Conclusion

by Peter Robertson

  Todd worked for the outfitters. He wore an olive polo shirt. He continued to probe.

  “Have you canoed the waters before?

  They answered that one in the negative.

  “But you’ve canoed before?”

  They answered that one in the positive.

  “How far are you planning to go?”

  At this point Angie chose to deviate. “We’re here to see Alfred.”

  Todd looked slightly amused. “Then you know he’s not here.” His tone indicated that these were words he had spoken many times.

  “Of course.” Angie looked a little offended. “We know that. We know where to find him.”

  Todd looked concerned. “It just seems like you might need more time to get up there and back.”

  Angie answered with confidence, “We can do it.”

  Todd pulled out a map and a pen. When he spread it out on a table Angie and Colin said nothing.

  “No,” he said softly to himself. “You’re doing three days. In and out. You should make it. You both look pretty fit. This portage here is drowned.” He pointed more than once with his pen. “And this one here. And that one there.” Angie and Colin were studying his hands and the pen and the marks on the map as closely as they could. “So, you’ll go there. You’ll go that way. That will make it faster going.” He drew a last line. “Wind is set to blow north for most of the way out. Hope it changes for you on the way back. You’ll have to go through Gregory Lake at the end.”

  “Gregory Lake?” For a moment, Colin must have sounded less than confident. Did Todd look surprised? Angie smiled fiercely, and Todd was reassured.

  “There,” Todd pointed. “A long, wet portage runs out of it and there are no sites on the whole lake. But it’s got to be faster going that way.” Todd put his pen down. He looked satisfied with his conclusion. Then he asked, “Who did you say you guys are with?”

  Angie was ready. “The Continuum Consortium.”

  Todd stared at Angie for a long second, his expression unreadable. “Huh,” was all he said, before recovering. “Well, that’s cool. I’m sure Alfred will be glad to see you.”

  JUSTIN

  Frost Lake became Justin’s best place.

  He had intended to day-trip there and return to his base camp in the evening, and he did. He decided to return the next day, with one hastily packed Duluth pack and enough provisions to stay overnight.

  He left early on the second day, before full light, so that he would have all day to explore the place.

  There were only two campsites on the lake. One was at the southernmost point, close to the end of the last small portage. Justin had been relieved to find the day before that, as he had guessed, the majority of these mini-portages were under water and did not require either walking and/or carrying.

  What had looked like six portages had been reduced to two. The larger of the two was the last one, which was still only twelve rods long. From the start of it he could see Frost Lake beckoning through a dark patch of tall hemlock trees.

  With his Duluth pack on his back, his life jacket/kneeling pad strapped to the seat, and his paddle wedged firmly into the side of the boat, Justin picked up his canoe, flipped it up and onto his shoulders, and began to walk two hundred feet up and down a gentle hill, over a dense bed of needles.

  It was over before it began. He was at the site of the first Frost Lake campsite.

  It looked as unimpressive today as it had the previous day.

  He would be moving on. Right after he had moved his bowels.

  As far as wilderness man Justin Everly was concerned, camping came with one major downside. He could easily live with bugs and dirt and long portages and longer solitude. But he could kill for a clean bathroom and a toilet that flushed.

  Instead of these luxuries, Justin was obliged to patronize the thunderbox, a hole in the ground with a vaguely toilet-shaped box and seat situated on top. Each active campsite had one.

  The problem for Justin was that the abandoned/decommissioned sites that he favored had thunderboxes in a sorry state of evolution—or devolution. So, he chose to do his crapping on the run, using active campsites like rest stops, picking when he could use the more popular ones and then swiftly moving on.

  But there were some instances where he could not be so choosy. On the edge of Frost Lake, at the conclusion of an absurdly easy portage, nature called.

  The path away from the campsite toward the thunderbox went uphill and was demarcated by the rotted remains of an old paddle propped against a tree and crowned with a roll of toilet paper sealed tight and dry in a Ziploc bag. This was expected camping procedure. What was unexpected was the thoughtful addition of a red disposable lighter and a rolled joint secreted inside the bag.

  What also bucked tradition was the presence of a small rucksack lying against another nearby tree. Justin took the plastic bag and its contents up the path to the makeshift toilet.

  He also took the rucksack.

  As custom dictated, he laid the paddle on the ground across the path to indicate both occupation and the desire for privacy.

  At the end of the path, he sat down with his swim shorts around his ankles and fired up the joint. The view was unexpectedly far and the weed was both fresh and of exceptional quality.

  From where he sat, he could see beyond the hemlocks an example of the controlled burns that took place each spring. A section of nearby woodland was mostly charred stumps standing like gravestones, garnished with only the sparsest of new forest greenery.

  He had exhausted the views from his throne. There was no longer any refuge from his curiosity.

  He opened the rucksack.

  Inside was yet another large Ziploc bag to add to his stash. Inside the large Ziploc bag was a handgun.

  Had Ruger GP100 not been clearly visible on the side, Justin would have been unable to identify what he held in his hand. It looked brand new. Justin knew enough to recognize that the gun was a revolver. It was surprisingly small and heavy. Justin’s hand wasn’t especially big. The wooden handle fitted cozily inside it.

  Justin opened the cylinder and found exactly what he expected to find. He removed the bullets without daring to breathe and then carefully closed it. Once it was closed he looked for a safety catch on the gun. There didn’t appear to be one. He put the bullets inside the bag.

  Then he made himself breathe again.

  Justin felt a little sick. Whether it was finding a loaded gun, or the fact that he hadn’t smoked decent weed in a while, he was unable to say.

  He and his friend Dylan had shot sporting clays with the church kids once. He’d had fun, and he’d shot well for a first-timer, he was told. It had been a cold spring day. They had drunk hot chocolate with little marshmallows in paper cups afterwards. He’d never gone back.

  In the days following the trip, several church parents had questioned the appropriateness of a church-sanctioned shooting activity. Not the parents of the kids who had attended the shoot; those parents had all signed permission slips. Justin had, as usual, forged his father’s signature.

  Justin finished the joint and walked back toward the campsite and the lake. He lifted the paddle from the ground and replaced it against the tree.

  He was still holding the gun and the lighter and the toilet paper and two Ziploc bags.

  He put the gun inside the bag with the bullets, and the toilet paper and the lighter in the other bag, before placing that bag back on the top of the paddle for the next patron. He opened his Duluth pack, placed the Ziploc with the gun and the bullets inside, and closed it up.

  Had he forgotten something? He looked around, then waited until it came to him: He’d left the rucksack at the thunderbox.

  He considered his options. He’d taken everything that was inside it. He could leave it where it was. He could put it back where he’d found it. Or he could take it with him. He made up his mind quickly.

  Justin considered himself an expert in assessing the amount of use portages and camp
sites received. The short portage to Frost Lake was rarely frequented, as was the first campsite. Given the beauty of the lake, Justin was surprised, but, as he considered the remoteness and the paucity of campsites, he was less surprised.

  And yet this remote spot boasted a handy bag with weed and toilet paper provided. Plus, a shiny new weapon.

  At that moment Justin arrived back at the facilities. The rucksack was right where he left it. He picked it up and looked inside. As he had thought, there was nothing else inside. The bag looked new. He thought for a split second of leaving some money inside it for the gun, and he almost laughed out loud.

  That weed had been strong.

  He decided to take the rucksack.

  Justin noticed that the path to the thunderbox went a little way past it, and this he followed for as far as it went, perhaps another fifty feet or so, when it abruptly came to an end.

  Another thing that Justin was rapidly becoming expert at was sensing, mostly with the aid of his nose, the presence of recent death. He sensed it at the end of the path, and when he considered whether to explore more, to determine the natural (or otherwise) source, or to take off, he chose the latter.

  With the empty rucksack safely secreted in his pack, newly armed and unexpectedly stoned, Justin Everly set sail across Frost Lake, away from the smell of death and his own shit.

  The second campsite was situated near the midpoint of the lake, on the western shore. There was a spit of sand running perpendicular to the coastline, with a wooden table and two rows of bench seats constructed in one solid piece and anchored into the outstretched sand. Further inland, beyond the sand spit, stood a raised rock outcrop, with a fire pit plainly visible near the summit.

  There were three trees on the rock; all pines in raggedy condition.

  Justin had been to the site yesterday. There was a stronger breeze on the water today. There would be an even stiffer breeze up there. And there would be few insects. He had brought a tent, but he weighed sleeping out on the rock tonight. It would grow cold fast, but he had his toasty sleeping bag to zip up in.

  It was the prettiest place on the prettiest lake, and he had it all to himself.

  COLIN

  Colin and Angie left the outfitters with their Duluth packs on their shoulders. Todd had arranged for their canoe to be put in at Selkirk Lake. He thought that Selkirk would give them more time to get as far as Alfred. They had signed up for a three-day/three-night trip. It was Monday morning; they would come out early Thursday morning.

  They walked side by side in silence down the narrow path toward the dirt parking lot where the outfitters van awaited them. Beyond the lot, the path grew wider, and the descent was steep all the way down to the edge of the water. It was just past six in the morning.

  There was one canoe strapped upside down onto the trailer behind the van. Wordlessly, they walked toward it. There was no one in the van yet.

  Angie spoke quietly, “See any bullet holes?”

  Colin shook his head. He didn’t.

  “There could be a bomb hidden inside.”

  He considered ignoring her. “It would be hard to hide.”

  “Once we get out there, we will be exposed.”

  He said nothing.

  “They could kill us.”

  “They could have killed us already.”

  “Yes,” she admitted, “but it’ll be easier out there.”

  They both watched as a teenage girl in shorts and an outfitters shirt walked toward them, holding her coffee and smiling. She looked nothing like a killer.

  The outfitters would be a zoo by mid-morning, but Colin and Angie had been the first customers. The place would remain civilized for a few more hours.

  An old golden dog was fast asleep under a strange tree. The animal had found itself good early morning cover. Although the leaves were already exhausted from the summer heat, they were still large and flat and mostly green. Underneath the leaves, gnarly branches twisted and curled in on themselves. The tree was no more than ten feet tall and about the same width.

  Neither of them knew what kind of tree it was.

  If the dog knew, he or she wasn’t saying.

  As they climbed into the canoe for the first time, they could see no visible bombs attached to the inside of the boat.

  Todd had been right. The wind would be at their backs as they canoed the length of Selkirk Lake.

  Soon, the steady stroke of their paddles grew soothingly hypnotic. Close to the shore, Colin watched the reflection of the waves shimmer against the smooth side of a tree. In twenty minutes, his neck was sore. Colin was in back. Angie was in front. He had asked her to choose a side. She chose the left and proceeded to row exclusively on that side. He rowed on the other to keep their course straight; when he needed to steer the canoe, he switched sides with his paddle. She had been told to switch over when she grew tired, but he wasn’t convinced that she would admit to fatigue.

  They had already met up with a posse of tourist-friendly ducks. They offered the birds nothing in the way of treats, and the scavengers swam huffily away. Colin spied an otter on the shore before it scampered under a log. They heard the shriek of a faraway loon.

  They pulled out into the middle of the lake and the silence of the wilderness became louder, more physical, more invasive.

  Colin thought he could still dimly hear the growl of the outfitter vehicle, as Tawni (for that was their would-be murderer’s given name) drove the truck through rolling clouds of dust and dirt back to Lauder Lake.

  Simultaneously, he and Angie stopped paddling for a second or two. At that moment, ten feet or so from the canoe, something had broken the surface and splashed once, before sinking back down. Colin guessed a large fish. The lakes were reputedly well stocked. Todd had claimed that lake trout and walleye were easily caught and made for excellent eating. But they were in a hurry, and neither of them could fish, so they had declined the option of ultralight fishing rods. They had regrets. They both liked walleye.

  After a while, Colin couldn’t conjure up the comforting illusion of noise, beyond the rhythmic slice and splash of the paddles.

  An hour later, they had voluntarily tangled themselves up in something less an island and more a natural anchor; an outcrop of mossed rock with a slender branch reaching toward the sky. It seemed an appropriate place for them to stop and drink some of their water and to talk over what it was they had both wanted to say since they had set sail.

  “My hand will be one huge blister soon.”

  “It’s amazing out here.”

  “We have a long way to go before dark.”

  “Did you see where Todd pointed to on the map?”

  “I did.”

  “I did, too.”

  “It’s a long way.”

  “It is. Can we make it?”

  “I think so.”

  “I think so, too.”

  Then there was a brief mutual round of stammering along the lines of, “Last night was … it was … I just … thank you,” before the awkwardness ended.

  “Todd was much more helpful than he realized,” Colin said. “That was all thanks to you. How did you—”

  Angie smiled at him. “After I found pictures of Alfred Fisher at the NBF fundraisers looking uncomfortable, I kept looking. I found all these other pictures. There were a lot more Lauder Lake Outfitters pictures. I noticed that in many of them, he was meeting people out in the waters. He looks a lot happier out there, with his camping and fishing and all that Ernest Hemingway stuff. I gambled on that. And we won. We got here. And Fisher’s out there some place where we can find him.”

  “But you made it seem like we knew where he was.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not sure Todd was paying that much attention, so our bluff got past him.”

  Colin thought of something else. “Did you notice that the route up through Gregory Lake looked like a longer distance?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “It didn’t just look like a longer distance. It is a longer
distance. But I added up the portage distances, including a monster one at the very end to get to the place where Fisher likes to hang out. Todd’s route has more water.”

  “It should be faster.”

  She nodded, “Yup.”

  “The Continuum Collective?”

  “Consortium.”

  He snorted at that, “Whatever.”

  Angie explained. “Their name just came up more often. He meets with them the most. I also noticed that the people from Continuum kept changing. There were different faces each time. Sometimes there were women at the meetings. I thought that was unusual, because Alfred Fisher mostly likes to go camping with white men who represent companies with goofy new age names. Which seems nuts. He owns an outfitter. He should be meeting with folks who make waterproof tents and dig toilets and stuff like that. Instead he hangs with people who represent secret organizations with bullshit names. They all use words like continuum and synergy and paradigm. Even the term natural boundary. What the hell is that meant to be? And they all have these websites with fancy pictures of pretty places and not much else. I think they’re all a collection of hippie naturalist weirdos. But, I don’t know, maybe they’re worse.”

  “How worse?”

  “Maybe I’m the one who’s paranoid, but the more I think about the words natural boundary the more I imagine white men with pointy white sheets over their heads. Did you see the look Todd gave me when I told him who we were with?”

  Colin concurred, “I did.”

  “And?” she pressed.

  “I have no idea what that meant.”

  “Me neither. But I was sure I’d screwed up. At first, he looked surprised, even alarmed. Then he looked like he liked it.”

  “You’re reading an awful lot into one look.”