Alone on the Shield

by Kirk Landers

  “Hell no.” He said it even though he had no audience. He wouldn’t base camp with a bunch of picnickers. He was a wilderness tripper, and he’d settle for nothing less.

  He checked his map and compass and paddled back into the tempest. It took another twenty minutes to reach the choppy waters of the lake’s partially sheltered north shore. Shielded from the wind, he portaged past a fast-moving creek and then paddled to the portage trail that led to the border lake.

  The launch area into the border lake was partially sheltered from the wind. A large landmass a few hundred meters northeast of the put-in made it seem as though Pender was launching into another small lake, but he was entering the southern end of the sprawling Lac La Croix, a twisting mass of islands and inlets and peninsulas forming roughly twenty miles of liquid border between Minnesota and Ontario. As soon as he passed that landmass he would be in unprotected water again, fighting for his life.

  After a short rest, Pender floated into the bay, hugging the shore to take advantage of the sheltered water while he could. At the end of the landmass he looked north and saw whitecaps and deep troughs and wind whistling spray into the air. It would have been scary if he thought about it, but he didn’t.

  Pender paddled into the mayhem, and his world became impossible. Wild winds whipped the lake into a cauldron of boiling waves and drove the rain horizontally into his face. The canoe bounced and lurched crazily as he thrashed to keep it upright. The wind and waves nearly turned him over several times, but he saved himself each time, reaching out in wide sweeping brace strokes to keep the hull from rolling and to keep the bow heading into the waves.

  Despite his boatmanship, he was losing the battle. Water splashed over the bow with each wave, and each time he braced he took water over the gunnels. Water already sloshed in the bottom of the boat. The extra weight made the boat hard to handle. He was close to swamping.

  He fought his way to the shoreline and hugged it as he continued north. He remembered the kid’s notations on the map indicating there was a campsite on that shore and another on an island a half kilometer farther north. As he drew near the first campsite, his hopes for shelter were dashed by the sight of two canoes on the shore, hulls up. Above the waterline, on a ten-foot rise, two tents shook in the wind and four men huddled under a canopy that slanted into the weather, sheltering them from the gale. They saw him just as he started to move on. Two came down to the shore to hail him, beer cans in hand.

  “Come on up, bud,” one of them yelled. A heavy, burly guy with a pink complexion. “Plenty of room!” Pender could barely hear him in the roar of the wind.

  “Plenty of beer!” said the other guy, like he had found the secret to eternal happiness. He was heavy, balding, with several days’ beard. He held his beer can aloft as if celebrating.

  Pender expressed his regrets with a shaking head and paddled on.

  “It’s too dangerous!” shouted the first guy.

  But his words were lost in the wind. Pender wasn’t in the mood for company, especially not beer-swilling fishermen. He’d seen an ice chest by their tents. An ice chest! It infuriated him. The beer cans, too. Cans and bottles were illegal in the pristine Boundary Waters/Quetico wilderness and an insult to anyone who loved the place. It would be better to die than spend time with assholes like that.

  He thrashed against the elements for another five hundred meters to the other campsite. It was a dismal little spot on a low island, the land rising a few feet above shallows filled with reeds and low-lying scrub. It was the kind of site in the kind of place that desperate paddlers settled for when weather or darkness or sheer exhaustion demanded an immediate stop in their journeys. That was him. He was tired and hungry and, despite his exertions, becoming more chilled by the minute . . . a warning that hypothermia was lurking.

  Pender didn’t bother with the established campsite near the water. He moved into the pines and found a small wind-protected area formed by a rock structure about four feet high. The ground was lumpy, hard, and slanted—horrible for sleeping—but it was well drained and protected from falling trees, and if the wind didn’t shift, he’d be able to cook on his gas stove. That was as good as he would do today.

  He ate a meal of salami, soup, nuts, and raisins in the tent amid a steady driving wind, intermittent rains, and nightmare skies. He started writing in the journal to his daughter. He scrawled, “Dear Margaret,” then stopped. What do you say to someone you loved more than life itself for twenty years and now don’t know?

  He wrote about her birth and early childhood because that’s what he was thinking about. He could see her in his mind, so unbelievably tiny, so vulnerable. It had seemed impossible she could survive, and he couldn’t imagine himself sleeping soundly ever again for all the worrying he did. Jesus, had that been him?

  Eventually he drifted off to sleep, sitting up, his back against the food pack, his butt cushioned on his flotation vest. Keeping the food pack inside the tent was a calculated risk, but the wind was too fierce to hang a pack this day, and Pender was in a meaner mood than any Quetico black bear.

  He awakened a little after 11 PM, startled by the sense that something had changed. The wind and rain had stopped, and there was a vague, distant noise in the stillness. He emerged from the tent into the light of a billion stars and a large glowing moon. Light so bright he could see his shadow. And spectacular. He held his breath in awe as he surveyed a night sky exploding in a luminescence greater than all the combined fireworks displays in history.

  Slowly, he became aware of the distant noise. It was the pulsing bass of rock and roll. Tinny guitar notes. Cymbals. The drunken laughter of the beer-swilling fishermen camped on the near point.

  He tried to resist the anger, but he couldn’t. He tried to block out the faint noise, but it was all he could hear. He tried not to think about elegant acts of retribution, but they filled his mind like a movie he couldn’t stop watching.

  He tried to resist hating the drunken louts partying like they were in a bar, but the frustrations of dealing with people fascinated with the stink of their own shit flowed from every pore of his body until he all could hear was the voices rolling across the dark lake.

  He tried to sleep again, succeeding only in dozing off for brief naps, fantasizing about appropriate acts of wilderness justice for the goons who would treat this pristine place like a country bar. At 2:30 AM the voices were gone, but sleep was impossible. Under the blazing night sky he struck camp. When he was done, he lay down on his raincoat and gazed at the heavens for a long while, light from a billion stars reminding him how insignificant he was and how briefly he would be part of the cosmos.

  How ironic, he thought, that most of humanity can no longer see the heavens displayed like this because we have blinded ourselves with the ambient lighting of civilization.

  That irony stirred him to action. He loaded his canoe and paddled toward the fishermen’s campsite. The nearer he got, the more it felt like being on an ambush patrol many years ago. Stealth. Silence. Adrenaline building. The world around him in sharp focus.

  He stopped just short of the shore and walked the boat to the beach area. He moved to the fishermen’s canoes, as silent as a shadow, carried them to the beach, and placed them next to his canoe. He worked his way up to the campsite, pausing with each step to avoid the noise of a dislodged rock or snapping twig or tripping over an unseen guy line.

  The campsite had log benches erected in a square with the fire ring forming the fourth side. Packs were bunched against the benches. Tarps covered a kitchen area. He could see the beer chest, its white top glowing in the night light. The boom box sat next to it.

  He picked up the boom box and made his way back to the canoes, moving like a ghost.

  He put the boom box in his canoe and used nylon cord to connect the fishermen’s canoes to each other, then to his boat, like a three-canoe train. He eased all three canoes into the water and paddled away. The fishermen’s camp remained dark and silent, the only noise the dripp
ing of water from his paddle as he brought it forward at the end of each stroke.

  He stopped in a shallow bay, just out of sight from the fishermen’s camp. He untied the line to the first canoe and lashed it to the boom box, then lowered the device into the water, feeding line hand-over-hand until it touched bottom. He left the fishermen’s canoes in their hidden mooring and began paddling in an easterly direction, picking his way through the islands and reefs. He would stay in the border lakes, paddling south and east for a day or two, then move into Quetico and work his way slowly east and north.

  As he paddled, Pender wondered if the morning winds would blow the canoes into the view of the fishermen. He wondered if they’d have the guts to swim for the boats. Only a few hundred meters or so but in sixty-degree water, it would be no cakewalk. He shrugged. It didn’t matter to him. The boats would be found soon enough, and whoever found them would find the owners. They’d be out of commission for a day at most. They’d be mad, of course. Those kind always are. They might even try to find him. A recon guy would figure him for a tripper, maybe check the portages going east and south, try to get lucky.

  He thought about that as he paddled in the eerie light of a star-filled sky and thought even more about what kind of person thinks he’s going to get chased in a wilderness by the victims of a mostly harmless prank.

  At the first dim light of morning, he portaged into the next lake. By the time the sun peeked above the tree line to the east, Pender was halfway to his next portage. He would be miles from the scene of his crime before noon. And in a day or two he would disappear into the labyrinthine wilds of Quetico, where he would be invisible, nothing more than a molecule in an eighteen-hundred-square-mile maze of lakes and rivers and forests.

  8

  The Stuarts and their dog burst into the Canadian Shield Outfitters building at 6:30 in the morning, a high-energy power couple, freshly showered and groomed, clad in fine L.L. Bean outdoor clothing, and eager to take on the world.

  Mr. Stuart was in his forties, a tall, fleshy man in good shape. He walked with the decisiveness of a commanding general and oozed self-importance. Even if Annette hadn’t read their file, she would have known he was the owner of a large company in the U.S.

  Mrs. Stuart was nearly as tall as Annette, athletic, and very toned. A fitness fanatic. She was in her late thirties, maybe even forty, elegantly beautiful in a day-spa kind of way, with highlighted hair, a nice tan, and skin as perfect as a cover girl’s. Annette felt a pang of something like jealousy. Mrs. Stuart looked a lot like the elegant women in the photos of Gabe Pender’s restaurant industry events. There were endless pages of them on the Internet, the events and the glamor people and Pender. So many she wondered why he would have any lingering interest in her.

  Mrs. Stuart tried to control the dog, a manic cross between a Labrador and a standard poodle that had not stopped moving since they entered the place. When he caught sight of the animals mounted on the walls, he pranced and bucked for the chance to give chase.

  Annette smiled and introduced herself. “I’ve prepared your trip plan, and I’ll be taking you through your gear and your trip plan this morning,” she said. Mrs. Stuart smiled slightly as they shook hands; her husband stared at Annette for a moment before accepting her outstretched hand.

  He flushed angrily. “I thought I was dealing with Guy and Dan Gilbert.”

  As in man-to-man, executive-to-executive, realized Annette.

  “I’ve been running the canoe outfitting business since spring,” said Annette. “Don’t worry, I’ve been guiding in Quetico for twenty-five years. I know your route very well . . .”

  As she said it, Stuart’s face flushed again. She started to wonder why, and then she knew. How macho could his Quetico expedition be if a woman had already done it?

  “But I took the liberty of consulting with Dan, too, so you get the benefit of a lot of experience.” She made it sound like they didn’t do that for everyone.

  “Sure, sure,” said Stuart. “All the same, I’d like to see Guy or Dan. Can you call one of them?”

  Annette refused to be offended. “Sorry, Guy is out of town, and Dan is doing a fly-in party right now. He’ll be back around ten, if you want to wait. Otherwise, you’re in good hands. Really.”

  “We can’t wait that long. Goddamn it, this is no way to run a business. I have half a mind to just blow the whole thing off. Who’s taking us to French Lake?”

  “I’ll be taking you.” Annette focused on the paperwork in her hands. She didn’t need to see the man’s disappointment at the knowledge his conquest of nature was starting with a woman driver.

  The dog was panting and straining against its leash. Mrs. Stuart was struggling to hold him in check. Stuart glanced at the dog, then at Annette. “Okay, let’s get going.”

  “We have a few things to do here, first,” said Annette. “I want to show you your maps and talk you through the route. Then we need to go through your packs so you know where everything is. I’ll show you how to set up the tent and light the stove.”

  “No need,” said Stuart. “I’m sure we can figure it out.”

  Annette frowned. The worst complaints Quetico outfitters received came from novices like the Stuarts who thought backpacking in the mountains prepared them for canoe camping in the Canadian Shield.

  “I just want to get going,” he said. “We’ve safaried in Africa, backpacked the Rockies, kayaked in Greenland, all that stuff. I know how to pitch a tent and light a stove. We’re good to go.” He gestured impatiently with one hand, a hurry-up motion coming from an important man accustomed to giving orders and having people snap-to immediately.

  Annette held her tongue. People like Stuart usually didn’t come to the Quetico side of the border, but this one had something to prove, something the Boundary Waters wasn’t big enough to handle. He wanted to do a long trip, cross Quetico. He came to Canadian Shield Outfitters because of CSO’s fly-in/paddle-out trip. Very macho. The client is flown into a lake on one of Quetico’s borders, then paddles out. Or, in his case, vice versa. He and his wife would be paddling from the northeast corner of Quetico through the heart of the park to the Minnesota border, then east to the southeast corner of Quetico, where a CSO floatplane would air-lift them back to Atikokan.

  “Okay,” said Annette. “But we have to do a trip plan review. It’s the law. I can’t put you in the park without making sure you know your route and what to do in an emergency.” It wasn’t Ontario law, but it was her law and that was close enough.

  He sighed like an important man having to put up with a petty bureaucrat. “Okay,” he said. “Lexie, take that mutt outside. This’ll just take a minute.”

  Annette suggested they both sit in for the trip plan review, but Stuart waved her off. “I take care of this stuff,” he said.

  “But if you have an accident—”

  “Then we both die.” He cut her off, finished the sentence, and turned his back on her all in one quick moment. Mrs. Stuart left the building in silent strides, her body tense, the dog hopping and circling her, wrapping her in the leash.

  “Your charts are in here,” Annette told him, heading for the trip planning room. Stuart ignored her for several long moments, taking time to gaze at the array of stuffed wildlife on the walls of the main room. Making sure she knew who was in charge. When he finally joined her, she started taking him through his route, pointing out landmarks for portages, places to fish for different species, locations of primitive campsites. As she started on the second day, he cut her off again.

  “I don’t need this, Miss. I’ve studied these maps already, and I talked to Dan. Lexie and I have read books about this place. We’re ready.”

  Annette stared at him for a moment. “If you get ten days of good weather, this might be as easy as you think it’s going to be. But we almost never get ten consecutive days of good weather. Chances are you’re going to get wind and rain some of the time, and things can get very difficult. It’ll just take a few minutes.”<
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  “We’ll be fine.”

  Annette shrugged. She packaged their charts in waterproof plastic and loaded them and their gear in a CSO van. Stuart sat in front. His wife settled into the back seat with the dog, trying to control his hyperactive whining and jumping.

  “How long have you had the dog?” Annette asked.

  “Got him last winter when we decided to do this trip.” The man said it like it was a grand proclamation. “Lexie was worried about the bears. Problem solved. He’ll make enough noise to discourage any bear.”

  Annette tried to hide her smile. Quetico’s black bears tended to be shy creatures, keeping their distance from canoe trippers. The worst of them were more nuisances than dangerous, unless you got between a sow and her cub.

  “Have you boat-trained the dog?” she asked. A big hyper dog in a trip-laden canoe could be a much bigger danger than bears.

  “Yeah. They’re born to it.” The man waved his hand dismissively. “We had him out a couple times, made him sit. He was fine.”

  “Did you have him lying on packs?” A seventy-pound dog lying on top of a voyageur pack raised the canoe’s center of gravity substantially. If the dog stood and tried to move around, the results could be catastrophic.

  “He’ll be fine.” Stuart smiled.

  “Do me a favor,” said Annette. “Make it a point to wear your flotation vests today.”

  “We know what we’re doing, Miss.” Stuart looked out the window, away from Annette.

  “Humor me. Just for today,” said Annette. “More than a few dog trips start out wet.” Stuart smiled and agreed without a shred of sincerity.

  * * *

  As Annette steered the van through the curves and hills of Highway 11 on her way back to Atikokan, her thoughts returned to Lexie Stuart. She had looked so imperious when she walked in the door—beautiful, rich, and glamorous. Annette had assumed Mrs. Stuart was a powerful woman in her own right, maybe the owner of her own company or the president of someone else’s. Someone used to giving orders. Someone who had an active sex life, maybe with her husband, maybe with someone else.