Alone on the Shield

by Kirk Landers

  The only thing worse than stinky kids was the vast, silent wilderness, with its dark, howling winters, summers of ferocious insects, and total absence of culture. No high-powered political movements, no poetry readings. He lasted two years in the Canadian Eden he had picked for his asylum. After two years he decided it was time to get a master’s degree in Toronto, eleven hundred miles away. After that, he came back for a month or so in the summers—enough to get Annette pregnant twice. The master’s segued into a PhD, then to a faculty position. When the U.S. offered a conditional amnesty for draft dodgers, Rob worked fast to nail down a professorship in Minnesota and moved south with the alacrity of a migrating duck. His objections to America’s foreign policies had been long since forgotten, along with his marriage vows.

  The irony didn’t escape Annette. Canada had been his idea, but it was her country. She wasn’t going back.

  Christy had a cabin for them, of course, and Annette invited them for dinner so that her daughter and granddaughter could share a little more time with them. As they sat, Rob asked if they had any wine. He wanted to propose a toast. Not enough to bring the wine, of course.

  Annette opened a bottle of British Columbia red, not allowing herself to be offended at her ex-husband’s attitude. When the wine was poured, Rob toasted his first grandchild with so much gusto you’d have thought the child had just emerged from the womb. Annette dutifully raised her glass, sipped, and began eating.

  Rob prattled about university life, the book he was working on, the articles he had published. Annette was silently astonished that the man could possibly think this tripe was of interest to the people he had left behind many years ago.

  When he finally paused to take a bite of food, she asked Janice what she did.

  “I’m an interior designer,” she said, blinking her eyes like a movie star in front of bright camera lights. “I do mostly commercial, but I’ve been getting some big residential jobs lately.”

  “Tell them about the Gatsby house,” said Rob.

  Janice smiled indulgently. “Busby, honey. Gatsby was a book. I think.” She laughed at her own joke.

  “The Busby house is an ultramodern mansion, just fantastic. Eight bedrooms, ten bathrooms, a ballroom, tennis courts . . .”

  Annette zoned out as Janice rattled off the conspicuous excesses of the house and detailed the colors and fabrics that she used to frost the patrician cake. Thank God she had escaped that drivel, she thought. Better a week of minus thirty cold than a day of festooning the wealthy in a gilded embryo.

  “That’s very impressive,” Annette said when the woman finished. “It sounds like your career is really taking off.”

  “Yes,” Janice said, wrinkling her little nose with practiced cuteness. “But not for long. We’re trying to get pregnant, and I want to stay home with the baby for a few years.”

  Out of the corner of her vision, Annette could see Christy freeze, her fork halfway to her mouth, staring in shock at Janice.

  “Well,” said Annette. “I hope Rob does as well by you as he did by me in that department. There may be better husbands, but I can’t imagine better kids.”

  Janice stared at Annette, wanting to say something, unable to summon words. Rob had turned scarlet and was staring at his plate. Christy was politely trying to suppress a grin.

  “I’d like to propose a toast,” said Annette, raising her glass high. “To fertile ovaries, men with high sperm counts, and kids we can love forever. The older I get the more I realize the rest of it is just the flotsam and jetsam of life.”

  After dinner, when Rob and his wife departed for their cabin, Annette worked on the computer, updating the Quick Books for the canoe outfitting partnership while Christy put her daughter to bed. The house fell silent until Christy returned to the living room.

  “He’s weak. He’s just a weak man.” Christy’s words filled the hushed room like rolling thunder. Annette stopped her work.

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “Dad,” said Christy. “But it applies to Aaron, too. It makes me wonder if there are any strong men anymore.”

  “I couldn’t say for sure,” said Annette. “It seems like there are quite a few around here, but most of them are married. And who knows what goes on behind closed doors.”

  The room went silent again as both women mulled their thoughts.

  “The other thing, . . . you always have to remember that we’re all weak in some way.”

  “How are you weak?” Christy asked.

  Annette shared a bemused smile. “Chocolate. This place. Wanting to get laid now and then. I think we could put together a list, not that I care to.”

  “How is this place a weakness?”

  “Oh, you know,” Annette sighed. “As long as I’m here I can never have romance in my life, and I’d like that. I never thought about it before, but after Gabe started writing, it came back, the wanting to love someone that way. There aren’t any eligible men here. I suppose there aren’t many for a woman my age anywhere else either. But I couldn’t live anywhere else now anyway.”

  “What about Gabe? What if he’s the one?”

  Annette stood and stretched. “He’s not. Our time came and went a long time ago.” She said it and she meant it, but as she pictured his face in her mind a small smile played at her lips.

  “So why are you seeing him?”

  “It will be fun. And interesting. He’s still a good-looking guy, he’s smart, and he knows things I don’t know. Just talking to him used to be fun, and, judging from his e-mails, it probably still is.”

  Christy sat next to Annette. “You know, what you were saying about never finding romance here? I wonder if that’s me, too.”

  “I wonder, too,” said Annette, putting an arm around her daughter. “It might be different for you. You’re younger and there are a few young single men around here and we get customers coming through. So maybe something good will happen. But it might not. You might need to think about relocating at some point. I’d miss you like crazy, you and Rebecca. But it would be worse to have you stay here for me and miss out on real intimacy and a real partner.”

  Annette poured the last dregs of the dinner wine into a wineglass, and the two women stood on the patio, sharing the wine, looking out on the lake as the sun cast long shadows from the far horizon. The air was settling into the usual evening calm, the lake’s surface like glass.

  “When I see the lake like that, I always think of our first canoe trip with you,” said Annette. “You were just a few months old and Rob thought I was crazy, but I wanted you to grow up with this place in your blood. So we went. Just four days. We paddled from Beaverhouse to Batchewaung. It was bright and sunny when we put in, but we didn’t even get off Quetico Lake before the rain started. It rained for forty-eight hours. We were worried to death about you, but you did just fine and so did your sister. Then, on the third day, the rain stopped, and when we paddled into Batch, the park turned into paradise. The sun was shining, no wind. Not a sound. Not a whisper. Midafternoon and the lake was like a mirror. You could see the clouds in the water so clearly you couldn’t tell where the water ended and the sky started. It was like the canoe was floating in the clouds. It was one of the most amazing moments in my life.”

  “What did Dad think of it?” Christy asked.

  “He said it was like nature was reading a poem to us,” said Annette.

  “He said that?”

  “Yes. Believe it or not, he once was someone who believed in good causes and had a strong aesthetic sense.”

  “It’s not easy to picture.”

  “Don’t be too hard on the old boy, Christy. We all do the best we can.”

  7

  The kid rolled into the hotel parking lot in Pender’s SUV promptly at six. Pender’s canoe was already secured on the roof rack. He threw his packs in back, and they set out for the put-in.

  Pender was quiet.

  “You sure about the vehicle?”

  “Yeah,” said Pend
er.

  “I’ll sign it back to you any time.” He had an earnestness about him that Pender liked.

  “Don’t worry. It’s yours. Appreciate the planning info. It was a good trade.”

  “There’s a big weather system rolling in,” the kid said.

  “Oh?” said Pender. Not that interested.

  “You sure you want to go out now?”

  Pender looked at him and took a minute to focus. “I’ve been wet before.” He shrugged.

  “It’s the wind. It’s gonna blow. And you’re starting in a wetland. If you have to camp there, could be ugly. And if you keep going, you’ll have to deal with the wind on the lakes.”

  Pender shrugged again.

  “I wouldn’t say anything except you hired me to help you trip plan.”

  “You earned every nickel. And every mile you get out of this vehicle.”

  “You know what you’re doing,” said the kid. “But I have to say it—don’t get caught out in big water when this thing hits.”

  Pender nodded. Silence.

  “I was thinking about your trip last night, the part about your date.” The teenager glanced at him. “That’s really cool. Where are you going to meet?”

  “Where would you meet an old girlfriend in Quetico?” Pender asked.

  The young man thought for a minute. “I think I’d pick one of the clear-water lakes with pine forests. Maybe Shelley or Keats. What about you?”

  “I might go for Badwater Lake. It half kills you just getting there, so it seems like paradise when you can finally camp. But the lady picked the lake.”

  “So where are you going?”

  “I’m sworn to secrecy.”

  “C’mon, it’s not like I’m going to rat you out to Homeland Security.”

  “I know,” Pender laughed. “But it was important to the lady so I promised.”

  “Do you always keep your promises?”

  “I try.”

  The kid nodded.

  “I can tell you this much,” said Pender. “We’re meeting on an island in a lake I’ve never seen. I’ve been past it but never portaged in. She says that happens a lot. That’s why it’s such a great place. We’ll have lunch. After that, who knows? Maybe we’ll hate each other and go our separate ways.”

  “You might hate each other?”

  “Well, sure. We haven’t spoken in forty years. The last thing she said to me was . . .” Pender’s voice trailed off. “Well, we fought a lot then.” He shrugged.

  The kid shook his head. “So you’re meeting someone you dated in college?” Pender nodded. “And you haven’t seen her since?” He nodded again. “And you have no idea what she looks like?”

  “I’ve seen a picture of her. I’d know her from a bear or even your mother.”

  “You know my mother?”

  Pender gave the teen a sour smile. “Very funny.”

  “She paddles solo in Quetico?” There was incredulity in the young man’s voice. “I’ve never heard of a woman doing a solo trip in the Boundary Waters or Quetico. Heck, guys going out alone are pretty rare.”

  “She’s not your average woman,” said Pender. “She’s been soloing for years. She guides. She has her own outfitting business on the Canadian side.”

  The teen shook his head in wonder. “Hell of a blind date.”

  A moment later, he glanced at Pender again. “Why not just go to her place? Why start here?”

  Pender sighed, looked out the window. “I need it to be a journey.”

  The kid pondered that thought for a moment. “What if something happens to you? You crash your boat or get laid up somewhere. She won’t know.”

  Pender shrugged. “The vagaries of life.” As he said it, he could hear his old platoon sergeant. Do everything you’re taught, and you might make it home alive. Then again, no matter how good you are, if there’s a bullet with your name on it . . . The sergeant shrugged. The vagaries of life.

  They drove north and west until the kid slowed abruptly and turned off the road, eased through a narrow break in the brush, and stopped in a small parking area.

  They hauled Pender’s gear a half mile to the launch site. The trail was wide and clear, like a path in Central Park, nothing like the rough cobs Pender would be traversing in Quetico.

  The trail ended in a small clearing at a river bank. The kid watched Pender walk straight to the water and deftly drop his canoe in the shallows. The canoe was a long, sleek solo-tripping canoe with the scarred hull of a wilderness boat—a serious boat for a serious canoeist. It had seen a lot of rocks and beaches and been pushed over a lot of snags and beaver houses. Pender shrugged off his pack and placed it in the front of the canoe. The kid handed him the second pack, which he placed behind the seat. He removed one of the paddles lashed to the thwarts, and he was ready to go.

  Well done, the kid thought. He hauled the canoe and the food pack on one trip, like a guide would, but didn’t go macho, carrying too much, moving too fast. Pull a muscle out here, and your fun time turns to agony. Break a leg or ankle, and you’re in real trouble.

  Pender paused beside the canoe, gazing at the northern reaches of the river. The waters were dark and still. The overcast morning sky was being consumed by a bank of low, black clouds approaching like a wall of despair.

  “Weather’s coming,” the kid said, raising his voice enough to be heard.

  Pender nodded. He floated the canoe in the shallows to check her trim, inching packs to and fro to even the load.

  “You sure you want to put in now?” the kid asked again.

  “Yeah. What the hell?” said Pender.

  “Okay then,” he said. “But be careful out there, hey.”

  “Thanks.” Pender shook the kid’s hand, stepped into his canoe, and began his last voyage in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.

  * * *

  Black vapors hung in angry coils from the dark sky, so low it seemed like you could touch them. The air was still and filled with tension, like a fuse had been lit and everything—the birds, the bears, the insects, the wind itself—was waiting for the violent explosion.

  And yet, it was relaxing. Pender was finally alone. Not another human in sight, not a sound, not even a loon or a raven. He breathed deeply and let his mind focus on the silence and stillness, felt the air flow by his skin as the canoe glided forward like a phantom.

  For the first time in months, Pender felt a sense of peace. True, a storm was rolling in, but that was just rain and wind. He was out of the shit storms of a jaded civilization. He was clean and free.

  He headed north in a creek-like passage through a reedy bog and a weed-choked stream, then into wetlands dotted by clumps of evergreen trees. He paddled easily, enjoying the weightless sensation of the canoe floating on a light current, low in the river, out of the wind. He had to get out several times to tow the boat through shallows and twice more to hoist it over downed timber.

  Once, as he strained to pull the canoe through a stretch of low water and deep silt, he looked up to see a moose cow and her calf gazing at him, maybe fifty feet away. They were chewing green shoots and stopped to stare, as if incredulous that some life-form would be doing what he was doing.

  Pender laughed. It was crazy. His shirt was soaked with sweat, his quick-dry pants were covered with stinky black silt up to his thighs, he had another hour or two of this in front of him and a nasty storm getting ready to make his life miserable. And yet, it was liberating. Food would taste better, sleep would be deeper, his days fuller.

  Light rain started as he entered the first lake. It was less than a mile long, and he crossed it in minutes, glad to be paddling in deep water again. He could see colorful tents marking four camps on the little lake as he passed. It was like a subdivision, something to get through as fast as possible. Pender could only be happy in emptiness.

  Two miles and two short portages later, the storm hit with all its fury just as he entered the last lake before the border lakes. In minutes the breeze became a wind out of the so
uthwest, then swirled and shifted suddenly, coming from the north, then picked up intensity. Waves formed quickly—a chop, then breaking waves, then whitecaps and deep troughs. At another time in his life, he would have headed for shelter. It was the wise thing to do. But not this year. To hell with the storm. His whole life was a storm. He pressed on.

  He steered his boat into the waves and paddled hard to maintain forward motion and keep the canoe hitting the waves straight on. If he got sideways to waves that big, he would capsize in the blink of an eye. Even if he managed not to drown, he’d lose a lot of gear—maybe all of it—and his trip would be over.

  The wind built to stiff gusts, some coming at a different angle from the waves. The quartering winds tried to push the nose of the canoe on an angle to the waves, with a capsize certain to follow. So Pender fought the wind and waves as if his life depended on it, fought to keep the bow pointing into the waves, paddling ten, twenty, even thirty consecutive strokes on one side of the canoe to maintain his angle.

  Then rain came in pelts. The wind and surf were too dangerous for him to pause even for a few seconds to don his rain gear. Mistake number one, he thought. He should have put on the rain gear before he got in open water. There couldn’t be a mistake number two.

  He gritted his teeth and paddled furiously. He willed himself to reach the lee of a peninsula a kilometer ahead. He focused on the waves, blocked out the pain and exhaustion. Ignored the fear and the nightmares about drowning.

  It took another twenty minutes to reach the calm waters of the peninsula’s lee side. He stopped in the shallows, donned his raincoat, took a long drink of water, and eyed the banks of the peninsula’s shore. He could sit out the storm in the protected water there. He could see a tent on the peninsula and another farther down the shore. The lake was pockmarked with campsites.