Gone to the Woods Read online

  Physical scars from wounds but more, many more scars in their spirits, scars that would never go away, as if the core of them, the center of their being, had spun and fallen so that part of them was dead and would always be dead and they could never be more than what they had been when they were first scarred. Would never grow.

  And he did not want that.

  He wanted to grow and be more and do more than just that, sit by a footlocker drinking clear liquid out of a jar talking in low sounds about battles long gone, long fought.

  He could not be like them, nor could he be only his past; he wanted to see ahead, see what was over the next hill, and when he saw what was there, he wanted to keep going, see the next and the next and the next.

  So he did.

  No longer a boy, he lived and filled the years and saw thousands of hills and oceans and forests and mountains and cities and some ugliness and much more beauty and people, God, all the people until finally, at last he came of an age, an old age, a still older age.

  Eighty years.

  Eighty glorious years absolutely packed with life.

  And one day, living in a shack in the New Mexico mountains, he looked in an old box of things from his life, from moving, and saw one of the old blue Scripto notebooks that had somehow followed him in his life. And he picked up the notebook and opened it and found it was the story of the deer killed by hunters that he had written for the librarian.

  But more, still more, there were empty pages after the story. Discolored, but he could still see the lines, the beautiful lines that still, after all these years, called to him, dared him, and he sat down and found a pencil and thought:

  What the hell.

  Might as well write something down.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Gary Paulsen is the winner of the ALA Margaret Edwards Award for his contribution to young adult literature, and is a three-time Newbery Honor winner, for Hatchet, Dogsong, and The Winter Room. He lives in New Mexico. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Part I THE FARM

  Part II THE RIVER

  Part III THE SHIP

  Part IV THIRTEEN

  Part V SOLDIER

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers

  120 Broadway, New York 10271

  Text copyright © 2021 Gary Paulsen

  Pictures copyright © 2021 by Anna and Varvara Kendel

  All rights reserved

  First hardcover edition, 2021

  eBook edition, 2021

  mackids.com

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020911020

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  eISBN 9780374314163