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Walleye: An Eco Thriller in Temagami

Page 2

by P W Ross


  The lovers had moored the rented houseboat in the North Arm, one mile west of the rock face that anchored the tower. The boat rested inside the mouth of a bay well sheltered by a point running east off the mainland and hooking slightly north, blocking wind and potential prying eyes of boaters or fisherman that plied the channel. From his vantage point, Norval could see them perfectly through compact high-powered binoculars. It was like watching a silent movie, except this one was in colour.

  On the first day of their outing, they travelled three miles beyond this bay to Sandy Inlet at the northern extremity of the arm. For a deep northern granite lake, the inlet was an anomaly. Like a bowl, one hundred and twenty feet deep at the centre, it had a pure, soft, white-sand bottom littered with freshwater clams. As the bottom approached within one hundred and fifty yards of the shore, it rose to ten feet and then made its way ever so gradually to the shoreline. The outcome was a two-mile crescent shaped sand beach — thirty yards deep, edged by a dense wall of northern bush, and guarded by towering white pines.

  At the eastern extremity of the crescent where the sand filtered into the bush, lay several substantial crib docks marking one of many youth camps on the lake. At the turn of the century, it had originally been the site of a far-fetched and ill-fated colonisation plan led by a colourful or rather mad (depending on who you asked) Catholic priest. His vision had been to repatriate French Canadians from Michigan and New England to found a utopian agricultural community. Failing to win the support of a government not interested in agriculture, but the exploitation of timber and minerals, the colony had withered but the clearing remained.

  The inlet was now a favourite destination for campers and tourists who brought their families in houseboats rented in town some forty miles away.

  Cottagers from all ends of the lake would wait for perfect hot, clear days and arrive at the inlet to bask, water ski and picnic, with the bows of their boats pushed up onto the beach. On long holiday weekends, young people, often ten to a large houseboat, would rendezvous at the inlet to party. On those carousing journeys, often the girls would raise their t-shirts and naughtily flash their breasts to unsuspecting yet none-the-less delighted fishermen.

  The couple would have been told that this was an idyllic lake destination for their houseboat excursion. Fact of the matter was that, regardless of the inlet's beauty, in the summer months it held little privacy for romance. Fred Jackson, who built and rented many of the houseboats, sent clientele there because it was the safest environment on the lake in which untried houseboat operators could do the least damage to his boats’ pontoons.

  Towing a 16-foot fishing boat and a red canvas canoe the same length, the couple had made a lazy circle around Sandy Inlet and turned south again to the privacy of the bay they marked on the way up, a fateful decision that would prove ever more costly than the privacy gained.

  Norval guessed they were in their late twenties. He had seen them nude several times. The man was about six foot, sandy hair, medium dark complexion and an athletic build. Not overly muscled, he had the toned wiry build of a gymnast. He was perhaps of Italian descent. His lover was a few inches shorter, with fair complexion and a slim figure. Her pert, oval breasts were somewhat larger than one would have expected on her frame and had small pinkish, upturned nipples. Naturally long, straight, golden hair framed a classic, high-cheek- boned, blue-eyed Nordic face.

  They had settled into a relaxed routine that varied little. At first light the man would come on deck while mist was still lifting off the water. Wandering slowly around the deck he would check the lines, scan the shoreline with binoculars and then sit in the bow deck chair. Drinking coffee, he went through his camera bag, examining the contents carefully, ensuring he was equipped for the morning’s shoot. Then he would slip easily into the canoe with movements familiar but rusty, as if he didn’t paddle as much as he once had. Perhaps he had learned to canoe here in his youth and now once again, years later, he knelt in the familiar stern ribs of a classic, canvas- covered Chestnut. The gunwale at his side was just above the waterline, the bow out of the water as he J-stroked deeper into the bay, a yellowish misty haze swallowing him up.

  Norval grudgingly acknowledged the paddlers' technique and envied him his pleasure. He knew the magic of the morning on this lake and the simple joy of a canoe on the unbroken surface. Tall, lanky herons stalked the shoreline, stabbing down for minnows and frogs. Large loons were white-breasted and red-eyed. Chicks rode the females’ backs between swimming and fishing lessons. Snapping turtles climbed up on a favourite rock or overhanging log to catch the warmth of the sun's first rays. A merganser pair, heads jerking as they led a dozen more chicks on an exploratory outing. With luck, a bald eagle circling, and sometimes the sharp slap of a beaver’s tail punctuating a warning to anyone or thing approaching his lodge and the kits inside.

  The paddler would return at mid-morning and retreat to the houseboat cabin, and Norval imagined him slipping into the berth with his lover. They would emerge from the cabin at midday and spend the afternoon reading, sunning on the roof or playing backgammon. They drank copious amounts of white wine and brunched on cheese, pâté and fruit. Their repose was broken only by frequent nude swims accompanied by much laughing and splashing. Occasionally the man would roll and they would share a joint.

  The wind came from the east and he could hear Van Morrison’s “Whenever God Shines His Light” playing in the background. This was a couple in love. A couple still involved in new shared adventures. A couple that still held secrets from each other and had been together only long enough to still be in the kind of love that one wants to sustain for a lifetime, but that too often gives way to comfortable familiarity, boredom and convenience.

  A few hours before dusk, they would bundle up, leave the houseboat and motor the fishing boat south and out of sight. There were any number of places to catch walleye, but Norval felt sure they went to the rocky shoal at the end of the arm where it joined the main channel just north of Keewaydin Camp.

  Norval was satisfied now in their routine, in their vulnerability. He knew what had to be done and, in meticulous detail, how it would be executed.

  As the house-boaters cast off for an evening of fishing Norval diligently packed his knapsack. There was no rush; the innocents would be gone for hours. Wistfully eyeing the interior of the tower's cupola and remembering his father manning one of these towers in the dying years of the forest ranger era, he cherished the many times they had made the climb together and the days spent aloft. He was never fearful making the climb, yet the first fierce thunderstorm he experienced in the tower had shaken him to the bone. The entire structure would shudder and rock with every thunderclap, and the boy would huddle in his father's arms, trying his best to put on a brave face. Most days were uneventful and he passed the time reading and listening to stories of the northern bush from the turn of the century, when his father had abandoned the city to become a bushman. He enjoyed tales of hardship and perils of the logging camps, gold, copper and silver mines in which his father had toiled.

  His father had learned to read and write in those camps; taught by young volunteers who worked with the men by day and studied with them at night by the smoky light of a kerosene lantern after long days in the bush or underground. It was The Frontier College. He listened for hours as his father recounted adventures as a hunting and fishing guide. His favourite stories were of the mining boomtown Cobalt with its ‘silver sidewalk’, opera house, streetcars, flamboyant whores, entertainers, gamblers, grifters and con men. The stories were matched only by those of the American Wild West. Archie Belany was a favourite character. The Englishman, who had come to this northern land to hunt and trap, and then 'gone Indian', transforming himself into Grey Owl, the country's first environmentalist.

  His father had passed long ago, along with that frontier life. A lingering grief over his father's death persisted in him and was surpassed only by his distain and distaste for the continued exploitation of this northe
rn land and the battle to divide the remaining spoils. He was only ten years old when the town barber told him that if there was only one trout left in the lake there would be fifty boats trying to catch it, and if there was only one virgin white pine left, there would be a fistfight to see who would get to chop it down.

  Careful to leave nothing behind; the last item he packed would appear to the casual observer to be a black fifteen inch police flashlight. It was, in fact, a cleverly disguised and extremely powerful stun gun that could drop a fifteen hundred-pound steer. When not contemplating the fate of his sacrificial lambs, he thoroughly studied the manual, and although never having used one before, he had no doubt of the effect it would have. More than a super-charged cattle prod, the 600,000 volts in this gun would deliver a massive charge of electricity into the entire body while a prod only shocked at the point of contact. As a boy he had enthusiastically devoured the Tom Swift series of boys’ books, in which one of the futuristic weapons had been an electric rifle. He had sneered out loud when he read that the stun gun’s offspring, the TASER, ironically was the namesake of the Thomas A. Swift Electric Rifle.

  Descending the tower, Norval slipped onto a narrow trail, sloping through the bush a quarter of a mile to a bay unseen from the main channel. A dark, ghostly dancer, gliding silently. The trail’s end revealed an Old Town canoe pulled up on shore and an 18-foot, open steel boat with a seventy-five horse, four stroke Honda outboard moored to a bent and half submerged rotting dock. The bow held a large fish cage. Years ago, they had been used by fishing camps to keep fish alive until they could be put on ice and taken home, often to the States, as trophies to be delivered into the hands of a taxidermist. Today's catch would travel no farther than this lake.

  Chapter Two

  Swiftly circling out of the bay, scanning north, south, and seeing no approaching boat traffic, Norval powered directly west to where the houseboat drifted lazily at anchor awaiting the couple’s return. Manoeuvring expertly to the stern, he tied up to the houseboat and carefully lifted the trap over the side. Submerged, it was out of sight in three feet of water and tied off below the waterline. Satisfied it would not be noticed in the twilight when the couple returned, he regained his perch and waited.

  Although of modest height at five foot ten, Ami Norval was powerfully built and possessed tremendous strength stemming from hard outdoor labour that had characterised most of his working life. Even at fifty, his torso remained all sinew and muscle; the upper body, pecs shoulders, biceps and forearms particularly well developed from years as a lumberjack. The jutting jaw line accentuated a square-shaped head crowned with dense, coal-black hair now flecked with grey. The face was weathered, and deeply lined. It was not just tanned, but had that permanently leathered look of folks that spent most of their lives toiling in the elements. It was the colour of an old baseball glove worked in with neatsfoot oil. His nose was somewhat flat with large nostrils, and his teeth were stained yellow from chewing tobacco, a habit he had given up for smoking handmade roll-your-owns. Bushy eyebrows arched over clear hazel eyes and he had a jagged scar on his forehead that ran from the centre above the eyes, forty-five degrees to his hairline. It was a twenty-five-year-old souvenir from the lumber camp days; a careless chain saw accident that he had brought upon himself. Luckily, the loose chain had not taken one of his eyes or ripped off his nose. The camp cook had sewn him up with darning thread and a bush plane had taken him to a doctor, who cleaned and re-stitched the wound. The resultant scar was angry and gave him the look of a man not to be trifled with.

  Norval wore a worn dark green, checked bush shirt and loose-fitting 'cargo' khakis with a multitude of pockets, cinched with a wide leather belt onto which was looped a sheath containing a three-and-a-half inch folding Buck knife. He was shod in soft but durable moose-hide moccasins.

  His youth was spent cutting timber and then in the copper mine on Temagami Island; one of the richest small deposits ever discovered. When the copper ran out, he ran a trap line and became the premier fishing and hunting guide on the lake. If there were a classic profile of the northern bushman, in his youth, it was Ami Norval. Like his father, he could fish, hunt, paddle, trap and snowshoe and build and repair damn near anything. He had been a hell raiser and something of a ladies’ man. He had 'danced' on more than one occasion with Gladys. He never married but several women lived with him on and off at his cabin in Whitefish Bay. They all left as he became increasingly bitter, impossible to live with. His feeling of impotence turning increasingly from anger to rage as he saw his way of life disappearing.

  Dozing off, he was comforted by the fact that he finally had a plan... a terrifying plan that would put the fear of God into all of them. He would make his anonymous statement. They would step back. They would think again. They all held blame; the government, the townsfolk, the tree huggers, the natives, the cottagers and their associations, the logging companies, the miners, the camp operators, the houseboat renters. They just didn't get it. They just wouldn't, or couldn't, leave well enough alone. Now it would commence. He was going to give their collective heads a shake. A wake- up call to remember. Something for the highlight reel.

  He awoke refreshed, hearing the fishing boat returning and being tied up to the houseboat. It was dusk, and through the binoculars saw that they had caught two yellow pickerel, or walleye as most people called them now. The girl went inside while her partner lit a Coleman lantern, hung it from the overhang of the houseboat’s roof and filleted the fish. It was an original lantern. Only a hardened silk mantel fuelled with the flammability of pure naphtha radiated that particular and very unique kind of light. The glass globe illuminated 360 degrees, glowing bright and warm. For old-timers, that light and the steady hissing sound of the Coleman were synonymous with night time in the bush.

  The woman emerged from the cabin with a bottle of wine and poured two generous glasses while her mate barbequed fish at the bow. They dined at the small outdoor table and once again Norval could hear the sound of Van coming across the lake chanting “Down at the Kingdom Hall”. Retiring for the night, they turned down the Coleman and it slowly extinguished.

  It was time. Slipping on a pair of new, tight leather gloves and shouldering his gear, he descended the tower, headed back down the trail and went directly to the canoe. One practiced thrust from the shore and he stepped lightly and gracefully into the stern, his paddle strokes silent and unseen across the channel. The lake was calm and the moon a waxing crescent sliver. A dim interior light was on as he passed close to the houseboat and the melody was now Handels’ “Water Music”.

  Darkness, accompanied an ominous mist had enveloped the bay as Norval made a wide loop and came in to moor the canoe. Extracting the weapon from his knapsack, and securing it carefully in his front thigh pocket, he climbed aboard with stealth. The door to the cabin had thin, open venetian blinds. He planned to go directly in, but there was no need to hurry or for any element of surprise. He stood there watching. It had been a long time for him. He was transfixed. They were in the missionary position. Her head was thrown to the ceiling, eyes closed and a pillow under her buttocks. Long lithe legs were spread wide, bent at the knees. Between them, her partner stroked rhythmically, his pace gradually increasing as she rolled her head from side to side, her arms outstretched, hands fisted and clutching the bed sheet. She was close. Her breath short and quickening, not quite gasping. She reached up, grasping his hair with both hands and lifting her head toward his, while he responded with deeper and more urgent thrusts. She let out a shriek of delight as she spasmed and called out fervently.

  “Anthony, Anthony, Anthony.”

  He was not done and rolled her over onto all fours, taking her from behind. With mischievous eyes spurring him on as she looked back over her shoulder, she feigned a wanton smile. The sound of his groin slapping into her buttocks filled the cabin. Finally, in a quivering voice, he called out her name, and shuddered as his chest slumped on her back as she flattened onto the bed.

  B
oth were breathless as Norval slid into the cabin. The pungent aroma of marihuana and sex hung in the air as he took three silent strides toward the bed, jabbed the electrodes of the stun gun firmly into Anthony's left buttock, counted three and pulled it way. The charge surged directly into the nervous system and totally disrupted the body's electrical signals. He knew the longer the charge was delivered, the more dramatic the result, but his eyes went wide and he was astonished by the outcome. Involuntarily, he stared down in amazement at the weapon in his hand before returning his gaze to the bunk.

  Anthony, speechless, jerked violently up onto his knees, immediately lost balance, every muscle spastic, twitching, his eyes just catching those of his attacker as he collapsed onto the floor between the bed and the wall of the cabin. Confused, disoriented, dazed and without any doubt, totally incapacitated. His brain had short circuited.

  His partner rolled over with a look of curiosity, the blonde hair matted with sweat against her forehead and a frown on her face. That was until she turned fully and saw Norval’s menacing presence. Her features went flat and without moving her head, she glanced sideways to where only Anthony's forearm and hand were visible on the bed, the rest of him out of sight. As she lunged toward the twitching hand Norval closed the gap between them and she howled, both in fear for her life and despair for her lover. The stun gun made contact just an inch below her navel and he held it there for two seconds. The scream terminated. She was paralysed and incapable of understanding what had just happened to her.

 

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