Muskie Attack (An Up North Adventure)

by Moore, G. M.

  “Yeah, I know. There’s no TV,” Corbett replied.

  Dell and Hugh laughed heartedly at that.

  “No, no. Not because there’s no TV. Well, at least I don’t think it was because of the TV,” Dell chuckled and tousled Corbett’s dark brown hair.

  As they walked back to the lodge with Hugh still in tow, Uncle Dell told Corbett exactly what happened to each of his wives.

  Wife number one left after her second winter. So much snow fell that the Everses couldn’t see out of the lodge’s windows or open the front door for weeks at a time. Peninsula Road, along with others in the area, became narrow tunnels of snow. Residents attached six-foot-high bicycle flags to their cars in order to see oncoming traffic. That season the Minong area recorded about two hundred inches of snow—more than enough for wife number one to head south.

  Wife number two fell victim to a friendly fly infestation the summer of her fifth year at Whispering Pines. Dell explained that the flies were just part of nature’s cycle, sent to control a growing population of caterpillars. The insects were eating away at the surrounding foliage, and it was nature’s way of stopping them. That cycle occurred every ten years or so. It was no big deal. The flies wouldn’t bite, but they did have a nasty habit of regurgitating where they landed. Hundreds of vomiting flies covering her from head to toe were enough to send wife number two packing.

  Uncle Dell learned a little with wife number three. He took her to Florida for the winter, and with the friendly flies still dormant, he didn’t foresee a problem there. However, he also didn’t foresee wife number three’s intolerance to insect bites. The summer months of June and July proved to be her undoing. Deer flies, stable flies, no-see-ums, mosquitoes, and other bloodsucking arthropods kept her body covered in itchy red welts that never seemed to go away. She incessantly sprayed herself with insect repellent. It was no help. She covered herself from head to toe with netting. No help. She finally refused to step foot outside. Still, no help. When her bite-riddled ears swelled to the size of red peppers, she could stand no more and hightailed it out of the North Woods.

  “And I’ve been happily single ever since,” Dell concluded. “Wisconsin is all I need. The cool, damp mornings; the sun not fully setting until after 9:00 pm; the clean, star-speckled night sky.”

  “What about winter?” Hugh asked. “You still up here all winter?”

  “Oh, no,” Dell replied. “I spend winters in Florida.”

  It was now dusk, and Dell was getting Corbett settled in at the lodge. He took Corbett through the kitchen to a small hallway where Corbett’s suitcases and gear were stacked. The hallway had three doors leading off it. To the right was Uncle Dell’s office, to the left a spare bedroom, and straight ahead a bathroom. Corbett picked up one of his bags and started to carry it into the spare room.

  “Hold up,” Uncle Dell said and grabbed Corbett by the shoulder. “That’s not where you’re sleeping.” He took a few steps down the hall, stopped in front of the bathroom door, and pointed up. “I thought the loft might suit you better.”

  Corbett hadn’t noticed the ladder running up the wall right next to the bathroom door. Looking up, he saw a square hole cut in the ceiling.

  “Go on up. Check it out,” Uncle Dell coaxed. “There’s a light switch down here and one up there.”

  So Corbett flicked on the light and started slowly, slowly up the ladder, one rung at a time.

  “Wait,” Uncle Dell called out, throwing a bag over Corbett’s shoulder. “Take something with you. Once you get up, I’ll pass the rest of your gear.”

  Corbett climbed up just enough to poke his head through the square opening. He quickly looked around like a gopher just popping out of its hole.

  “Cool,” Corbett said as he finally hoisted himself up into the room. Now this I’m going to like.

  The small room held only a bed, a chair, and a table—all made from birch tree logs. Two large, screened windows filled opposing walls and offered views of Lost Land Lake’s Whispering Pines Bay on one side and of the woods on the other. What Corbett found the most interesting about the room was the array of mounted fish and old lures that decorated the walls and peaked ceiling. Corbett would sleep every night with a four-and-a-half-pound walleye over his head.

  A loud thud caught Corbett’s attention, and he turned to see that one of his bags had just been flung into the room. Corbett ran over to the ladder to help Uncle Dell get the remaining bags up.

  “What do you think?” Dell asked.

  Corbett grinned. “It’s awesome, Uncle Dell.”

  “Good, good,” Dell said. “Now get settled in up here and get to bed. There’s work to be done tomorrow, starting with filling in some of those potholes.” He headed down the ladder, then stopped and yelled up, “You can meet Pike tomorrow. It’s going to take the two of you, I think.”

  Corbett leaned over the hole in the floor to ask, “Who’s Pike?”

  “Tomorrow,” Uncle Dell said. “You’ll find out tomorrow.”

  Out on the Lake

  An eerie film of fog covered the bay outside Corbett’s loft window. The day was beginning in typical fashion for northern Wisconsin: overcast and drizzling rain. Not many fishermen braved the waters this early morning. Lost Land Lake sat quiet except for a few distant boats. A family of ducks meandered its way along the bay’s shore. The mother and eight ducklings paddled along in a row, swimming around or under the docks that poked out from the shore and into the lake. The ducklings occasionally broke order to dive for food. Heads dipped down. Tails shot up. Frantic ducklings would then race to catch up with the rest of the family. A school of baby catfish caught one duckling’s attention, and a chase ensued. The young duck playfully paddled after the fish; he dove and missed, dove and missed, paddled farther out, dove and missed, and then dove and missed. Finally, noticing his family had reached and was about to pass the next dock, the duckling left the school behind.

  Paddling fast, the little duck tried to catch up to his family, but a quick tug on his webbed feet stopped him short. Then, a second more forceful tug pulled the little duck under water. He bobbed back up, squawking as loud as his lungs would allow. Up the shoreline, his mother turned at the sound and squawked loudly back. The duckling frantically flapped its small wings, fighting to stay above water, but the pull beneath was too strong. The duckling went under and vanished.

  A fearful quiet filled the bay as the water’s surface rippled with movement. The mother duck, sensing danger, scurried her family out of the water and on to the shore.

  A long, rust-colored fin broke the water’s surface for a moment—and then was gone.

  Meet Pike

  It was late morning, and Corbett was up in the loft unpacking his suitcases. He found that the birch table doubled as a dresser with shelving hidden behind a fabric skirt. A mirrored medicine cabinet where he put items such as his toothbrush and comb hung just to the left of the loft’s ladder. He had opened the windows, and a nice breeze blew through the room, billowing out the curtains.

  “Hey! You! … Up there!” came a yell from outside. “Hey! Come on!”

  Corbett went to the window and looked down to see a tall, athletic-looking boy standing impatiently with his arms crossed. He was wearing a bright yellow and orange tie-dyed T-shirt with a decal of a flying eagle emblazoned across the front and camouflage shorts that hit just below his knee. Tied on his head was a black bandana decorated with skulls and crossbones. Tufts of sandy blond hair stuck out from underneath it. Corbett looked down at his dark blue polo shirt and khaki shorts. He definitely didn’t fit in Up North. And he definitely didn’t want to go anywhere with this boy he figured had to be Pike.

  Uncle Dell told Corbett all about Pike over breakfast. Although it was obvious Uncle Dell thought highly of Pike, it also was obvious to Corbett that his own thoughts had been right: this boy was trouble. Plus, the two of them had nothing in common.

  Unlike Corbett, indoors was not the place eleven-year-old Pike McKendrick want
ed to be. He’d grown up fishing, hunting, and camping around the lakes of northern Wisconsin. Uncle Dell said he had the spirit of an adventurer, which tended to get him into trouble—a lot.

  “That boy went in search of a tributary stream off Lost Land Lake a week or so ago,” Uncle Dell recalled with admiration. “He discovered it on an old map of the lake and had to investigate. It turned out not to be much of a stream. It was more of a shallow, winding bog.”

  While navigating a kayak through the tangles of fallen trees, grasses, and wild irises, the story went, Pike had spotted a frog. Very froglike himself, he’d leaped from the kayak to pursue the small creature. Very unfroglike, his feet had gotten mired in the muck. He’d sunk calf-deep before his grandpa, who had accompanied him on the outing, was able to pull him out. Pike made it safely back to his kayak, but one of his shoes did not. It was sucked off his foot by the soggy black goo.

  “Was his mother mad!” Uncle Dell exclaimed with a chuckle. “She sent Pike and his grandpa back to retrieve it, but even the claws of a pitchfork couldn’t dislodge the missing shoe. Or maybe they were in the wrong spot?” Dell shrugged. “The bends and curves of a bog all begin to look alike after a while. The shoe is still somewhere at the bottom of that so-called stream.”

  This seemed to be a typical adventure for Pike and for those having the misfortune of accompanying him, Corbett feared.

  “Pike’s got a way of getting people—except his mother, of course—to do things,” Uncle Dell explained. “An exasperated sigh, a roll of the eyes, and an impatient ‘Come on. Just do it’ usually does the trick.”

  Pike’s family owned The Happy Hooker, a bait, tackle, and convenience store located on the banks of Lost Land Lake. Fishermen would boat over or drive in off County A for supplies or the latest fishing news.

  “It’s a real family business—everyone pitches in,” Uncle Dell said.

  “So why does Pike work here and not at The Happy Hooker?” Corbett asked.

  “Let’s just say Whispering Pines suits Pike a little better,” Uncle Dell chuckled and told Corbett why.

  Running The Happy Hooker was supposed to be a family affair with Pike and his older sister, Gil, becoming employees as soon as school let out. Gil took to operating the cash register, processing fishing licenses, and taking grocery orders right away. Pike, on the other hand, did not take to any of these tasks. He was easily distracted. Plus, he complained incessantly about being bored. So, his parents moved him off the front desk and over to bait, which they thought would suit him better. And it did. The problem was, it didn’t suit many of the customers.

  “Folks never knew what they would run into back in The Happy Hooker bait room.” Uncle Dell shook his head in amusement at the thought. “Whatever Pike caught and wanted to keep—turtles, frogs, snakes, suckerfish, you name it—ended up in the bait room or in its tanks. You should have heard the yelps, cries, and screams from customers.”

  Corbett grimaced. He was sure he would have been one of the yelpers.

  Pike, it seemed, also couldn’t keep his hands off the bait. He constantly played with the minnows, leeches, grubs, and worms. He thought nothing of carrying an assortment of live bait around and showing it off to squeamish vacationers. The end of Pike’s Happy Hooker career came when a banker from Duluth left the store with an escaped leech firmly attached to his sandal-clad foot.

  “The commotion and hysteria that man generated.” Dell snorted his contempt. “Well, that was it for Pike. So, like your mom, the McKendricks asked me to take on Pike here. They couldn’t have him go unsupervised all summer, and I need the help.”

  This was Pike’s third summer helping out at Whispering Pines, and from what Dell said, both thought they were getting the better end of the deal. For a weekly allowance, Pike cleaned the fish house, raked up the swimming area, helped with garbage collection, mowed the grass, mopped off the docks, and did any other chore Dell could come up with.

  “For Pike, I think it’s like summer camp,” Uncle Dell explained. “The chores really don’t take that long, and then he can fish, swim, and explore the woods all he wants. He likes hanging out with the guests, too. There’s always someone to go fishing with around here. What’s not to like?”

  Corbett grimaced again. He could think of a few things.

  “Hurry up!” Pike yelled. He was waving at Corbett to come down. “Dell is letting us take the cart!”

  Corbett looked around until he spied what used to be a golf cart. It now looked like a mini-jeep, beat-up and painted army green. The teenage workers at Whispering Pines had left their mark on the cart over the years, covering it with bumper stickers and decals from across the country and around the world. One sticker was never touched by another or covered in any way. It stretched across the hood and read, “Escape to Wisconsin.” Dell had gutted the cart’s rear and turned it into a bed for hauling items. Today it carried a bag of sand, a bag of gravel, and two shovels.

  “I’m driving,” Pike called out. “Let’s go!”

  So Corbett reluctantly descended the loft’s ladder to find Pike, now seated behind the wheel. He climbed on to the passenger seat, and before he could voice any objection, they took off.

  “We’ve got one of these, too,” Pike said as he struggled to keep the wheel straight on the bumpy road. “But I never get to drive it,” he sneered. “My sister—she’s fourteen—always does.” Then he hesitated as if he’d forgotten something. “Oh, yeah, I’m Pike.”

  “I’m Corbett.”

  “I’ve never heard that name before. It sounds very serious.”

  “It’s a family name. My dad has it; my grandfather had it,” Corbett replied. “I’ve never heard of anyone named Pike, either.”

  Pike smiled slyly and nodded. “My dad’s kind of a hippie. Has to name everything after fishing. He’s crazy about fishing. I mean my sister’s name is Gil. So, what’s your last name?”

  “Griffith.”

  Pike nodded, looking deep in thought. “That’s good.”

  Corbett shot a glance at Pike. Glad you like it, he thought to himself sarcastically.

  As they drove past the pond Corbett had seen the day before, he noticed that large mound was still in the water.

  “Hey, what is that?” he asked, pointing to the spot.

  “That’s a belly up beaver. It’s been there a couple of days.”

  Corbett felt his stomach flip-flop. “I thought beavers were little. That’s huge. So, they’re just going to leave it there?” he asked, slightly disgusted by the idea.

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Pike shrugged, not seeming to see what the big deal was. “I think it’s so big ’cause it’s bloated.”

  “That’s gross.”

  “Hold on!” Pike quickly warned, as they hit a pothole that hurled them off their seats and almost out of the cart.

  Corbett couldn’t believe he was riding around with this crazy kid in this crazy golf cart. He surprisingly liked it though. “That was fun,” he exclaimed, laughing.

  The two smiled at each other mischievously.

  “Too bad this cart doesn’t go faster,” Pike said.

  “Yeah,” Corbett agreed and then pointed. “There’s another one.”

  So down the road they went, weaving to hit potholes instead of weaving to avoid them and yelling out “Whoaaaaaa!” along the way.

  “I think this is far enough,” Pike finally said as he pulled the cart to a bumpy stop. “From here, we’ll work our way back. Dell said he’d ask the Heffners up the road to take care of the rest.”

  Filling in potholes, Corbett found, was hard work. His dark brown hair stuck in clumps to his forehead, and sweat ran down his face as he shoveled load after load of gravel onto the road. He wished he had a bandana like Pike’s and made a mental note to ask Uncle Dell about getting one.

  After several breaks and a few exploratory trips into the woods, Pike and Corbett could finally see the culvert and pond again, which meant they were almost back to the lodge.

 
“I say the first thing we do when we’re done is jump in the lake,” Pike said as he parked the cart at the side of the road.

  It sounded like a great idea to Corbett.

  He was wiping off his forehead with the tail of his polo shirt when movement near the pond up ahead caught his eye. Something wasn’t right.

  “Hey, Pike. Look. That belly up beaver is gone.”

  “What?” Pike asked, looking up from his shoveling and over to the pond. He jumped up and down to get a better look. “That’s weird. Where’d it go?” He dropped his shovel and began walking toward the pond. Corbett followed. Pike suddenly stopped short in the middle of the road and threw out his arm, forcing Corbett to stop short as well.

  “Hey, what’s wro …” Corbett started; then he saw what was wrong.

  A bear. A very big bear was dragging the dead beaver out of the pond and up to the road.

  “Wha, wha, wha what do we do?” Corbett stammered.

  Pike shrugged. “Hope he doesn’t see us?” he whispered.

  Too late. The bear, with the beaver firmly in its mouth, turned its head to stare directly at them.

  The boys gasped and stood paralyzed in the road.

  “What do we do?” Corbett repeated anxiously.

  “I think you’re supposed to intimidate it. Try to look big and scary.”

  Corbett started to raise his arms, but Pike quickly stopped him.

  “Maybe that’s for mountain lions,” he whispered, uncertainty in his voice. “I get them confused. One you’re supposed to scare off, and the other you’re supposed to slowly back away from.”

  Corbett simply stared at Pike, fear growing in his eyes. They were going to be eaten alive. He knew it. They were going to die!

  Pike finally made a decision. “OK, here’s what we do. Let’s start backing up and try to get to the cart.”

  As the boys began to slowly step backward, the bear dropped the beaver, stood on its hind legs, and let out a roar.