Page 64 of God’s Country

“I’ve read about it. An Indian legend. A creature that was a man once, but greed turned it into a monster. A cautionary tale, as I understand it.”

“Sounds like our old man,” Ollie said. “Heart of ice.”

You too, I thought, remembering the tortured body of Crispin. But I didn’t say it.

“A ghost story,” Ollie said and dismissed it with a wave of his hand. He looked again into the dark. “Pure bullshit. That was no Windigo out there.”

“No,” I agreed. “More likely a moose. Probably a bull moose. They’re so big and mean they don’t care how much noise they make.”

“Next time I ask you something, how about a straight answer.”

He finished his cigar, threw the stub with its plastic tip onto the ground, and crushed out the ember with the heel of his boot.

“You’re not going to leave that there,” I told him. “You’re going to pick it up and take it with you out of the Boundary Waters.”

“Says who?”

“The man with the gun,” Stan reminded him.

Ollie bent with a grunt that was not just because of his size; his back was still giving him some bother. He picked up the cigar stub, made sure the ember was dead, and shoved it into his pocket. “There. Happy?”

“Tickled pink,” I said. “We should turn in. Another hard day tomorrow.”

“When do we get to Canada?” Ollie asked.

“If you hadn’t been such a pussy paddling today, we’d be there late tomorrow,” I told him. “As it is, another day and a half.”

I could see that my comment needled him, but he made no reply. Maybe he was locking it away in that place in his heart where he stuffed all his angry inclinations. If he had the chance, I knew absolutely that he would unleash on me every cruelty crammed in there. He stood and looked at the path that led through the sumac to the pit toilet.

“Gotta go?” Stan asked. “Watch out for the Windigo.”

“Screw you.”

Ollie still had the headlamp he’d taken from the Duluth pack. He put it on and headed up the path.

“A day and a half?” Stan said, a wariness in his voice. “I’ve been keeping track of our direction. We haven’t been going north very much, and Canada is north.”

“Like I told you before, if we headed due north, all those people searching would have found us by now.” It was the truth, but only part of the truth. There are well over a thousand lakes in the Boundary Waters, connected by twelve hundred miles of canoe routes. I’d taken Stan and Ollie on less traveled routes. This reduced our chances of stumbling across other people and gave me more time with the brothers. I was still waiting for the wilderness to help me exact its toll.

I stood up and grabbed my hammock.

“More comfortable than sleeping against a tree,” Stan said. “Where are you going to hang it?”

“Somewhere that if your brother gets a notion to try for the gun he won’t find me.”

“I made you a promise.”

“He has a mind of his own. I need to be sure.”

When the big man came back, he crawled into the tent while Stan took a stroll to the toilet. On his return, I made the same trip. Back at the campsite, I found I was alone with the fire. I doused the flames, made sure every ember was dead, then headed into the woods. I hung my hammock down the shoreline nearly a hundred yards away, with a nice view of the lake. The moon was just rising, still gold on the horizon, and the surface of the water had become the color of thin honey. The two loons were still calling when I lay down.

I found myself thinking about my family, about my father, about how my experience had been so different from the Kennedy brothers.’ I felt blessed. I wondered if Stephen or Daniel was among those searching for me. I figured Rainy and Jenny and Waaboo were worrying. If all went well, I’d see them in a couple of days. If not… I decided not to think about that one.

I closed my eyes and went to sleep to the chorus of frogs and the song of the loons.

In the night, I heard great sounds of distress coming from the direction of the campsite. It wasn’t from some animal attacking. It was, I could tell, Ollie dealing with the raw morels his system was processing. A night of diarrhea, maybe some vomiting, and very little sleep. Me, I closed my eyes and slept like a baby.

The next day, I was up at first light. It was a cool morning, curls of gray mist rising from the lake. The air was rich and fresh with the smell of evergreen. I unstrung my hammock and headed back to the campsite. The Kennedy brothers were still sleeping, Ollie snoring up a storm. I took my fishing gear and went down to the lake, where I cast from the shore. Within an hour, I’d hooked a decent-size small-mouth bass. I cleaned it, then got a fire going.