by Kirk Landers
“There’s a reef beneath us,” she said. “It’s about fifty feet deep in the middle, and it rises gradually to the points we can see. It holds walleye spring through fall. In the spring, they’ll be closer to shore, in ten or fifteen feet of water. This late in the summer, you start looking for them in twenty feet and we keep going deeper until we find them. Of course, this is Quetico. They might be in five feet or fifty feet, and we’ll never know why.” She shrugged as she said it and glanced at Pender. He was staring at her, a small smile on his face.
“What?” she asked.
“You’re almost feral,” he said. “It’s amazing. I’m trying to make that fit with my memory of you. Sophisticated girl from a good family, perfect manners, so . . . beautiful and so comfortable in polite society . . . I’m trying to look at that girl and see this woman.”
“And?”
“And I can’t do it.”
“Well,” she said, “I think of you then and now and I see the same person. The college boy, the man, they both have a way of pissing me off like nobody else I know.”
“I didn’t mean it as an insult. You’ve changed a lot. I like what I see.”
“After two hours you’ve got me figured out, huh?” There was an edge to her voice.
He realized she thought he was patronizing her. He tried to think of reassuring words, but everything he thought of sounded worse. He shrugged. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”
Their conversation was cut short by a school of feeding walleye. In short order, they landed a half dozen fish, keeping three, releasing the others. Pender rigged the keepers on a makeshift stringer and towed them behind his canoe. They spent the next two hours touring that part of the lake, Annette telling Pender about various landmarks and the flora and geography of the place.
They stopped to clean the fish on a rock outcropping, Annette deferring to Pender to see how much skill he had. He had an odd procedure. He started by turning away from her on the rock and hunching for a moment, his head down, the fish in front of him, out of her view. After a few seconds, he straightened up and stabbed each fish in the head, then filleted and skinned them. Annette hadn’t seen anyone kill the fish first in years; she thought she was the only one, and she never confessed her practice to anyone other than her daughters.
Pender was reasonably efficient, she noted. His filets came off the bones with little waste; his skinning technique was messier, but the filets were clean. “Well done,” she said when he was finished.
“Thanks. I’ve never done it with an audience before.”
They got back in the canoes and headed back to the island.
“Pender?” Annette said on the way, “What were you doing before you killed the fish?”
He shrugged like he had no idea what she was talking about.
“It looked like you were praying,” she said. “Have you found religion in your old age?”
“Uh, no. Not praying,” he said. “Still an atheist.”
“What then?”
He looked embarrassed and didn’t answer right away.
“Come on, you can tell me.”
“It’s a little thing I do. Stupid. I tell the fish I’m sorry for killing them, and, uh, thank them sort of.”
Annette suppressed a laugh.
“I know. It’s stupid. Go ahead and laugh out loud.”
“It’s not stupid. It’s touching, really. Who knew you had First Nation instincts? You don’t seem like the type.”
“What type am I?”
“I don’t know yet. You’re still working up from ax murderer.” She laughed as she said it, some pent-up emotion coming out with the humor. Pender smiled. They got to the island as the early-evening sun began casting deep shadows on the campsite.
“I won’t hold you to cooking tonight,” Annette said as they ascended to the camp.
“You can’t stop me now,” said Pender. “I’ve been talking fish recipes with America’s greatest chefs for months, and I’ve been hauling the seasonings for a week.”
They made small talk while they worked on the meal. Working together seemed to make conversation come easier, and soon they were chatting like old friends. Annette made the fire and took charge of rehydrating the vegetables and dicing the last of her potatoes while Pender rubbed the filets with herbs and spices and prepared the frying pan. He set aside a large portion for Chaos, who became more interested in him when he started handling the food.
They talked about food, Annette asking him about different regional cuisines, his favorite chefs, and Menu’s original recipe awards. Pender was surprised she knew so much about him.
“I Googled your name and got dozens of pages of listings,” said Annette. “Speeches, photos, master of ceremonies. It seems like you’re a star in a glamorous field.”
Pender sighed. “I had a moment in the spotlight. I got to see a lot of places and meet a lot of people, and I had a great time doing it. But it’s over now and, to tell you the truth, that’s okay with me. It’s not bad having my feet on the ground.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just that, I think some of us let what we do for a living define us, and when we do well at it, we start thinking we’re something more than everyone else. Like, I deserve to fly first class, and the people in coach don’t. And when you start thinking like that, pretty soon nothing is enough. No meal is quite good enough, no conversation is stimulating enough, every article and project seems like something you’ve already done. I was well into the ‘Is this all there is?’ phase of life.”
As she listened, Annette was thinking that Pender sounded like the college boy she knew, grown up, a little world-weary, but authentic.
“You’re pretty deep for an ax murderer,” she said.
“I get that a lot,” he replied.
The conversation drifted to the art of fire starting and cooking over campfires, then to Annette’s daughters and granddaughter.
After bending to place the fish over the fire, Pender winced as he straightened to a standing position. “Are you okay?” asked Annette.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m getting better every day. I took a tumble a few days ago and really did a number on my back. I was pretty gimpy for a couple days, but I’m good now.”
Annette made him describe what happened and how it affected him. “Is that why you were late getting here?” she asked.
“In a way,” he said. “But really, I was late because I was afraid to be early. I should have planned to get here a day early. It would have been easy. But I thought waiting here for a day by myself would drive me even crazier, wondering if you’d show up, what you’d be like.” He shrugged self-consciously.
She smiled. “I know what you mean. I got so restless I left a day early and came out of French Lake, just to be doing something so I wouldn’t constantly be thinking about this. And I didn’t want to be the first one here because of just what you said. And we were both right—I’ve been going stir-crazy knocking around this place. Thank goodness for Chaos.”
Lying near them, the dog’s ears picked up at the mention of his name.
“Which gets us back to your little drama with Mr. Chaos. Just out of curiosity, what were you going to do with the paddle if he rushed you?” Pender asked.
“I don’t know,” said Annette. “Try to stick him in the face with it, I guess.”
“That would work.” Pender smiled wryly. “I’m more of a hatchet man myself, but if you thrust the paddle like they teach in bayonet training, you could stop someone in their tracks, especially if you nailed them in the nose or throat. Thing is, it’s easy to parry something like that unless you’re quick and you surprise them.”
“You learned a lot in the army, sounds like.” She said it with a mix of sadness and accusation.
“They drill some things into your head so well you never forget them.” Pender assumed a military command voice and proclaimed, “There’s only two kinds of bayonet fighters, Bravo—the quick and the dead.” He smiled s
elf-consciously. “It’s like you learning how to make fires and find fish. I learned what I had to learn to survive.”
“Did you ever wish you weren’t there, killing people?”
“I don’t think there was ever a time when I didn’t wish I could be somewhere else, getting laid, living easy, all that.” Pender looked up from the skillet, made eye contact with Annette. “But it wasn’t the killing. It was everything. The hardship. Fear. Being treated like a fucking serf by morons who had the power of God over me and were too stupid to know what stupid was. Being hated by people like you back home. Being bored out of my skull except when I was scared out of my wits.”
He stared at her for a moment, trying to will himself to shut up, but he couldn’t.
“You know, we were doing something we didn’t want to do, and everybody hated us for it. Even our own side. The officers hated you because you were a low-life enlisted man. The NCOs hated you because they were lifers and you were a transient who hated their army and thought they were stupid. Back home, the doves hated you because you were a baby-killing maniac, and the hawks because you were a drug addict and a loser.”
“At least you had each other,” Annette offered. “Band of brothers and all that.”
“No,” said Pender. “We were all temps. We were on different timetables, so you only knew a guy for a short time before he moved on. Or got shot.”
“You’re angry about it.”
“I’m fucking seething. I’ve been seething for forty years.”
“What would make it better?” She tried not to sound like a mom when she said it.
Pender laughed, a bitter, ironic laugh. “Amnesia. All those ‘make love not war’ people who were so idealistic in 1969? Most of them are small-government neocons today. They went from free love to free war. They got really brave when the draft went away. And really stingy when it was their money in the pot. If I could forget all that, I’d still have a country and maybe a life. But I can’t forget.”
He removed the food from the fire, trying to shed the anger.
“Which is how I came to fuck with four fat fishermen for being loud and obnoxious, though truthfully, if I had known how well they paddled and how strong they were, I think I would have kept my indignation to myself.”
Pender smiled self-consciously as they took their plates to Annette’s promontory to eat.
“I’m sorry for that rant,” he said. “It’s been building up for a long time, and I haven’t talked to anyone in quite a while. Anyone.”
“No apology needed,” said Annette. “I’m just kind of stunned. I always pictured you as a sort of high-flying deacon of capitalism—eating at fancy places, making big money, living in a sumptuous house. I never thought the war would hit you and stick like that.”
“It’s a kind of cancer. There are worse kinds.”
They ate quietly on the high rocks overlooking Annette’s lake. They did dishes together, wading out to a flat rock in knee-deep water. Annette washing, Pender drying and stacking the dishes on the rock. Then they sipped wine by the campfire, swapping dog stories and kid stories until the sun set and Quetico was left in the dark shadows of late evening.
“Do you do night paddles?” asked Annette.
“Not for a long time, but let me set up my tent and we’ll go.”
“Why set up another tent? Mine’s big enough for the three of us. Just throw your bag in there and whatever else and we’ll take off.”
He hesitated.
“I’m not offering sex,” she said. “It just makes no sense to have two tents when there’s plenty of room in one.”
“Okay,” he said, finally. “Good.”
Annette hiked down to the canoes while Pender set up his gear. She tried not to be bothered by him saying “Good” when she made the sex thing clear. It wasn’t that she wanted to have sex. It was that he obviously didn’t find her attractive. She tried to rationalize his reaction; she was, after all, sixty years old. If he wanted sex, he’d have stayed home and played with the bunnies in his photos.
* * *
By the time Pender got down to the lake, Annette had already launched both canoes and strapped them together in shallow water just offshore. Chaos sat in Annette’s canoe, tail wagging, tongue lolling, waiting.
“How did you do that?” he asked, impressed. Mostly he wondered how she did it so fast. He inspected her work in the dim light of the moon and the first stars.
Two poles, each about five feet long and as thick as a fist, lay across the canoes, one in front, the other in back. They were lashed to each canoe’s crossbeam supports with bungee cords, essentially converting the canoes into the twin hulls of a catamaran.
“It’s not very strong,” said Annette, “But it’ll get the job done for tonight.” She stepped into her canoe, carefully letting the water drip from each sandal before putting her foot in the boat. Pender did the same. There was something behind his seat. As he reached for it, Annette said, “That’s a poncho I carry for whatever. I thought it would make a good pillow for you if you want to lie in the canoe and look at stars.”
“Really?” said Pender.
“Well, it takes some agility. And you probably wouldn’t want to fall asleep in that position. But yeah, when you get that rare clear night out here, lying down in the middle of the lake and looking at the sky is like seeing creation. I never realized how many stars we had in the sky until I did that.”
“Billions,” said Pender as they paddled slowly out to deep water. “Maybe hundreds of billions. I read somewhere that astronomers say there are billions of galaxies, or maybe that was solar systems. Either way, it really blows the notion of an interactive god watching over us right out of the water.”
“Not for me,” said Annette. “When I see all those stars and think about all those galaxies and planets and all of that coming from one big bang that started everything, it makes me realize there is a greater power.”
Pender laughed softly. They had debated God in college. It was like old times.
“Okay,” he said, “but why would whoever touched off the big bang be hovering around churches and bedrooms on one stinking little planet to hear what each cosmic nit wants for Christmas or listen to someone beg for help to win a football game?”
“You’re such a cheerful son of a bitch, Pender,” said Annette. “Anyone ever tell you that?”
“Alas, yes. I don’t usually talk so much, though. It’s been close to a week since I talked to another person, so I kind of lost control of my mouth there. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I always loved your bullshit. It was one of the things I missed about you.”
“You missed me? When?”
Annette stopped paddling and turned to Pender, paused, put her hand on his wrist. “Let’s not get into that right now. Let’s take in the stars.” She squeezed his wrist affectionately.
They drifted like weightless leaves floating on water as serene as a baby’s lullaby. As the moon rose higher in the sky, they lay face up in their canoes and watched millions of stars come to life, like lights coming on in a giant arena.
“Can you believe this?” Annette asked, her voice strangely muffled as it came from the bottom of her canoe.
“It’s amazing,” answered Pender.
“As long as I’ve lived here, the night skies just take my breath away. How could you go back to Chicago all those years after seeing this?”
“Well, I didn’t see this very often. I usually had overcast skies at night, and I slept through most of the clear sky nights. I sure as hell don’t have that problem anymore.”
“You have trouble sleeping?” Annette asked.
“Mostly I have trouble staying asleep, but I have trouble getting to sleep, too. Other than that, no problem.”
“You make a joke out of everything. I’m starting to remember that about you.”
“And you take everything seriously,” said Pender. He paused for a beat, thinking. “You were always very thoughtful, but you hardly
ever got mad. Except with me.”
“It’s true. You had a way of irritating me and fascinating me at the same time. I guess it was an opposites attract thing.”
Their conversation waned as they soaked in the night lights. After a long silence, Annette scuffled about in her canoe to sit herself upright again. Pender followed suit. “Ready to go back in?” she asked.
“Yeah. But first, I don’t think we were opposites. I think we were very similar people, just living in parallel universes.”
“Eh?” A bemused smile played at Annette’s lips. Pender could see her face clearly in the light pouring from the sky.
“You were in the antiwar movement and I wasn’t, and you think that’s what defined us, but it wasn’t. What defined us was we both felt a sense of responsibility. I was taught that service to my country is a sacred duty. Country first, then family, then self. I had an obligation to fulfill and I fulfilled it. That’s what defined me.”
Annette pondered this for a while. “Okay, what defined me?”
“A sense of duty. Giving up everything to go to Canada with that shit-for-brains husband you took. And staying loyal to him even when he betrayed you . . .” Pender’s voice tapered off for a moment. “And you didn’t just hide here. You came to be a part of the place.”
“I take it you mean that as a compliment. I’ll try to control my beating heart.”
“Don’t try to kid me. You feel it too. It’s what bonds us. We sacrificed. We fulfilled our responsibilities even when those around us didn’t. And after forty years, we’re in the same place. We’re on an island in the wilderness. All those people who were so righteous about this cause or that one, all the philosophies, all the fad beliefs, all the phony bullshit of a lifetime, it’s all over there on the mainland somewhere, rotting away, becoming fertilizer for the next wave of bullshit. And we’re here on an island in the wilderness because we lived the same life in parallel universes and forty years later we have more in common with each other than we do with any of the causes or people or institutions we passed along the way.”