Chapter 33
“No more,” Ollie said. “We gotta stop.”
That day, I’d insisted Ollie give a hand with the paddling.
He and his brother alternated in the bow, and Ollie complained no end.
It hadn’t taken him long to work up blisters on his hands, and he truly looked beat.
There was also an ugly bruise on the side of his face where I’d hit him with the Glock.
Stan was looking pretty wiped out as well.
It was late afternoon, several hours of daylight left.
We were on Big Woman Lake paddling to our next portage and were approaching a campsite that was empty.
“We stop there,” Ollie said.
I still had the Glock. I was calling the shots. I could have insisted we go on, but that might have risked mutiny, and I wasn’t ready to put a bullet into either of the brothers. Not yet anyway. Besides, I didn’t really care if we never made it to Canada.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s pull in.”
The campsite reminded me a bit of the site where I’d camped with the men and boys of the O’Connor clan just days before.
It was on a heavily wooded rise that gave a grand view of the lake.
If it should storm—the sky was showing no sign of that—the trees would provide decent protection from wind and rain.
We landed and unloaded the gear. I instructed the brothers on how to set up their tent, then I went in search of firewood.
When I returned Stan was sitting by the fire pit, but Ollie had crawled into the tent and was sleeping.
The mosquitoes were much in evidence, and the blackflies had returned.
I could smell the deet on Stan, but he was still swatting at the pests.
“Want to go trolling?” I asked after I’d dumped the wood.
“Trolling?”
“Fishing from the canoe.”
“I’m not much for fishing.”
“Suit yourself. But the bugs won’t bother you out on the lake.”
That convinced him. I grabbed the fishing gear, we put the canoe on the water, and I shoved off, with Stan in the bow.
When we’d crossed earlier, I’d spotted a mid-lake hump, which is a shallow area in the middle of deep water.
Baitfish often feed there, attracting the larger game fish—walleyes, northerns, and the like.
“You paddle slowly,” I instructed him. “I’ll fish from back here.”
I attached a flicker minnow to the line. It’s a lure that, as the name suggests, mimics the swimming motion of a minnow as it’s pulled through the water. I’ve had good luck with these catching walleye and pike.
I tossed out my line. Stan stroked steadily but slowly. Although he was of a much slighter build than his brother, I was beginning to understand that he had more stamina. There was a bit of iron in the man’s spine.
Thoreau said, “Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” My daughter Jenny, who is a fine writer and huge reader, gave me that quote a long time ago.
It struck home. When I fish, even if I don’t catch a thing, I usually come away feeling as if I’ve been given something that, although it won’t feed my body, has fed my soul quite well.
That’s especially true when I fish in the wilderness.
But then, whatever I do in the wilderness tends to feed my soul.
Except, perhaps, on this particular trip.
Paddling gently across Big Woman Lake, Stan seemed to be feeling some of what I’ve just talked about.
“You go into this wilderness often?” he asked, in a dreamy kind of way.
“As often as I can.”
“I’m a city kid. Never spent any real time out in nature. It’s beautiful here.” He was quiet for a while, “Contemplative. I’d love to bring my sons here someday.”
“How old are they?”
“Scott’s thirteen. His brother, Zack, is twelve. They’re pretty tight.”
“Your brother tells me you’re divorced.”
“Show me a man who isn’t. Everyone’s divorced. Seems like no kids grow up these days in a family that stays together.”
I thought that was an exaggeration, but there was truth in how it felt.
I trolled for a while without luck.
“There’s a shallow inlet over there,” I said, pointing to the northeast. “Let’s head that way and see if we have any luck.”
We had just entered the narrow inlet, which was lined with tall reeds, when I heard the hum of an engine. Motored craft aren’t allowed in the Boundary Waters. I listened, and I saw that Stan had heard it, too.
“A plane,” he said. “Flying low.”
“Let’s pull into the reeds,” I answered.
The canoe slid among the tall, yielding stalks just as a floatplane flew over the lake.
I saw that it was a de Havilland Beaver, a plane used by the U.S.
Forest Service for lots of tasks, locating lost canoeists among them.
I was pretty sure then that someone—my guys or maybe Cordell or Tucker and Leticia—had made it out and alerted the authorities.
“They’re looking for us,” I said.
Stan turned in the bow and eyed me with consternation. “Why’d you hide us in the reeds? They could have spotted us, sent someone to haul us in. You could have saved yourself.”
“So far I’ve done a pretty good job of that on my own.” I patted the Glock that I now kept slid under my belt.
He shook his head. “I don’t get you.”
“I’m going to offer you a deal. If you don’t try to take the gun from me and you make sure your brother does the same, I promise I’ll get you to Canada.”
“Why?”
“I saw what you did to Crispin.”
“That was my brother’s doing.”
“I saw what happened to Cordell and Tucker Jackson, too. I don’t want anyone else harmed before you leave this wilderness. Either I’m with you to make sure that doesn’t happen or I have to kill you.”
“You’ll take us all the way?”
“I’ll make sure you get across the border. That’s a promise.”
“And you’re a man of your word?”
“I’m a man of my word.”
He studied me as if I were a rare animal. “I haven’t met many of those. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever met a single one.”
“Is it a deal?” I asked.
I could tell from his face that he was still chewing on it. He finally gave a slow nod. “It’s a deal.”
He was a killer. Or more probably, it was his brother who was the killer.
But he’d stood by and let death happen. So I had no reason to trust him.
But in all my years in law enforcement, I’d learned to read men pretty well, and Stan seemed sincere in his promise.
As for me, I truly meant what I said. What might happen after we crossed the border, however, would be another matter altogether.
There were cops in Canada, too. And if I was still in possession of the gun, and the dark wolf inside me was still hungry, I had other, deadlier, options as well.