Fire and Spark

by Laura Singer

  Chapter 3

  Jenni got out her canoe from beside the shed. It was bright yellow – like sunshine, she told people who asked. Like Matt's, she noted. In the seven days since she’d come to the Two-and-a-Half Pine Resort she’d been out in it exactly zero times, despite the promises she’d made to herself. It was light enough for her to carry on her shoulders, but she found it easier to drag it across the grass and sand by its rope.

  She left the canoe by the lakeshore while she went back to her room and arranged a pack for a day trip. Snacks, water, a couple of cans of real (not diet) Pepsi, and a warm jacket, just in case. She changed into her red-and-green plaid shirt and most comfortable jeans. They were worn, but loose enough to make sitting in a canoe comfortable. At the last minute, she squeezed a plastic raincoat into the pack, then borrowed a tarp from the lodge supplies. Her father had told her, and she’d learned the truth of it later, that you never know when it’s going to rain.

  When she got back to the canoe, Lonnie was backing the lodge’s boat in towards her. He tossed her a rope, and she spent several minutes tying a proper canoe-towing rig. Canoes have a place at the front for a rope, and that’s good for tying a canoe to a dock or walking the canoe up a fast river, but if a power boat pulls the canoe from that point the canoe will do anything but follow meekly. Mostly it runs from one side to the other, leaps around, then plays submarine. A proper canoe-towing rig runs from the power boat to a point under the front of the canoe, so the pulling lifts the canoe’s bow well up. Lonnie waited patiently as Jenni made the harness.

  Even then she threw her pack and the tarp to Lonnie, just in case the canoe overturned.

  Lonnie gently pulled the yellow canoe into the water, then drove the boat to the end of the dock to wait for Jenni to get in. “Ready?” he asked her. She nodded, and he put the 125-horsepower motor into gear, watching the canoe as they gained speed.

  Once they reached full speed and Jenni assured herself that the canoe was trailing properly behind the motorboat and that her pack hadn't fallen into the little pool of water that most boats have, she threw an oar onto the tarp, which was threatening to blow up and out of the boat. She took off her cap and let the wind ruffle her hair and the sun squint her eyes. She looked at Lonnie for a moment, thinking, why can’t I find a guy like him, but a few decades younger? The resort handyman was often gruff – she’d been warned about that – and was usually a total loss at carrying out a conversation, but he was honest to a fault and you could bet your life on him, Emilia had told her.

  “Fast boat,” she told Lonnie.

  “Not used to one quite this fast?”

  Jenni shook her head. “Dad had nothing bigger than an 18-horse, and we spend most of our time in the 9.9. An old Evinrude; noisy but reliable.”

  “You did a lot of fishing with your dad?”

  “We’d go out a dozen or more times a year. Fishing and camping.”

  “Young girls usually hang around with other young girls. When they’re not chasing young guys.”

  “Oh, I did enough of that. Hanging around with my friends was pretty much my focus in life. But I discovered that I got a lot of perspective when I was fishing or camping and got a chance to relax a bit.”

  “Talked a lot to your dad on the water?” Lonnie did a wide loop around a patch of weeds. Must be a shallow spot, Jenni figured. Maybe some pike in there, or walleye along the drop-off.

  “Not about important things,” she said, “or not about things that seemed important to me at the time. Dad, though….” She paused. “He seemed to know enough not to ask me about that stuff. He’d talk, and every now and then he’d tell me something, then say, ‘That’s an important thing in life; remember it.’”

  Lonnie chuckled. “And did you? Remember those things?” A pair of loons disappeared underwater ahead of the boat.

  “Mostly the ones I thought were a crock of old-guy crap.”

  “And were they? In the long run, I mean?”

  Jenni shrugged. “Some of them. But a lot of them… well, I wish I’d taken notes or something.”

  “Your father’s dead, I guess.” Lonnie'd probably been told before Jenni got to the resort.

  Jenni nodded, then, seeing that he was looking away at the lake ahead, said, “Heart attack, at his desk, trying to deal with another irate customer and probably wishing he was out fishing.” She cleared her throat. “He should have died falling out of a boat trying to get a muskellunge in or something.”

  “Yeah.” Lonnie kicked at a bailing can that was rattling its way to the steering console at the middle of the boat. “I see you have a tarp.”

  “Liberated it from the resort,” Jenni acknowledged.

  “Good idea. Have you got rope?”

  “A little. Mostly pretty light stuff.”

  Lonnie reached into a bin beside him and hauled out a hank of yellow cord. “Take this with you. It won’t add much on the portage, and you can always use it and the tarp to make a tent if it rains.”

  Jenni added it to her pack. “Think it’s going to rain?”

  He nodded. “Might. They’re talking about some more thunderstorms later, mostly pop-ups that you can’t predict until they’ve formed. You wouldn’t want to be on the lake in a thunderstorm.”

  Jenni looked around. At the north end of the lake there were few cottages; the shoreline was just an unbroken line of trees. “I should be back before dark, unless the wind gets up. I can take care of myself; I’ve been through thunderstorms before. I’m pretty quick to get off the water when things look bad.”

  “Well, I have to go back to the lodge, but it’s only a twenty-minute ride in this boat, so I can come back and get you. Just phone the lodge.”

  “Shouldn’t take me more than an hour to find those kids and embarrass them all to heck.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Phone me anytime, even after dark. I’ll come get you.”

  “I appreciate that.” The boat slowed as they approached the shore. The spot was indistinguishable from most of the rest of the shoreline except for the yellow portage sign fixed to a tree. Still there, Jenni noted; people used to steal them as souvenirs, before the Ministry of Natural Resources learned to use a couple of hundred staples on each sign.

  Lonnie cut the engine and raised it up. The boat drifted to the shore, with the canoe arriving at the end of the rope and bumping the boat a couple of seconds later. Lonnie steered the canoe around to the side of the boat and held it still as Jenni loaded her pack, life preserver, paddle, tarp, and herself (carefully) into it.

  She looked back; Lonnie watched her till she reached the shore and got out. Then he waved to her, gunned the engine, and disappeared down the lake. Nice guy, she thought again, then shook her head to clear her brain, and laughed. I must be getting pretty lonesome, she decided, when fifty-year-old guys who can barely hold a conversation are starting to look good. A small brown bird chirped at her. She looked at the canoe, and looked at her pack, then looked at the portage trail.

  Jenni had long ago come to the conclusion that there were a lot of good things to say about canoeing and camping, but that there no good things to say about portaging a canoe and pack. A steep trail, full of boulders, wasn’t going to help, nor was the mud that had formed on the trail since the rain the night before.

  Again, she looked out onto Hawk Lake. The lodge was invisible, behind islands and the curve of the lake, and Lonnie was almost gone behind one of the islands. In the sky above his boat were a few new thunderhead clouds that had passed to the south of the lake. A quiet putt-putt-putt meant a fishing boat was coming. It could be from one of the lodges or one of the dozen cottages on the lake, she thought. Or maybe someone had found the free public launch on the west side.

  She turned towards the portage again, a bit reluctant to leave what little civilization there was. There were several lakes that could be reached from Hawk Lake by portage, but only two that were likely to be sought out by weekend campers, Ingrey Lake and Poplar Lake. And Ingrey was t
he lake the teens had said they were off to, according to the register at the lodge.

  On an impulse, Jenni checked the shore and walked a bit of the portage.

  She looked around. There wasn't a human in sight. A sense of something between loneliness and peace came over her. A white-throated sparrow sang out its "sweet sweet Canada Canada Canada". Jenni wasn’t sure she'd ever seen one of the birds, but she'd heard their song since she was a kid.

  Somewhere beneath the surface of the lake, a few bass were circling back to their favored resting sites, having probably already forgotten Lonnie’s boat and why they left. Jenni could see the last remnants of the wake from the boat, making a trail on the shores of an island.

  I wonder, she thought, what wake I’ve left on this planet and on other people. Just a fading ripple probably. Gone like summer, her school days, and her marriage. She felt a bit of a pang; she’d been so happy with Julio for a while. Christ, what she wouldn’t give to get those days back. Then she shook her head; Julio had best beware Jenni Williams. She wasn’t the fool he had married.

  She had just decided to ignore the impulse to sit on a rock and check her messages and to soak up the peace, when, of course, her phone rang.

  Evil little bastard, she thought, taking it out of her shirt pocket. But the call was from Tanya, so she answered it. “Glad you called,” she lied. “I’m out on the north end of Hawk Lake all by myself and about to start talking to the trees. What’s up?”

  “Just checking on you,” Tanya said. “Sorry I couldn’t call earlier, like I promised, but a senior manager rounded up the whole lot of us and we sat through a time and efficiency lecture in the cafeteria for a couple of years this morning.”

  “Get anything out of it?” Jenni looked at the aspen leaves by the shore, and watched another small brown bird watching her.

  “They started twenty minutes late and ran a half hour over the scheduled time.” Tanya laughed. “If the people from the floor hadn’t needed the cafeteria, we’d probably still be there, learning about the efficient use of time and resources. ”

  "Makes me glad to be here alone."

  “ Trying to get away from Emilia before she sets you up with the local postman? Or looking for that married man?”

  "Sure getting some ‘me’ time. ” Then she added, "Well, he is supposed to be up here somewhere, actually….”

  “Aha! Finally taking my advice. A quickie under the pines, is that what it’s going to be?”

  “Hemlock,” Jenni said. “Hemlock needles are softer than pine needles.”

  “Well, then….”

  Jenni interrupted her. “I’m not here chasing a married man. After I get my divorce, and after I wait a year, well, who knows. But not a married man. Not after I came so close to hitting Julio with a baseball bat when I found out about him and those…. Anyway, all the advice columnists say to wait a year.”

  Tanya snorted into her phone. “You’ve already been a year without more than a teddy bear to talk to in the morning, or so you tell me.”

  “Cuddles is a very warm teddy bear.”

  “So if you’re not seducing fishermen – oh, always wait till after they’ve caught something for supper before doing anything; that way you get fed, too. So, if you’re not up in the erotic woodlands for that, then what the heck are you there for?”

  “There were four young people. Launched at the lodge yesterday to go camping up here somewhere. We had a big storm last night, so I tried calling them this morning and couldn’t get an answer.”

  "Ah...."

  I’m at the portage they’re supposed to have used to get to Ingrey Lake."

  "Got it. Young people. Camping. Forced to spend time in the woods and they’ve turned their cell phones off. Granny Jenni comes to see what they’re doing? Is that about it?”

  “I guess.” Jenni sat on a log.

  “Probability one, they turned their phones off for good reason. Probability two, they’ve got cheap phones and the reception’s bad. Although you’ve got the cheapest phone around and I can hear you.”

  “But if….”

  “But sometimes even pessimists are right. Go find them. And say hello to that married guy.”

  “Tanya!”

  “Almost time to get back to work here. What are you thinking?” Tanya often closed off a conversation with that question. Jenni always tried to answer it.

  She said, “Well, actually, I was wondering where my life would go from here.”

  “Right on,” Tanya said. “September comes, and Canadians realize how short summer really was. Get all philosophical instead of getting a bed and a bottle and a warm butt and breakfast the morning after. And,” she added, as Jenni was about to interrupt, “I’m thinking of taking my own advice on that. Gotta go. Good luck.”

  Jenni studied the site for a moment. She looked at the ground but didn’t see any trace of footprints or grooves in the mud where canoes had been dragged ashore, at least not recently. There were the usual colored marks on the stones just under the water, where canoes had scraped off a bit of paint, but the recent marks showed nothing of the pink color of the canoe one pair of the teens had used or the white the other pair used.

  She shook her head. Maybe the rain had erased their footprints. Maybe the pink canoe had landed carefully, so as not to scrape the bottom on rocks. It was possible, but not easy, to miss all the rocks on the way in.

  What am I really doing here, she asked herself. Finally found some peace and solitude, did I? She took a deep breath and looked up at the pine tops by the lake. It does feel good, she thought. It really does.

  Then of course, the phone rang again. She looked at her pocket, and tried to ignore it. One ringy-dingy, she counted, two ringy-dingies…. Maybe the teens had contacted Emilia. She answered the phone on the fourth ring.

  “Aha,” Emilia said. “I thought maybe you’d drowned or gone feral.”

  “Or was carrying a canoe through the woods and dropped it on my head while trying to answer the phone.”

  “You didn’t!” Emilia seemed to be trying to suppress laughter for some reason.

  “I didn’t. I wasn’t. I’m at the portage to Ingrey, wondering if there’s been anyone here for a week or so. Did you get in contact with the group? I'm getting no response on mine.” Jenni was starting to realize calling the four people “teens” was a bit patronizing.

  “Well, there’s no connection with their phones, and they sure haven’t phoned me.”

  “I’ll take a walk down the trail,” Jenni decided. “I might try one of the other portages, if I can find them.”

  “The only other portage the group is likely to take is west of you about a kilometre. It goes to Matts Lake and from there there’s an easy portage into Poplar.

  “Matt’s Lake?”

  “Slip of the tongue. Bass Lake, but it’s where Matt said he was camping.”

  Jenni paused, then, “Okay; if I see him I’ll ask him if he’s seen any sign.”

  “You got flowers,” Emilia announced.

  “Flowers?”

  “Roses. Long stem roses. Very nice.”

  “Julio!” Jenni closed her eyes tightly and wrapped an arm around herself.

  “Matches the description,” Emilia chuckled. “Even mentioned you by name. How’s that make you feel, seeing as he brought flowers.”

  “Queasy,” Jenni said. “What did you tell him?”

  “Oh I told him you’d gone into town with a friend. Best I could think of, seeing as your car was there in the parking lot.”

  “I guess….”

  “Then I told him how we were planning to chop him into hamburger and feed him to the fish off the end of the dock. Actually, I added a few more details. That’s when he out and busted into tears.”

  Jenni shuddered a bit. “He would.”

  Oh, yes. Lots of tears. All down his face. Started shaking all over.”

  “And told you how much he missed me….?

  “Damn right. Piteous, it was. Woulda b
rought tears from a statue. He told me about how lonesome he was and couldn’t live without you and how he’d changed and wasn’t the same man as before and he’d never wanted to hurt you, ever….”

  Jenni sighed, “Look, God knows, he might actually believe….”

  “Believe it?” Emilia asked. Noises on the phone indicated she was doing something else at the office at the same time. “Of course he believes it.”

  “Don’t fall for it!” Jenni was shouting a bit loud.

  “Jenni, my friend, don’t forget who you’re talking to. I’m a recovering addict, remember? I’ve seen a thousand performances of that scene and done a few myself, every bit as good, if not better. They’re always sincere at the time.”

  “Okay.” Jenni felt a bit of relief.

  “I gave the roses to Lonnie; he’s going to put them on his wife’s grave tomorrow.”

  “Is he gone?”

  “Julio? Yup. Took off in a cloud of dust when I explained a few facts of life to him.” Emilia paused a bit. “Is he on steroids?”

  “Don’t know,” Jenni said. “I heard he’s got a job at the gym, and he always was into muscles, but….

  “Something about him seemed a bit off. Anyway, I’ll let you know if anything happens. Not counting a thunderstorm.”

  Jenni nodded, even if Emilia couldn’t see it. "I can see some thunderheads in the distance. Lonnie gave me a tarp; I’ll just crawl under it if it rains.”

  “Gotta go. Take care.” Emilia disconnected suddenly.

  Jenni took a look at the list of text messages on her phone. Just over a dozen, none of them all that important. She had the urge to get onto the social networks and tell everybody where she was, but she fought it down and put the phone away.

  She looked at the canoe and the pack, then decided she’d just walk the portage trail once without carrying anything.

  She’d been told the portage trail was about two hundred meters, but it was harder than she expected, with some steep sections that had rocks. As well the trail was littered with branches and there were a couple of fallen trees she had to go around. There were, at least, not many flying bugs at this time of year, but that hadn’t stopped the spiders from building webs across the pathway. She broke off a thin dead branch and waved it in front of her as she walked, clearing webs ahead of her as she went. Surprisingly, the wet sections weren’t flooded out, and she realized that there hadn’t been much rain in the storm, just a lot of wind at this end of the lake.

  There were no footprints anywhere, and no other marks that indicated someone might have passed. Finally, just before she got to Ingrey Lake, sliding a bit on some loose stones, she realized something that should have been obvious; the spider webs. Jenni didn’t know how long it took a spider to build a web across a path as wide as the portage trail, but she suspected it took more than half a day. She inspected one of the larger webs, watching the owner scuttle away to a corner. There were enough dried carcases of small bugs, mostly mosquitoes, to convince her that the web had been up for some time. So she was not surprised when she got to Ingrey Lake and saw neither footprints nor a tent on the island that was, she’d been told, the only marked campsite on the lake, and the only campsite big enough for more than a small tent.

  She turned back, glad she hadn’t carried the canoe over.

  First thing she did, was call Emilia to tell her there was no sign of the missing campers at Ingrey Lake.

  “Told you,” Emilia said, forgetting that it was Jenni who had told her. “Those guys are on a getaway trip, probably skipping classes at some college somewhere, and they’re not likely to be following any rules but their own. Probably figure if they need help they can call.”

  “But they’re still not answering.”

  “Not answering the two phone numbers we were given. Want me to send Lonnie up to get you?”

  “I was going to have a look at the portage to Bass Lake, just in case they went there.”

  “Okay. Say hello to Matt if you see him. Just a second,” There was a few seconds pause, then. “Got the map. Bass Lake’s got a couple of campsites on it, but there’s an easy portage after that to Poplar Lake, and they might have gone there. Or Matt might have gone there if he didn’t find himself alone on Bass. Can you see it on your map?”

  Jenni sighed. “Actually, that’s one thing I forgot to bring.”

  “I see. Much too optimistic, were you?”

  “That’s the best interpretation.”

  “Well, it’s about a kilometre west of you. Did you bring a compass, or is that a silly question?”

  “Compass? What’s this thing called a compass? Is it round? Does it have feet?” Jenni was starting to feel foolish.

  “Thought so.”

  “But I can figure out west. I’m not that stupid.”

  Emilia laughed. “Of course. Let me know if you need help. Oh, and watch for thunderstorms. There are a bunch just popping up around the area.”

  “I’ll call you if I get lost or killed, okay?”

  “Got that. I’ll try phoning the campers again, and see if Matt’s turned his phone on. If I get either, I’ll call you back.”

  “Good.” Jenni put her phone away, then pushed the canoe into the lake. Once, she stopped to listen; she could hear the sound of an outboard motor.

  She followed the shoreline towards the main part of the lake. At water’s edge, the shore was a mixture of mossy rocks and old trees that had fallen into the water at some time in the past. For a minute or two she saw a mink along the shore, weaving in among the logs, looking for clams, frogs, or crayfish. It looked at her, once, then ignored her.

  At the end of the little bay she paddled through a patch of lily pads. There was one white flower still blooming on the water, and she carefully paddled around it, feeling somehow a bit sorry that it had no friends. Silly of me, she thought; some things don’t care if they’re alone or not.

  As she was rounding the end of the point; and the motor noise was very close, she found herself being approached by one of the lodge’s aluminum fishing boats. The man in the boat slowed the motor when he saw Jenni and waved. Jenni recognized Lenny, the man who bought a new map every year. She waved back, and Lenny stopped the motor; the fishing boat and the canoe drifted together. Jenni turned the prow of the canoe then grabbed the boat. “Hi, Lenny,” she said.”

  “Good to see you,” he said. “You’re a long way from the lodge in a canoe. Must be a fast paddler.”

  “Got a tow with Lonnie.” Jenni adjusted her hat. “You wouldn’t by chance have a map, would you?”

  “That’ll be the day I’m anywhere without a map.” He reached into a knapsack, drew out his recently purchased map of Hawk Lake, then handed it to her. “Lost?” he asked.

  “Just trying to find the portage to Bass Lake.” Jenni squinted in the sunlight.

  Lenny pointed behind him. “It’s at the end of a small bay about twenty minutes paddling that way. There’s an inukshuk on a rock at the end of the bay, and an osprey nest in a dead pine.” He paused. "And this lake is totally devoid of fish. I don't know how the osprey lives."

  “Ah,” Jenni said. “I see it here.”

  “I can let you have the map, if you want.”

  Jenni smiled. “Thanks, but I think I can find it now.”

  “I’m not sure I’d want to go camping with all these thunderstorms around, Lenny noted.”

  “Probably safer than being in a metal boat on the lake.” Jenni pointed out. She sighed. “Well, this is probably a stupid thing, and I’ll probably end up canoeing all the way back, for nothing…. Or I could see if Lonnie can come get me."

  “Upwind,” Lenny said.

  “Pardon?”

  “If you paddle, it'll probably be upwind. I used to canoe a lot. Seemed like it was always upwind, except maybe for once a year.”

  Jenni laughed. “I think you’re right. Anyway, to get back to why I'm here, those young people in the two canoes went camping up here yesterday and I figured that was
that bad storm last night, especially at this end of the lake and they didn’t answer either of their phones and so I thought….” She stopped for breath. “I must seem like a mother hen or something.”

  Lenny worked on detaching his fishing lure from his fishing net. “Makes a lot more sense than catching fish, if you get right down to it.”

  “Well….”

  “But I’d say there’s a bunch of storms coming around today, and you wouldn’t want to get caught in one.”

  “If I can't get Lonnie to come get me, I’ll keep to the shoreline. It’s not too hard to haul a canoe into the woods. Easier than with a boat, I imagine.”

  “Storm’s a-coming, I just run the boat against the shore, throw the anchor into the trees and follow the anchor rope.” Lenny had got the lure loose from the net, only to have it catch immediately in another part. “As for keeping to the shoreline, well, when you get to Bacchus Bay, you’ll have the choice of following the shoreline along the bay and back, maybe three miles, or cutting across, maybe half a mile.” He squinted at her. “Then what would you do?”

  “Same as a guy in a fishing boat: take up religion on the spot and watch the clouds and go for it, of course. Don’t make it, you can have the search team look for my canoe. Shouldn’t be hard; I’m probably the only canoe on the lake right now.”

  “Oh, you’re not the only canoe on the lake. I saw another one in the distance coming up the west shore.”

  “What color?” Jenni asked, cautiously.

  Lenny shrugged. Just a silhouette at that distance.”

  “Anyway, thanks for your help,” Jenni said, releasing the boat. “I’ll see you again at the lodge.”

  “Say hello to Matt for me,” Lenny said, as the two drifted apart.

  “You know him?” Jenni asked.

  “Spent an hour in the rain with him last night on the deck. Talked about life and love and poetry and why all the freaking fish seem to avoid me.”

  “Male bonding. Us girls like to do it over tea and chocolate.” She paused and watched the water, breaking in little waves against the boats. "You talked poetry?"

  "Well, yeah. Not all of us men like to talk about it, but some of us write poetry. Even a hard-assed executive type like Matt writes poetry. I read him one of my hard-luck fishing poems and he gave me a poem he was working on." He stuck his hand into a couple of inside jacket pockets and eventually came up with a crumpled piece of paper. "It's a love poem, so it's probably more woman stuff than my poems. I'll read you a fishing poem sometime." Lenny handed her the piece of paper. "It got wet because we were sitting in the rain when he read it to me and I had to dry it out. You can give it back to me at the lodge when you get back. If you want."

  "Thanks." Jenni put the paper into her packsack. Then she put a paddle into the water, waved, and started out.

  Lenny waited till she was safely away, then started his motor. As he moved away, he let his fishing line trail behind the boat. In a minute he was gone behind the closest point of land, but the sound of the motor kept Jenni company.

  It was, indeed, about twenty minutes when Jenni recognized the inukshuk. She followed the narrow bay through increasingly dense weeds until she saw the yellow portage sign at the end.

  Within a stone's throw of the portage, her canoe started hitting rocks. Canoes, she thought, always seem to be attracted to rocks. She used the paddle as a pole to skim through the shallows, watching the rocks, and changing direction a bit every time she hit one. She felt vindicated; she could see the streaks of pink from one of the kid’s canoes. And, of course, the yellow from Matt’s canoe.

  A few feet from the shore the canoe refused to move any more, stuck into mud. Jenni grabbed the rope at the front of the canoe, stuck the paddle in the mucky lakebottom, and made the leap to solid ground without getting her feet wet. She looked around. There were a few grooves in the mud at the shoreline. A couple were a bit smoothed by the previous night's rain, and a sharp new one was sure to be from Matt's canoe. A quick glance around showed that there were no fresh pieces of litter around, and Jenni nodded in approval. She sent a quick text message to Emilia.

  Sure, now, that the canoe group had gone over the Bass Lake portage, she put her pack onto her back. She tucked the tarp under her arm, and, using the paddle as a walking stick, started up the steep trail among the trees. Sensible canoers made one trip carrying packs, then second trip carrying the canoe. Carrying everything at once was possible, and brave young men did it, but it was awkward. Carrying a canoe on your shoulders had one big problem: it was hard to see where you were going. So most people took the packs first, memorized the bad spots on the trail, and came back for the canoe. Which is what Jenni did.

  The trail was only 350 metres, but it hadn't been a friendly one to start with, and the storm hadn't done it anything but harm. There was a steep boulder-strewn scrabble up from Hawk Lake, then a series of ups and downs. A small creek drained from Bass Lake, and the path generally followed the creek bed. Jenni stopped at the first muddy crossing point when her phone rang. She set down the things she had under her arms.

  "Hi, kid. Just checking in." .

  "Hang on," Jenni said, waiting for a blue jay to stop its yammering in a tree above her. "Noisy bird," she said. "I'm on the portage to Bass Lake."

  "I hope I didn't make you drop your canoe on your head."

  Jenni laughed. "I'm taking the loose stuff first. Glad I did." She paused.

  "Problems?"

  "No….. It's just that it's been a while since I portaged into the woods," Jenni said. "There's something a bit unsettling about it, like I'm leaving something I know behind and moving into…."

  "It's because you're portaging alone," Emilia said. "You can't cover up by talking to other people."

  "You think?"

  "How are the trees?"

  "Beautiful," Jenni admitted. "The leaves are waving to me."

  "Atta girl. You're on a bridge. Whatever's ahead, go for it. Much storm damage?"

  "Lot of branches down, and a few trees on the trail. I could step over most of them, but there's one I had to detour around. Looks like they got more wind than rain."

  "And all that from last night."

  "Most of it. I found one place where the teens' footprints in the mud were under the tree, so they went past before the tree fell. Matt's footprints showed he went around the tree, like I did."

  "Well, be careful. Don't want trees falling on you. And the thunderstorms are getting closer, according to the web."

  "There's a couple of swampy parts; once I get the canoe past them, I should be okay. Oh, and I met Lenny the fisherman with the map. He told me how to get here. And he passed me a poem that Matt wrote. It seems to be more of the same one you found?"

  "Hm." Emilia said. "I'd be suspicious if I were you. Men don't normally go passing that stuff around."

  "That's what I was thinking."

  "Remember the old saying," Emilia asked. "Why is it so hard for women to find men that are sensitive, caring, and good-looking? Because those men already have boyfriends." She laughed at her own joke.

  Jenni ignored that. "Here it is. Two stanzas this time. " She pulled out the paper and read:

  Come and spend this night with me

  There’s ashes on the wind

  In our tiny tent, we'll find

  Where love and time begin

  Come and share the night with me

  Warmth on warmth in dark

  When the wind shakes the tent

  You are fire, I am spark

  "Sounds like he's planning on more storms. Well, I won't keep you. Ta ta."

  "Bye," Jenni said, but Emilia had already disconnected. She took a deep breath; the air smelled heavy, like a storm was coming.

  The rest of the trail was easier, and Jenni soon got to put her load down at the edge of Bass Lake. It looked peaceful. There were a couple of old boats that duck hunters had probably left there for the fall season, but otherwise she could see no sign of anyone.
She took in the scene for a moment, then headed back to get her canoe.

  If it was a hard trail with the pack, it was harder with the canoe on her shoulders. Not only did the weight make her slip more often on muddy slopes, but she was nowhere near as agile when crossing a creek by hopping from one rock to another. And, of course, there was the usual problem of coming to an abrupt halt every time the bow of the canoe hit a branch she hadn't seen coming; her feet moved a step or two anyway, then danced backwards each time.

  This, Jenni decided, is why women go canoeing with men most of the time.

  The phone rang twice, but she ignored it. When she took the canoe off her aching shoulders at Bass Lake, she checked. Two calls from Tanya. She decided to ignore them.

  Bass Lake still looked very peaceful. Not a sign that there was anybody on it, and she wondered if Matt had gone on to Poplar Lake, or if she'd been wrong and he hadn't come this way at all. But, of course, there were bays and islands in the lake, so there were corners she couldn't see yet.

  She rolled the canoe upright, then pushed it into the water. A couple of minnows darted away, a crayfish scuttled under a rock, and two chickadees checked her out from an overhanging branch; she wished she'd brought some sunflower seeds for them. Out on the lake, four loons (probably parents and two almost-grown chicks) watched her.

  From what she remembered from Lenny's map, the portage to Poplar was across Bass Lake and slightly to the left, behind an island.

  For a moment she wished she'd downloaded the map application to her phone, then decided she was being silly. Truth was, Bass Lake was pretty small. Still, she was hesitant, expecting to get nothing for her trouble but annoyed looks from the five people she was likely to meet.

  She listened to the two phone messages from Tanya: neither was important, She looked at her text messages – nothing she cared to answer or think about. Then she sighed and pushed the canoe into the water. After bumping over and around the usual floating and submerged logs, her will to paddle came back and she headed straight towards the middle of the lake. From far away came the rumble of thunder.

  As she came around the one big island, she saw three things in one glance. First was the triangular yellow sign that marked the portage to Poplar Lake. Next was a maroon-and-gray tent on a point of land. That, she knew, was probably Matt's, since there was only the one tent. Third was Matt, in his canoe, straight in front of her, a stone's throw away. He was reeling in a yellow Jitterbug lure that burbled on the surface of the water, obviously hoping for a bass, or perhaps a pike.

  Jenni stopped paddling, and let the momentum and a light wind take her canoe close to his. She figured she'd better speak first. "Hi, Matt."

  His attention apparently distracted by Jenni's abrupt reappearance into his life, he stopped reeling the lure in. When the burbling of the lure paused, there was a significant splash beside it, as a fish attacked. Matt jerked the rod tip, but the fish must have been less than serious. The lure took off into the air, missed Matt's head, kept going, and stopped behind his canoe, wrapping itself around a tangle of dead cedar limbs along the shore.

  There was a silence, as Matt looked at Jenni, then back at his snagged lure, then back at Jenni again.

  "Hi," Jenni said again. "I'm Jenni, from the lodge."

  "Ah, yes." Matt paddled backwards towards the shore. The canoe seemed to want to go every way except towards the lure. After much splashing and a bit of mumbling, he got there, reached up, and broke off the bare twig that held the yellow Jitterbug. He shook off one of the spiders that nest in twigs over water, then carefully got his line free. Then he turned towards Jenni. "Is there a problem?"

  "Sorry," Jenni said. "I'm… we're…" She took a deep breath.. "Remember those four people in two canoes that launched from the lodge yesterday? We tried to contact them but there's no… their phones are out of service." There was a silence, so she added, "I came up to see if they were all right."

  "You must paddle fast; I just got here half an hour ago."

  "Got a ride from Lonnie."

  "And you think they're here?"

  Jenni was starting to get annoyed, but whether at Matt or herself, she wasn't quite sure. "They said they were going to Ingrey Lake, but there's no sign they went that way. This is the next logical place for them, either here or over the next portage to Poplar Lake."

  "Ah," Matt said. "I circled this lake, so they're not here, but they could have gone on to Poplar."

  "I'll check it out," Jenni said, moving the canoe out and away. "Thanks."

  "Wait a minute. Do you have a pen and paper?"

  Jenni checked her pack, and came out with a pen. "Pen," she said.

  "Take down this number." Matt gave her a phone number. "It's my cell phone. I'll turn it on, and you can call me if there's a problem."

  "That's a plan." Jenni looked at the number she's written on her arm. It should last if she didn't sweat too much. "I'll call you only if I need help."

  Matt waved goodbye, and went back to fishing as Jenni paddled towards the portage.

  She took a deep breath and smiled. That went better than expected. She’d been hoping to avoid Matt, but at least he didn’t ask her to share his tent for an hour or so. She would tell Emilia sometime that Matt had obviously been teasing her the day before at the lodge. Probably just a way for a man, free for a weekend from his wife, to get a long conversation with Emilia. A lot of men liked to have long conversations with Emilia, if you didn’t count Lonnie, who wasn’t into conversations much, or Lenny, who was probably at that moment marking his map with another place he’d tried to catch a fish.

  As she approached the shore, she thought that Matt at least knew what he was doing, fishing-wise. Until the lake waters cooled a bit more, a surface lure under the trees near shore was as likely as anything to bring up a bass or two, and less likely to get lost on a bottom snag. She wished him good luck and a couple of bass for his supper.

  A rumble of distant thunder made her look up. If, she thought, he gets to eat them before it rains. She was glad Lonnie had made her take a tarp; a person had to be pretty thin to stay dry under a canoe in a thunderstorm.

  She found a nice flat rock near the shore and was able to step right onto the dry land, then drag her canoe up onto the landing spot. Looking back, she could see Matt with a small net, landing a fish. Maybe, she thought, he should have included a fish fry in his poem; that might have helped get him company for the night.

  On impulse, she took out the copy that Lonnie had given her, and read the whole thing one more time.

  She looked back at Matt again, frowned, then folded the poem neatly and stuffed it into her shirt pocket. Then she put the pack onto her back, raised the canoe over her head, and managed to grab the loose stuff and start over the portage. It was awkward; the paddle caught in brushes and the tarp tried to slip out from under her armpit, but Lonnie’s map had said the portage was only 50 meters, and it looked pretty flat, so carrying everything in one trip might be possible.

  The trail was easy, although she dropped the paddle once, discovering again that it's not easy picking anything off the ground when you've got the weight of a canoe on your shoulders. For one thing, it often means you drop something else, such as the tarp. And the various small birds seem to be twittering laughter at your troubles while it's easy to mistake the noise from a bluejay as the forest equivalent of posting your problems on Facebook. There were already enough leaves on the ground to give a crackle to her footsteps. Autumn was getting very close, Jenni realized.

  Jenni was getting herself increasingly upset as she walked. She'd hoped for a break from the long divorce procedures and from looking for a new job, but the time at the lodge was becoming anything but relaxing. For a moment she started to believe that people were playing an elaborate joke on her; running across the same poem twice in a day was just too much a coincidence, she decided. If it was Matt's, if he had written it rather than borrowed it from somewhere, it would have been for his Annie, wishing she we
re sharing his free time with him. Or it might be for Emilia, with whom he'd had a nice long conversation the night before. Emilia had once shown Jenni a poem that a high-school boy had written for her, Emilia. That was back in grade nine, but Emilia had been eye-catching even then.

  Jenni sighed as she saw the shores of Poplar Lake appear through the trees and the trail sloped down to the water. I'm going to become a hermit, she determined. No men, no women, just a couple of cats and a goat. Especially no men. Maybe when she was old…. The phone rang again, and she considered throwing it into the lake, but decided to just ignore it.

  Poplar Lake was not much bigger than Bass Lake had been, and when she got onto the water, she could see a campsite on her side of the lake, separated from the portage by a swamp. A thunderhead rose over the trees behind it. Jenni squinted at the campsite – there was another canoe there, but only one tent was up. Meanwhile, a pink canoe was coming towards her, a bit awkwardly. She recognized it as one of the canoes the teens had used.

  ***