Conclusion

by Peter Robertson

  “Maybe,” she allowed. “Or maybe not.”

  “Suppose he’s not out there?”

  “We keep looking.”

  “We don’t know what we’re going to find.”

  “We never did.”

  “So why are we doing this?”

  She burst out laughing, “You’re just asking that now?”

  “I am.” He waited stubbornly. “Well?” Still nothing. “Why?”

  Angie took a deep breath. “Okay. Elliot Devine should be dead. I should be sick or dead. Someone out there doesn’t like attention. The NBF is too odd. We’re both stubborn. We both like mysteries. We’re doing something that saves us all the awkward conversation people have when they first start dating. And then—”

  “And then?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You can say it.”

  “Okay, I’ll say it. We’re helping you.”

  “And how is that?” he persisted.

  “We’re helping you get over losing the love of your life.” She rinsed out her Nalgene bottle in the lake. “Would you come back here for a trip? Just for fun? Without all this stuff?”

  “With you?”

  “Well, obviously with me.”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  “We should do it soon.”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “Because you don’t have long.”

  Colin deftly flicked his paddle across the surface of the lake and a spout of water hit Angie squarely in the face.

  The first portage out of Selkirk Lake was easy to find. It was a two-hundred-rod distance that would connect Selkirk to Big Lake. They were aware they would encounter longer and shorter portages. Before they began the first portage, they stood in silence to consider the logistics of their trip.

  They were two fit people, with two packs, two paddles, two life jackets, and one canoe. Their life jackets were tied to the canoe seats for added rear padding, and their paddles were firmly wedged down the sides of the boat.

  Angie positioned the canoe on her shoulders as Colin strapped one pack to his chest and the other onto his back.

  Angie’s challenge was balance and maneuverability and the threat of low-hanging branches.

  Colin’s was one hundred pounds of evenly distributed weight, added to the fact that he could no longer see his feet in front of him.

  Colin stumbled and fell once. Failing to see a tree root. His front pack hit the ground first and spared his face from contact. From there it proved difficult to get his hands past the pack on his chest and push himself up. So, he flipped over onto the pack on his back. And in that ridiculous position, came to know exactly how a turtle felt, flipped onto its shell with all its meaty parts vulnerable and exposed.

  He quickly rolled back onto his chest pack and waited for the cavalry to arrive.

  Angie was right behind him. She pinned the front of the canoe into the ground and twisted her way out from under it. Then she grabbed him by his pack and unceremoniously yanked him to his feet.

  “The person carrying the canoe goes first from now on,” she announced. “They can look down and spot any rocks and roots on the ground.” Angie flipped her canoe up and back onto her shoulders with ease. “Do you want to take the canoe for the next portage?”

  “I don’t want to think about the next portage.”

  They finished the portage without Colin falling again. At the end, they were hot and tired, so they drank more water and splashed around in Big Lake until they had cooled down enough to continue.

  “Where are we going next?”

  “We canoe the length of Big Lake,” said Angie.

  “Then?”

  “Lunch.”

  “Good. Then what?” he asked her.

  “Short portage.”

  He was instantly suspicious. “How short?”

  “Eighty-two rods.”

  “You call that short?” he snorted. “Then what?”

  “Roscommon Lake.”

  “How long is that?”

  “Longer than Big Lake.”

  It didn’t make sense that the lake next to Big Lake would be bigger than Big Lake.

  Angie was in the back of the canoe doing the steering and navigating this time.

  At the far end of Big Lake, the water merged into a lily pad. According to the map, the portage to Roscommon Lake lay just beyond the lilies.

  Any semblance of a breeze died as they paddled into the tangle of round flat plants. They followed the clear demarcation where other intrepid campers had plowed into the heart of the plants and carved out a six-foot-wide lane that would lead to the start of the portage.

  Without a word of discussion, they began to paddle. Instantly they felt warmer. Streams of bubbles burst from the depths. Flies became more plentiful, but Colin and Angie were well insulated in a thick marinade of repellent/sunscreen.

  The lily flowers exploded in dark pink petals. The plants themselves were rooted in the shallow soil plainly visible under the water. Occasionally, their paddles bumped against the bottom.

  The width of the channel kept changing. Neither Angie or Colin wanted to damage the leaves, so they drifted through the narrow passages and then paddled harder when the water grew wider again.

  At one point, they heard birds crying overhead.

  “They sound like seagulls,” Angie said.

  “Herring gulls are common here. They like the marshlands.”

  “And you know this because—”

  “You do remember that I live not far from here part of the year.”

  She changed the subject.

  “I should be more scared than I am.”

  “So, why are you not scared?”

  “It’s just too amazing a place. We have to come back later in the year. I could stay up here forever.”

  Then she changed the subject again.

  “I think our map is wrong.” Angie had carefully folded the paper so that the section they were canoeing in was visible through the transparent plastic wrap. She was staring at it. Colin had stopped paddling and was sipping his water. He stopped.

  “Why is it wrong?”

  “Because the water is too high,” she explained. “Look ahead of us. That’s not a portage. It should be a portage. It looks more like marshland. Which would explain the presence of seabirds.”

  “So, afterward, our portage should be shorter.” He sounded pleased.

  She agreed, “It should. But the marsh will be slow to paddle. We might have to partially portage some of it, which will be muddy and messy. It might not be any faster going than the full portage would have been.”

  Angie’s prediction proved accurate. They plowed the canoe into the slurping mud several times. The flies mounted a fresh assault, as the effectiveness of their repellent wore thin. At several points they clambered onto the bank and dragged the canoe and their packs across alternating clumps of rotted wood, slimy subsurface rocks, and a soup made of equal parts dirt and grass.

  They fell over. They fell down. They fell in.

  “Still want to stay here forever?” he called out.

  Angie wiped thick mud from her eyes. She said nothing.

  Their portage to Roscommon, when it came, was much shorter.

  Angie took the two packs. It was Colin’s turn to balance the canoe on his shoulders.

  They had intended to eat before leaving Big Lake, but the ill-defined area where the marsh morphed into portage was unappealing. There was a grimy thunderbox situated at the end of a twisty path. There was no available paper, but they broke out their own double-ply stash from the top of one of the packs.

  Next, they embarked on their first wet portage, one extended puddle of muddy water interrupted by sodden heaps of fallen trees. At points during the miserable trek, they could feel the presence of long wooden slats under their feet, now grown treacherous and slippery.

  For one blissful stretch, they were elevated onto a wood-plank bridge that the water hadn’t reached. That section of the portage w
as dry and relatively easy to navigate, although Angie’s progress was hindered by the caution she was required to demonstrate; it was a long drop if she stumbled and missed a plank.

  Colin walked with the canoe in front. His eyes fixed on the bridge. If the path changed direction, he would let her know.

  The portage ended abruptly at Roscommon Lake. There was a breeze blowing across a section of sand and beach, and, suddenly, they had a choice location for their late lunch.

  They were in a hurry. Their bacon and eggs could wait for the next morning and breakfast.

  Angie broke out pita bread halves and stuffed the still-cold sausage and cheddar cheese inside. Colin paddled further out and brought back two Nalgenes replenished with drinkable water. Inside the cold packs, they discovered four chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

  After a short post-lunch swim there was the length of Roscommon Lake to traverse.

  JUSTIN

  He woke the next morning to the sound of loon screams breaking the silence at first light. The breeze had lasted the length of the night and he had slept well under a gallery of stars he was unable to identify.

  As he waited for the water to boil, he watched a beaver cross Frost Lake. It made good progress as it cut open the glass surface; an expanding V spreading out behind it. Justin pulled out his map. The beaver was making for a point midway up the eastern side of the lake, where an inlet marked the end of a long portage from a small lake without a single extant campsite, past or present.

  He had been studying his map before he fell asleep.

  It was surprising, at least to Justin, that Frost Lake could only boast two campsites. In his mind he had already given them names. This one was Sandspit Camp and the one at the end of the short portage into the southern end of the lake was Gun Camp, for obvious reasons (although he had considered Good Weed Camp, Big Dump Camp and Dead Something Camp).

  He hadn’t liked Gun Camp. It was too close to the portage and to the edge of the water, there were too many trees, and the ground was marshy.

  When his coffee was ready, he returned to his map. Frost Lake had none of the customized markings that Justin used. Except for his visit yesterday, he knew nothing about it. He wanted to know more, and he had the whole day ahead of him.

  By lunchtime his map had acquired new lines.

  To begin with, there was a passable trail between Sandspit and Gun which, without the handicap of a pack or a boat, had taken him an hour to complete. It had been hard going in places, a large Douglas fir was down, which required scrambling over, but it was not as rough as he thought it might be. He passed an isolated area of severe storm damage, and noticed subtle signs that the trail showed use, which was curious given its remoteness. As was his habit, he tried to measure out the distance in rods as he walked. It came close to one thousand, which he calculated to be around three miles.

  He turned right back around as soon as he reached Gun. It wasn’t any more scenic than it had been yesterday, and he was thinking about the smell at the end of the trail and about the contents of the rucksack.

  For the rest of the morning, he had paddled slowly along the western edge of the lake north of Sandspit. His canoe was almost motionless for long stretches, as he studied the coastline for anything unusual.

  As picturesque a campsite as Sandspit was, Justin had no intention of making a basecamp out of it. For one thing, it was exposed. For another, it was identified on the map. In addition, he’d noted that, as remote as Frost Lake was, Sandspit was surprisingly well used.

  Justin wasn’t a born tracker, but he was attentive and he was thoughtful. Some of the camps gave every indication of having had stampedes of careless campers descend upon them, with each cleared area having housed a tent, with careless attempts at holes with discarded food clearly visible, with young green wood left cut down and unburnable at firepits, and even the occasional beer can or candy wrapper lazily discarded. These were evidence of both population regularity and density.

  But Sandspit was different. The campsite was used prudently. There was the well-flattened grass that indicated the regular placement of a single tent. A small pile of logs stacked thoughtfully beside the pit. No wrappers. Nothing left behind. Almost no trace.

  Justin suspected that Sandspit was used by just one camper, which seemed unlikely and strange.

  Suddenly, Justin stopped paddling altogether. He drifted to a stop.

  Although he couldn’t define exactly what was different, he instinctively knew that the place he was looking at had once been a campsite.

  Justin’s collection of maps now went back over several years, and this location, close to the northernmost point on this lake, on one of the northernmost lakes in this section of the wilderness, had never been designated as a campsite on any of them.

  So how was he so sure?

  In his mind he scrolled through a checklist of favorable criteria: the exposed rock, the elevation, the palpable scarcity of vegetation, and the relative ease of approach. It boiled down to the simple consideration: Would I want to camp here?

  Justin found that, when he could answer his own question with a rousing affirmative, he would discover that his opinion was the seconding of previous travelers’ views.

  He took one last stroke before letting the canoe drift into a wedge between two rocks that seemed custom made for it. As he walked up the hill, he felt a breeze stroke his face. He saw a handful of trees that he mentally catalogued, gauging the distances for hanging his tarps. He made a rough estimate of how visible he would be from the water. When he lifted the canoe out of the water, was there a secluded spot for dry dockage? Could you see it from the water? Were any of the tree branches suitable for raising his packs above bear level? He had already both tasted and approved the quality of the lake water. He looked back toward Sandspit and Gun. There had been a number of small bays and inlets cutting up the shoreline. Neither Sandspit or Gun were visible from the top of the hill; ergo, his new campsite would not be visible from either of them.

  This was all to the good.

  He stood at the highest point and looked down at the ground, noting the remains of a firepit.

  He made up his mind in an instant. This would be his new campsite.

  Justin’s next days were guaranteed to be wretched because he needed to move all his stuff.

  The question was how. Ease of transport or fewer trips? He could load his canoe to the point where there was barely room for him. The paddling would be grueling, and he would have to portage in stages, leaving his packs abandoned and exposed. But he was tempted by the thought that the whole process would take only a day—one long and labored day. On the other hand, he could move one pack at a time. He could canoe with ease and traverse each portage in one trip. This method, he estimated, would take three days.

  Either way, there was a bright side. He had reached the furthest edge of the wilderness, as planned, and he would have a wonderful new campsite. The trip north to Frost Lake was less portage-infested than many he had made, and his worst hike was under one hundred rods.

  In addition, there was a spring-cleaning opportunity. He would evaluate everything he had amassed. Would he need another towel between now and November? Why did he have more than one set of nail clippers? Since he finally possessed the first Harry Potter book, should he read it?

  He decided he would use all three days to make his move. This would take longer but would be physically less demanding. He would be more visible in transit, but his supplies would be better hidden at each end.

  His mind was made up.

  COLIN

  Colin and Angie arrived later than they would have liked, but they had left Lauder early, taken advantage of putting in at Selkirk, paddled hard, and skimped on portage time. As a result, they were the first canoe of the day to make it as far as Roscommon, and they had their choice of several attractive campsites for the evening.

  “We take the one with the highest elevation,” Angie told Colin. “More breeze. Fewer insects. Better
view of the lake. Better view of other people on the lake. More time to take evasive action after spotting said people.”

  There were three good prospects at the far end of the lake. They had time to canoe close to all three. Angie quickly made her choice. Colin was mystified.

  “They all look nice,” he told her.

  “One has garbage,” she pointed out.

  “We could pick it up. Or we could burn it. Or we could bury it.”

  “I know we could. It just …”

  He pressed her, “So, the other two …”

  “One of them is higher.”

  They looked the same elevation to Colin.

  “It is!” she said much louder.

  He wasn’t convinced.

  “It just looks—Okay, I just like it better.”

  They were both tired, and, even though it wasn’t yet the end of the day, they made camp for the night.

  Their canoe was pulled out of the water. Bacon and eggs for dinner had won by unanimous vote. Colin was declared dinner chef.

  They erected the tent, started a wood fire, strung a rope and hung a tarp between two trees, washed their swimsuits and left them spread out on the side of the rock to dry in the late sun. Their sandals were beside the fire and were already dry. They had blown up their mattresses to the anemic-looking maximum recommended pressure.

  Colin had chosen the site for the tent. He had unpacked everything he needed for their dinner. He had yanked their Duluth packs a full twenty feet into the air and then tied them off.

  He was now busy cooking dinner. Angie was naked and discreetly submerged, furiously scrubbing at the layer of sunscreen and insect repellent on her body.

  They had metal plates and plastic cups. Their eating utensils all clipped together. They had paper towels that they would pack away and bring back with them. Anything they didn’t eat, they would dig a hole for and bury. They (or more accurately, Angie) would painstakingly wash their dishes a recommended safe distance from the lake to avoid water contamination.

  As much as possible, they would leave no trace.

  Colin looked ruefully at the plastic cups.