Chapter 11
When Seth shook me into consciousness, I was dreaming about having fallen off the back of a small truck that was taking me to the dump.
Reality wasn’t much of an improvement, even when I warmed a tofu and zucchini sandwich over the fire on the end of a stick. But when I wandered down to the lake, I could see the sky getting a little brighter in the east. Somewhere over Newfoundland, the bright edge of the morning’s sunlight was creeping our way. Somewhere above, the cold and inhospitable stars shone against the blackness. Somewhere above the clouds the faint whine of jet engines told me another load of overseas passengers was on the final approach to Toronto. Somewhere on the lake, in the utter darkness, something splashed on the surface of the water. We were camped here like aliens, and would pass through tomorrow leaving little mark on the land.
I wondered about Seth, and Pica. They had acted like they hadn’t known each other all the way here. To a small, dark lake where life met death, truth met fiction. The sky was still overcast, because there were no stars, and the line where the sky met the tops of trees was hard to make out.
No loon called, no owl called anybody’s name, and to the west, where the hill rose in the blackness between lake and sky someone with a rifle might be sleeping, waiting for dawn.
I went back to the fire and added a couple of branches. There weren’t many left. Sparks flew up, and a couple landed on Kele, like migrating souls. They went out at once, so I didn’t have to pour water on his sleeping form.
I checked my watch, and it was five-thirty. Officially Almost Morning, at this season. A half-hour later I stumbled again to the water. Once my eyes had adjusted to being away from the fire, I could see that it was possible to tell trees from sky. I shivered. It was just possible to see mist crawling in tendrils on the surface of the water.
I went back and woke up Kele.
“Jeez,” he said when he’d figured out where he was, “this is just a bit too primitive for me.”
“Hurt?”
He thought a bit, and got another couple of energy bars from his packsack, and offered me one. “Not everywhere,” he said. “I think there’s a small muscle in behind one ear that doesn’t ache much.”
“What did you mean,” I asked, “When you told me you were going to meet George and heard the owl call your name?” I kicked at the fire, but didn’t add any wood.
“”Sounded mysterious, didn’t it?” he laughed. “But you didn’t have the nerve to ask me what it meant.”
I grunted.
“You white guys grunt a lot, you know.” He passed me a hard-boiled egg. “Everybody called George ‘the owl’, because he sort of looked like one and didn’t talk much.” When he finished his egg, he went on. “George called from his cell phone. I was, ah, busy showing Sally my stamp collection, so I didn’t get the message till a couple of hours later. George said - let’s see how he phrased it - something like, ‘Kele, get your Injun hands off my wife’s ass and get the hell over to Thomson Lake as fast as you can.’ So I grabbed a canoe and off I went.”
Seth’s voice came from his form curled up on the other side of the fire. “Just when were you planning on telling this to the authorities?”
“Bout time you got up,” Kele said. “I had a couple of, ah, misunderstandings with the law when I was a teenager in Toronto, and now I generally don’t volunteer information unless asked.” He stretched and yawned. “Especially to quick-draw cops.”
I’ve always loved the way a few guys on a camping trip could bond so well. Maybe that’s why I usually travel alone.
“Well,” Seth said, getting out some food and ignoring the comment about his past, “that might just answer the question of what you were doing around these parts when George died.”
“Assuming,” Kele said, “I got there after he died, and not before.”
“Yeah, assuming that.”
“Well,” I said, then ran out of thought. I guess I was still running short of sleep.
“Anybody bring coffee?” Seth asked, stretching the kinks out of his bones and looking at the fire, which was down to a small flame and a lot of ashes.
“Kele reached into his pack and pulled out a bag. “Chocolate-covered coffee beans,” he announced, giving some to Seth. I declined.
“It’s getting light,” I observed while the other two noisily gnawed their beans.
“We’ve got two choices,” I said. “We can all go back to the lodge, or one of us can stay here while the others go back.” They eyeballed me. “Someone should wait for Pica, in case she shows up,” I offered.
“I’ll stay,” Kele and Seth said at the same time.
I liked the thought of going alone. Anywhere, exactly.
“You’d wait for me?” a voice said. “How nice!”
We looked up. Pica was coming down the portage trail, her pack slung over her shoulder. For a short and slightly pudgy woman, she moved remarkably silently through the leaves and twigs on the trail. Wherever she’d been, she looked remarkably chipper.
“And, to answer your question, I’ve been where I’ve been, and nowhere but.” She came up to the remnants of the fire to warm her hands.
“Okay,” I said. “But did you see anybody when you were there?”
“Nope,” she said. “But I found Ned and Patrick’s canoe hidden behind some spruces just off the trail.”
“They didn’t leave?” Seth looked around.
“Not by canoe,” Pica said.
“They’ve gotta be over there on the hill,” Kele said. “Maybe they fired that shot at us.”
“Somebody’s been shooting at you?” Pica asked. “I thought I heard a shot or two last night.”
“From the top of the hill at the end of the lake,” I said. “At least that’s where we think it came from.”
“Now what?” I asked. I was always asking the obvious. “Back to the lodge, I presume.”
They looked at me.
“We can either fit four into my canoe,” I added, “or we can borrow Ned and Patrick’s patched canoe.”
Kele said, “Personally, I plan to go back the way I came.”
“Over the hill,” I said. “Where there’s guys with guns. I’m guessing that shot was just a hint that maybe we should go home the way we came.”
“Maybe it was just a hunter, taking a shot at what he thought was a deer,” Seth said.
“Count me out,” Seth said. “This place needs the long arm of the law, and one guy’s arm isn’t nearly long enough in these woods. I suspect the odds are somebody else will get shot, and I’d like to be sure the reinforcements are called in.” He looked at Pica.
“Can’t leave me here all alone,” she said. “I’m going back with Seth. Who’s got a map.”
I got out my topographical map and my compass. Kele picked a map from his packsack; it was the same as mine.
“Can I borrow that thing?” Pica asked. Kele handed it to her. “I’ll give it back when we meet again,” Pica said, looking it over. “I’m lost without a good map.” Then she looked at Kele and me. “Seth and I will wait at the lodge. If you’re not back by tomorrow afternoon, we’ll call in the army or something. Besides, I always wanted to take a hike with this cop,” Pica said. “And four’s a crowd.”
I expected some awkward moments, but surprisingly, Kele agreed at once. “Good idea.” He turned to me. “Let’s get off, then.” He started through the woods, and I followed him, with a goodbye look at Seth and Pica, who had gone to get my canoe.
Pica came over to us, and rummaged in her pack. She came out with a plastic bag weighing a couple of pounds, and handed it to me. “Might as well take these,” she said.
I undid the bag and looked in. “The apricots,” I noted.
“You two are more likely to need them than we are,” she said. “You can feed them to the guy with the rifle,” she said. “Then you can outrun him.”
“Can’t outrun a guy with a rifle,” I said.
“Well,” said Pica. ??
?If it’s their rifle that fired the shot, it’s a single-shot fold-up survival rifle.” She smiled and scratched her side. “Not too accurate and you gotta reload after each shot. I saw it last week, when those guys left the dock.”
That didn’t sound like good enough odds to me. But there’s a time and there’s a time, like. “Okay,” I said, “I’m with you. Do we walk all the way to the lodge?”
“Halfway,” Kele said. “I’ve got a canoe at the end of Red Lake.”
“How are we doing for water?” Seth asked. “I’ve finished mine.”
“I’m out,” I said, shaking my empty canteen.
“Almost out,” Kele said, peering into his packsack for more of the plastic bottles.
“No problem,” Pica said. From her packsack she took out a couple of pill-sized bottles. “Water purifiers.” She handed out a round of the small purple pills. I threw one into my canteen, walked to the shore, and reached out far enough into the lake to get relatively clear water. Nobody shot me, so the others did the same.
Kele and I set out along the south shore of the lake, four people with daypacks and the sun behind them. Kele went first, because he’d come that way the day before.
Life’s a lonesome journey. Even with other people around. We all crawl up our own version of Calvary.
Once, when I was younger and didn’t know as much, I took my first solo overnight into the bush. I paddled and portaged not far from this area, and camped on a point of land in the long April evening.
There wasn’t much sleep that night. Just when I’d almost drift off, I’d hear a sound like a trig snapping, or a mammoth going “garumphh” or a lake monster snorting water or something. I think I slept half an hour that night, and got up at daybreak to discover that nothing had eaten my canoe in the night, much to my surprise.
When you’re with another person - even someone who doesn’t know anything about the wilderness, you feel safer. You can snore all night in a feeling of safety.
I certainly wouldn’t have walked towards the west end of the lake alone. It’s hard dodging bullets - they’re a lot quicker than I am.
We pushed through cedar bush and climbed rock faces and walked a beaver dam that made a small pond. The aspens were yellow and the first of fall’s reds were in the maple trees. Where the lake met rocky shores, we stuck pretty close to the water. Where weedy bays led inland, we clambered uphill through the fallen trees. Generally, Kele led, but we got spread out a bit on the climbs and going around the damp parts.
And so we made our way along the south side of Thomson Lake. We crossed the place where I’d come in from Casey Lake a million lifetimes or just days ago. I pointed it out to Kele.
No one shot at us, and I managed to avoid having conversations with Kele.
We paused at one place. “Has someone camped here?” I asked.
“Jeez,” said Kele. “It looks like someone was here not long ago.”
We puzzled at it a bit, then went on.
There was a nice bit of upland forest after the end of the lake, then got to the edge of the hill.
There was a hesitation for leadership, but Kele stepped forward and up we went, grabbing onto trees and branches and moving around boulders.
At the top of the hill, he paused to let me catch up.
It was a lot more open there. A lot more. Individual maples and groves of evergreens separated large areas of bare rock. Boulders the size of televisions were scattered at random. Except for the presence of people, it was all like some northern Eden.
From one open area we could see Thomson Lake, including the portage point on the far side. Wordlessly, we pointed it to each other. Kele came up with a couple of old red shotgun shell casings, then three bright brass .22 shells. We both nodded wisely, and shrugged our shoulders and looked around.
Then we just headed west, along the top of the hill.
Which is where we came across Ned DeVincent and Patrick Ireland. We’d just come through a grove of bizarre spruce trees, all black and knobby and obviously in need of better soil, and were clambering down a small cliff face when a voice called out, “Hey! We sure are glad to see you!”
Kele slipped off the mossy rock he was on and must have come close to spraining an ankle when he hit bottom.