It was a nice spring day in Spearfish Lake. The sun was still high, and there was a smell of new-mown grass on the ball field where the Little League players held their practices. "Tigers, we’ve got a couple new team members," Terry Curtis said to the Little League team members at the first practice that John had taken Shay and Cody to, Monday night. "They just moved up here from Decatur. This is Shay and Cody Archer. They’ll be going to school here next fall. Now, I want you to introduce yourselves around."

One by one the boys on the team introduced themselves, and Terry, the coach of the team, sent the kids out to toss some balls around while he talked with John. "Your kids haven’t played Little League before, right?" he said.

"Not Little League," John said. "They did have some kind of a playground league that they played while school was in session down there, but I got the impression that it wasn’t too serious."

"We try to keep it from getting too serious here," Terry said. "We’re not too successful, sometimes. There’s always going to be some parents who take it a little too seriously, but we have a policy that everybody plays during a game, no matter how good they are. After all, we’re trying to teach the fundamentals of the game."

"I’m willing to help where I can, if I’m needed," John told him. "I’m afraid I wasn’t much of a ballplayer, though. I always ran track in school."

"Any help is appreciated," Terry smiled. "You realized that you just volunteered to be assistant coach, don’t you?"

"Sure, I don’t mind. It gives me another chance to be with the kids a little. I haven’t had much of it this spring. You’re going to have to tell me what you want me to do, though."

"Well, mostly just be an extra set of hands until you get a feel for what we’re doing," Terry smiled. "Do you know if your kids have any experience with any particular positions?"

"Not really," John said. "Like I said, that playground league was pretty informal."

"We’ll move them around then, and see," Terry said. "Nothing’s settled yet, anyway. Let’s let them get warmed up a little, and then we’ll get started on some serious fielding."

John and Terry stood for a few minutes watching the boys throw balls around. John really was concerned that Shay and Cody might not be up to the level of the other kids. The playground league was pretty much that, but John knew from having been brought up there that sports were a big deal in Spearfish Lake, and the boys really hadn’t been exposed to much. Being a success in this league would be the key to them getting some friends in the community quickly and fitting in, he thought, and it would have been nice if they had been able to start sports a little earlier. But there really hadn’t been that much available in Decatur, and of course, he hadn’t been able to spend the amount of time encouraging the boys that he would like to have done. Those days were over, now; he intended to make up for it a little.

As they got the practice under way, he could see that while the boys were rough compared to some of the more experienced players, it didn’t appear to him as if they were doing too badly. The practice went fairly smoothly, and the two hours flew by, and soon Curtis called a halt. "OK, Tigers, same time tomorrow," Curtis called. Some of the boys hopped on bikes to ride home, others got into waiting cars. A few hung around, since Curtis had promised to take them home, and he called Shay and Cody over. "You kids did fine for your first practice," he told them. "You just need to work on your fielding some more, and maybe get a little batting practice. Maybe your dad can work with you some. But, we’re real glad to have you with us."

That man is a good coach, John thought. He knows the boys aren’t exceptional players, don’t have much experience, and are new in town, and he’s trying to make them feel at home. It could be a lot worse.

"I suppose we ought to be getting home," John told his sons. "I expect your mother is going to be getting dinner ready."

"Can we work on batting a little?" Shay asked.

"Better not right now," John said. "We really should be getting home. Maybe after dinner."

They got in the car to head for home. "How do you think it went?" John asked after they got in the car.

"OK, I guess," Shay said.

"It’s just hard, since we don’t know anybody," Cody observed.

"You’ll get over that in a hurry," John promised.

"Are you going to take us tomorrow night?" Shay asked.

"Sure will," John said. "Mr. Curtis asked me to be the assistant coach. That’s why I stayed around tonight. It’s nice to be able to spend the time with you two."

"Aw," Shay said. "We were sort of hoping we could ride our bikes to practice."

"I suppose you can sometime, if I can’t be there," John told him. "Or, as far as that goes, your mother could take you. You’ll have plenty of time to ride your bikes, but you really ought to learn your way around town a little, first.

"Mom had us pretty busy today," Shay complained. "Can we maybe ride our bikes somewhere after dinner?"

John smiled. "Don’t see why not. I’ll get out my bike and go with you, and maybe we can go down to the park and do a little batting practice. Would that be OK?"

"I guess," Shay said, a little disappointed. John guessed that it was because he and Cody wanted to get out and explore a little on their own. Well, they’d have a whole summer of days to do that.

The pizza shop also delivered subs; it was at least an alternative for Brandy. Actually, she was getting a little better at cooking, but not reliably enough yet to want to serve to company.

"I really hadn’t thought about the Iditarod much for next year," Phil said as they sat in the living room, with sub wrappers and paper cups of pop scattered around. "We’ve been busy with other things. I can run it again, or not. I mean, I think I pretty well accomplished what I wanted to accomplish."

"It’s not a decision that we really have to make now," Josh replied. "For that matter, Tiffany and I haven’t fully made up our minds about what we’re going to do." The one thing that they were pretty well settled on was that Josh was going to get to run the A-team this year, if he ran at all – and he was still thinking about giving it a pass. But that was still subject to change, and there was no real point in bringing it up just now.

"We talked it back and forth till we almost talked it to death, back when we were running Keyhole every night," she agreed. "And, we really haven’t talked about it much since. But, if we want to get in the first draw, then we’ve got to be getting the entry fees and applications off to Shelly in the next week or two."

"They’re refundable up till the first of the year," Josh explained. "So I pretty much figured we’d go ahead and file entries for us and see what we wind up doing. We’ve both given consideration to giving it a pass, but at the moment, I think we’re both leaning toward running next year. The year after that is getting real fuzzy, though." If he did run the A-team, and couldn’t get a pretty good run out of it without running into obviously uncontrollable problems, then he might well not run it again, he knew. Besides, the time issue really wasn’t improving. Perhaps Jennifer was right, and that it was time to think about giving it up.

"One thing is for sure," Phil told them. "My problem is that I don’t know if I’m that interested."

"It’s not so much the running of it," Josh said, "as it is all the preparation time. We’ve had zilch luck in finding a dog handler who might like to run the race sometime, and we’re starting to run out of time if we want to talk about a dog handler who wants to run next year. I think we’re going to be able to use the Aho kid a little for cart training, but with Tiffany running the store, that cuts into the training time a lot. Frankly, I don’t know that we can run three teams this year, unless one is going to be pretty marginal. I think we’d be best off concentrating on one, or two at the most."

"We just don’t have time to train three teams this year, unless you’re in it and you do more than your fair share," Tiffany added. "I think we’re going to be pushing our limits with two. Josh and I have started thinking about which dogs to start training with, but even if we limit it to two teams, there’s still fifty or sixty dogs that we’ll have to start with, and that’s not a lot less than we trained last year for three teams."

"Well, you can count on me for help with the training, in any case" Phil said. "I don’t know that I’ll be able to commit the time that I did last year if I decide not to run, but you’ll get some help out of me."

"We don’t have to make a final decision right now," Josh went on. "We can wait, oh, a couple months. But if we’re only planning on running one team, or two at the most, then there’s no point in wasting the extra time training an extra team or two. That’s a lot of trail time that could be saved by concentrating on the dogs that we need to work with. But, I figure that if we all file entries, then that gives us a little time to figure out which way we’re going to jump."

"If you really want to run, then one of us won’t," Tiffany said. "But we do have to file entries for all three of us, just to stay flexible."

"I’ll download an entry form tonight, get it filled in, and get a check for the fee over to the store tomorrow," Phil said. "It’s still $1049, isn’t it?

"Better check the web site," Josh replied. "There was some talk of bumping it up."

"Yeah, we need to check it, too," Tiffany agreed.

Brandy had been hovering in the background of the dog discussion; it really wasn’t something she was directly involved in. Now, she spoke up: "Just from the way you all are talking, it doesn’t sound to me like any of you are all that interested in running it again."

Josh shrugged. "I don’t think I had the interest in it that I once had. I mean, I can see a few years down the road that I’m going to want to give up all the hassles of trying to run the Iditarod, and just keep a few dogs around for touring, and maybe run a local race now and then. But, I don’t know if that time is here, yet. I do know that if we’re going to run the race, I want to be able to do it at a high level, or else I don’t want to do it at all."

"I can understand that," Brandy said. "You want to do the best you can, not just put in an appearance."

"That’s it exactly," Josh agreed. "We about have to run two teams to be able to run it at a high level, and, like we said, it’s a reach to train two teams, even if one of them is a B-team. We’ve done it for years, but it gets harder every year, since there’s so much else that we need to pay attention, too. And, there’s other stuff a few years up the pike that will draw our attention even more, and maybe even make running it impossible. So, it’s sort of a case of doing it while we still can."

With Brandy’s help, by Wednesday evening John and Candice’s new house was starting to look like a home, and not a warehouse, although they would still be unpacking for months to come, and for some storage boxes, it might take years.

The old living room furniture didn’t really fit the new decor, but there would be time to do something about it. Candice and Brandy were sitting on the front porch discussing it; the day had been a rather long and warmish one. They were tired, and it was something to do as opposed to doing something useful, when Tiffany parked the Jeep out front.

"Just thought I’d drop over and see what was going on," she said. "The evenings get a little long when Josh is doing nothing but night runs."

"Just us girls," Candice announced. "John and the boys are at Little League practice again, lucky them. It’d be nice to be able to get out and get around. I’d settle for a swim, but I think the water is still a little too cold."

"Actually, I was thinking it would be a beautiful night to get out and paddle around for a bit," Tiffany said. "Would you like to come along? We’ll just take it real easy and float around for a bit."

"You know, that sounds like fun," Brandy replied. "Phil has been talking about wanting for me to get out, but now that it’s warm enough, we never think about it at the right time."

"I’d like to," Candice said. The lake was calm, and it looked both appealing and relaxing to be out there. "But I don’t know if I want to go to the hassle of finding a swimsuit and changing clothes right now."

"No need for a swimsuit," Tiffany said, eyeing Candice’s T-shirt and shorts. "If you want to stay with it, we really should do some in-the-water safety stuff pretty soon, but for a quiet introductory paddle on an evening like tonight, what you have on ought to be fine."

"John and the boys will be home pretty soon and will be wanting something to eat."

"Leave them a note and tell them to get something themselves, or go to the Frostee Freeze," Brandy snorted. "You’ve worked enough for one day, and they’re out playing. Come on, you deserve some down time."

"All right," Candice said. "Give me a minute to leave them a note."

In a few minutes the three women were in Tiffany’s Jeep, heading back down to Spearfish Lake Outfitters. Tiffany parked out front and led the other two through the darkened store, out into a fenced-in area on the waterfront side, where a number of rental kayaks were resting on racks. "We’ll just take some rec boats tonight," Tiffany announced, pointing at some of the boats on the rack. "They’re pretty stable, and not real tippy. They are kind of slow, but, we’re in no hurry."

One by one, Tiffany and Brandy set the boats on the ground, turning them over. From the back of the store, Tiffany produced paddles and life jackets, while Brandy and Candice carried the boats down to the water’s edge. "They look so tiny," Candice commented.

"These are just fat old rec boats," Tiffany said. "The bottoms are all dented up from sitting on the racks for too long, but they’ll be all we want tonight." She shoved one of the boats partway out into the water, and handed Candice a life preserver. "You always want to wear one of these on the water," she said. "This is a rental jacket, and is sort of cheap, but if you get into paddling, we’ll see that you get a decent one that’s a little more comfortable."

"Do we need those things for around our waists?" Candice asked.

"Not tonight," Tiffany said. "Look, if you do get goofy and the thing rolls over, just push yourself out. When we get you into wearing a spray skirt, we really should spend some time on going over wet exits and things like that, but I think we can skip it tonight."

"If you say so," Candice said, a little dubiously.

"No big deal, just basic safety stuff," Tiffany explained. Candice put the life preserver on, and Tiffany had her sit down in the boat and knelt down to adjust the foot braces, so she would have something to rest her feet on. She handed her a paddle. "OK, I’ll push you out," Tiffany said. "Just float around a little and get the feel of sitting in the boat on the water while I get Brandy set up." She grabbed the bow of the little kayak, lifted it up a little and gave it a shove.

In an instant, Candice was sitting out on the water, looking at the two of them standing on the shore. "Wiggle your hips a little," Tiffany said. "Get a feel for how stable the boat really is. Go ahead, you won’t tip over."

"Says you," Candice said, following Tiffany’s instruction. To her surprise, it was pretty stable. If she leaned a little to one side, the boat would lean, too, but it was more solid than she would have expected. "Hey, this isn’t bad."

"Like I said, it’s a fat old rec boat," Tiffany explained. "You’d really have to lean out to turn it over. If you stay with it, we’ll start getting you into something narrower, but for tonight, that will be fine. Let me get Brandy going."

"I’ll wait for you," Candice said, taking an experimental dip in the water with her paddle.

It didn’t take long for Tiffany to get Brandy out on the water with Candice, as she already had her life preserver on and was in the boat, paddle in hand. Tiffany told the other two to watch how she got the boat in the water. Rather than shoving off from shore, she got the boat afloat, parallel to shore, put her paddle across the back of the deck, and eased her way in sideways.

"This is how you’re supposed to do it," Tiffany explained. "With these plastic boats, we don’t care about how bad you tear the bottoms up, and you can’t hurt them on the sand very much. But you have to be a little more careful when you get into fiberglass boats. OK, if you’ve ever paddled a boat any before, paddling one of these is pretty straight forward. Again, if you get into it a little, there are a number of different strokes that you’ll need to know, and as far as that goes, there’s even a lot of finesse and technique to a simple forward stroke. But we won’t worry about that tonight."

"A stroke is a stroke, isn’t it? Brandy asked.

"Not really," Tiffany told her. "For instance, if you want to make a turn, you should plant your paddle blade way out from the boat, and make a long, curving stroke," she demonstrated. "On the other hand, for going straight ahead, you want the blade planted in closer to the boat and your stroke is with the shaft more vertical. On a straight-ahead stroke, you want the blade to be exiting the water at about the point where it’s passing your butt. Then, there are a lot of nuances, but we won’t worry about them tonight."

"Besides," Candice snickered, "These are fat old rec boats, and it doesn’t matter, right?"

"See, you’re learning already," Tiffany smiled.

They turned and paddled down along the beach, not very far out. There was a little breeze, but all it did was ripple the silky water. Not far out, a family of geese was swimming past, the adults in lead and sweep, and a gaggle of fuzzy little goslings in between. Not far off, a heron stood along the shore, looking for bait fish, while another flew overhead. Along the shore, a woman lay in the sand in a bright red one-piece swimsuit, hoping to get a little tan off of the low rays of the slowly sinking sun. They paddled on, to where they could look down Central Avenue through downtown to where it turned and disappeared over the hill, heading on out to the state road, and continued on down the beach as the business district turned to the stately older houses near downtown, one of which Candice had spent the day turning into a home.

Another block or two went past, and Candice could turn and look down the side street to her new home, hidden partly by another house along Lakeshore Drive, and could see John and the boys pull in and get out. "Hey!" she yelled, without much hope that she could be heard, and then all of a sudden Tiffany let go with an ear-piercing whistle, and that got their attention.

John and the boys walked toward them, crossing Lakeshore Drive, and came down onto the beach. "Having some fun, huh?" John smiled and called out over the thirty yards or so of water that separated them.

"We just needed to get out for a while," Candice explained. "You three are on your own for supper. There’s some hot dogs in the freezer, or you could take the boys down to the Frostee Freeze, or something."

"I take it you’re not planning on being back soon," he said.

"Oh, an hour or so, probably," Tiffany said. "That’s probably long enough for a first trip."

"Well, have fun," John said. "I’ve got to give that a try some time soon. I guess we’ll go to the Frostee Freeze. Maybe ride the bikes. The boys were hitting pretty good tonight."

The three of them stood there, watching the women paddle off farther down the beach. "He’s getting into that Little League stuff pretty good, isn’t he?" Brandy said after they’d gotten out of earshot. "Better watch it, or Mom is going to have a bad case of bleacher butt."

"It gives them something to do with their dad," Candice said. "He went so long not being able to spend much time with them that I think he’s trying to make up for it now, but the boys seem to be taking to it pretty well. Are we going any place in particular?"

"Not really," Tiffany said. "There’s a little bay down here that’s kind of neat to poke into. There might still be some geese on their nests, although most of them have already hatched out. Are you doing OK?"

"Fine," Candice said. "This is really sort of fun, in a relaxing sort of way. I figured you’d be tiring me out."

"Oh, it can be tiring if you want to do it that way," Tiffany said. "You get to doing it a while, get into a fast boat and have a good power stroke, and you can kick out a few miles at five knots and wear yourself right out. This is just a lazy evening stroll, compared to running a race."

They paddled on down the shoreline, to where a small notch opened in the shore in front of them. On one side of the bay that opened up before them were some summer cottages, mostly with docks in front and boats along the shore, but the other side of the bay was marshier, and they paddled along it. The air was filled with fat, poorly flying insects, and fish were jumping from the water. "Hey, neat," Tiffany smiled. "We’ve got a mayfly hatch going on, and that doesn’t happen very often. Let’s just sit and watch." They rested their paddles across the decks of their kayaks, and watched as the air around them was full of activity, the fish feeding on the freshly hatched flies. "Why they don’t eat them when they’re larvae is beyond me," Tiffany said. "Who knows, maybe they do, and we just don’t see it."

After a while, they paddled on. There was a goose sitting on a nest, but they could see two or three tiny yellow goslings peeking out from under a protecting wing. "Just like any children, they’ve got to see what’s going on," Candice smiled.

The sun was noticeably lower in the sky by the time they emerged from the little bay and started to paddle back down along the beach toward Spearfish Lake Outfitters. As they neared the takeout, Tiffany pushed ahead a little and got out to help the others land, get out of the boats and put them away.

"That was a longer trip than I intended," Tiffany said. "But it was sort of interesting."

"How long were we gone?" Candice asked. "I didn’t bring a watch."

"Close to two hours," Tiffany said. "So, how did you like it?"

"I thought there was a reason my legs were getting a little stiff," Candice said, "But it was a lot of fun. We need to do this again."

"Yeah," Brandy agreed. "I wouldn’t mind going a little faster, though."

"We were sort of poking along," Candice agreed.

"Tell you what," Tiffany said. "It’s getting a little late tonight, but let’s get together tomorrow night. Wear some swimsuits under your clothes, and we’ll come out here right after work, and I’ll dig out some faster boats. We can spend a little time playing ‘dump the kayak’ so you’ll be a little more comfortable with them, and then we can go out and pick up the pace a little."

"That’ll give me something to look forward to," Candice agreed. "Thanks for inviting us tonight. I really enjoyed it."

"It’s nice to be home," Jennifer said, as she and Blake pulled into the driveway of the big house on Point Drive a couple miles out of town about noon on Thursday.

"We’ve been gone long enough, that’s for sure," Blake commented.

"Yeah, we let that one get out of hand," she agreed. "Well, we don’t have to go anywhere again for a couple months, and that won’t be a long trip."

They had started out with the week in Nashville, then on to Hollywood, then back to Nashville, then on to England, and followed up with the time on the movie set in Italy. On the whole, it had been a good trip, and they’d been able to accomplish a lot.

Nothing had been firmed up yet on whether there would be another Wonderful Winter World after this year’s annual edition, but they really couldn’t do much about it at this stage, anyway. They’d need to be making their minds up pretty soon so they could get to blocking out a rough script and planning the exteriors for the coming winter.

They’d firmed up their concept for Saturday Night with Jenny Easton, Blake’s idea for a honky-tonk one-shot cable special. It wouldn’t be a great trick to shoot; they imagined it could be done in two or three days, although they hadn’t settled on whether they really wanted to use the Pike Bar for a set. They’d bounced the idea off a couple of cable channels, and had received a favorable response, but it would probably be fall before they could get around to dealing with it. But, they could see an album out of it, too, and it might well be one they’d produce themselves.

"I wonder how Josh and Tiffany are getting along," Blake wondered as he unlocked the trunk and started setting out bags to carry into the house. "We haven’t heard much from them since they left us at Talladega."

"Yeah, we need to nose around about that a little bit," she said. "Not enough to make them think we’re watching over their shoulders, but they should know we haven’t forgotten about them."

"Tell you what," Blake said, taking an armload of bags. "Once we get unpacked, maybe I’ll take a run down to the shop and look at those new boats they got in before we left. Maybe I can find out something."

"I’ll go with you," Jennifer said as she followed him into the house. It was wonderful to see the familiar place again after living in hotel rooms for so long. "I’ve been thinking how nice it’d be to get out kayaking again, and a new boat might be a good way to treat myself for getting home safe and sound. I’ve been looking forward to getting out on the water again. But, maybe we don’t want to do it today. After all, we just got home."

"Are you feeling all right?" Blake asked. Normally they enjoyed Italian food, but they’d had a lot of it the last few weeks, and it hadn’t always set well with Jennifer; she’d complained of her stomach feeling upset on several occasions.

"I’m fine," Jennifer protested. "It’s just that I think I’ve been sitting too long. Three flights today, one of them trans-Atlantic, plus the crap that airline food has become, then the drive up here is just too much. I guess I’m getting too old for that kind of thing. I think I just want to lie down and let the clock catch up with me."

"Yeah, I’m still running on Italian time, too," Blake admitted. "I could stand some time in bed, too."

"I meant sleeping," Jennifer smirked. "I’ll call Mom and let her know we’re home."

When Blake came in again with another armload of bags, he found Jennifer hanging up the phone. "That was quick," he said.

"Mom’s not home," she replied. "I left a message on the machine."

"Maybe she’s over at Brandy’s," he suggested.

"Good thought, I’ll try there."

It soon proved that Jennifer’s mother wasn’t there, either, but Brandy was home. "So how was the trip, Jenn?" she asked.

"Oh, pretty good," Jennifer replied. "But it’s nice to be back home. What have you been up to?"

"Not a whole lot," Brandy admitted. "I thought I had a nice deal set up doing some processing for Front Range, but it fell through. It’s kind of a long story what happened. Other than that, I’ve just been helping Candice move in and unpack. "

"Candice?"

"Yeah, you remember Candice Archer from the wedding?"

"Medium height, long black hair, wore a skirt? She’d be hard to forget for wearing a skirt at your wedding. She’s some relation to Josh, isn’t she?"

"His brother’s wife. I guess all that happened after you left. He bought into McGuinness Accounting with Joe, and moved up here from Decatur. They bought George Lindquist’s old place."

"Yeah, she was a neat person. I liked the both of them. Now that you mention it, I guess I remember her from Tiffany’s wedding, too."

"Yeah, I’ve been helping her unpack boxes during the day, and then in the evening, she and Tiffany and I have been out kayaking this week. That’s been more fun than I thought it would be, and now Tiffany has me thinking about buying a boat. You ought to come join us, make it a foursome."

"It sounds like fun," Jennifer admitted. "I’ve been looking forward to getting out a bit. Now that summer’s here, I need to enjoy it."

"Yeah," Brandy smirked. "While you get all golden tan, and the rest of us just get sunburned. That’s part of the reason we’ve been going out in the evening, we don’t get burned so bad."

"Well, not tonight," Jennifer said. "I’m still tired from the trip. Maybe tomorrow, or something."

"Hey, are you doing anything Saturday evening? We’re having a housewarming for them. Phil and me, Josh and Tiffany, Mark and Jackie, his parents, maybe Tiffany’s folks, maybe Terry and Wendy Curtis and their kids. You’d be welcome."

"I don’t know," Jennifer said. "We really don’t know them that well." She did know the rest of the group pretty well, though, although Walt and Sarah were more acquaintances than friends.

"No better way to get to know them," Brandy said. "They’re good people, maybe a little straight, but they need to get to know some people up here."

"Well, maybe we will," Jennifer agreed. "Is this some sort of potluck deal?"

"Yeah, I think I’m going to risk a salad. I can’t mess that up too bad. "

"I’ll see if I can’t have Blake throw something together," Jennifer offered. "After all, us kayakers have to stick together."

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