shook my shoulder to wake me the next morning. He was already dressed. They had a bare concrete floor in the basement that was so cold when my feet came down it made my teeth chatter. I got dressed as quickly as I could, made sure I had a long sleeve shirt and a hoodie. We went upstairs and had to cross the house to the front door. They had these big windows in the living room that let you see to the south and east borders of the ranch. It was winter still, so the sun was coming up late. Where they lived was kind of like the badlands. Lots of hills and bluffs and ridges. First light was coming, and all the edges of the land were black beneath it. The house was quiet, Chase’s parents already gone. It felt like something coming, or the start of it, though I didn’t know what.

We made it to the mudroom, and Chase pulled on his boots. I had a pair of insulated hiking boots my mom made me bring. They looked new and soft compared to everything Chase’s family wore. I followed Chase outside. There was two inches of fresh snow on the ground.

“Wait a minute,” I said.

I stepped back inside and grabbed my canvas shelled coat and threw it on. Chase watched me step out and laughed. “Don’t want that snow to get you.”

We got started on the chores: sweeping the barn, feeding the chickens, collecting the eggs. By the time we headed back to the house each with a basket full of eggs, my mouth was watering.

Their house sat at the bottom of a little hill with a shelf of shale rock up neat the top. Chase stopped by the side door that opened to the kitchen. “How’s your arm?” he asked.

“Not bad.”

“See that one white rock up there? Two eggs each. First to hit it wins.”

I grinned and said it was a deal. I threw first, a little short. He missed just to the right. I threw again, this time too long. He nailed it with his last egg. “Guess I’m the winner.”

I waited until he reached down for his basket, and then I took off. It was cheating, but I needed a win. Halfway up the hill I heard him just a couple steps back. I dashed to the top and thrust my arms in the air, lungs too tired to speak. He came up behind me, panting. “That wasn’t fair.”

It was light then. North of the house was a forested area gently rising up to low mountains on the west side. They were bright yellow now with the morning sun on them.

We took in the scene for a moment. But we heard something down the hill a ways and to our left. There was still some tall dead grass left from the previous fall and snow from the night bending it down. Something the color of dead grass was moving. There was disturbed snow and a pile of fresh dirt. Chase realized before I did and grabbed my shoulder like he was holding me back. I stepped and kicked a rock.

The mountain lion had its back toward us but heard the rock and turned around. Blood was smeared all across its face and teeth. When it saw us, its ears laid flat and it hissed, showing the red stained fangs. The sound grabbed me.

The lion turned and leapt into the grass and low trees. I’ve never seen anything move so fast or so silent, though I swear I felt its power through the ground. Chase made for the cache, and I followed him. He screamed when he saw it. I was too dumbstruck to move.

There was Tracker. Bloody. Covered in dirt. Dead.

To be continued…

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Jack looked at the map in the officer’s hand. His mind raced trying to come up with a realistic alternative to the truth. He’d marked the spots they were aiming for with small, black dots. It was possible the officer hadn’t seen the final destination.

“We wanted to see the shore. It’s my brother’s birthday. I thought it would be fun.”

The officer looked at Danny still sleeping soundly and considered something.

Jack felt Rachel sit up next to him. She must have been awake enough to hear most of it because she didn’t say anything or act surprised.

The officer picked a stick off their dwindled wood pile and poked at a lump of wet clothes. “You go for a swim last night?”

Jack’s mind scrambled for a story that would pull it together and get the officer to leave them alone. But Rachel was a step ahead. “The boys did. They felt like having a race. I didn’t want to get wet.” She tried her most disarming smile. Jack recognized it. He thought the story was good.

The officer glanced at Danny again. “Didn’t know retards could swim.”

The comment didn’t phase Jack at all, but he felt Rachel bristle.

The officer looked down at the fire. “You make this?” It was clear he was talking to Jack even though he hadn’t looked at any of them.

“Yeah. I made it.”

“I take it camping must be new for you.”

Jack didn’t know why but the comment stung his pride. Even worse he was getting the very clear impression they were not winning him over.

“Well, I’m not sure what you all are up to, but it isn’t seeing the shore. I’d suspect transporting drugs except you brought him along.” He pointed his stick at Danny. “And that wouldn’t make any sense. My car is the only one around, so you didn’t drive. And none of you look old enough to vote. So I’m thinking you’re going to pick this all up, and we’re taking a ride downtown.” He tossed the stick into the coals and put his hands on his hips.

Jack’s hopes slipped out of him like sand through a fist. Without speaking he stood up and started folding the blanket. Rachel looked up at him, but he turned away not wanting to cry. He dropped the blanket next to her and went over to Danny. “Time to wake up, Danny.”

It took a couple tries before Danny’s eyes finally opened. “Where are we?”

“We’re in the park. We’re going to town.”

“I’m cold.”

“I know you are. Get moving and you’ll warm up.”

Danny sat up and opened his eyes and saw the officer. He jumped and asked who it was.

“He’s just going to help us get into town.”

The officer turned and looked around the area. As he did something on his belt clicked. Jack looked and noticed a flashlight, walkie-talkie, and handcuffs. No gun.

Danny pulled his shirt over his head and held it out. Not wanting to upset him any more than necessary, Jack took it and pulled the last sweatshirt out of Danny’s bag. He turned to hand it over and noticed again the red marks on Danny’s back. He saw them more clearly now. Whatever they were, they weren’t from last night. They were older and shared a common geometry. Jack didn’t know who had done it or why, but it must have happened at the home.

A spark of resolve lit in him. And a little resolve can go a long way.

He caught Rachel’s eye and glanced toward the officer who was still scanning the area. She gave a slight nod.

The officer turned back toward them. “Hurry it up.”

Knowing Rachel was aware of the stakes, he continued gathering their things looking for an opportunity.

“Can I have my map?”

The officer eyed him and tossed it over. Jack set it in his pack and zipped it shut and threw it on.

“My car is just up past the trees.” The officer indicated the general direction, and they started the march, him bringing up the rear.

Jack kept Danny to his right and Rachel to his left. He hoped Rachel would catch his cue and jump in. Otherwise, he’d be in for an extended stay in some correctional facility.

Before too long they came to a patch of uneven ground with some rocks protruding up from the dirt. He figured it was as good a place as he could hope for.

“Gah!” Jack stopped short and squatted down. “A nasty sticker or something got in my shoe.” He heard the officer sigh behind him and hoped Rachel would take the opportunity.

She acted like she was looking for something up in the trees and wandered a couple steps so there was some distance between the three of them. “So do you catch a lot of people camping in this park?”

She flipped her hair from one side to the other just when the officer looked at her. It was a reliable trick for distractions and asking favors. The officer paused for one second. Jack sprang.

He planted his shoulder near the officer’s belly button and drove him toward the ground. The officer was strong and fought tipping over.

But Jack still had some control and steered him straight at Rachel who swung her leg hard and fast at the officer’s knees.

He fell to his back. Jack tried keeping all his weight on the officer’s chest. The officer went to push him off, but he held on tight. The officer pulled one arm back and came in with a punch. Jack braced for it, tucking his ear and jaw behind his shoulder. But before the blow landed, Rachel was on his arm, pinning it to the dirt.

Jack felt him go for the walkie-talkie and grabbed it away. He tossed it to the side as far as he could. An elbow knocked the wind out of him, and the officer slammed his forehead into Jack’s cheek.

Rachel yelled Jack’s name. He tried to get back on the officer’s chest, but he was slower now. The officer landed a knee to the inside of his thigh that made his leg buckle.

He fell to the side and saw the officer reach for Rachel. He looked nearly as tired as Jack. His hand snatched Rachel’s shoulder and started prying her off. She let out a defiant scream.

Jack was still dazed from the headbutt, but just then something dark crashed onto the officer.

“No!” Danny shouted and wrapped an arm around the officer’s neck and wrenched it back. The officer let Rachel go and struck back at Danny, but Danny was pulling too tight. The officer’s face turned a deep red.

Jack knew Danny wouldn’t let go. It didn’t happen often, but Jack had seen this side of his brother come out when they were kids. It was always because Jack was endangering one of Danny’s toys.

Jack scrambled to his feet and pulled the cuffs from the officer’s belt. He cuffed the wrist that was flailing toward Danny. The officer’s face was nearly purple and covered in spit and snot.

“That’s enough, Danny.”

Danny kept his hold tight.

“Let him go!” Jack tried pulling his arms off, but they were clenched.

The officer looked at him in desperation, and his eyes started rolling. Jack pulled harder, but nothing changed.

Rachel wrapped her arms around Danny like she was holding a child. “It’s okay, Danny. I’m okay. You can let him go.”

He loosened just enough to let the man breath.

“It’s okay. You got him. Now let him go.”

Danny released the officer’s neck and scooted back.

Jack bent over the man.

“He’s breathing,” Jack said. “I think he’ll be alright.” He looked up at Danny who was shaking despite Rachel hugging his shoulders. “You saved us, Danny.”

Danny blinked. “He grabbed Rachel.”

“And you got him off me.” She kissed the top of his head. “You’re my hero, Buddy.”

Jack looked down at the officer. They needed to get moving. “Help me drag him to that tree.”

Rachel grabbed the other arm and pulled. Searing pain shot through Jack’s knee. He used one hand to pull the officer’s arm and the other to balance on the ground.

They sat him up next to a young tree and wrapped his arms around it and cuffed his wrists together. Jack opened a bottle and splashed some water on his face. The officer groaned and leaned against the tree. Jack offered him a drink. “We’ll send someone to come get you, but you’ll have to hang out here for a while.”

The officer tried to speak, but he just coughed.

“Yeah, your throat will probably hurt. I wouldn’t do much talking.”

The man took one more drink and slumped against the tree.

Jack hobbled over to the walkie-talkie lying in the dirt and picked it up. “Follow me.” He started going up the hill instead of back down toward the boat. He hoped the officer would assume they had caught a ride. The second time he stopped, wincing and holding his knee in pain, Rachel came over and put his arm around her shoulders and helped him on.

Once they could see the road, he pressed the button on the walkie-talkie and asked for dispatch. He told the woman on the other end where the injured officer was. Before she asked any more questions, he threw the walkie-talkie up into the ditch next to the road. From there they went down the hill, uncovered the boat, and got back to rowing north.

They didn’t say much in the boat. It was slow going with Jack’s knee. Rachel took the oars a couple times, but they weren’t in a rush. Something told them the hardest part was behind. Jack dipped is hand in the frigid lake and felt it roll by. The sun was on them all morning, and it was good.

Sometime after noon he checked the map again and looked at the shore line. “I think we’re there.” The trees were the same, but they felt closer, bluer.

They pulled the boat ashore and tied it to a tree. He’d marked a little campground on the map, something small and out of the way. It took a couple hours, but they found a little country road and took it north. They walked into the little office just before sundown.

A woman in her sixties looked up at them from behind the counter. “Can I help you?”

“We were wondering if we could get a campsite.”

“How many?”

“Just one.”

The woman smiled at him. “How many nights, young man?”

“Oh, one night. Maybe two.”

“Let’s start with one. You’re campsite twenty-two. Just keep walking on past the washrooms, and it’s to your right.” She looked the three of them over. “I just don’t understand it.”

“Ma’am?”

“Hitchhiking. The way you kids do. I wonder what your parents must be thinking.”

Jack smiled. “I can’t say.”

She smiled back. “Well, you’re young. May as well have an adventure.”

He pulled some cash out of his pocket and set it on the counter.

She looked down at it and sighed. “I suppose you’d like me to exchange that for you?”

“Yes, please.”

Read Part 1

Jack knew if he could get behind Danny there wouldn’t be the desperate thrashing to contend with. But the water was set against him. The cold shot through his clothes and skin and stiffened his muscles. Everything clenched. He felt the bubbles escape and roll past his face toward the surface. His knees instinctively tucked to his stomach, and he was about to bump into Danny.

Jack kicked the best he could and reached and pulled himself under Danny’s grasping range. He was slow and stiff. He stretched out his hand and found the middle of Danny’s back. He wrapped his arms around Danny’s chest just below the shoulders and kicked toward the surface. It felt just as it was: fighting the cold, fighting the water, fighting his brother.

Jack broke the surface and took a sharp breath. The air brought some of that cold into his lungs. He arched himself back to bring Danny’s head above water. Danny breathed so deep and loud it sounded like a cry. His arms swung wildly again and back under they went.

Jack pushed them back up, but this time he gave a hard tug on the rope he had wrapped around his hand. The stern turned toward them. He grabbed behind the slack and pulled again. They came closer, but Danny was slipping through his arm.

“Stay up!”

Danny’s head dipped under again. Jack let go of the slack, keeping one coil around his hand. He got under Danny’s shoulders and kicked them back up to the surface. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to do it a third time. Once they surfaced he tried swinging the rope where Danny’s hand was grasping.

“Take it!”

Danny pulled hard and fast enough to stay above water. They reached the back of the boat, and Jack realized he had to climb in first and pull Danny up. He saw his breath pour out in front of him and settle in the boat. The water felt like ice clinging to his body. The edge of the boat dug into his ribs. More than anything he wanted to curl up into a ball. But that wasn’t an option.

Danny clung to the edge. Jack gathered the rope, passed it under Danny’s arms and behind his back, and counted to three.

On the third try, Jack got him high enough he could grab the back of Danny’s belt and pull him the rest of the way in. He helped Danny shed his clothes and dug a towel out from the bag. Then he stripped himself.

Someone throttled a motor not far away. It was the fishing boat. They were headed away to the south. Jack would’ve welcomed being found out right then. He wondered what anyone would think if they found two young men buck naked and soaking wet in a rowboat in the middle of the night. It would’ve been a funny story.

He saw Danny drop the towel and stand there hunched over and swaying. They had to get to the dock and Rachel. He grabbed the towel and wiped his brother dry. In the pale moonlight he saw dark marks raised up on Danny’s back, but he didn’t think much of it. Then he grabbed the wool blanket and wrapped it around Danny as tightly as he could. The last thing was to gently set him down on the bench.

He dried himself and put on fresh clothes. He was still insanely cold but could feel things starting to turn. The oars were there waiting.

He turned the boat in the direction he thought the waiting dock would be. After a couple minutes the pain in his arms melted.

“Are we on the right track, Danny?”

His brother shivered under the wool blanket. Danny gave no indication he’d heard the question. Jack picked up the pace.

Rachel was supposed to do a steady sequence with a flashlight, five seconds on five seconds off.

Just as he got nervous no light would come, he turned and saw the beam a little further up the shore.

She came to the edge of the dock as they pulled up. Jack watched the light pass over his shoulders to the piles of wet clothes and Danny still shivering in the blanket.

“What happened to you guys?”

Jack tossed her the rope. She caught it and leaned back hard. Jack hopped out and tied the boat to the dock.

“He saw a boat and thought they were patrol and stood up and shouted. I tried to push him down in his seat, but he slipped and fell over the edge.”

She smacked him on the shoulder. “Jack! You can’t let him fall in the water.”

Fully aware of this, he looked in her eyes. “It’s good to see you too. We should help him out.”

She relented and kissed his cheek. “Hurry up.”

They got him out of the boat and up on the dock.

“Feeling better, Danny?” Jack asked.

“No.”

Jack looked down at Rachel. “I don’t think we’re finishing this trip tonight.”

She sighed. “I know. But we can’t go to my house.”

A motel was risky and cost money. Jack looked around. There was a little patch of woods next to the dock before the shore turned back into cliffs. “Can we just do a little fire in there? Get dry and warm. Eat. Then we’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

“I think so. This whole area is closed for the season. That’s why I picked this dock. No one else would be here.”

“Perfect. You get him to a dry spot. I’ll get the fire started and hide the boat.”

He was pleasantly surprised by his own preparedness. The hatchet was sharp, and he had plenty of fire-starting supplies. Since he’d only been camping a couple times, he relied on the boys adventure handbook he’d found at a thrift shop and what he could remember from movies. His fire was poorly constructed but gave off enough heat. The hardest job that night was the boat.

He rowed it past their campsite a ways until he found some tall grass. By the time he got the boat ashore, his pants were soaked through again. In the grass it would be hard to see from the water but easily spotted by anyone taking a walk a little further up the hill.

He flipped the boat upside down and searched until he found a patch of gummy earth where rainwater drained off the hill. He spread a few handfuls over the hull, pulled out some of the tall grass, and stuck it on. It would be easy enough to find for anyone looking for it, but might not jump out to a casual passerby.

He came back to the fire and found Danny fully dressed and a warm can of beans waiting for him. Rachel was poking some coals with a stick. She looked concerned.

“There’s a biscuit in the bag to go with your beans,” she said.

He ate about half the beans and broke the biscuit into pieces and shoved it all in the can to soak up the juices. He hadn’t realized just how spent he was until then.

“I put the clothes on the rocks,” Danny said. He was looking at Jack like he was expecting something.

Jack looked around the fire and saw what he meant. They’d found some flat shale rocks and set them near the fire and laid the wet clothes on them to dry.

“That’s good, Danny. I’m sorry I pushed you into the water.”

Danny looked sour still and pulled his blanket up under his chin.

Rachel reached over and spread it over his legs. “He was wrong to push you. But he jumped and got you out, didn’t he? And then he got you out of those wet clothes and into this warm blanket. That was nice.”

“I guess so.”

That was enough resolution for Jack. He finished his food and set up Danny’s sleeping spot. Danny was curled up and snoring within a few minutes.

Rachel spread a blanket over the open sleeping bag and settled in and patted the empty spot for Jack to come lie down. “Would’ve been a nice night to get to Canada.” She spoke softly. He scooted closer.

“I know.”

“What will we do if they find us tomorrow?”

“They won’t.”

“Jack. Someone will come check the area. Just because it’s closed doesn’t mean they don’t look after it.”

“No one knows we’re here. We’ll get up early and move around tomorrow. Maybe I could even sneak into town and grab a couple things.”

“Like what?”

“Swimming trunks.”

She smiled. “Not funny.”

“I thought it was. We’ll just make sure no one sees you. When will your parents know you’re gone?”

“Not until the afternoon. They’ll just think I went to a friend’s house or something.”

“Perfect. See? It’ll be fine. Just a delay.”

He kissed her as warm as he could and pulled her to his chest and shut his eyes. He dreamed he was on a fishing boat and had something on his line but no matter how hard he pulled he couldn’t get it to come up.

Getting up early was a good idea and probably would’ve worked. Unfortunately, he hadn’t considered how much rest his body wanted to recover from a midnight swim in Lake Superior.

He awoke to the sound of rustling and assumed it was Danny digging around for food. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Let me help you.”

“That’s a generous offer.” The man’s voice was clear and calm and definitely not Danny.

Jack blinked the sleep out of his eyes. The man had a black hat, gray shirt with a police department patch on the shoulder, and a neatly trimmed beard. He was bent over one of their backpacks, sorting through the items. He pulled out a rectangular piece of paper and stood up and unfolded it.

Jack’s heart sank. It was his map of the shore line.

The man studied it then turned to Jack. “Looks like you’re planning an adventure.”

To be continued…

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Jack sat there in the dark, his arm tethering his boat to the corner of the dock. It would slow him down now if he had to tie the rope and go look for his older brother Danny. But Danny was never late. He checked his watch. 10:30. Seven more hours of darkness. Ten more minutes of high tide.

“Coo. Coo.” Danny couldn’t do basic math or start a fire, but he could fool any ornithologist in the great lakes. Jack smiled and sent a coo back. He could see Danny gripping the rail tight, trying to soften his steps on the rotting boards. He hit the landing and stepped across and into the rowboat in one extended movement. His bag slipped off his arm and clattered against the side.

“Oh no. Sorry, Jack. I didn’t mean to. I really didn’t. It slipped. It just slipped.”

“It’s alright, Danny. Don’t worry about it. You good?”

“I’m okay. The bag just slipped, Jack. It just slipped and hit the boat.”

Jack reached and grabbed Danny’s arm above the wrist. “I know, Danny. It’s alright. No one would hear that from here.”

Danny relaxed and looked around for the first time. “Are we going?”

Jack smiled. “You better believe it.”

He pushed off the post and grabbed the oars. He kept an eye on the dock until he felt they were far enough away to speak freely. “Do they really have you guys on that dock every day? That thing’s about to slide into the lake.”

“Not every day,” Danny looked around the sky, cataloging every inch of it. “Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tuesdays and Thursdays are swim days, but I just put my feet in.”

Jack saw the beam glancing off the rail at the top of the dock. It was weak, just a regular hand torch. He stopped rowing. They were too far away to be seen by that beam but close enough to draw curiosity with sound.

“Quiet a minute, Danny.” Jack held a finger to his lips. Danny nodded. Whoever it was shouted Danny’s name. Danny looked at Jack, who kept the finger to his lips. Danny nodded again.

The man at the dock swore and grumbled and stomped off. As Jack lowered his hand, Danny raised his arm, pointing at something far over and behind Jack’s head.

“Orion,” Danny whispered. “That’s Orion.”

Jack turned and looked. Constellations never stood out to his eyes. The stars were close, nameless. They didn’t stand out because they had a language of their own. To Jack they were all clothed the same, the militia of candle lights, none more special than another.

But he once heard his mom tell Danny he was a child of God. That was why he could always find the shapes. It was one bit of light God had given his mind.

“You sure that’s it?”

“That’s Orion.”

Jack grabbed the oars. “Alright. I figure about two hours to Orion, and then we break back to the west. That should take us around the patrol. She’ll be waiting for us.”

For the next two hours Danny kept his eye on Orion, pointing toward it whenever Jack got off line.

Jack made a turn toward the west and stopped. He’d been taking a one-minute break every ten minutes, but this one was off schedule.

“What is it?” said Danny.

“Just watching for that patrol.”

“You said we’d go around the patrol. You said we’d go around it.”

“I know. I’m just double-checking, that’s all. Sometimes they get off schedule.” He regretted saying it and tried to act like he wasn’t worried before he looked at Danny.

Danny was hugging himself into a ball of anxiety. It was like they were kids again. Stealing extra cookies at night and sneaking across the border had the same effect on him.

“It’s alright, Danny. See? No patrol.”

“What if we hit it?”

“We won’t.”

“What if it’s off schedule over there?” Danny pointed toward the new guide, Cetus.

“Look, if they catch us, our game’s over. You go back to the home. I head to training.” He could hear the despair in his own voice and tried to offset it. “In a couple years, I’ll come back and get you. It would just be a setback.”

“Why do you have training?”

“I told you. They drew my name the first week they could.”

“I don’t like the home.”

“I know you don’t.”

“I’m not going back.”

“Don’t worry about it, Danny.” Jack started pulling at the oars again.

“Why don’t you go in the Army?”

“I told you that, too.”

“Nuh-uh.”

Jack smiled. “Because they don’t have Danny’s. Everyone there is a Joe, and I don’t care for them.”

Danny smiled. “And no Rachels.” This always made him giggle.

“Nope. No Rachels. Just a bunch of Joes in camo. That’s why we have to pick her up.”

Jack took a more deliberate pace as he headed to the still waters and the dock north of the town Rachel had suggested for a meeting point. He’d tried talking her out of it. She just had one more year to finish school and then she could come to Canada in a car like a normal person. She said the boys needed someone around to cook or else they’d be eating filth. Jack said he’d cooked well enough to keep himself alive for years, but she was unimpressed.

Of course the truth was Rachel loved him and wanted an adventure. A good family and good friends had grown dull. He loved her too and would miss her if she stayed. That’s how a midnight escape on Lake Superior was agreed to.

Danny pulled Jack out of his memories. He almost shook the oars from Jack’s hands, pointing and bouncing up and down on his seat.

“There! There!” Danny’s whisper accelerated toward a shriek.

“What?” Jack turned, hoping to see Rachel but knowing they shouldn’t be close to her yet. Instead, he saw a light. It looked small, handheld maybe, coming from the deck of a boat.

“It’s patrol!” Danny’s eyes widened, and he pressed his rolled up knuckles into his mouth.

Jack watched the light go off and on. Someone was trying to see down the side of their hull. “I don’t think it’s patrol. I think they’re just fishing or something.”

“No. It’s patrol!” Danny was getting slightly less crazed but louder. “They have lights on the boat. Look. They can see all around. They can see us.”

Jack noticed the small lights around the rigging, probably just there to help the crew work on the deck at night. But to Jack and Danny it was just a glow too far away to even be sure how many men were on it. “They can’t see us. They’d need a spotlight for that.”

“They have a spotlight.” Danny stood up.

Jack could feel it slipping away now, the little bit of a plan that he had. But he kept his voice low. “Danny, I need you to sit and be quiet. They can’t see us. If they could, they’d be coming this way. But they can’t. So I need you to sit down and be quiet.”

Danny sat, but his eyes were on the boat with the light.

“That’s good, Danny. Now look at me.”

Danny shook his head. Jack felt his frustration swell.

“Danny, look at me right now.”

Danny kept facing the boat but moved his eyes to Jack.

“We’re fine.” Jack was speaking harsher than he meant, but he was trying. “Look, I’m going to start rowing again. We’re going to see Rachel soon. Then we’ll be out of here.”

Danny’s eyes moved back to the boat.

“See this, Danny? See?”

He had Danny’s attention again.

“Just nice and smooth through the water. We’ll be there in no time.”

Danny watched him for a few strokes. It was working. His knuckles were slowly reappearing. Jack went through the motions trying to look as calm as possible, knowing that attracting any attention would put them back on a course someone else would determine. But something on that fishing boat blinked.

Danny sprang up and pointed. “It’s the patrol. See!” He was shouting through his hand.

Jack popped up and shoved his hand into the middle of Danny’s chest. “Sit down!”

But Danny didn’t go down. He stepped back. His foot caught the bench seat, and his eyes looked wildly at Jack. His next step hit the side of the boat and slipped out from under him. He tumbled over the edge. Jack could see him still holding his fist to his mouth as he hit the water.

Jack dropped to his knees and braced himself against the side of the rowboat already unsure how to get Danny back in without capsizing them. He reached out, but Danny was still upside down and just kicked him. Danny’s head popped up. He gasped for air. Jack tried to calm him, but it was no good. He watched Danny thrash the water. He was sinking and flailing down faster.

Jack grabbed the end of the coiled rope tied to a hook under the stern. He made two quick loops around his fist and dove in, the cold water stealing his breath.

To be continued…

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So there are three stonemasons working on a medieval cathedral. A visitor comes and asks each one what he’s doing. The first says he’s cutting a stone to shape. The second says he’s building a great cathedral. The third says he’s working for the glory of God.

In order to make progress toward anything worthwhile, there are three components we must bring into alignment. First, we need a vision, a high-level objective. This is the ultimate aim that typically recedes as we approach, only allowing us to occasionally touch but never grasp it. Then there’s the intermediate goal. This is tangible and usually accompanied by a sense of well-being. And the third component is action. This is the thing you are doing right now to achieve your goal and move toward your vision.

A stonemason cuts the stone the best he can to build the cathedral that glorifies God.

Though this alignment does not happen naturally, it is a relatively straightforward task. It starts with determining your vision or high-level objective. Kay says that “high-level objectives are typically loose and unquantifiable - though this does not mean it is not evident whether or not they are being achieved.” These might sound like flourishing, fulfilment, harmony, a fine operation, improving communication, excellent customer experience, etc.

The vision then gets broken down into achievable goals. So you could take a loose objective, such as having a fulfilling personal life, and determine what would need to happen for that vision to be realized. Maybe part of a fulfilling life is physical health and feeling like you’re game to take on the challenges of the day.

Great. Now you have a goal.1 Time to take action. Maybe action starts with walking, water, and more sleep. Or maybe it’s lifting weights and riding bike. As long as the action brings you closer to your goal, you should be fine.

What about the business world?

Maybe the vision is to build a quality small business that can reliably turn a profit. One goal might be converting a percentage of first time customers into repeat customers. One action to support that goal might be to learn each customer’s name and make some kind of connection in person. Another action would be to make the physical layout of the store as welcoming and easy to navigate as possible.

As a teacher, my vision is to give students an Experience they will look back on fondly and feel improved their lives. One goal is to improve students’ ability to write and think through difficult problems. I can move toward this goal by providing students structured writing methods and feedback that emphasizes where they are doing well.

When the three levels harmonize, beautiful things happen. But a breakdown can spell disaster.

Kay notes that companies without a high-level objective are doomed to fail. This is why making profit margin, which is shaky even as a goal, the main target is the beginning of the end.

Obliquity shows up in the synchronizing of the levels. Remember that the oblique approach is indirect. It relies on experimentation and discovery. It is a process of iteration, trying something, seeing how it goes, making adjustments, and trying again. This has implications for both the individual and the organization.

The individual needs to maintain flexibility and an objective perspective of their own work. It means not getting hung up on repeating the same actions that used to work or worked for someone else. Instead, keep an experimenter’s attitude as you feel out what is and is not working. Question whether the things you’re doing today are building up into your goals and vision. If not, make some tweaks on the action level. If you’re accomplishing goals but not getting closer to your vision, figure out why the goals are wrong or what they’re missing and iterate a new set.

In a large organization, vision needs to be communicated and consistent through all levels while goals and actions are localized. Planned neighborhoods and cities tend to fail because they are the work of a single mind. But these are very complex tasks that no single person could fully comprehend or solve. However, if the vision is consistent and present from top to bottom, when challenges arise those closest to them can make a decision based on what would best accomplish the goals and ultimate objective. The greatest achievements happen obliquely, through twists and turns. They are the work of teams striving toward a common goal. And they all start with a clear vision.

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John Kay takes this overemphasis on results to task in Part 1 of Obliquity.

He begins by noticing that the happiest people have the habit of doing obviously unhappy things. Climbing Mt. Everest is his first example. Those who undertake that feat, especially the first to do so, push themselves far beyond comfort and happiness, through toil and pain, to reach something on the other side that still isn’t happiness in itself.

After such an experience, or better yet a lifetime of such experiences, happiness comes as a visitor. Contrast this with the path of least resistance. Some people organize their lives around comfort and avoiding resistance. But when the pillows are perfectly placed and the dust bunnies banished and the smell of fresh cookies wafts through the air, the only visitor is angst.

Kay sums it up nicely:

Happiness is where you find it, not where you go in search of it…The discovery of happiness…is usually oblique.

The mistake is thinking happiness is a thing to be grasped. It would be better to view it as an unexpected guest who shows up quietly when we’re lost in our deepest work.

Kay then moves onto the business world and his “profit-seeking paradox.” John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and Sam Walton, three men whose wealth dwarfed that of most kings, all assented to the reality that the accumulation of money is a poor or even wicked goal. Their empires were not the ends toward which these men aspired. To them money was worth gaining because it served as a tool for philanthropy or it happened to be the byproduct of creating the “finest retailing company” possible.

The British manufacturing company, ICI, exemplifies how an organization can thrive in oblique pursuit of a visionary goal and wither in direct pursuit of a simple goal. For decades ICI’s purpose was “to be the world’s leading chemical company, serving customers internationally through the innovative and responsible application of chemistry and related science.” They also believed that achieving that vision would bring wealth and well-being to “our shareholders, our employees, our customers, and the communities which we serve and in which we operate.”

This vision had led them into the world of pharmaceuticals and helping develop a British global pharmaceutical industry. It took decades to build, but the vision and its fruits were apparent. That all changed in 1991.

A new ownership group came in and shifted the mission to a simple goal:

The ICI group’s vision is to be the industry leader in creating value for customers and shareholders through market leadership, technological edge and a world competitive cost base.

Instead of service, the center of the target was now value, no doubt measured by the stock price. Value for the shareholders increased in the short term. Stock prices for ICI peaked in ‘97. But ten years after the peak, it no longer existed as an independent company.

The trajectory makes a lot of sense. Value goes up in the short term because there are a variety of ways to cut costs and reprioritize and reorganize in order to drive up profit, especially in a company that was previously focused on the quality of the service they were providing. But those shallow pools run dry. Then it becomes a question of direction. A company focused on quality or service has a north star to chase. A company whose ultimate aim is value bogs down. Iteration and experimentation do not turn profits quickly. So where does such a company go when times are tough? Nowhere. It sits and dies.

Boeing had a similar problem at that same time. For decades Boeing had sought to “eat, breathe, and sleep the world of aeronautics.” This had make them incredibly profitable and industry leaders. But a new CEO brought a new priority. He believed Boeing would be judged on its return on investment and shareholder returns. There was a dramatic spike in stock prices. Then the company shifted its focus to highly profitable government contracts, moved headquarters closer to D.C., entangled itself in corruption, watched the spike in value evaporate, and lost its position as industry leader. Fortunately, a leadership changed happened in time to correct course.

Kay offers more examples of this pattern. Companies that hold up value as their ultimate aim always end up less profitable than their more oblique counterparts. Fishermen who want to perfect their craft because they love it and see it as a crucial part of their community make more money than those who try to turn their boats into fish harvesting machines.

Setting your aim on a metric that changes by the second just doesn’t work. The advantage is the problem. Value is too immediate, too present. It keeps our eyes stuck where we are.

The missions of the most successful business ventures, which obliquely create the most value, get at something that can always be approached but never reached. Or they seek the perfection of an idea, which offers the same benefit.

There’s always something new to explore if you’re trying to serve people. The tinkering never stops if you want to build a perfect airplane. If you love making deals, there are always more and better deals to be made.

Monetary value stops all of that. When elevated beyond its station, it becomes a shifting wall always looking to keep us from going one step into the unknown.

Like happiness, prosperity acts like a guest who visits those who are focused on something a little higher.