by Tom Wright
After loading all our stuff into the wagon we sat down for waffles with maple syrup and sausages at the Mille Lacs Café, then took 69 north past the turnoff to Clear Lake, where Buddy Holly’s plane had gone down.
“Gee,” said Diana. “S’pose we should say a little prayer or something?”
Marge glanced at her.
“I think it’s too late,” I said.
Bemidji was the last real town we passed through.
“And so we bid fond farewell to city lights,” Don said happily.
A few hours later we made it to the turnoff to Duck Lake, where there was a little store called the Duck-In, with a small, neat house next to it and an old green International pickup parked in the driveway. Marge went inside to pick up a few things for the cabin and Don walked over to the house to roust Mr. Gundersen, who took care of the cabin in the off season. The old man came out blinking and scratching his head, saw Don and went back inside. A minute later he reappeared wearing a red wool duck hunter’s cap with earflaps hanging down on each side. Marge came out carrying two bags of groceries, which we stashed in the wagon as Mr. Gundersen was climbing stiffly into his pickup.
It was a twenty-minute drive through the woods and along the lakeshore. When the vehicles finally rolled to a stop in front of the cabin everybody climbed out, Mr. Gundersen walking up to join Don in a way that told you the ride had been hard on his hip.
The cabin, looking nothing like I had imagined, sat about forty yards up from the water on the easy slope under the pines, with a wide screened deck looking out over the water. It was house-sized, with three stories counting the loft, the look of the walls and roof making it obvious the place had been built in stages. Wooden stairs led up to the deck and front door in two flights, and there was a stone chimney up one wall and firewood stacked on the deck and along the back of the cabin under the deck next to where the picnic table had been set on end and leaned up against the wall.
From the water’s edge below the cabin a narrow wooden dock ran about forty feet out into the lake, and halfway along it a wooden boat was tied to one of the pilings. An old Evinrude motor was tilted up out of the water at the transom, a red gas tank stowed below it behind the rear seat. A hundred yards away along the shore, a motionless heron held its spear of a head aimed at the water.
“Got the electric turned on yesterday,” said Mr. Gundersen. “Well pump’s okay. Made sure the chimney’s clear, so yez can have your fire if you want. With the weather you’re used to, you might find it cool enough for that tonight. Far as your provisions, I made sure the canned goods, dry beans and whatnot are stocked up. Linens all fresh. Bailed the boat yesterday and got the motor back on. Had Ernie change out the gas and oil and check the plug, so she should start okay. Nothin’ in the mousetraps the last couple days.”
Diana looked at me and mouthed, Mice?
Mr. Gundersen filled Don in on where the fish were and what they were hitting.
“Walleye, stay with your shiners,” he said. “Pike, Dardevle’s always good. Want muskie, I’d try them big red and white plugs they use. There’s monsters out there, take your leg off that quick.” He sliced the air horizontally with his hand and grinned at Diana and Marge, who looked a little stricken.
Don took a couple of bills out of his wallet and handed them to the old man, saying, “Thanks, Einar.”
Mr. Gundersen stuffed the bills in the pocket of his khaki work shirt and pushed back his hat. “I’d say yez’ll be all right for the week,” he said as he climbed back into his truck. “Need anythin’, you know where to find me. Have a good visit, eh?”
Don and I unstrapped the cartop carrier and grabbed the luggage. Inside, he flipped on the lights with his elbow, giving us a view back into the bedrooms and up the stairs to the loft.
“You’re bunking up there, Jim,” he said. “Put the blue clothes bag and that smaller case in the front bedroom for Diana.”
When we had everything squared away, Don grabbed a couple of the fishing rods and clapped me on the shoulder, saying, “Let’s go take a look at the boat.” The lake was still and clear, the boat lying against the sections of tire tread that had been nailed to the sides of the dock as bumpers. Don checked the boat over and said, “Looks like we’re gonna be ready to sail, Popeye.”
We tied on a couple of lead weights and practiced casting off the dock for a while to get used to the bait-casting reels, then Don laid his rod in the boat and went back up to the cabin to lay in firewood for the night.
A few minutes later I felt footsteps on the dock and looked back in time to see a bright flash. Diana had taken a picture of me with her miniature camera.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” she said.
“You can sneak up on me anytime,” I said.
“Whatcha gonna catch with that piece of lead?”
“Just trying to get the hang of it,” I said. “It’s not as easy as it looks.”
“Porkchop asked me if I wanted to fish. I don’t think so, but I want to go with you on the boat.”
The air was getting much cooler, and Marge came down to the dock wearing a jacket. “Aren’t you two feeling the chill down here?” she said.
Diana decided she was, and headed up to the cabin to find a sweater.
“How are you really doing, James?” Marge asked when Diana was halfway up the slope.
“Pretty good, I think,” I said.
“Any trouble sleeping, bad dreams, anything like that?”
I shook my head, wondering if a silent lie carried the same moral weight as one you spoke aloud. Her question had made me think of L.A. and Gram back home, and suddenly I felt like a deserter. In particular, I was visualizing the layout of Gram’s house and yard, which I now realized was all dark corners and ambush points. For a second I felt a jagged-edged certainty that I needed to be there, needed to just leave right now and somehow get back where I belonged.
But I reminded myself that Earl was locked up, and that I was stupid to think it was up to me to protect everybody and fix everything. I could barely take care of myself.
A deranged cackle of laughter echoed across the water, and I jumped.
Marge smiled at me. “That’s a loon,” she said, gazing off in the direction of the call. “It’s a waterbird.”
Marge smiled at me again and gave my arm a squeeze. “Let me know if there’s anything I can help with.”
Later that evening we arranged the small couch and a couple of chairs and some big pillows in front of the fireplace so we could watch the fire. Don and Marge sat together, and she laid her head on his shoulder. Diana lay back on the pillows with her ankles crossed over mine.
“This is nice,” she said.
“Mmm,” said Marge.
Every so often Don got up to put on another log or poke into the fire with one of the iron tools that stood beside the fireplace. The flames swayed and pulsed, and sparks went swirling up the chimney like orange fireflies. There didn’t seem to be any need for talk. I thought about loons, and then I thought about Diana.
“Bedtime, James,” said Marge, touching my arm.
I opened my eyes. There was nothing left of the fire but glowing ashes, and Diana had already gone to bed. I climbed up to the loft, kicked off my shoes and crawled into the bag without undressing.
I dreamed of Tricia Venables, naked and trying to warm herself at our fire. But she couldn’t, she was too cold, cold as granite, cold as eternity. When I tried to speak to her my tongue froze.
Then she was L.A., hurt and freezing, her naked skin bitten and torn. She was lost in some high, hopeless place above icy rivers that twined like silver veins through the dark canyons thousands of feet below. Her hands covered her bloodied breasts and she cried out to me, but the booming wind stole her voice, left her as silent and broken as a doll in the endless, terrible emptiness. Hubert and Shepherd Boy struggled toward her through hip-deep snow from different directions, their hands and grinning mouths red with blood.
4 | Line
s
GRAM HAD made me promise to write, so I got up before Diana and Don the next morning and borrowed a ballpoint pen and a sheet of stationery from Marge. Then I sat at the table staring at the peach-colored paper while she started breakfast, my mind blanker than the page. Finally I decided the only way to start was to just start. I wrote:
Dear Gram,
I promised I would write so here goes. The trip was really long but there was a lot to see, especially corn. I got to drive some of the time which probably would have scared you but at least I didn’t hit anything. Ha ha. The cabin is great. We had a fire in the fireplace last night and I went to sleep on the floor in front of it. Marge is scrambling eggs for breakfast and she does it just like you with a little milk and everything. After breakfast we are going fishing. Diana says she doesn’t want to fish but she wants to ride in the boat. I have been thinking alot about you and L.A. back there and I miss you both. You know the skillet you scramble eggs in the big heavy one, well I was thinking maybe you could start keeping it in that cabinet over by the kitchen door where it would be handy if you needed it.
I was trying to think of a way to make this part seem important without sounding sinister or stupid when Don walked into the kitchen, and a minute later Diana followed. Marge said, “Okay, guys, get the plates and silverware on the table. Breakfast in five minutes, James, so you’ll need to wash up. You can finish your letter tonight.”
But I never did. I’ll get to the reason a little later.
After we had eaten and cleared the table, Don and Diana packed lunch while I helped Marge with the dishes. I listened to Don and Diana as I worked, and it was the usual standoff. Don’s idea was that with a hunk of jerky and a bottle of water you’re good for the day, but Diana took anything that had to do with food way more seriously than that. In her mind they were outfitting for an expedition, and she wanted all the possibilities covered, like maybe we’d have to share our lunch with Asia.
When they finally got it all haggled out we lugged the food and fishing gear down to the boat. The sun wasn’t all the way up yet. Our movements on the dock started ripples from the pilings that radiated smoothly away in interlocking circles, and I could see pale genies of mist drifting above the surface of the water in the oystery light. The sky shaded from the color of pale primroses in the east to turquoise overhead to smoky iron in the west, the tips of the tallest firs and spruces touched with coppery pink.
Don got the motor started, and it burbled and smoked in the water as we stowed everything in the boat and got our life jackets on. Then we pulled away from the dock and Don gradually throttled up until the boat was on plane and cruising smoothly. The world began to wake up, with lines of birds flying low over the water and the sun climbing above the treetops in the east.
We circled in toward a small island and Don cut the throttle, our wake swaying the reeds in the shallow water and sloshing up along the shore. Diana watched as Don showed me how to rig my rod for bottom-fishing, then got out her little camera and snapped a few pictures, saying, “How far are we from Canada?”
Don looked around to get his bearings and said, “Probably a mile or two.” He cast along the shore and watched the line until it went slack as the weight hit bottom. “Hope we don’t look like invaders. They might attack us with their hockey sticks.”
I caught the first fish, a green-gold walleye with a spined fin on its back and milky eyes. Don twisted the hook free of its mouth, hefted it and said, “Pound and a half at least.” He clipped it onto the stringer and let the stringer down into the water. A few minutes later he caught one a little smaller, put it on the stringer with the first and held them up in the sunlight while Diana took a picture. “Starting to look like supper,” he said.
My rod pulled strongly down, and I hauled back on it to set the hook, feeling the fish run for deeper water. It was bigger than the first one, and when I finally got it alongside and Don netted it, he said, “Five, maybe six pounds.” Diana took another picture as he put it on the stringer.
The sun got higher in the sky, and Don decided we’d troll across the lake to a cove he knew on the south shore and have lunch there. We rigged a couple of lines with spinners and let them out about twenty yards behind the boat as we cruised slowly south, making just enough headway to keep the lures’ blades turning.
I was daydreaming about Diana when suddenly I felt a sharp jolt, as if the boat had hit something. Don quickly cut the throttle and tilted the motor up out of the water. There was another jolt, then another.
“What happened?” Diana asked shakily.
Don looked over the side, then reached down and brought up the stringer. The two smaller fish that had been clipped to it were gone, and the biggest one had been bitten off just behind the gills, leaving nothing but the head and a dangling string of gray gut.
“What was it?” I asked Don, my mouth dry.
He unsnapped the head from the stringer and tossed it away. “No telling,” he said. “Muskie, maybe.” He tilted the motor back down into the water. “Had to be a hell of a fish, if that’s what it was.”
“They don’t have alligators up here, do they?” I said.
“Not that I ever heard of,” Don said. “No gar either, as far as I know.”
As we got under way again I could see from his expression that he was still thinking about what it could have been, but if he had any theories he kept them to himself.
I looked at Diana. She swallowed hard, watching the water as if she expected something to rise up out of it and grab her.
A few minutes later we reached the south shore and Don killed the motor as we glided into the cove. The boat’s bow crunched up onto the gravel, and Diana climbed out to tie the bowline off to a snag a few feet up the beach. She looked around, stretched and wandered off to inspect the rocks and chunks of white driftwood along the edge of the water. Thick, dark woods surrounded the cove and seemed to isolate us from the rest of the world, as if this were a huge theater and we were the only audience, waiting for the curtain to rise.
Don reached back to grab the cooler, saying, “Good a place as any for some lunch.”
Diana walked up in the direction of an old windfall lying at an angle from the brush line down across the rocks toward the water.
Don said, “Even cold baloney tastes like steak to me out in the open air like this.” He took off his jacket and laid it over the seat.
I opened the tackle box, pawed around a little, then looked into the eye of a green Lazy Ike in the top tray and saw that something terrible was about to happen.
“Don—” I began, knowing everything depended on what he did next.
“Wow,” said Diana, looking down on the other side of the log. “They’re like fat puppies! Hey, Biscuit, Daddy, come look!” She was about to climb over the log.
Don looked from me to her. “Honey, STOP!” he screamed.
Diana froze. There was a bleating sound, and two black bear cubs about the size of coons scampered up a bare pine snag on the other side of the windfall. At the same time, I saw something much bigger running toward us along the beach, looking like a huge shimmying black cannonball, moving faster than I would have believed any animal could. In one movement Don grabbed the fillet knife from the tackle box and vaulted over the bow, stripping off the knife’s leather sheath as he ran.
“Back up!” he yelled at Diana. “Get behind me!” He was facing the charging bear in a crouch, holding the knife out in front of him, its thin blade maybe as long as his hand. As Diana scrambled behind him Don threw back his head and roared, “GOODNESS GRACIOUS, GREAT BALLS OF FIRE!” with so much force that his face turned red and the veins stood out in his neck. The sound echoed off the trees and out across the lake, and the animal skidded to a stop with its hair standing up along its back, huffing and glaring from Don to the dead tree and back.
“Please excuse the tone, Miz Bear and forgive me if you’re not a Jerry Lee Lewis fan but I know you’ll understand I got a lot on my mind here,” Don sa
id in a reasonable tone, keeping the knife pointed at her and looking down at the ground in front of her, not meeting her eyes. “We’ll just go on back to the boat now move with me honey but nothing sudden don’t look directly at her and whatever you do don’t even turn your head toward the cubs so you don’t have to worry about us ma’am we’re on our way out of here God knows I wouldn’t want to have to try and stick this little chickenshit knife in your ear while you’re biting my head off and now that we’re on that subject you can bet your sweet bear ass we’re never comin’ back out here without a gun.”
They inched toward me. I gripped one of the oars in both hands, trying to keep my movements invisible as I adjusted my grip toward the right balance point to swing it if I had to, imagining it coming around at the bear’s head in ultra-slow motion, getting there too late, wishing to God boat oars were shorter and lighter. And had ax heads on them.
The bear gave a deep woof and made a quick fake at Don, and Diana clapped her hands over her mouth and said, “Nnk,” but kept moving slowly with him.
“Yeah I know ma’am,” said Don, sounding sensible and friendly. “If they were my kids I’d feel exactly the same way and as you can see I’ve got my own to think about so I do understand your reasoning you get into the boat first honey get low and curl up tight as you can facedown and cover your head and Jim you ease that oar over toward me.”
Trying to keep my hands from shaking, I slowly swung the oar far enough forward for Don to reach it. As Diana climbed into the boat and got down behind the front seat, Don carefully set the knife down on the bow and took the oar with one hand. He brought it around and held it crosswise in front of him as he backed slowly into the water beside the boat. “You’re gonna use the other oar to push off, Jim,” he said. “What I’m gonna do in a second is roll over the gunnel, and you need to have us moving straight out as soon as I do.”