by Kirk Landers
Pender served coffee and pancakes for breakfast. Annette and Gus finished patching the damaged canoe and struck camp. They launched before eight, the fog still dense, the air almost viscous enough to drink. Pender and Gus paddled the big tandem canoe, towing Bill in Pender’s solo boat. Annette paddled her own canoe, carrying fishing poles, ready to cast when the opportunity arose. Chaos rode with Gus and Pender so Annette could travel light. The extra speed would let her stop and cast and still catch up. The fishermen’s damp clothes and sleeping gear were draped over the packs in all of the canoes, giving their small armada a ragtag look.
They paddled east-northeast all morning, the fog dissipating gradually at ground level, enough for them to see islands and reefs and the shores of the big lake, but a heavy haze still hung above them, low in the sky like a gelatinous cloud with no beginning and no end.
They made good time. Gus controlled the big canoe from the stern, calling out “Hup!” every eight to ten strokes to signal Pender to paddle on the other side. He adjusted easily to Pender’s paddling style, and they kept up with Annette’s tripping pace even with another boat in tow. They paddled in silence most of the morning, the swish of their paddles and Gus’s “Hup” commands the only sounds, the air around them eerily still.
“This isn’t good,” Annette said, gesturing skyward. “No visibility for rescue planes. I haven’t heard an engine all morning.”
“Maybe this afternoon,” Gus offered.
“Maybe. But it would help if we had some kind of breeze. Everything is just sitting there.”
At the narrows where both Annette and Pender had camped earlier in the week, Annette paused at a few places to cast, then sprinted to catch up. At the next narrows, a four-kilometer stretch where the lake shrank to a river-like width, Annette trolled a crank-bait, working structures in the channel. She caught a walleye and two chunky northerns. Bill and Gus cheered.
“Why would a great woman like that settle for an asshole like you?” Gus called to Pender. Teasing in a guy-humor sort of way.
“Because assholes like you make me look pretty good,” Pender returned.
Gus grimaced, then recovered. “Good one,” he said. Pender nodded, thinking he probably should have taken the ribbing in silence. It was just a joke.
The improving visibility gave the paddlers a dramatic view of the devastation left by the derecho. Every shore was strewn with tangles of prone trees. All of the high points looked like they’d been buzz-cut by a scythe-wielding deity. Trees remained on a few slopes facing the east or northeast, in the lee of the winds, but these were small pockets of sanity in a landscape dominated by psychotic madness.
Annette’s eyes were damp when she called for a short lunch break. An hour or two of high winds, and everything she held dear was in ruins. She was used to fires taking out forests. That was part of the natural force of change in Quetico, just like ice heaves and water erosion and heavy snows. But the fires affected only small parts of the park in any given year. A hillside here, a hilltop there. Once in a while, an entire ridge. But not everything. Not like this. Forestry companies didn’t create devastation on this scale, she thought.
She tried to calculate the recovery time. After a burn-off, thick covers of seedlings cropped up in two or three years, and they grew like weeds, especially jack pines, so in ten years there would be a forest of immature trees in place. In twenty years you wouldn’t know it from an old-growth forest. She wondered if she’d live to see it recover. She was sixty. And this wasn’t a burn-off. The new growth would have to get past the downed trees. It would take them years to rot away. She might be eighty by the time this lake was lined by a juvenile forest. Eighty! She’d be sitting in a rocking chair somewhere waiting to die.
Their respite was brief and quiet. Annette distributed granola bars and her homemade gorp to each person. “Might not fill you up,” she said, “but there are plenty of calories here. Just make sure you drink lots of water and everyone pee before we leave.”
“Okay, Mom,” said Pender.
When they prepared to leave, he stepped into the water to brace Annette’s canoe as she boarded it. “You don’t need to do that,” she said.
“I know.”
She looked at him, her face a question mark.
“It’s a way a man respects a woman. Like opening a door. Everyone knows she can open it herself, but the man doing it for her says something about how he feels about her.”
She blinked, nodded, and paddled away, still trying to figure out who Pender actually was.
25
They covered the final few miles of the big lake in a moody silence, sobered by the devastation around them and by the growing reality of their peril.
At the northern terminus of the big lake, its clear, blue waters gave way to a marsh filled with reeds and sedge grass and other bog plants. It was a river in the technical sense, but for paddlers, it was a bog that stretched two kilometers long and a kilometer wide and had a narrow channel that was navigable during periods of normal rainfall. In low-water conditions, it was a brutal trudge. At its average depth, the channel gave adventurers an intimate view of the beauty of a northwoods bog, but even then the passage came with the price of a good workout. It was littered with beaver houses and logjams that had to be scrambled over and low spots that had to be waded. Each time canoeists dropped into the water, they had to deal with the channel’s silt, an oozing, dark, sticky goo that was knee-deep in places and sucked at a tripper’s feet like an evil alien force. Pender had once lost a sandal in the primordial slime.
The channel was invisible from the lake. It was just a few feet wide in places and snaked to and fro around the vegetation with no discernable current. Annette led them directly to the waterway easily, a feat that wasn’t lost on Gus.
“Could you find this channel?” he asked Pender, admiration in his voice.
“It usually takes me twenty or thirty minutes,” said Pender. He left out the part about swearing like a mule skinner as he slogged through the muck, pulling his canoe, looking for the goddamn channel in a sea of silt and plants just tall enough to block your vision.
“Kind of a tenderfoot, aren’t you,” said Gus. It was a statement, not a question.
“I’m the tenderfoot that kicked your fat ass, bitch.”
“Stop it, you two!” Annette ordered. She pulled alongside them. “Try to act like normal human beings. We need to work together, remember?”
The first logjam took twenty minutes to negotiate, Bill spending most of the time in agony. There were four more along the way. Gus and Pender spent much of their time in the water and silt, loading and unloading canoes, pulling them over partly submerged tree branches. Their exertions helped counter the cold water and cool air temperatures.
Annette called for a shore break when they reached the next lake. They were tired and grimy in sweat-soaked shirts and silt-spattered pants as they scrambled ashore. Annette boiled water for soup and distributed high-energy snacks. Gus tried to get Bill in a comfortable position. Pender sprawled on his back and closed his eyes.
“Looks like the old guy’s plumb tuckered out,” said Gus.
Pender smiled.
“I didn’t think you’d make it over those last two jams. Did you see me? I hauled the heaviest packs and didn’t slip once. Like a high-wire act in the circus!”
“More like a dancing hippopotamus,” murmured Pender, eyes still closed.
“For the last time, just stop it,” Annette interceded. “When we get back to civilization, you can be as juvenile as you want to be.”
* * *
When the water was high, the lake they entered was a single smallish lake with two wings connected by a short, narrow channel not much wider or longer than a canoe. It was a memorable spot in Pender’s travels because the small waters were surrounded by towering shores. In some places, it was like paddling in a canyon. On overcast days, it could feel like a haunted canyon, especially early and late in the day when forested heights block
ed direct sunlight and made the water look inky black.
“This place feels like hell to me,” Pender told Annette as they paddled alongside each other.
“Seriously?”
“Edgar Allan Poe would have camped here.”
“We have quite a few clients who would like to stop here,” said Annette, “but there’s only one site right now and it’s hard to get to.”
“I hope we don’t need it.” They were all worried about the state of the next portage. Annette scanned the forests around them. “We might be lucky. There’s a lot less damage here than where we were.”
Pender surveyed the shores, nodding. “The lee sides are completely intact,” he said.
“And not so much damage even on the exposed sides.”
“So it wasn’t just the hills?” asked Pender.
“Derechos don’t have constant wind velocity across the front of the system. We had hurricane winds where we were, but maybe here they were only thirty or forty miles per hour.”
“And maybe it was sunny and calm on the portage trail,” Pender cracked.
“We can hope,” said Annette as she slowed her canoe to pull alongside Gus, then Bill.
They reached the portage with Annette wondering what Pender was thinking. They hadn’t talked much since the derecho, not about themselves, where they were in their lives. So much they hadn’t covered. She wanted to know when he had thought about her over the years and why and what he thought. He’d probably just issue the classic male shrug, a don’t-know, don’t-care expression, which would be humiliating because she was very aware of when and how she thought about Pender.
Annette stopped them a couple hundred feet from the portage to fill water bottles with fresh water. There was no telling how difficult the next leg of their journey would be.
* * *
Pender and Gus unloaded the canoes and tended to Bill while Annette reconnoitered the portage trail, which wound through a notch in the hills. The mouth of the trail was littered with flattened trees, but she was able to move over or around the blowdowns. The middle portion of the trail was almost untouched by the winds, but the last third was strewn with tree hulks, including one massive stack that had to be climbed. It was hard work, but she was able to navigate the mess. She hurried back to the portage area with the news.
They started their first carry with the sun arcing into the western sky at the three o’clock position. Pender and Gus toiled to clear a trail Bill could negotiate. It was a knuckle-scraping process filled with curses and sweat, and although they did what they could to help Bill across the larger logs, nothing could eliminate the pain he endured with each awkward crossing.
Two hundred yards from their objective, they came upon the barrier Annette had described.
“Motherfucker!” Gus exclaimed as he stopped in front of it. The tangle of trees was seven or eight feet high and blocked the narrow trail completely.
Bill drew alongside his friend and shook his head somberly.
“What do you think?” Annette asked Bill.
He swore softly, anticipating the pain. “I don’t know. I’ll give it a go.”
They put him on a line. Pender scrambled to the top of the brush, anchored himself like a belayer in mountain climbing, and wrapped the cord around his waist once. The other end looped around Bill’s upper chest, under his arms. If Bill fell, it would save his life, though the pain from his collar-bone and burns from the cord might be worse than dying. Gus climbed with his friend, staying just below him to give him boosts now and then.
When Bill topped the brush, they did the same thing to lower him on the other side. Pender told them to rest while he and Annette got the rest of the gear over.
They were dragging again by the time they finished the first trip. Gus kept up a brave front, but even he was fading. They were a glassy-eyed, rubber-legged crew.
Gus helped Bill find a good place to rest while they hauled the rest of the gear. Annette plucked two jackets from the packs for him to use as blankets, then hustled back for another load. Pender slaked his thirst from a water jug and followed her.
“I’ll be along in a minute, li’l fella,” Gus called after him. “Leave the heavy stuff to me.”
When Pender returned to the other lake, Annette was talking to a slightly built, silver-haired woman. The woman’s husband stared out at Twin Lakes, his back to them. Annette looked up the trail as Pender burst out of the brush.
Annette introduced him to Emily and Joe. Emily responded with a warm smile, and Joe never stopped staring out at the lake.
“Emily and Joe are celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary this week,” explained Annette.
Pender regarded the two of them curiously. She was a tiny woman, not much over five feet tall, maybe not even a hundred pounds. But not frail. Wiry strong. Like Vietnamese soldiers. She had fine, handsome features, a beautiful older woman. Seventies. He nodded and glanced at the man, then at their canoe, a graceful sixteen-footer with two packs neatly stowed aboard.
“Joe has Alzheimer’s,” Emily said. “He comes and goes from this world. But he’s still a good paddler, and he loves it out here. He doesn’t talk anymore, so don’t be offended.”
Pender nodded. “You sure picked a hell of a week to celebrate.”
“Oh, we’ve been paddling in these waters for fifty years. We spent our honeymoon in these lakes. Come back every year, just about. Different times, but this is our favorite time. I guess this is probably our last trip, though.” She sighed.
“They were wondering if we could help them through this portage,” Annette said.
“It’s just too much for me to get Joe through the timber,” Emily explained. There was a note of apology in her voice.
“Sure,” said Pender. “We have a crew of strong backs.”
He retrieved the stringer of half-dead fish, wrapped them in a plastic bag, and stuffed them under the flap of his pack. As he wrestled the pack on his back, Gus emerged from the forest into the portage area. He did a double take when he saw Emily and Joe.
“You leave the tandem for me,” he said as he passed by Pender to join Annette and Emily.
Annette was making introductions when Pender left the area, his canoe overhead, and a pack on his back. Seeing how neatly turned out the elderly couple was made him aware of how rough he looked. His clothes dripped with sweat, he reeked, and he hadn’t bathed or shaved in several days. His hands and wrists were laced with scrapes and scratches. He was seriously tired, and the day was getting late. Doing one, maybe two more trips on this portage to help Emily and Joe was not going to be fun, and it meant they would be looking for a campsite at dusk.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Pender fought the good fight on his second carry, warding off fatigue as he stepped up and over downfalls, scrambled through forests at the edge of blowdowns, strained to climb slopes, recoiled when the canoe hit an unseen tree branch. He was making good time until he came to the tall pile of downed wood.
He tried to lean his canoe on end against the brush so he could climb to the top and pull it over, but the canoe slid away as he climbed. He was just setting up for the third attempt when Gus came down the trail.
“Tough one for you, li’l fella?” he boomed. “Don’t you worry. Big Gus is here to bail your weenie ass out. You hop on up there and I’ll pass things up.”
As they worked, Pender thought about what an asshole Gus was. But a very strong one. He had spotted Pender a good ten minutes and still caught up to him. Impressive. He was a motormouth and a mindless idiot, but the guy could paddle and portage. They finished the portage and headed back for a third trip.
Gus caught his second wind. He kept up a steady stream of commentary as they made their way back for their last load, his voice loud and constant. His wilderness adventures. His feats of strength. What a hot babe Emily must have been back when.
“We’re gonna have to carry the old guy over that big pile,” Gus said. “Maybe the old lady, too. Yo
u might be able to handle her. She can’t weigh more than a food pack or so. But if you can’t, I can carry them both over, no problem.” He droned on about his exploits of strength and endurance.
“Hey, Gus,” Pender said, finally, “don’t you ever shut up? Breathe for a while, okay?”
“You got a big mouth for a little old man. First thing when we get out of here, I’m going to beat the shit out of you.”
“If you stop running your mouth for five minutes, I just might let you. Seriously, Gus, you carry on like an old brood hen. Give it a rest.”
Gus muttered epithets under his breath but was otherwise silent until they got back to the other lake.
“He gonna be able to climb over all those blowdowns?” Gus asked Emily, nodding toward her husband.
“He’ll need help on the big pile,” Annette interjected.
“I’d be happy to carry everything if you’d keep that yapping son of a bitch a lake or two away from me,” Pender told Annette in a private moment before they started the final trek. “Jesus Christ, the man never shuts up! I mean never! If he ever takes another shot at me, I’m going to bury that hatchet in his mouth.”
Annette smiled and patted Pender’s hand indulgently. “Be brave, li’l fella.
26
The ragtag group finished portaging shortly after 6 PM, Gus carrying Joe on his back like a father carrying a child in play. His bravado made Pender feel like kicking his ass, but it was all Pender could do to carry a pack and the elderly couple’s canoe.
“I’m half man, half bear and meaner than a mountain lion,” Gus yelled at the top of his lungs as he reached the beach. “My mama was a wolf and my daddy was a rattle snake, and I can outrun, outfight, outdrink, and outcuss any sorry son of a bitch on this here green earth!”
Gus had been practicing his imitation of the old fur trappers’ braggadocio for the whole carry, making Pender fantasize that he was carrying an M-16 on his back and he’d be able to shoot the fucker as soon as they got to the beach. Pender figured the hot air was how Gus summoned energy when fatigue set in, but it was still annoying as hell. Even Annette wore an expression of resignation as the big man cupped his hands and hurled the final words of his monologue across the lake. Emily regarded the man quizzically while her husband, now standing on the ground, seemed completely oblivious, as he had been for the whole portage.