Chapter 35
“The Windigo is a cannibal beast,” I said. “It has a heart of ice and an insatiable hunger for human flesh. It smells of rot and decay and curdled blood. And if you hear it call your name, you better look out. You’re the one it’s hunting.”
“That’s bullshit,” Ollie said.
“Everyone thinks that until their name is called.”
“It wasn’t always a beast,” Stan said.
“You know about the Windigo?” I asked.
“I’ve read about it. An Indian legend. A creature that was a man once, but greed turned it into a monster. A cautionary tale, as I understand it.”
“Sounds like our old man,” Ollie said. “Heart of ice.”
You too, I thought, remembering the tortured body of Crispin. But I didn’t say it.
“A ghost story,” Ollie said and dismissed it with a wave of his hand. He looked again into the dark. “Pure bullshit. That was no Windigo out there.”
“No,” I agreed. “More likely a moose. Probably a bull moose. They’re so big and mean they don’t care how much noise they make.”
“Next time I ask you something, how about a straight answer.”
He finished his cigar, threw the stub with its plastic tip onto the ground, and crushed out the ember with the heel of his boot.
“You’re not going to leave that there,” I told him. “You’re going to pick it up and take it with you out of the Boundary Waters.”
“Says who?”
“The man with the gun,” Stan reminded him.
Ollie bent with a grunt that was not just because of his size; his back was still giving him some bother. He picked up the cigar stub, made sure the ember was dead, and shoved it into his pocket. “There. Happy?”
“Tickled pink,” I said. “We should turn in. Another hard day tomorrow.”
“When do we get to Canada?” Ollie asked.
“If you hadn’t been such a pussy paddling today, we’d be there late tomorrow,” I told him. “As it is, another day and a half.”
I could see that my comment needled him, but he made no reply.
Maybe he was locking it away in that place in his heart where he stuffed all his angry inclinations.
If he had the chance, I knew absolutely that he would unleash on me every cruelty crammed in there.
He stood and looked at the path that led through the sumac to the pit toilet.
“Gotta go?” Stan asked. “Watch out for the Windigo.”
“Screw you.”
Ollie still had the headlamp he’d taken from the Duluth pack. He put it on and headed up the path.
“A day and a half?” Stan said, a wariness in his voice. “I’ve been keeping track of our direction. We haven’t been going north very much, and Canada is north.”
“Like I told you before, if we headed due north, all those people searching would have found us by now.” It was the truth, but only part of the truth.
There are well over a thousand lakes in the Boundary Waters, connected by twelve hundred miles of canoe routes.
I’d taken Stan and Ollie on less traveled routes.
This reduced our chances of stumbling across other people and gave me more time with the brothers.
I was still waiting for the wilderness to help me exact its toll.
I stood up and grabbed my hammock.
“More comfortable than sleeping against a tree,” Stan said. “Where are you going to hang it?”
“Somewhere that if your brother gets a notion to try for the gun he won’t find me.”
“I made you a promise.”
“He has a mind of his own. I need to be sure.”
When the big man came back, he crawled into the tent while Stan took a stroll to the toilet.
On his return, I made the same trip. Back at the campsite, I found I was alone with the fire.
I doused the flames, made sure every ember was dead, then headed into the woods.
I hung my hammock down the shoreline nearly a hundred yards away, with a nice view of the lake.
The moon was just rising, still gold on the horizon, and the surface of the water had become the color of thin honey.
The two loons were still calling when I lay down.
I found myself thinking about my family, about my father, about how my experience had been so different from the Kennedy brothers.
’ I felt blessed. I wondered if Stephen or Daniel was among those searching for me.
I figured Rainy and Jenny and Waaboo were worrying.
If all went well, I’d see them in a couple of days.
If not… I decided not to think about that one.
I closed my eyes and went to sleep to the chorus of frogs and the song of the loons.
In the night, I heard great sounds of distress coming from the direction of the campsite.
It wasn’t from some animal attacking. It was, I could tell, Ollie dealing with the raw morels his system was processing.
A night of diarrhea, maybe some vomiting, and very little sleep.
Me, I closed my eyes and slept like a baby.
The next day, I was up at first light. It was a cool morning, curls of gray mist rising from the lake.
The air was rich and fresh with the smell of evergreen.
I unstrung my hammock and headed back to the campsite.
The Kennedy brothers were still sleeping, Ollie snoring up a storm.
I took my fishing gear and went down to the lake, where I cast from the shore.
Within an hour, I’d hooked a decent-size small-mouth bass. I cleaned it, then got a fire going.
Stan emerged first, looking beat.
“Tough night?” I asked.
“Something bothered Ollie’s stomach. He was up all night, running back and forth from the toilet. I’d blame you, but I had no trouble.”
“Probably picked up a bug from the water.”
“I’ll give you a thousand bucks if you let me use that hammock of yours tonight.”
“You’ve got a thousand dollars?”
“I’ve got a shitload more than that, brother.”
“In the pack?”
“Which,” Ollie said crawling from the tent, “you’ll never see, dickwad.” He stood up, looking beat to hell. “If you didn’t have that gun, I’d break your neck. You poisoned me.”
“I ate the same food you did. And your brother there ate the same. We had no problems.”
“You probably picked up a bug from the water,” Stan said. “You’ve been drinking from the lakes the whole time.”
“Giardia,” I said. “It’s a nasty little parasite that lurks in the water out here. Comes from beaver feces.”
“Christ, I didn’t need that,” Ollie said, looking as if he was about to be sick again.
“When’s breakfast?” Stan asked brightly, then grinned at his brother, enjoying the distress he saw on Ollie’s face.
“I’m working on it now,” I said. “You two just keep your distance.” I touched the gun, which was stuffed into the waist of my pants.
Ollie grunted and headed quickly up the path to the toilet. He was gone awhile, no doubt still dealing with the effects of the raw morels I’d slipped him.
“They’ll be looking for us today,” Stan said, eyeing the sky.
“But not here. They’ve already flown over this lake. There are a few hundred others for them to check out. We’ll get started right after breakfast.”
Ollie finally came back, and it was Stan’s turn at the toilet.
I’d filleted the fish with the blade on my multitool, which I’d cleaned and put back in my pocket.
Earlier, I’d set the skillet at the edge of the grill over the fire pit until I was ready to heat the oil.
Ollie stood watching me. He was less than ten feet away.
I was keeping an eye on him, although I was sure he couldn’t move fast enough to get to me before I had the Glock out.
“Fish again?” he complained.
“I ordered frittatas but they were all out.”
“Funny.”
“It’s good protein, and it’s all there is.”
“All the way to Canada?”
“Unless you’re able to whip up something else.”
I thought he’d come back with some stupid remark, but he fell silent. I looked up from where I was ready to slide the skillet over the fire, and I saw that he was staring beyond me. I stood up and looked where Ollie was gazing.
The canoe was crossing Big Woman Lake, maybe two hundred yards out.
There was only one person in it, stroking smoothly in the stern.
If he kept going, he’d pass us by, no problem.
But when I turned back toward Ollie, I saw that in the few seconds my attention had been on the canoeist, he’d crossed the distance between us.
Before I could pull out the Glock, he had the skillet in his hand.
He swung it, and the next moment, night descended again, stars and all.