by Vicki Delany
Jeremy flicked on his flashlight and played it across our faces. In a second I lost the image of rough, hairy, but determined, pre-historic women huddled around the cold fire pit, clutching naked babies to their thin chests and trying to blow life back into the fire.
“Cool,” he said. “You all look, like, really weird.”
“You must know some good stories about the park,” Barb asked Craig. “Tell us some, please.”
“Any ghost stories?” Jeremy focused his light directly into Craig’s eyes.
Craig covered his face with his hands and swallowed his annoyance. “I know only one,” he began. “And it’s not a ghost story, but there was a death, a very famous death in this park. And some people say it was murder.” He paused for effect and eyed us all in turn.
Jeremy switched off his flashlight and allowed the firelight to play across the faces around the circle.
Even Rachel seemed impressed. “The death of someone famous.” She breathed. “Who?”
“Tom Thomson.” He waited for us to search our memory banks and catch up.
“Of course, the painter.” I fairly shouted. “Canoe Lake, right?”
Rachel sighed with disappointment. I suppose that in her mind the only famous people were last year’s crop of movie stars.
But Barb was interested. “Who’s Tom Thomson?”
“A painter,” Dianne said. “Probably the most famous Canadian painter of them all. The inspiration for, and unofficial member of, the Group of Seven. Painter of the Canadian Shield, lover of the wilderness. He died in 1915 was it? In Algonquin Park, I know that. But it was a canoe accident.”
“1917.” Craig corrected her. “And a lot of people believe that his death was no accident. You see, Thomson was totally at home in Algonquin Park. He walked and canoed and painted these trees and lakes and hills for years. In his love of the wilderness, appreciation of the colors of the trees and the water, the majesty of the forest, he really was the first. He painted here for years, and brought his work back to show in Toronto. They actually didn’t believe him at first. In the beauty of the colors, I mean, the breadth of the forest. He was the first, and only when others followed did they finally believe what he had seen.
“One nice summer’s day, in 1917, he set off in his canoe, as normal, onto Canoe Lake, it’s quite a bit south of here, but still in the park. A few days later they found the canoe, floating upside down. No trace of Thomson himself, until about a week later when the body itself was found, in rather a poor state, as you can imagine.”
A true storyteller, he paused for a moment and glanced at us all in turn, one after the other, around the fire.
“Of course they immediately assumed it was an accident. But then the locals got thinking. Tom was an expert canoeist; he knew the wilderness like the rest of you know your own back yard. Plus, there was an enormous bruise on his forehead and a length of fishing line wrapped around his legs. Over and over and over, around and around and around.”
“How did that get there?” Barb asked, engrossed in the story.
“Ah! There lies the mystery. As it turns out, Thomson had been in a bitter argument with one Martin Blecher the night before he disappeared. It was in a bar, so we can be suspicious of some of the reports of their fight, but is there some truth remaining?” He looked directly at Barb.
She shivered and gestured to him to continue.
“Apparently this Mr. Blecher was rather fond of one young lady whose family owned a cottage on the lake. A lady who, people said, was engaged to none other than Tom Thomson himself, although the announcement was not yet official. To complicate matters this Martin Blecher was an American draft dodger escaping from World War One, and Thomson had apparently tried to enlist but had been turned down for health reasons.
“Do we see a conflict? I do.”
“So what happened,” Rachel gasped. Thomson may not be famous by her standards, but she knew a good story when she heard one. “Surely no one thought that the fishing line got there by accident did they? Didn’t this Martin whatsit go to trial or anything?”
“Unfortunately,” Craig continued, “very little happened. No one investigated the cause of Thomson’s death, and it continued to be officially classified as an accident. Remember that there was a war on, so people had more important things on their minds. And in those days Algonquin Park was an extremely isolated place.
“And that’s it?” asked Barb.
The soft hooting of an owl sounded from a nearby branch, almost as if encouraging Craig to continue with the story. It called only once and the forest closed in on us again.
“Not quite.” Craig said. He was clearly enjoying himself and although I knew snatches of the story, I was enthralled to hear it recounted among the trees and the descendents of the animals who were witnesses to the events so long ago.
“You see, Thomson’s family fully believed that they had received possession of his body when they asked for it. Any more hot chocolate in that pot?” Smiling Craig held out his mug.
Barb hurried to fill it. “What do you mean, ‘they believed’? It wasn’t his body?”
“People have some real suspicion about the disposal of the remains. It was buried first in the park, but his family arrived and wanted to take it back with them. They were given a nice box and took it away. A lot of the locals said that the box they got was much too light to contain anything as substantial as a human body.
“Years passed. Sometime in the 1950’s, I forget when, an old fellow decided to look into what exactly happened that day on Canoe Lake in 1917, and in the weeks afterward.
“The young lady, object of Thomson’s affections, and apparently the desire of the ill-suited Mr. Blecher as well, remained despondent for years. She never married; she never left the lake. And she continued to visit the original grave of Tom himself, the resting place in which he was first laid before his family requested the return of the remains to Toronto.”
“True love.” Barb sighed deeply.
“So what really caused the death of Tom Thomson, canoeist and naturalist extraordinaire, on a calm and peaceful summer’s day on a lake he knew so well? What caused the bruise on his forehead and how did the length of fishing line come to be wrapped around his legs? And where, in fact, lie his remains to this day? At the well-groomed family plot, or at the primitive gravesite visited for years upon years by a lonely, embittered woman who never married and never left Canoe Lake?”
He was a good storyteller. He knew when to drop his voice and when to raise it, when to stop for effect, and when to carry on. Even Richard and Joe, warriors of Bay Street, were captivated by the story.
“Wow,” Jeremy said, breaking the silence that greeted the end of Craig’s tale. “And you mean to say they still don’t know who’s buried where? Can’t they dig up the body and do some DNA tests or something?”
“I don’t think they do DNA testing or dig up old graveyards just to satisfy some people’s curiosity. It’s too late to bring anyone to justice, if Thomson was in fact murdered.”
“I bet they would if anyone really wanted to.”
“That is such a great story,” Dianne said. “You tell it so well. What else do you know about the Park? I’ve been on lots of these trips and I never tire of the stories. Please tell us more.”
And Craig talked, his deep, rich baritone rising and falling with emotion, long into the night. Some of his tales were true, I have no doubt, and some were a total fabrication, spun out of whole cloth to suit the mood of the night. And does it really matter, at the end of it all, which are true and which are not and can one really tell the difference when all the stories finally come to an end and it is time for bed?
Chapter 10
Day 7: Midday.
We faced only one portage that day, but it was a long one, almost three miles. Which was a great deal, considering that we had to walk the route three times, once with the first load, then make our way back to pick up a second pile, and carry all that down the trail aga
in. The whole trip would come to a tough nine miles.
We were well into the routine, everyone strapped on his or her pack with a moderate amount of efficiency, excepting Rachel who still ignored anything heavier than her own day pack and water bottle. Craig carried the lunch barrel but he didn’t have it on him when we finally reached the trial’s end.
“A little more than half way back, there’s a fabulous waterfall and swimming hole. I suggest we stop there for lunch and a bit of a rest before getting the canoes and the last of the stuff.”
So down the path we trotted. Like an overworked trail pony on the way back to the barn, my steps were lightened considerably by the prospect of lunch at the end.
The promised waterfall was only about a hundred yards off the main path, but not marked, so passers-by would be unlikely to find it unless they knew it was there. It was a perfect little jewel: a gentle, small river arriving at a tumble of rough white water, then switching personalities to toss and boil like a cheerful avalanche over the rocks and into a soft pool of deep black. Thick growths of gnarled old pine and silver birch grew right to the water’s edge, wrapping the open patch of water in a thick, almost impenetrable blanket. Sunlight broke through in the few spots it could and cast a dappled, dancing pattern of light and shadow on the playful rushing water.
Eagerly we stripped off shorts and T-shirts and with less enthusiasm stepped hesitantly across the rocks. It was rough underfoot; I approached the waterfall at a snail’s pace, watching every step. The water was sharply cold, but so crystal-clear, that I could I could see my feet, ghostly green, thick-toed and warped out of shape in their practical, back-to-the-real-world sports sandals, and check out the location of every rock before placing my foot back down again.
Barb, Jeremy and Craig passed me, laughing at my timidity. A beam of sunlight escaped from the forest covering and caught Barb’s fair hair so that it shone like a rippling field of spun gold. She fairly danced across the surface of the water, sunlight bouncing off the spray of the falling water that surrounded her, looking for all the world like Tinkerbell come to life to play amongst we mere mortals.
Richard, Joe and Dianne walked behind me, placing every footstep with care like me. How quickly we loose the spontaneity of youth, that reckless, devil-may-care attitude. I briefly considered dashing into the falls, but I remembered Barb’s friend Annie, leg broken in the Parliament buildings, of all the mundane places, the trip of a lifetime over in a careless second, and I continued at a suitably sedate pace.
We played and laughed in the rush of the waterfall. Craig showed us a tiny tunnel behind the streaming water, where an overhanging shelf of rock jutted out into space, creating a pocket of air small enough for one or two people to duck under comfortably.
Below the ledge of worn and tumbled rock, the water fell again, this time in a gentler stream, into a pool of the softest, deepest black. It was deep enough to dive into, as Craig demonstrated. I jumped in once, to test the depth and felt nothing underneath my feet. So with great bravado, I clambered back up and executed a perfect dive. I surfaced to stunned silence followed by a spontaneous round of applause. Diving had been my sport in High School and University. I will admit that it did give me a rush of satisfaction to see the surprise on the faces of my companions (particularly the younger set).
“Lunch in five minutes,” Craig bellowed once he had recovered his composure. He swam in long, liquid strokes over to the water’s edge and pulled himself up and over the top.
Barb and Jeremy were splashing each other with much laughter and playful expressions of giggling anger. Richard attempted a dive like mine, which (I am rather ashamed to admit pleased me no end) culminated in a spectacular belly flop. Dianne winced in sympathy and pretended not to notice. But the edges of her mouth turned up in a small secret smile.
Joe left the water and joined Rachel on the bank. She had changed into her red bikini but hadn’t ventured into the water. She was propped under a tree, baseball cap pulled down over her eyes. The look of perpetual boredom was replaced with one of heavy-eyed contentment as she gazed out over the waterfall and the forest and open blue sky beyond.
Lunch consisted of tuna salad stuffed into a pita accompanied by apples and pears. When the meal was finished, I lay back and closed my eyes to doze gently in the dappled sunlight. At the edges of consciousness I could hear people returning to the water and the sounds of swimming and diving and laughing.
“This is a great spot, eh, Dianne?” Joe’s voice, gooey with false friendliness, broke through my haze of almost-sleep like the buzz of a particularly rude bee. I struggled to settle back into my contented stupor.
“Very nice,” Dianne replied, her empty voice far away.
“Thanks so much for inviting me and Rachel on this trip. It’s been exactly what I needed.”
“Oh, really.” Dianne’s tone hardened. The weight of sarcasm in the air was almost palpable. “I am so sure that Rachel is having a wonderful time. Why look at her now, wondering whether or not it will ruin her pedicure to put her big toe into the water. No, wait, there’s the gallant young guide edging her in.”
“I don’t think…” The whining attempt at being friends disappeared, Joe’s voice was now as sharp as steel.
“No, I am quite sure you don’t think.” Dianne interrupted. “You don’t think long enough to consider whether you are welcome… or not.”
“I don’t think.” He repeated with emphasis. “That there is any point in discussing our relationship, or lack there of, in front of outsiders.”
I could almost feel him nod in my direction.
“Oh, she’s sound asleep. The only one of you bunch who’s worth anything on the trail, she needs some rest.”
In a sudden burst of panic I regulated my breathing, in out, in out. This was the second time in a few days I’d felt myself forced to pretend to be asleep. Why do I keep getting into these ridiculous situations?
I wasn’t the least bit interested in listening in to any argument between Dianne and Joe, but the humiliation of discovery at apparently pretending to be asleep during a private conversation would be excruciating indeed.
In out, in out. How does a sleeping person breathe anyway? I tried to remember looking in on my sons, out for the count under their Star Wars duvets, snug against the terrors of the night in their wooden bunk beds, protected by the power of The Force.
Rustling vegetation and muttered grunting as Joe struggled to his feet. “So nice talking to you Dianne. Let us all know when you are ready to move on, will you?”
“I assume that you believe that big loan you need will be coming through next month.” Her voice was soft and black like the pool, but equally deadly. Unwillingly I strained my ears to catch it all, almost forgetting to breathe. In out, in out.
“No assumptions about it,” Joe replied, his voice dropping to her level. Smooth, threatening. “It will be there, guaranteed.”
“No, Joe. Not guaranteed. Not at all. You see, I’ve pumped so much of my own money into one fanciful scheme of Richard’s after another that I am getting rather tired of it. I guess he forgot to tell you that his bank is… little old me. Foolish of you not to ask, wouldn’t you agree? Fortunately, I have money, thanks to my family. And lots of it. Unfortunately for you, even my pockets aren’t bottomless.”
In the distance, resounding of echoes like in a dream, I could hear Craig calling to Rachel to be careful, and Barb’s laugh.
“This is a good deal, Dianne.” Joe’s voice was softer now. I guessed that he was rapidly assessing his company’s bank account and deciding that he’d better keep himself under control until he found out where things stood. “It will make us all a lot of money.”
She sighed deeply. I saw a nature show on television once, in which a snake crawled out from under the trunk of a rotting tree. The sound was exactly the same. “But I already have a lot of money. Maybe I don’t need any more.”
“Don’t you screw this up for me, Dianne,” Joe warned.
> “For you?” She laughed without mirth. “Why should I care about you?”
“For Richard then. You do care about Richard, don’t you?”
Immediately above my head a red squirrel sounded the alarm with a set of high-pitched squeaks. I lay still in an agony of indecision. I really should make waking up sounds, but on the other hand, other people’s business is quite fascinating. Isn’t that why we have celebrities?
“Or maybe you don’t want to see Richard’s company do well,” Joe said. “Maybe it suits you to have him tied to your apron strings, nice and close so you can check up on him, keep him in line if he thinks about straying.”
I thought Dianne would be angry but rather she laughed with something approaching real mirth. “You really have no idea what you’re taking about. So go away and leave me alone. I’ll decide in my own time and for my own reasons what I’m going to do.”
I could almost hear the rising of the bristles on Joe’s neck and the crack of his knuckles as he clenched his fists. “Listen you. Don’t think you can make that sort of a threat and then tell me you’re going to ‘think about it’. That’s not…”
“Time to pack up and get going. We still have a portage to finish.” Craig’s voice was so close I jumped in my skin. Remembering that I was supposedly asleep, I stirred and shifted and groaned. Quite the academy award winning performance.
Joe stumbled off to help Rachel out of the water. “That was the coolest thing,” she exclaimed, clambering up onto the bank. “A little waterfall house.”
Dianne was watching me. She had a self-satisfied smile on her face and her strange cat’s eyes glowed yellow with mischief. I wondered if she had really believed I was asleep.
A short, pleasant walk took us back to the top of the portage. Amidst the tumble of packs and lifejackets and canoes a thin, balding, bespeckled and totally harried looking man tried to organize a group of jostling, rowdy teenage boys. Despite much splashing and play fighting and loud complaining, they seemed to be doing a fine job of unloading their equipment, hauling the canoes out of the water, and preparing to make the first leg of the portage. The man stood in the middle of the melee waving his arms and issuing orders and generally accomplishing nothing with much effort. As the first of the boys passed, Craig stopped him with a wave.