Justin had no need of his maps at this point; he had spent long hours consulting area websites, studying which individual campsites were popular, which were the most remote, which portages were the best maintained, where to hike, where not to hunt, which portages were almost but not quite abandoned, which lakes had the best fishing, calculating how far he could travel in a day, in a canoe, and on foot, especially on foot.
Paddling a canoe alone was a cumbersome chore. Carrying a canoe and a Duluth pack across a long portage wasn’t easy. These two challenges he’d have to meet very soon. Carrying two bags strapped onto your chest and your back while balancing a boat on your shoulders was reserved for the very youngest and fittest; it was not something he planned to do.
Justin threw his newfound pack to the ground and sat down beside it. He had moved far enough away from the spot where the pack had first been abandoned. He felt safe enough. All the packs looked exactly the same. He wondered what was in it.
Justin pretended to be waiting. Several people talked to him. He made a show of looking exasperated and explained that the rest of his party were late. No one looked surprised at his explanation. Campers arrived and campers departed.
A sign tacked to a tree warned that phones would soon be useless, that service would vanish a short distance from the outfitters.
Justin wasn’t concerned. His phone was lying on the kitchen table in his apartment. It was turned off, and his service was canceled.
He waited half an hour, until he saw that a canoe sat unmistakably abandoned. It had two paddles wedged inside. It was a nice Kevlar one, newish and beckoning and the brightest of yellows. From its positioning, Justin guessed that it had been brought back by campers unaware that they were required to carry it up the hill to the outfitters, where it could be inventoried, hosed down, and made ready for the next round of renters.
There was no sign of a life jacket inside. He sighed inwardly.
The outfitters staff would come for it at some point, either soon, or at the end of the busy day. The staff wore olive-colored polo shirts and affected a laid-back yet authoritarian manner. He looked around and saw no one fitting the description.
Casually, Justin walked over and picked it up. God, he had forgotten how light the Kevlar was. He gently placed it in the water, put his stolen bag in the center of the craft and climbed in; kneeling, he paddled slowly away from the melee, with bated breath and a steady stroke.
COLIN
At the cottage, Colin parked the car out front and carried the bags inside. Angie walked to the side of the house and across the clover-covered lawn, which descended all the way down to the lake. A metal dock spanned the sand and out into the water. She walked out onto it and stood, motionless, at the farthest end of the dock, her eyes tracking a family of ducks as they swam past her and then made their way out toward the raft.
There was the sound of the glass door sliding open. Footsteps tracking on the treated cedar wood. The noise unnaturally amplified and isolated by the absence of any other sound.
Then Angie could plainly hear the sound of water running in the kitchen.
Moments later, Colin called her name from the deck on the back of the house, and Angie turned around toward the sound of his voice.
“Do you want to swim?” His voice carried easily.
“Are you going to?” she called back.
“I think so.”
“Is this the time for the ceremony?”
“Later … or tomorrow. Just a swim for now.”
“Then I’m coming, too.”
“Good,” he said.
Ten minutes later, they entered the water.
The temperature was midsummer warm, as they swam in silence. Angie turned out to be about as average a swimmer as Colin was, and he was inexplicably pleased to make this discovery.
After they swam and dried off and put on fresh clothes, Colin prepared a meal of red beans, shrimp, and white rice, with green and yellow peppers and spicy andouille sausage. They had bought fresh bread from the organic market. Angie sat on the deck and listened to the lake through the tall trees. The glass door was open. The screen was pulled shut. There was a stiffening breeze and no sign of insects.
The water had been flat while they swam, but now tiny waves were pattering on the wet sand and against the metal deck supports.
“Do you have loons on your lake?” she asked him.
“There are two couples. They come each spring from Florida. Sometimes they get here too early, and the lake is still ice.”
“What do they do?”
“They get a hotel room.”
She snorted.
“I think they fly back south a way till they find water they can land on. I’m not sure. When the ice melts, they come back. And then they breed here. There’s no natural island on the lake. We made one for them. It’s very small. They usually have just one or two babies.”
“Can you hear them sometimes?”
Colin told her that he often hears them in the darkness. After a minute, she said, “Most of your trees look the same.”
He answered from the kitchen, “Eastern hemlock.”
“They’re very tall. And straight. I like them.”
“They can survive without much sunlight.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Are they old?”
“The taller ones are.”
“How old?”
“Two hundred and fifty years old.”
“Do they burn well?”
“Not especially. They’re softwood.”
“What do you use them for?”
“Deer use them for shelter in the winter.”
“Anything else?” she asked.
“Poison.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Socrates used hemlock to kill himself.”
“Is that true?”
He hesitated. “Sort of,” he said. “Actually, not really. Poison hemlock is a plant. Part of the carrot family. It’s a poisonous plant that grows in Greece. Socrates was Greek. He probably used that.”
“And your trees?”
“Not poisonous and not grown anywhere near Greece.”
“I see,” she said.
“Dinner is ready. We can eat it out here. We have some wine.”
“What kind of wine?”
“The kind of wine that doesn’t cost much and comes from New Zealand.”
“Do you know much about wine?”
He barked out a laugh in response. “Almost nothing.”
They ate on the deck with their plates in their laps and the wine glasses on the deck floor.
“I can cook about ten things,” Colin informed her proudly.
“This is very good.”
He looked sheepish. “It’s probably my best.”
“What do you call it?”
“Rice and beans with shrimp and sausage.”
“That’s certainly descriptive.”
“Thank you. Can you cook?”
“I can make about five things. None as good as this.”
He paused and pretended to consider. “So, we can survive for about two weeks.”
Angie’s mouth was still mostly full; she was obliged to nod her agreement.
It was colder the next morning, and a mist spread across the stillness of the lake. Yesterday’s breeze was stifled.
Colin paddled the kayak carefully toward the raft with Ruby’s ashes wedged between his feet. His progress was slow and measured.
It was just after seven. The sun was up. Angie wasn’t yet stirring. Colin couldn’t say whether she was awake or not. He had made coffee and then left it to sit in the kitchen. They had slept in separate rooms, although there had been an emotionally fraught silence at the end of their dinner, when Colin thought the logistics of the evening might easily have been rearranged. But then they hadn’t.
He dwelled on this as he rowed, aware that contemplating seduction and disposing of a deceased spouse’s remains
shouldn’t be a simultaneous endeavor. Yet, they were.
It was difficult to lift the urn onto the raft, but somehow, by using the steps to pull himself up first, he managed. When he and the ashes were both secure he dragged the kayak up last.
The urn was still surprisingly heavy, and the lid was damp and tight and proved hard to open. He imagined spilling the contents all over the raft, and he suspected that Ruby would have laughed at him if he had.
Finally, the lid loosened, and he opened it.
Colin Tugdale sat on the edge of the raft with the urn in his hands as he began to speak.
“You told me to do something new. So, I am. It’s an adventure.”
He started to scatter the soot-grey flakes on the water.
“I’m scared for several reasons. And I miss you. I wish I had been older than you.”
Colin began to cry.
“Goodbye, Ruby.”
Even though his last two words were little more than a splutter and a whisper, they still reached across the water.
The urn was empty. He looked back toward the cottage, where Angie stood on the deck.
He knew she was watching him, although he was unable to see her face clearly.
If he had, he would have observed that she was also crying.
The sound of the first gunshot echoed across the silence.
JUSTIN
Justin sat down on the unmistakable remnants of a firepit with his plundered bag. He had crossed two lakes (Lauder and Goose) and two official portages (eighteen and forty-two rods, respectively) and made a hard hike (while it was not mapped, Justin mentally called out each rod as he walked, and his count was close to three hundred). He had found exactly what he was looking for: an abandoned campsite, not currently mapped but clearly identified on his older map, before the shifting topography had redrawn the shoreline of Goose Lake.
He stowed the canoe out of sight. The pack would be the first of many he would purloin, ransack, and return. He would sometimes get lucky and other times strike out. Tents and provisions and cooking gear were welcome booty; duffels crammed with teddy bears, Disney jammies, flip-flops, and teenage angst-riddled journals were a burden to be returned.
With a silent prayer, he opened his first bag.
His opening acquisition was something of a mixed bag. He spread out the contents. He had ropes and tarps (which were good) and a portable stove with extra oil and a jumbo box of matches (very good), but no food to cook (not so good). He soon discovered that he needn’t have bought soap. He had an extra toothpaste, a new red toothbrush, a Harry Potter paperback, and a deodorant smelling of lavender. The deodorant and the Goblet of Fire would be returned—put in the bag to be swapped for another at the next busy portage. He had bug repellent and sunscreen (both good), a red fluffy beach towel (good), a Nalgene water container (good), and a two-piece black swimsuit (not good, not his size, and not a keeper). He strongly suspected that the faded jean cutoffs would also prove snug. Inside the pack of unknown origin, he also found contraband: a huge Ziploc bag filled with a trail mix of peanuts and pretzels and chocolate candies and raisins.
Cindy’s name was Sharpied in large black print on the goodie bag.
He found Cindy’s sundry other supplies: a week’s worth of navy-blue bras and panties and a plastic container with a retainer inside.
He packed the food with all the clothes and other not good items back inside the pack. Then he tied a small rock to one of the ropes and threw it up and over a tree branch. When the stone returned to earth, he attached the pack to the rope and hoisted it twenty feet into the air before tying it off. This was to be the first of many nightly anti-bear measures.
The next thing he did was to use his tarps and his ropes to construct a shelter for the night.
When he was done constructing, he traced his steps back to Goose Lake. The water was warm near the shore. He swam far out before he would permit himself to drink and fill the Nalgene, and after that he lay back and pissed in the selfsame water. Back at the sandy shoreline, he broke out one of his new soaps, washed himself, and walked back to the campsite wrapped in his new fluffy red towel.
Once he was back at the camp, he lowered the pack and removed the trail mix.
It was far from a perfect meal, but Justin was hungry. After he finished eating, he used the water in the Nalgene to drink and brush his teeth. He wrapped himself up in the towel and lay down on the ground. He planned to sleep that night in his hoodie, his wool socks, and a change of underwear.
It was a warm night. There was a breeze, but he still applied bug repellent liberally. He hoisted the pack back up into the branches for safety.
An unearthly silence lay in the smothering darkness. Too many fir trees to see the stars in the sky, but full of nuts and pretzels and raisins, he slept well.
In the days that followed, his methodology seldom varied. He would paddle to a busy portage and wait. He would bring with him the unwanted remains of his last captured Duluth pack. Other campers would arrive and depart. He would smile and say hello and ruefully shrug his shoulders and claim to be waiting, telling them that his buddies were day tripping, or had gone fishing, or they were late. He would cheerfully give up his spot in line so that other campers could portage ahead of him. And in amongst the unpacking and packing, he would usually manage to switch out packs. More than once, he was even able to trade canoes. He always made sure to grab a yellow Kevlar one. He had standards.
It was ridiculously easy, and he was never apprehended.
Within a week, he had switched boats four times. He had changed the location of his base camp three times, on each occasion moving himself further north, deeper into the heart of the wilderness area.
Within two weeks, he had nearly everything he needed: a tent and a sleeping bag and an inflatable mattress, a full range of cooking gear, sharp knives, cutlery, a compass, more safety matches in little plastic Ziploc bags, more little plastic Ziploc bags, oil to cook with, biodegradable liquid for washing dishes, two more Nalgene water bottles (Justin knew he could safely drink the water from the middle of the lakes, and he could always elect to boil it, if he felt nervous).
He kept one life jacket and a waterproof poncho. He always knelt when he paddled, so the jacket was placed under his knees for support. It had rained hard several times, and the poncho had seen active service.
He had a good-quality fishing rod and lures, which snagged him a decent-sized trout early one morning, He fried it and washed it down with water stirred together with powdered orange-flavored drink, a concoction every bit as disgusting as he remembered. He had even more soap to wash himself with, a disposable razor, toilet paper, tubes of combination bug repellent and sunscreen, which he applied morning and night, instant coffee, sugar cubes, powdered milk, and lots of aspirin.
He amassed an impressive amount of returnable items: several more paperbacks (but no more Harry Potters), clothing in all shapes and sizes (but almost none his size), carefully labeled Ziploc bags filled with EpiPens and allergy medications, worthless phones with dead batteries, disposable digital cameras, lots of money and candy, a bottle of fifteen-year-old single malt whisky from the island of Islay in Scotland, and even an unlabeled Ziploc bag filled with poor-quality weed.
Justin returned most of what he found. He put the money in little Ziploc bags and placed it inside the packs. He gave back all the medications. He only kept what he thought he might need. He returned virtually all personal items. He gave back the whisky. He kept the weed.
It was on his fifth attempt to switch canoes that things almost came undone. The weather was colder than usual, and the portage was less busy than he had expected.
He waited for a sizable crowd that never materialized. He told himself he should just row away. But he didn’t.
He was hailed from the shore by two teenage boys.
“Dude. You’re in the wrong canoe.”
Justin was in the process of making his labored getaway; only twenty feet from the start of the port
age, he was still in shallow water. He turned around and paddled back.
“I’m very sorry about that,” he said sheepishly. He tried to smile. “They all look alike.”
And they did.
“Yours is still here, dude. It’s got a different canoe number. Plus, that’s my bandana.”
“Oh yeah,” Justin’s smile was in the process of breaking down. “I guess I didn’t see that.”
At that, both teenagers looked at him skeptically. And why shouldn’t they? It was a lime-green bandana tied to the seat of a yellow canoe. You could see it from space.
Justin was normally careful to avoid personalized stuff; packs customized with carabiners and bright-colored Nalgenes were given a wide berth.
But he had been waiting too long, and had been careless.
He had to move quickly. He continued to apologize as he transplanted the pack he had just taken. He glanced down at it in a mounting panic. But he was safe. It was a plain vanilla Duluth.
Really dudes? Canoe numbers?
Truth be told, Justin had given canoe numbers very little thought.
He had not failed to observe that every canoe on the water had a four-digit number stenciled on the side. There were several outfitting companies situated in the area, all of them with canoes to rent. Was there some way to identify from the number which store the canoe was from?
It seemed plausible.
There were plenty of canoes owned by campers themselves. They also had four-digit numbers. Justin had casually begun to look for a pattern. He didn’t see it. So, he had to assume that each outfitter simply had a master list of canoes.
It stood to reason that each outfitter would know which of their canoes were hired. And which ones were missing.
Which led Justin to the question: Had his presence been noticed yet?
There was no question he’d purloined a lot of stuff. Thanks to him, packs and canoes were going missing and then magically reappearing. Some of this could be chalked up to laziness and errors. Some of it probably happened anyway. He couldn’t even be sure that other people weren’t living here just like him, marginalized and under the radar.
Conclusion Page 12