Bradford, New Hampshire

Bradford, New Hampshire, is the nearest town to the secluded property on Tashmore Pond where Andy McGee and Charlie McGee spend the winter. Across the lake from their refuge, Bradford offers food, clothing, and a route back toward ordinary society, but it also brings watchers, gossip, and the interception of Andy’s letters. Its importance lies in that double function: the town makes survival possible while turning contact with the outside world into a risk.

Setting and Access

Bradford sits on the far side of Tashmore Pond, which is described as a lake, opposite the property inherited by Andy McGee from his mother and, before her, held by his family. The route to that property is remote: it lies about twenty miles from the nearest two-lane road, among woods and sparse settlement. In summer, camps and visitors fill the lake; by the time Andy and Charlie head there, the camps are empty and the road may not even be plowed. Bradford is near enough to matter, yet the lake and winter weather make reaching it a serious undertaking.

Their arrival establishes the property’s separation from public access. After crossing into Vermont, Andy turns off Route 34 onto a narrow, rutted road marked as private property. The Willys proceeds roughly a mile and a half toward the water before the road divides. A heavy chain blocks the smaller branch, bearing a rust-spotted county-sheriff’s no-trespassing sign. Andy notices the old bullet dimples in its metal, a trace of summer visitors at a boundary that has since become part of his concealed refuge. The keyring he takes out has nearly two dozen keys and a worn leather tab Vicky McGee gave him before Charlie was born; at the threshold of the family property, the keys connect the immediate problem of entry to a life that preceded their flight.

Bradford is reached from the property by crossing the frozen pond to the Bradford Town Landing and following a winding road two miles east into the village. The lake’s geography is both practical and imposing: Andy’s path across it is less than a mile, but the pond stretches far along its length, leaving him exposed on open ice. The town is not simply nearby; it lies beyond a winter crossing whose safety can change with the weather.

A Winter Lifeline

During the winter, Andy makes about half a dozen supply trips on old-fashioned cross-country skis found in a shed. Their bindings are a difficult tangle of straps, buckles, and rings, and he wears Granther McGee’s cracked, dusty ski boots, which are too large unless he stuffs their toes with newspaper. He leaves before first light with Granther’s knapsack and does not return until after three in the afternoon. On one trip he arrives just ahead of a howling snowstorm that could have left him lost on the ice. Charlie cries with relief when he returns, then breaks into a worrying coughing fit.

The trips are necessary because the isolated property cannot supply what the two need through a long winter. Andy buys food, medicine, and clothes in Bradford. He also breaks into three large camps at the far end of Tashmore Pond and takes the modest cash their owners keep in cookie jars, estimating that each loss is only thirty or forty dollars. From behind a modern cottage called Camp Confusion, he takes about forty gallons of range oil. He is ashamed of stealing, but regards it as necessary for survival. His concern is not abstract: Charlie arrived with only a dirty blouse, red pants, and one pair of underdrawers, and he wants fresh fruit, vitamins, and suitable clothing for her.

The general store provides items he cannot obtain from the empty camps. Andy buys three pairs of heavy pants and three wool shirts approximately Charlie’s size; with no girls’ underwear available, she has to wear size-eight Jockey shorts, a compromise that alternately disgusts and amuses her. The practical detail underscores how much of the winter depends on the town: Bradford is not a convenient stop but the source of supplies that the remote lakeside refuge lacks.

The crossing also exacts a personal cost. Andy dislikes leaving Charlie alone, fearing that he might return to find her gone or dead. The old boots blister him, and moving too quickly brings on headaches. When the pain recalls numb patches on his face, he imagines his brain as a worn tire stripped down to its canvas. Yet the quiet crossing gives him room to think. In winter, Tashmore Pond becomes a long, white corridor bordered by snow-dusted pines, with a hard blue sky above or the blank white of approaching snow. Bradford is the destination at the end of that passage, but the journey itself exposes the physical vulnerability behind Andy’s effort to protect his daughter.

A Town That Watches

The people in Bradford notice Andy. The older men gathered around the potbellied stove in Jake Rowley’s general store speculate that he is running from bankruptcy, a divorce settlement, or an angry wife; the small clothes he buys make them suspect he has a child with him. Some guess that he and the girl are staying in one of the camps across the pond and may have broken into it. They do not bring that suspicion to the constable, whom they regard as a newcomer who thinks he owns the town. Their reluctance is tied to local feeling as well as discretion: the old-timers see Andy as coming from Vermont and would rather let Vermonters manage their own troubles.

Their talk makes Bradford a place where concealment is imperfect. Andy worries that stories travel and may reach the wrong ears, giving the Shop a route to connect him with his grandfather and the Tashmore property. He does not want to go into town, but the need for food, clothes, and other necessities forces him to accept the risk of being seen. The townspeople’s speculation does not immediately expose him, yet their attention makes every errand a possible link between his hiding place and the world searching for him.

Charles Payson, the struggling proprietor of Bradford Notions ’n’ Novelties, watches Andy mail his letters. Payson has had little business during the winter; he once tried to buy Andy a drink, and he is described as a decent man struggling to keep the store going. Unlike the old-timers at the general store, however, Payson is connected to a covert channel: after Andy leaves, he uses a telephone fitted with a scrambler to call Virginia for instructions. His observation turns an ordinary act of mailing into a report.

Mail Intercepted

Bradford has no post office, and neither does Tashmore, Vermont. The nearest post office is in Teller, New Hampshire, so mail deposited in the village travels first by a small postal truck. On March 10, the truck collects Andy’s six letters along with a postcard from a local resident. While Andy naps across the lake and Charlie builds a snowman, the letters begin their journey out of Bradford.

That journey is stopped on the road. Two men block both lanes with a beige Chevrolet Caprice, identify themselves to postman Robert Everett, and demand the mail. After the sack is opened and searched, one man hands OJ the six letters addressed in Andy’s careful handwriting. OJ pockets them, and the men leave the opened mailbag behind. Everett protests that opening the U.S. mail is wrong; OJ warns him to speak to his postmaster before speaking to anyone else if he wants to keep his Postal Service pension. The interception makes Bradford more than a supply point: it is where Andy’s attempt to reach beyond his isolation is first made visible, then quietly suppressed.

The town’s role therefore turns on a contrast between distance and access. The frozen pond and remote roads help conceal Andy and Charlie, but their need to cross that distance draws them into shops, conversations, and postal systems that can be monitored. Bradford gives them the material means to endure the winter while showing how little separation is required for the Shop’s pursuit to reach them.