by Vicki Delany
I nodded, as if that would make it all right.
“I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to Richard though, not in private. Not like I wanted. Seeing him just made me so mad, hearing the way he talked to his wife and to Rachel. Bossing Joe around like he was still the big shot out here, in MY territory. So when the rain started and he and I were well back from the rest of you on the portage, I walked with him. I told him who I was; I told him he had ruined my life.”
I sighed at the waste of it all. Did Craig honestly believe that after all these years Richard would be overcome with remorse and vow to make it all up to the son of the man he had wronged? Not the chance of the proverbial bat in hell. It was unlikely that Richard even thought he would have anything to apologize for.
Craig stopped talking and turned back to the lake. He bent over to scoop up more pebbles and tossed them idly. No attempt to skip them this time - they fell with a dull plop and sunk into the water, casting tiny waves in ever-increasing circles.
“So, what happened?” I encouraged him, no longer concerned for my own safety. He had climbed down from threatening, and was telling me the story in a nice, friendly, chatty way. But I didn’t relax my guard. His mood swings were highly erratic, to say the least.
“He told me that my dad was a two-bit loser. Said if he couldn’t play with the big boys he shouldn’t have entered the game.” His rage against Richard was building again, his voice tight and angry. He stood tall and still with his broad back to me, staring out over the water, every fiber in his body clenched with barely controlled tension.
“He laughed at me.” Craig’s voice broke but he didn’t turn around. “The bastard. So I swung at him. I didn’t even know I was holding my paddle until I saw it flying through the air. It hit Richard’s head and he fell and he didn’t move. And that was all.”
“The man was dead, or dying, Craig. That wasn’t all. And you know it. You should never have kept quiet about what happened. You know that there have to be consequences.”
“I don’t think so, Leanne.” He was still facing the lake, his voice calm and in control and so very cold. “What’s done is done, and no one ever needs to know.”
I laughed. “Are you crazy?” Bad choice of words. “Of course it will all come out. Do you think Dianne is going to bury the body in the woods and tell people that Richard ran out on her? Get real.”
“I mean no one has to know it was me who killed him.”
I stood up. “I won’t keep quiet, Craig. And even if I did, the police will figure it all out, just like I did. You were smart to destroy the canoe paddle; it would have had your fingerprints all over it. But they don’t give up on this sort of thing. Believe me, I know.”
Craig turned and stood with his back to the lake. The rising sun outlined him in a field of orange flame. I heard a plane fly overhead, a small plane circling low over the lakes. Looking for storm-trapped canoeists.
Craig heard it as well. “Don’t try signaling, Leanne. It’s time I got out of here.”
Down at the campsite Rachel and Jeremy and Barb were screaming and yelling at the plane. I didn’t dare take my eyes off Craig, but my peripheral vision could make out the shape of a white T-shirt being waved with much enthusiasm. The plane droned on and disappeared over the green forest.
Craig started back towards camp. I followed at a respectful distance.
“Only one canoe left,” he said. “I would therefore guess that you have sent some of our more intrepid adventurers off in search of help. A bit of a useless effort, wouldn’t you agree?”
I shrugged, still keeping my distance. “I figured that someone should go.”
He walked down to our only remaining canoe and lifted it off the rocks with no effort at all. The leftover members of our trip joined us, all smiles at the end of the storm and the possibility of the return to civilization.
“When are we going to be off?” Rachel demanded. “Looks like there’s only one canoe here. I wonder what happened to the other one. Oh well, no matter. I’ll go with you, Craig, and the rest can stay behind with Richard’s body.” She looked around. “I don’t know what’s happened to Joe and Dianne, maybe they started the portage back without us. Silly them.” She grimaced. “Silly, Joe, rather. Probably trying to get help without worrying my pretty little head. Jerk.”
“Where are you going, Craig?” I ignored Rachel. It seemed somewhat unfair to let her be mad at the first decent thing the guy had done on the whole trip. Too bad.
Craig placed the canoe into the water and pushed off. “It’s been a slice, Leanne. But it’s time for me to take my leave of you all.”
“You can’t go without us,” Rachel yelled, suddenly worried. “Besides you’re going the wrong way. Aren’t the lodge and the highway behind us? We have to do the portage thing first, don’t we?”
She looked around in confusion. Barb joined her. “Maybe he knows some sort of secret route. Do you, Craig?”
He stepped lightly into the canoe and took his seat. “See you in hell, Leanne.”
I waded out after him. “This is stupid, Craig, really stupid. If you run it will only look worse for you.”
He guided the canoe out into the open water with strong, sure strokes and not a backward glance.
I considered swimming after him, but no one’s that good a swimmer.
The yellow canoe turned and headed parallel to the shore running north of our camp.
I climbed out of the water and sprinted down the barely-there path. The remaining three erupted into babbling circle of frightened questions and excited commentary.
I crested the hill and there was the canoe, cutting serenely through the sparkling blue water. The sun was high in the sky, and I could feel the heat as it evaporated the last of the rainwater from my sweatshirt.
“Craig,” I shouted. “It won’t do you any good to run away. They won’t give up looking for you.”
He turned his face towards the shore. “Enough talking. I thought you were my friend.” His voice broke. “I thought you were a together sort of chick. But I guess I was wrong. You’ll turn me in, won’t you?”
I jogged steadily beside him. The path stretched out before me, straight and clear, running parallel to the lake. But it wouldn’t stay that way much longer.
“I have to tell the police what happened. You did kill a man, you know.”
“He ruined my life.”
“I know that. And I know that you only tried to talk to him. That you killed him by mistake when he laughed at you. You’re looking at a couple of years at most. You tell a jury about your mother and what happened to your family and they’ll be eating out of your hand.”
Isn’t it strange how perspective changes everything? When I was a cop the worst thing that could happen to us was a lying scumbag getting off light because some bleeding-heart judge swallowed his story of the deprived and brutalized childhood. This time it was what I desperately wanted.
“A couple of years in prison. Not going to take the chance.” He continued paddling with long, steady strokes. The boat moved thought the water with the grace it had been created for. I loped steadily alongside. A boulder rushed up to block the path and I sailed over it like a ballerina. I didn’t have much time. Craig could paddle a lot further than I could run.
“So you get away,” I shouted. “Then what? You can’t live in this park forever you know. You wouldn’t last the winter. To do that you would need to kill a moose, at the very least, and you don’t have a gun. So what other choice do you have? Are you going to paddle to South America?”
“If I have to.”
I was running short of breath. The path was closing in around me - bramble and branches reaching out to grab my shorts and scratch at my arms and legs. Either the track or I would run out soon, and Craig would have nothing but clear going in front of him. But not for long. Algonquin Park was not exactly the end of the world.
I jumped another rock. End of the trail. I crashed through the woods, pushing branches an
d vines out of my way as I ran.
Finally I could go no further. The trees surrounded me and presented an impassable barrier of green and brown. Heart and lungs heaving, I gathered my last bit of strength.
“For God’s sake, Craig,” I screamed in all my fury. “Stop and think. You are in Algonquin Park. It’s the 21st century, not the Old West. There is nowhere to go. There is no wilderness out there. You can’t paddle to South America. You wouldn’t get more than a couple of kilometers out of the park, at most. Every police force in North America will be on the alert. Dianne and Joe have probably reached the Park Rangers by now, they’ll all be looking for you.”
I gasped for breath and tried to force out the words at the same time. I pushed aside a stitch in my side and continued to yell. “Come back with me, and give yourself up, and it will all be so much better.”
Craig’s steady strokes slowed down and eventually he stopped paddling. The canoe drifted gently to a stop. There were no waves to hamper the craft, so it simply sat in the lake, bobbing gently on the blue water.
I pushed through a thicket of brambles and stood on the rocks overhanging the water. He was no more than five yards out, watching me thoughtfully.
I sunk to my haunches, took a deep breath and chose every word with care. “Two years, maybe three. With a good lawyer, maybe not even that. But don’t run. They don’t like that.”
“You know me, Leanne. What do you think a few years in Kingston Pen would do to me? I need the woods, the wilderness, and the lakes. A man like me would die caged up like some sort of circus animal.”
What does it do to anyone, I thought, being locked up? Whether you lived your life among the trees and the lakes or the cheap bars and the aging strippers, jail just isn’t meant to be a pleasant place.
“Come on, Craig.” I held one hand out. “Let’s go back and get the others. Rachel and Barb really need someone to take them back to camp. And you do have the last canoe, you know.”
“Oh, I know.” He sat quietly in his yellow canoe, paddle laid neatly across his lap. “I wouldn’t want any of the rest of you to come to any harm, you know that, don’t you?”
“Of course I know that. And it will go well in court that you cared for the rest of us. I’ll tell them, I’ll testify for you.”
“No, Leanne. I’m not going to go to court. Good-bye. I was hoping we could get together, have some fun, you and me. But I guess not.” He lifted one hand to his mouth, kissed the tips of his fingers and held them out to me. Then with one powerful stroke he turned the bow of the canoe out to the open water and pulled away from the shore
Heart full of dread, I watched him go. The story of his father, lacking the courage to face the consequences of his actions, leaving his broken family behind him to pay the penalty, resonated around and around inside my head, and I stood, locked in place, watching the canoe move ever so gracefully out to the middle of the lake. A family of common mergansers, the children almost full grown, sailed stately by. They didn’t spare Craig a glance but he watched them for several minutes as they swam on.
He didn’t even turn for one last look at the shoreline before he slipped over the gunnels of the small craft, creating hardly a ripple, and set out for the middle of the lake with steady, confident strokes.
Unnoticed, until much, much later, the tears fell down my cheeks. I watched the wake as he moved through the water. He traveled a long way, until the steady strokes began to falter and eventually fade altogether. The lake, soft and blue and gentle, absorbed the rippling waves and settled back into itself as if nothing of consequence had passed.
And to the lake, and the forest around it, nothing had.
Chapter 22
Day 11: Midday.
The little plane had noticed us, after all. By the time I staggered back to camp, a seaplane was landing off shore. Rachel leapt up and down in great excitement, waving a scarf wildly overhead. Barb and Jeremy waded out to greet our rescuers with enthusiasm.
The first ranger out of the seaplane was much taken with Barb’s English accent, and poor old Jeremy faced a fight once again.
I stood off to one side watching as the two men struggled up to shore, pushing aside the crowd, small as it was, of admirers. One of them was older, face cragged by the ravages of weather, probably close to retirement yet not wanting to leave the park; the other younger, much younger, deeply tanned and sun-streaked blond, well-muscled and totally dedicated to his duty. Barb sighed in appreciation.
At my suggestion the Rangers took their plane out over the lake and traveled in lazy patterns, back and forth across the wide strait. They found nothing but an abandoned yellow canoe. The plane settled back on the water’s surface and the younger man returned with the canoe while the older coasted the seaplane back to shore. I said little to Barb, Jeremy and Rachel. Only that there had been an accident and Craig would not be returning to the lodge with us. They were, of course, dying to know more, but they had enough sense to read my face and know that their questions were not welcome. Jeremy patted my shoulder ineffectively and tried to smile encouragingly at me. Rachel hugged me tightly and whispered that everything would soon be all right. I relaxed under their attention and almost broke down; it felt so good to be held by someone, anyone. But fortunately for my dignity, I remembered myself in time and pushed Rachel away muttering meaningless words along the line of “I’m all right”.
Dianne and Joe must have reached someone with a radio; the rangers were expecting to find a situation out of the ordinary. They walked up to the solitary rock with practiced nonchalance and resolute professionalism. I told them, in the briefest of statements, something of what had happened. They asked few questions but the younger man returned to the radio in his plane to request a police diving team to search for Craig’s body while the older remained with the lonely tent on the rock.
Chapter 23
Day 11: Late Evening.
Arms laden with bread, milk, and cheese scooped up at the corner store, a week’s worth of mail, my suitcase and the newspaper, I struggled to fit my key into the lock. For some unknown reason the door swung open first time and I stumbled gratefully into the embrace of my home.
Dark and quiet, smelling as if no one lived here, it didn’t offer much in the way of a greeting. Dropping my load in a heap on the entranceway tiles, I stumbled down the hall and into my bedroom. With great joy I cast off the still slightly damp sweatshirt and shorts and ripped off my ripening underwear.
I stood under the steaming shower for a long time letting the warmth of the water seep right through into my bones.
Stepping gingerly out of the tub, I dried myself in a thick, thirsty white towel, exactly as I had imagined I would on that first day of the storm. I wrapped my appreciative body in a terrycloth robe and twisted what little there was of wet hair up into a turban on top of my head.
I had settled into the couch with the much-abandoned Victorian mystery and a cup of cheerful steaming hot chocolate when the cheerful peal of the doorbell had me grumbling back to my feet.
My business partner, Wayne, filled the tiny entranceway clutching a huge bouquet of flowers under one hairy arm (a bouquet that appeared to have been picked surreptitiously from someone’s carefully cultivated garden), and a bottle of lovely Australian Shiraz under the other.
“Heard you had a bit of a rough time up in the wild-wild north.” He smiled.
No one would mistake Wayne for a handsome man, with his nose broken more times than probably even he could remember, balding in unkempt patches, nose and stomach living remembrances of numerous visits to the bars and the donut shops. But he was a welcome sight to me.
I stepped forward to greet him with delight and started to gather him into my arms and my home. He was my best friend, as well as my partner, and he had seen me through a lot of tough times.
But they couldn’t contain their giggles and I caught glimpses of Blue Jay sweatshirts, high-top running shoes, baseball caps, and scruffy jeans behind his bulk and my two sons p
eeked out from behind the hedge facing the road.
I screamed with joy.
They ran towards me in a flurry of arms and legs and delight. I swear they had doubled in height since the last time I saw them.
I gathered them both close and hugged them so tightly I finally had to let go because I was afraid that I would squeeze the life out of them. I ushered everyone into the house. Wayne went into the kitchen in search of a corkscrew. Brian jumped up and down on the sofa; never had he met a spring that was his match.
“Can we get pizza?” Thomas asked.
“We sure can, buddy,” Wayne said, coming back out of the kitchen, bottle and two brimming glasses in hand. “With anything and everything you want on it.”
I took the offered glass and drank deep. “How on earth did you manage?” I asked nodding toward the boys, now arguing furiously over the merits of pepperoni and extra cheese, verses sausage AND ham.
“Nothing like the exaggerated reports of one’s premature death to make your long lost love wallow in fond remembrance of the dearly departed.” He grinned, displaying cracked and discolored teeth. The perfect accompaniment to the broken nose. He looked tough, but looks could be deceiving. Wayne’s parents had both been University English Professors. He actually spoke like that all the time.
Ignoring the glass, he took a swig straight from the bottle.
“I got the call that your group failed to return to the starting point when expected and outlining the severity of the storm. So I called your beloved ex, myself.”
I snorted. Fortunately the boys didn’t hear.
“He fairly chewed himself raw with worry while you were missing, you know.”
I took another sip of the wine. Delicious. And snorted once again. “I’m sure he was totally overcome.”
“Believe it or not, I think he was. He called me back right away. First we heard that your group was lost in the storm, then we got the extremely promising news that there had been a death, but no one was saying who had died.” He coughed and without asking permission (which would have been denied) lit up a cigarette.
