by P W Ross
Walleye
An Eco Thriller in Temagami
P W Ross
Walleye
The Walleye is the largest member of the perch family. It is named after its large opaque, almost blind-looking eye. The large reflective surface of the orb allows it to prey during the night.
Prologue
They were fishing in one hundred and twenty feet of water on a clear day in the second week of July. It was a Friday, and by 9:30 in morning a faint breeze, warm from the south, had transformed the lake from an unbroken glassy sheet to a gentle washboard ripple. The sky was cloudless azure blue.
Two men, lifelong friends. One had been on and off the lake all his life. The other was born there and never left. He and his family before him had been part of the landscape for as long as memory served. They were fishing lake trout. When the ice went out in May the trout were no longer lethargic, became voraciously active and were easily caught on the surface as they gorged on minnows, as close to the shore as they dared to venture. Now they had gone deep and were to be found anywhere from forty-five to one hundred and twenty feet. Some immense trout lurked in depths of two hundred feet or more, where they rested and then periodically streaked up to the thermocline to grow fat on lake herring.
Lake Temagami in Northern Ontario. Neither man could think of a better place to be. Neither man could have imagined what was to be.
Downriggers allowed them to use light tackle yet still submerge the bait to the desired depth. A ten inch motorised wheel held three hundred feet of stainless wire. It spooled out along a two foot j-shaped arm at the end of which was a small pulley. Attached to the wire was an eight-pound weight known as a cannonball. Jack used tried-and-true baits; colourful spoons, large jointed minnows and often strips of lake herring trolled at walking speed that rolled them through the water, emulating the lazy beckoning loops of a minnow in distress, enticing even the wariest.
Jack always played the role of boat boy, setting the lines. He played the bait out fifty yards on the surface, looped the line through a clip release on the cannonball and lowered the lure to the feeding depth.
He inserted the rod handle in the downrigger holder and tightened the line so that the rod ached toward the water like a tightly strung bow. Should a fish strike the bait, the line would release from the cannon ball and the rod would spring up indicating a strike. If the hook was properly set, the fish was played and landed on the light tackle.
They had been trolling a quarter of a mile with lines running off each corner of the stern at depths of fifty and ninety-five feet, where the water was 50 to 60 degrees. They ran for twenty minutes or so when, without warning, the clutch on the starboard downrigger engaged, and began to slip. The arm on the downrigger jerked spasmodically.
Bob called out with controlled urgency, firm but friendly.
“Jack, put it in neutral, the deep line’s bouncing and we'll get hung up, or worse.”
“Can't be, we're in a steady one hundred and twenty-five feet with a silt bottom, and, in a few seconds it’s going to start falling away to almost three hundred.”
Jack knew this troll intimately, he'd made it hundreds of times. The bottom here was smooth and flat until it plunged into a gaping hole that made this spot a haven for trout. There should be no bounce in the rods. There was nothing to snag.
Regardless of how well he knew this bottom, Jack had to admit that with the pounding the downrigger was taking something extraordinary was happening. No point in risking a 'hard' snag and tearing off the rigger. The clutch was now fully engaged. It resisted, but at the same time reluctantly allowed the wire to slip out. The drag of the cannonball usually pulled the wire back at fifteen degrees or so. Now it was at forty-five.
“Okay, Bob, neutral it is. Bring up the other rigger and take the wheel.”
Sliding out of his seat, he glided effortlessly aft toward the labouring rigger. Slipping on a pair of worn cowhide gloves, he studied the clutch as it continued for a few more seconds, then abruptly stopped. They exchanged questioning glances. Puzzled, in silence they watched the wire gradually adjust its position as the ponderous burden below the boat swung it toward perpendicular.
As the wire reached ninety degrees, the support arm bowed and the clutch began to slip once more. This time, smooth and steady. The line counter now read one hundred and fifteen feet and sinking fast. Whatever they had hooked, it was bigger than any trout in this lake.
“What do you think?”
“I dunno, but whatever it is, we dragged it along to the edge of the hole and when we pulled it over, it just swung back and forth like a pendulum. It's right under us now, dead weight and sinking away.”
“Spot on. I'm gonna tighten up the clutch and see if it's gonna stop. If not, we'll have to cut the cable and be done with this mystery.”
“Gently Jack, might hold. Where's it at?”
“Down one hundred and forty-five, sooo... here we go. If that cable snaps, we'll have one hell of a birds’ nest on that spool. If the clutch burns out, it'll sink fast and we'll only hear one last ping as it pops off the spool.”
At one hundred and fifty the descent slowed. The stainless cable was tight as piano wire and the real danger was that the aluminium arm that fed out the line would collapse. At one hundred and sixty-eight feet it stopped abruptly and all was quiet — the lake had fallen still and the wind had dropped. Both eyed the downrigger with suspicion. The j-arm was close to snapping. Even though the wire appeared sound, each knew it could go at anytime. If it did, it would not fray but snap suddenly. Now that they had a chance to look, the four screws that held the rigger to the boat were straining to hold. This gear was built for fishing, not heavy lifting from the deep.
Squinting, Jack sat quietly in the jump seat studying the downrigger. Goddamn amazing, he thought. Whatever it was, it was heavy and probably, no, positively — not worth this effort.
Bob swung around from wheel, eyes casting ever so slowly over the rigger. He remained silent, knowing if Jack wanted his opinion, he would ask. More to the point, he knew how pissed Jack would be about getting hung up in water he knew like the back of his hand. Jack didn’t want to get his balls busted over this one for the next six months, especially if he'd hooked a rusted old cook stove.
Pulling gloves off methodically, finger by finger from the tips, Jack reached into his top left pocket for some cut tobacco, vogue papers, and meticulously rolled one. He had given up serious smoking years ago but still found it hard not to indulge out on the water.
Halfway through the tightly rolled ‘makem’ he regarded Bob with an amused grin and winked.
“Tell you what, whatever the hell this thing is, why don't we just high-tail it to town and go to Marges' for coffee and breakfast?”
Jack was playing him. Bob smirked. “Not what you want.”
A knowing smile accompanied a tilt of the head. “So, what do you think it is?”
“Do we care? This is supposed to be fun.”
“Something worthless?”
“Has to be.”
Just like when they were kids. Jack had been raising things out of the lake since he was a boy. Never with any sense of purpose, just by happenstance.
Old anchors, illegal night lines (sometimes with the odd fish on), life rings, bumpers, lures, clothes, rods, reels, coolers, tackle boxes, beaver traps and once, a swimming dog. The lures, in all manner of condition, over fifty of them, hung in general order of retrieval on one wall of his workshop. For a boy, each of those events was like an unforeseen treasure find. Even now, when he was in the shop and he gazed at them he could remember precisely what had transpired, as if it were yesterday. He looked up and saw Bob smiling fondly. A
lways able to read his mind, and grinning back, he arched his eyebrows up and down a few times, a la Groucho Marx.
“What the hell, let's bring it up and see what we've got. we'll help it start up hand over hand on the cable for a few feet till we get it going and take a crap shoot that half-burnt motor can do the rest.”
Jack dropped his butt into a small can half filled with sand, and re-gloved. Tightening the clutch another notch, and with a hand around the cable, he gingerly tapped the retrieve switch with his forefinger. The small, sealed, twelve-volt motor protested at first, but ever so slowly, the clutch found traction and the mysterious catch began to rise. The boy treasure hunter was at it again.
“So, gimme your best guess.”
Bob opened his eyes wide and grinned, as if Jack should know.
“Gladys,” Jack said slowly, drawing the name out, a mischievous glint in his eye.
“Christ Jack, I haven't heard that story in years. Anyway, not likely, wrong arm of the lake.”
As children around the campfire, they had heard many times the story of the breathtakingly beautiful Gladys, a Teme-augama Anishnabi from the reserve on Bear Island. Alone, on a Saturday night, she had come to town to sing, dance and drink at the Miniwassa Hotel. Some say she had come that night to meet a lover, of which she was reputed to have had more than one.
It was a rambling old barn of a northern hotel, and in the Fifties on a Saturday night it was packed with loggers, miners, locals, seasonal residents, travelling peddlers and outfitters. It was the kind of hotel that had as fire escapes sturdy ropes attached to the iron radiators, which could be thrown down from a second-floor room. On hot summer nights, the country and western bands were raucous and the aged two-storey frame inn literally rocked.
Gladys would twirl her waist-length ebony hair and dance with as many partners who sought her hand. The line was long; Gladys’s favours legendary. No one could remember really seeing her depart, but word has it that she left at the stroke of midnight to make the twenty-mile return trip. The moon was full, and in calm weather, it was an easy haul for those who knew their way.
She was running an old, rusted steel 18-footer and a tired fifty- horse Evinrude outboard engine. The boat, the motor, the gas tank, nor Gladys, ever arrived at Bear Island. Not a trace was found. Nothing. Ever. There was, of course, much speculation. Foul play perhaps, but the legend grew that she had become entranced by the spirit of the moon, wandered off course to the wrong side of a marker, tore open the boats' hull and sheared off the lower unit. Some say she took a “death grip” on the gunwales, went down with the boat and still holds that grip to this day in three hundred feet of water.
With their faces bright and eyes wide in the firelight, children are told when they swim the lake and feel the delicate brush of the lake grasses along their thighs, to step lightly and remember that it could well be Gladys's long flowing tresses.
They were brought back from their reverie by the grinding of the motor as it heightened in pitch.
“How far to go?”
“We're at fifty feet. This motor is warm and getting toward hot. I'm gonna turn it off and let it cool a little. We're almost there. No use spoiling the fun after going this far. You know, it could be on an old log boom cable or even one of the old telephone lines that used to run up the lake.”
“I don’t think so. Whatever it is, it's coming right along now — just heavy — most likely a sunken timber.”
“That's not a log. We couldn't have dragged a ‘deadhead’ along the bottom. Pour some water over that motor and let's get to it. Whatever it is.”
Again, the motor reluctantly hoisted the enigmatic burden toward the surface. At forty feet both men leaned over the side in amused anticipation. Strained to the limit, it was rising, almost imperceptibly. In his curiosity, Jack found the wait excruciating. At twenty-five feet they could just make out the fluorescent orange of the cannonball. At fifteen feet the ball was distinctly visible and below it shimmered what at first appeared to be an oval globe, almost luminescent. Then, it was not one shape but two, somehow intertwined. Curiously, the shapes appeared criss-crossed with a black, squared, rectangular pattern. Ascending laboriously, the forms came clearly into view as if under a microscope being brought into painstaking focus. At five feet there was no mistaking what they had raised.
The spectre was now agonisingly clear. The two men turned to look at each other, faces pale and drawn, eyes pinched, nostrils flared. Bobs’ upper lip twitched. The cannonball came up out of the water and halted with a shudder at the pulley. Its load lay suspended two feet below. The top was level with the surface. It bumped gently against the hull. Glancing at each other, they fell silent. Jack slumped into one of the rear seats and Bob knelt a knee to the floor as if at the altar. He held his clenched left fist to dry lips.
“Bob, there's a flask in the port glove box.”
Rising, he shuffled toward the box, sank into the chair opposite and stared straight ahead ten miles down the lake — that far away look. This time Jack rolled two and passed one to Bob as he swung around to take the flask. Both took long pulls. When the unspeakable is revealed, there is truly nothing to be said. They just sat smoking and sipping brandy. They looked around vacantly as if someone would appear to either explain, or just make it go away. Preferably, the latter. Five minutes passed like an hour. Bob cocked his head and blinked, as if coming out of a trance.
“We better get at this.”
Jack went to the gunwale and spread two hands on it, not so much for support as to steady his shakes. He raised his head skyward, closed his eyes and, with a deep breath that seemed more like a sigh, he leaned over and reluctantly opened his eyes. Suspended from the ball at the pulley was a big rectangular cage. A cable from each corner met at a large hoop over the centre that had snagged the ball like a snare. It was perfectly level in the water. The top was at lake level, rocking slightly and making a sipping sound as light ripples passed over it. A first guess would make it five feet long, three feet wide and two feet deep. It was fabricated from rigid wire mesh in three by five inch rectangles. The top was hinged.
It was the bodies inside that had seemed to almost glow as they had surfaced, naked in the watery light. At first entwined in what must have been a terrifying lovers' embrace, they were now locked in rigour, frozen in love and death. The man lay on his right side, the woman on her left. Forehead to forehead, pressed together, interlocking foetal positions. His arms embraced her; one supported her torso and cupped her right buttock, holding her close in the cold; the other reached under the armpit and extended up to the curve of the neck to tenderly cradle her head.
The woman’s arms surrounded his neck and long, delicate, slender fingers clasped the locks of his undulating sandy hair. Her hair, straight, long and blonde, covered his shoulder, jaw and cheek. His left thigh was bent up between her legs and she rested her crotch on his thigh.
It was an embrace that Jack had once known well; the kind of embrace young couples engage after tender love making when the afterglow still holds its magic.
He was mesmerised and paralysed, grimly fascinated. Bob came to his side and stared down at the couple. He felt an odd guilt, as if intruding on a tableau never meant to be shared.
“Do you know what that wire coffin is Jack?”
“No, never seen anything like it before.”
“It's an old-time fish cage, haven't seen one in years.”
“Jesus wept”, Bob murmured.
“What?”
“Look into their eyes.”
They were wide open, not in fear but almost in expectation. Although dull, flat and smoky, the sun shinning into the eyes through the water reflected an eerie, life-like quality, not quite human.
“Remind you of anything?”
“Yeah, a Walleye.”
Chapter One
Norval had stalked the couple for three days, concealed in the cupola of the abandoned fire tower atop Devil Mountain. The derelict tower rose a hundred feet
, perched on the edge of a three hundred foot rock face of pure granite that plunged directly down to the surface of the lake and continued on, submerged, for another hundred feet to the lake bottom. Like an eagle's eyrie, the tower’s cupola afforded the ideal nest from which to eye his prey and dispassionately contrive their fate.
Post WWI, the Department of Lands and Forests had erected hundreds of wooden forty foot towers manned by the first forest rangers sent into the bush to scan for fires. At the turn of the century, almost four million acres of this land was set aside as a forest preserve estimated to hold somewhere between three and five million feet of prime red and white pine. The government and the timber barons were not about to let that asset burn.
In the twenties, wooden structures gave away to one hundred foot, heavy steel structures that, once delivered to the site, could be erected on a cement base in just two weeks. It was a solitary life for the rangers living in log cabins at the tower’s base. Daily during the fire season, they scaled the towers from ice-out into the late fall. For company, the Ministry supplied a ham radio and often the men raised a puppy each season. The cupola in which they spent their days was an eight-by-eight foot octagon with a ten foot peaked roof and 360 degrees of open window.
Pinpointing a fire was ingenious but simple, and relied on a surveying instrument called an alidade. A circular table was fixed with an area coverage map and a degree ring to plot the fire's direction. The tower was directly in the centre of the map. Initially using bush lines, much like army field phones, then later two-way radios, the rangers would relay the smoke direction, distance and fire size to HQ. Cross bearings from two other towers would pinpoint the smoke and expeditionary four-man crews would paddle and portage to the sight. By the seventies, the majority of the towers had been deserted in favour of spotter planes and almost all fire detection was now done by satellite. Most of the decaying towers had been torn down, deemed unsafe climbing temptations for the increasing number of city folk holidaying in the north. Some however, like the picturesque Ferguson Mountain Tower, had been left standing as a memorial to yet another way of life that had vanished from the north. Others were restored as tourist attractions and lookouts.
