by Vicki Delany
That’s the way it’s supposed to be in the wilderness, leave nothing behind. Instead, I wished that the last person here had left their entire life history carved into the debris of the forest floor.
Returning to the body, I covered the empty, staring eyes with Richard’s hat. I folded his arms in, across his chest. I hadn’t liked him much, in fact I’d thought he was a thoroughly stuffy, rich old prig, but nevertheless I couldn’t leave him lying like that, dead eyes watching the treetops.
Rising to my feet, I hefted the paddle, gripped it tightly, and trudged back to join the others.
The storm continued to throw the full weight of its fury against the rocks and the trees and the few frail humans who had dared to venture out of their proper domain.
The going was tough; I was soaked right through and thick, viscous mud clutched at my sandals and put up a heroic effort to hold me fast. I could barely see two steps in front of my face, and the steady stream of cold rain dripping into my eyes didn’t help. I had one moment of blind panic, thinking that I’d gone too far, that I must have missed the path. An image flashed through my mind: myself wandering though the forest forever, lost in the rain, clutching a yellow raincoat wrapped murder-paddle.
But then the trees opened up before me and the path was there. In a few short minutes I was stumbling into the little circle on the beach.
It would be hard to imagine a more perfect picture of human misery that the bunch that were huddled together under one skinny pine tree, which offered absolutely no protection whatsoever from the elements. Even Craig crouched silently on his haunches, head buried in his knees. He hadn’t even bothered to try to find some shelter from the rain.
This was going to be tough. We were far from the nearest police station even if the weather was clear, but in this mess… I tried not to think of what I knew the next few days would bring.
Dianne saw me first and leapt forward with a cry, “Richard, where is he? Is he okay? Do you need help carrying him?” Her eyes were wild with fright and she clutched at my arm like a woman drowning.
I shrugged her off and carried the wrapped paddle over the rocks to a clump of boulders. Laying my bundle on the ground, with much effort, I managed to create a little shelter for it in a pile of rocks. I wanted it as secure against the elements as was possible, as well as protected from any animal that might be inquisitive enough to come wandering at the smell of blood.
By the time I had finished my fingers were torn and specked with blood. I rested my forearms on my thighs for a moment to steady my nerves and then rose to my feet. Dianne had followed me and stood silently watching all the while. She was a smart cookie: she knew I wouldn’t be burying a raincoat while her husband lay in the storm waiting for help. There was no trace of the abrasive, over-confident, and very, very, rich woman left; she was nothing but a middle-aged woman not ready to face the news that she was now a widow.
“What’s happened, Leanne?” she asked calmly. “What’s in your raincoat? You’re getting awfully wet, you know.”
“Dianne.” I took one of her cold, clammy hands in mine. Over her shoulder I could see the others watching us, worry etched into their dripping and miserable faces. I led Dianne into the tiny bit of shelter offered by a few straggly jack pines. Not much privacy from prying eyes, but it was all I could offer in the circumstances.
“Richard has had an… accident,” I told her.
“Is he all right?” she asked. How stupid we can force ourselves to be when we want to. Of course he isn’t all right. He’s not sitting by the side of the trail with a stubbed toe, waiting for us to prance gaily through the forest with a picnic lunch and high-pitched cries of sympathy.
“No. No, he’s not. I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, Dianne. Dear. But Richard is dead.”
I’d done this before. Breaking the news to the next-of-kin, at the kitchen door, at the roadside during the worst snowstorm in twenty years, even over the phone. It was never easy. Every cop hated it, sometimes more than anything else in the job. Maybe it’s one of the reasons I left the force. I never really stopped to analyze it, never consciously thought that one day it could be someone else, all stiff and formal and dressed in blue, clutching her hat in her hand as if her life depended on it, telling me that one of my sons had been killed. Just one of the little things that all together combined to make me realize that being a cop wasn’t what I wanted in my life any more.
And now here I was, on my summer vacation, facing yet another disbelieving woman, trying to make her understand. Even in light of all that had happened since we made our way to Lost Dog Lake, the irony of it overwhelmed me.
“Are you sure, Leanne?” Said like every survivor, as if I would tell them news like this without being sure.
“Yes, Dianne.” I touched her arm lightly. “I’m sure. I am going to join the others. Do you want to come with me or would you like to be left here alone for a while?”
She smiled at me brightly. “Oh no. I’ll come with you. We have to do something about getting the tents up and ourselves out of this frightful rain, don’t you think? We certainly can’t ask any of the others to take charge of setting up camp, now can we? Goodness knows what sort of mess we would end up with.” And off she bustled, stepping lightly over the rocks and through the sand.
I shook my head in disbelief, causing a waterfall of rain to cascade out of my hair and down over my face, and followed her.
They were arguing by the time I got there. Rachel and Jeremy all dead keen on hightailing it back to civilization. Dianne reminding them that the lake wasn’t terribly hospitable at the moment. Joe wanting to go back and get Richard. Collapsed in on himself in morose silence, Craig continued his inspection of his knees.
Barb’s deep English voice was a sharp contrast to her tiny, deceptively fragile, blonde appearance. It broke through the cacophony around us. “Oh, shut up, everyone. Leanne, what on God’s earth is going on here? Where is Richard and when are we leaving this miserable place?” First bit of sense I had heard from her all week.
I wasn’t the leader here, and I wasn’t volunteering for the job. “Craig has something to tell us.”
The wind appeared to be dying down a bit. Either the storm was quieting or I was getting used to it. But the volume of rain continued, as thick and heavy as ever. I was drenched right to the skin and well beyond, and so cold that I was in danger of loosing contact with some of my extremities. I rubbed my hands together in a feeble attempt to generate a bit of warmth. All I accomplished was to move the water around somewhat.
We all looked at Craig. A peal of thunder sounded directly overhead, reminding us that the weather wasn’t finished with us yet.
Craig lifted his eyes and looked at the circle of expectant faces watching him. He rubbed his hands through the thick beard as if he’d forgotten what he had to say. “Richard’s dead,” he mumbled at last. “He was…”
“It was an accident,” I interrupted. “A terrible accident. He seems to have wandered off the path, probably lost in the storm. And he must have tripped over a log, and fell unconscious face first into a puddle.” On the long walk back, with my heavy burden, I decided that it would be better to keep the cause of death a secret for as long as I could. The murderer, and it could only be one of our little circle, would know that I was lying through my teeth. But maybe if he (or she) knows something no one else knows, save for Craig and myself, he (or, again, she) will let something slip. Once a cop, always a cop. Perhaps the old saying is true.
Craig stared at me. For a moment I thought he would contradict me, but he shrugged and let it go.
The rest of our little holiday group burst into a babble of shouting and questions. Rachel began to scream, “I knew this would happen. I knew it. I want to go home.”
“Oh, shut up, you stupid bitch.” Craig leapt up to stand over her, all the fire and passion back. His face, earlier bleached white by shock under the dark tan, burned red with anger. His fists were clenched and his teeth clamped. I stepped forward,
fearing that he was about to hit her. But he deflated as quickly as he had angered and turned his back with a muffled curse.
Rachel’s mouth closed with a snap and she cried. Soft, gentle tears mixed with the streams of rain and black mascara dripping steadily down her cheeks. Her nose was red and swollen, as were the lovely eyes, not so lovely any more. Her self-absorption and out-of-place vanity had irritated me the whole trip. I suppressed an almost irresistible urge to find a mirror (not that I had one) and hold it up for her inspection.
Joe reached for her, but she pushed him away and turned her back to us. He shrugged and looked at me.
“I’m not going to take your word for it and leave Richard lying in the mud back there. Who the hell do you think you are anyway? How do you know he’s isn’t unconscious or in a coma or something?”
“I know.”
“Well to hell with you, lady. I’ve known him for years. I’m not leaving him there, I’m going back for him.” Joe started up the path.
I ran after him. “You’re going to get yourself lost, if you run off into the woods alone. I’m not going to leave Richard where he is. This storm can’t last forever and the animals will be coming out the moment it’s over.”
That caught his attention. He stopped and stared down the path.
“Ug.” Barb summed it up perfectly.
“We’re going to go about this in an orderly fashion. I… we… don’t want any more accidents. Do we, now?” I stared at him with my best female-cop-facing-down-the-tough-guy expression.
It worked and Joe’s shoulders deflated as he turned back to the beach with a shrug, pretending that it really didn’t matter to him one way or the other. We looked at Craig, waiting for orders. They weren’t forthcoming.
“If Richard’s dead, that’s too bad, but I’m not standing around here any longer.” Jeremy spoke for the first time. His tender sunburned English skin was red and starting to peel after a week spent on the water, under the unexpectedly strong Canadian sun. He had been as out of place in Algonquin Provincial Park as a pink flamingo all week. “I say we get into the canoes and head for…” He paused, unsure of what we should head for.
“Don’t be a fool. I’m not going out on that lake in this. We’ll be swamped. We’ll all drown.” Rachel’s voice rose higher and higher with each word. She waved her arms frantically at the dark, boiling lake. “We’ll never make it. We’ll die out there. They’ll never find our bodies.”
In spite of my better instincts, I followed her gestures and looked out over the lake. The sky was black as night, the air alive with falling rain. The waters of the lake tossed whitecaps like prancing horses and charged the shore with the force of an invading army. One particularly large wave crashed over the rocks and erupted into a wild dance of white foam. It contained enough water to loosen the one canoe that had been placed in the water before the orders came to flip them. The little craft bobbed lightly on top of the rogue wave and then slipped easily from its moorings.
I lunged after it, and caught the bow of the canoe in the moment a second strong wave grabbed the bottom in an attempt to carry off its prize. We struggled momentarily for possession of the tiny boat. My single-minded determination won over, the wave admitted defeat, and I hauled the canoe back up onto the shore. A loon called, the melancholy sound loud and piercing, distorted and amplified by the gloom and the rain.
“Oh, shut up.” Joe shouted at Rachel. “Don’t you understand that Richard’s dead. How stupid are you?”
“Don’t you dare call me stupid.” Ugly with rage, she screamed back. Specks of spittle flew everywhere. No matter, no one would care about a few more drops of moisture. “It wasn’t my brilliant idea to come on this crazy trip. I don’t know why I married you, anyway.”
“I could use some help here.” I tried to break into the shouting match. They all ignored me.
I dropped the front of the canoe. “If we lose a canoe some of us will be swimming back to civilization. And it sure isn’t going to be me.”
That did the trick. Joe, Jeremy and Barb regained some sense of self-survival and helped me pull the boat clear of the water.
Rachel continued to cry. Craig had withdrawn into himself again, and Dianne stared out over the lake, lost in a world of her own, her good intentions about preparing camp forgotten while everyone bickered and argued.
Canoe and packs secure once again, I glanced at the frightened, half-drowned group. Such an innocent looking little bunch, literally babes in the woods most of them. But one of them was a murderer; it could only be one of them. And I had better not lose sight of that simple little fact.
I turned to Craig. “What do you want us to do, now?” I spoke loudly, forcefully, hoping to jolt him back into reality. This really was too much.
“Huh?” He looked at me.
“What do you want us to do now?” I repeated. “The canoes are safe but everyone is getting pretty upset. We have to bring Richard in and we have to make some sort of shelter. Wouldn’t you agree?”
It was like watching a TV screen come to life. The light slowly returned to his eyes, a trace of color crept into his face, and he seemed to grow right in his tracks. He shook his massive head, blinked several times and then uncurled to his full height. I had hit the right chord: to be wanted and needed, to have a job to do, that was right up there with food and shelter as one of the basic human requirements.
“Right. This storm isn’t going to be over any time soon, so we had better put up the tents. We won’t make it to a proper campsite so we’ll stay right here, for now. We don’t have much room, but we should be able to get the tarp up between those trees, then we can get a bit of a fire going and maybe make some tea or hot chocolate. We need to get something warm inside us.”
It was nice to have him back. The very idea of hot chocolate warmed my innards, a tiny bit anyway.
“No way, man,” Jeremy broke in. “I’m not staying here. This is nothing but a pile of bloody rocks. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“We can’t go out on the water, not in this storm. The wind is blowing straight into our faces for one thing. We wouldn’t make any headway at all.”
“Well I’m willing to try.”
“Well, I’m not willing to let you drown yourself. Not that I care a pig’s ass about your sorry butt. But I’m not going to see a good canoe go down with you.” It did Craig some good having a mutiny to contend with. Help to keep him focused.
We stood in a little semi-circle watching. No one could possibly get any wetter, so there wasn’t much of a hurry to get the shelter up. Jeremy and Craig had been at each other’s throats almost the entire trip, most of it Jeremy’s fault to be sure, but it was time for the head butting to end.
A family of ducks swam sedately past, basking in their enjoyment of near perfect weather. The mother honked loudly at us, a polite warning to the intruders to keep their distance.
“Who wants to come with me?” Jeremy turned to Barb. “Are you in?”
“What kind of a fool do you think I am?” The English accent dripped with scorn. I had never before heard that much contempt in a few short words, and I had been married to the master of disdain himself. No wonder the Brits had managed to conquer half the world.
Jeremy flushed to the roots of his hair. He deflated visibly and was about to give up the fight when, unexpectedly, Rachel stepped in as ally. “I’ll come with you, Jeremy.”
“The hell you will,” Joe shouted at her. “You wouldn’t get a yard off shore.”
She glared at him with so much fire in her eyes that she would have ignited the trees behind him, if they hadn’t been so wet. “Oh, fuck off, asshole. I don’t care how important this trip is to your stupid little company. In fact I don’t care about you. I’m leaving. My lawyer will contact your lawyer.”
Jeremy smiled, first at Craig, then at Barb, a nasty, smug little grin. “Cheerio, then. I’ll be seeing you chaps someday. If you’re lucky.”
Craig leapt in front of him and ba
rred the way to the water’s edge. He was a big man, large and foreboding at the best of times, now puffed up with anger and touches of fear and awareness of his own impotence against the power of the elements. “You damned fool. You’re too stupid to know you’re pointing in the wrong direction. The main route is behind us. Remember the portage? This is a land locked lake, and nothing but the rest of the park beyond here. If you did keep from capsizing, and you won’t, you’ll never manage to find your way out of the park. Even I can’t tell one island from another in this mess. Back off, Jeremy.”
Jeremy was smaller, much smaller. City-boy and tourist, he was completely out of his natural habitat but he refused to back down. He stretched onto his toes to gain some height, and his chest swelled up like a gorilla I once saw in the zoo.
I should have expected it, but I didn’t. I guess I have lost some of my cop’s edge, or maybe that innate suspicion of everyone and everything. Jeremy took a swipe at Craig’s face and the big guide went down with a bone-jarring thud before any of us realized what has happending. They had fought before and this time Jeremy wasn’t going to let his prey get up. He moved in, feet swinging for Craig’s mid-section. He managed to land a powerful blow to the ribs that had the bigger man doubled over trying to protect his vulnerable belly. Jeremy aimed another, deadly, kick at the head but I grabbed him from behind with a twist to the arm that had him scrambling to keep his footing and the blow went wild.
He was off balance and with one quick wrench I threw him to the ground. He slithered backwards in the mud like some kind of vile reptile, trying to get a grip and regain his balance, but suddenly Joe was standing over him, a paddle held high over his head. Joe was itching to take a swipe and I was uncomfortably reminded of the blood and brains encrusted paddle I had recently so carefully covered in rocks.
With a groan Craig clutched his side and stumbled to his feet. He took the paddle from Joe’s unresisting hands and lowered it to the ground. “Now let’s get some kind of shelter up, before we all catch our death out here.”
