Dead Dog's Tale

It was early, that thin light before dawn when the world is still gray and half-formed, and I slipped off the houseboat barefoot and quiet, careful not to wake the others. The air was cool, almost cold, and Lake Tahoe stretched out before me like glass. So still it seemed unnatural, like something in a dream or a world not yet made. The water lay flat and wide beneath the mountains, cradled by those indifferent peaks, high ridges of rock that stood like old sentinels. Watching. Waiting. The islands, rising dark from the water like the backs of sunken beasts, seemed forgotten too, as if this place had been lost for centuries. The whole lake felt that way. Like time itself had grown slow and tired here, a strange land where everything had stopped. I liked it that way. Inside the houseboat, my family was still asleep—Mom and Dad, my aunt and uncle, all my cousins crammed into bunks, dreaming of eggs and bacon, of whatever people dream of who have no hunger for real adventure. But not me. ...