MY DAD'S PLACE in the woods could pass for an 18th century fur-trapper's lodge. Pelts of coyote, fox and coon hang from lines like laundry above the woodstove. Against the paneled wall a few fleshing-boards lean, taut with the pale undersides of hide awaiting their next rubbings of salt. He has his pistols and rifles idling in nooks throughout. The only thing out of character in this trailer deep in the heart of Michigan's Upper Peninsula is my red suitcase. And me.

I've come to see my dad. It's not a good time really, not with the crush of deadlines in my first year of grad school at USU. But when summer passed and I couldn't visit, I promised I'd get here in the fall. Besides, he's getting older. His buzz of white hair is familiar enough - he was in his mid-sixties when I left for college the first time - but now, a decade later, the leather of his skin is a transparent tissue.

He's still tramping through the woods, though. Early last spring he fell through the ice, setting beaver traps. He clawed his way out, stripped down, and spent the afternoon buck naked before a fire of twigs and marsh grass waiting for his clothes to dry. He tells me this one evening when we've settled into easy chairs.

"Dad," I say, "one of these days you're not going to be so lucky."

"I suppose you're right," he says. And to double its resonance, he repeats, "I suppose you're right."

In my mind I conjure the scene I've always imagined for his death: He'll be deep in a cedar swamp some deer season tracking the faint smears of blood from a buck he's shot, when he'll stop mid-stride, clutch his chest, then slowly crumple to the ground. The shifting snow folds over him. Usually, whenever my dad talks about dying, he predicts, You won't find my bones till spring.

I look at him resting. He's strong, always will be, I assure myself. Doesn't even catch colds like normal folks. Lately, the scenario I've envisioned has taken on an unsettling twist. Instead of dying straight away, Dad lingers under an old hemlock - waiting for one of his sons to find him in the pathless woods. When my brothers search, they always save him in time. I'm not so lucky. I try to follow his steps, but I just can't. more