Muskie Attack (An Up North Adventure)

by Moore, G. M.

  Pike grabbed Corbett’s arm. “Don’t run,” he ordered. “I know that much.”

  Corbett had no plans to run. His legs felt like Jell-O. This bear definitely did not look like a big black dog. He thought if he didn’t pee his pants, he was going to pass out for sure.

  Just then a ferocious growl filled the air. To the boys’ shock, it didn’t come from the bear. It came from inside the culvert.

  “What was that?” Corbett asked, his knees buckling.

  The bear obviously didn’t want to find out. It dropped back on all fours and ran into the woods, leaving its beaver lunch behind.

  The boys watched the bear take off.

  “Run for the cart,” Pike yelled, and he and Corbett bolted down the road and into the cart.

  “I really wish this cart went faster now,” Corbett gulped. They had to drive past the culvert and whatever was inside it to get back to the lodge.

  “So do I,” Pike said, “but I think we should go slowly and quietly—try not to disturb whatever’s in there.”

  Corbett nodded in agreement, but then leaped out of the cart. He quickly grabbed a shovel they’d left lying in the road and leaped back in.

  “Good idea,” Pike said, smiling.

  They slowly approached the culvert, their eyes glued on it, Corbett holding the shovel in a death grip. And there, standing in the culvert’s opening, head cocked toward the road was … a dog—an ordinary mutt.

  Pike laughed in relief. “It’s a dog!” he exclaimed, as he stopped the cart and ran down to meet it.

  “Don’t!” Corbett called after him. “It could be dangerous and mean.” Corbett wasn’t relieved, and he wasn’t leaving the cart.

  “He doesn’t look mean. He’s wagging his tail.” Pike bent down and started petting the dog. “Hey, boy. How’s it going?” Pike looked up at Corbett. “Can you believe this scrawny little dog scared off that big ol’ bear?”

  Corbett looked back at Pike. He couldn’t believe that Pike had obviously forgotten the trauma they had just been through.

  Pike stuck his head in the culvert and growled, “Grrrrrr, ruff.” The dog joined in, and their growling barks echoed loudly through the pipe. Pike laughed and laughed. “Dumb bear.”

  “That’s great,” Corbett announced impatiently, still gripping the shovel. “Can we get out of here before the dumb bear comes back for its lunch?”

  “All right, Grif. Come on, boy,” Pike called for the dog to follow him. “Can’t leave our hero behind, right?”

  “Whatever. I don’t care. Let’s just leave.” Corbett paused then, furrowed his brow, and asked, “What did you call me?”

  “Grif.”

  The dog jumped in the cart, lay down, and put his head on Corbett’s lap.

  “Look! He likes you!”

  “Great. Now go!” Corbett ordered. “And my name is Corbett, not Grif.”

  “Whatever you say, Grif,” Pike teased.

  Back to the lodge they went, with a new friend in tow and with a story that brought Dell and several of the Whispering Pines guests back to the culvert to remove the bloated beaver and to fill in the remaining potholes. The boys got the rest of the day off to tell and retell their story. Everyone at Whispering Pines wanted to hear firsthand of the boys’ adventure. Each time they retold the story, their stunned audience offered them a treat. Corbett had never felt so included in his whole life.

  Later that afternoon, Corbett sat with the guest phone stuck to his ear, eagerly waiting for his dad to pick up. He’d been on hold for a while now.

  Pike stuck his head in the lodge’s lobby door. “Hurry it up,” he called impatiently. “I’ve got a can of pop for you, and the Coopersmiths are making us sundaes,” Pike continued and nodded for Corbett to come on.

  “I want to tell my dad what happened,” Corbett answered. “He’s never gonna believe I came face-to-face with a bear! He’ll want to hear this. I’m sure of it.” But just then the line went dead. “I’ve been cut off,” he said and hung up the phone. “I don’t know why I bother.” Corbett felt his whole body sag. He blinked back tears.

  Pike started talking, quickly. “Hey, no worries, right? So, you tell your dad later.”

  Still hanging in the doorway, he nodded for Corbett to come again and flashed a big grin. “We’ve got Cabin 7 and Cabin 9 waiting to hear our harrowing tale. And I think I smelled blueberry pie coming from Cabin 11. I know they went blueberry picking this afternoon.”

  Pike raised his eyebrows up and down enticingly. Corbett laughed at that and headed for the door, smiling, the tears forgotten. He took the can of pop from Pike.

  “I’m going to be as bloated as that beaver before the day’s over!”

  Out on the Lake, Part II

  Bobby Lawless took off his jacket and shoved it into a plastic bag sitting on the bottom of the boat. He pushed up his shirtsleeves and adjusted his baseball cap. The morning fog was burning off the lake as the sun struggled to break through the hazy sky. It was warming up, and the scattered rays of sun twinkling on the water held promise of a beautiful July day. His brother, Blake, sat by the motor sipping coffee from a thermos. A couple of loons swam effortlessly a few yards away. The two men had been muskie fishing on Lost Land Lake since about 6:00 am. The elusive fish had so far evaded them. On average, it could take an angler more than forty hours to catch the sleek, tube-shaped fish. Bobby cast his pole again, sending his feathery, six-inch-long lure flying through the sky.

  “Do you see that?” Blake asked, pointing out from the bay they were anchored in toward the middle of the lake.

  “See what?” Bobby replied.

  “That eagle,” Blake smirked. “It just tried to pick something up out of the water—something big, too big. It had to drop it.”

  Bobby strained to see what his brother was pointing at. “Man, you’ve got good eyes. Yeah, I see it.”

  Blake cranked up the motor. “Reel in. Let’s have a look.”

  The eagle wasn’t giving up easily on what it had hoped to be breakfast, and it tried to snatch the object out of the water again. Even the boat didn’t frighten the bird away. It stayed, circling above.

  “Would you look at that,” Bobby exclaimed as the boat closed in. “That’s got to be a walleye.”

  “No way,” Blake cried. “Look at the size of it.”

  Bobby poked at the fish with his hand. It bobbed over, revealing a mammoth, milky white stomach. “Geez! Something bit it. Those are teeth marks.”

  He grabbed the net and scooped the fish out of the water. With its weight, it took two hands. The eagle let out an angry cry above.

  “Sorry,” Bobby said, looking apologetically up at the sky. “Man, this thing is ugly.”

  Blake cut the idling motor and got up to examine the fish.

  It was grotesque looking, deformed by its size. The walleye measured twenty-six inches in length with a girth of thirteen inches and weighed about fifteen pounds. Its gills were still red, which meant it had been dead only a short time.

  Blake shook his head in disgust. “Can you imagine catching that thing? What a waste.”

  “No kidding. But the bite marks, Blake. What could have done that?”

  They both stared at the marks circling the walleye’s belly. Obviously, there had been a violent struggle. Several of the puncture holes were ripped. This monster of a walleye had fought for its life against something very big. But what?

  Bobby looked out across Lost Land Lake.

  “Let’s get this thing over to The Happy Hooker and get some answers. No one is going to believe this.”

  Names, Nicknames, and Mischief

  The dead walleye the Lawless brothers brought in intrigued Corbett and created quite a buzz at The Happy Hooker. Fishermen were coming from all around to see the enormous fish now lying in state in one of the store’s freezers. Pike’s father planned to ship the fish off to a taxidermist for mounting after the ruckus died down and the Department of Natural Resources finished examining it. What killed th
e walleye was still a mystery. Corbett had no interest in fishing until he saw the walleye and its mouthful of thorny teeth. It looked prehistoric. And whatever had bitten it, he was sure, was bigger and meaner.

  Just that morning, Corbett had begged Uncle Dell for a tackle box like Pike’s—except, of course, Pike’s would have a lot more gear in it. After Corbett had picked out his own box and a few shiny lures from The Happy Hooker, he and Pike sat on the lodge’s screened porch sorting through their treasures. Pike was giving him a lesson on lures.

  “This is a surface lure,” Pike explained, holding up a bright blue fish. “I call it the Blue Bomber. Bass can’t resist it. They’ll hit it the minute it lands in the water.” He stopped for a moment. “And northern pike. They’ll hit it, too.”

  He picked up another lure.

  “This,” he said proudly, “I like to call the One-Armed Bandit. It’s my best walleye lure.” Pike held it up, his eyes glowing with admiration.

  “You need a new one of those. That’s taken a beating,” Corbett said. Only a few scratches of black paint remained on its head, its feathery body was tangled, and the arm that held its single silver spinner was bent.

  “And then some,” Pike agreed. “I’ve got a new one somewhere.” He rummaged through his tackle box. “Here. You can have this one, but not the One-Armed Bandit. It’s got the scent.”

  “What scent?” Corbett asked.

  “The scent of walleye weed. It calls to them.”

  Corbett rolled his eyes, and the two boys laughed. Corbett was learning that the fishing world was full of tall tales and teasing.

  Just then, the boys heard a bark at the back door.

  “Our hero is still here?” Pike questioned excitedly. He leaped up and opened the door, and in bounded a medium-sized dog with black, wavy fur. The dog had flecks of white above each eye and on his chin. It looked like he had two bushy eyebrows and a goatee, features that made him appear wise yet mischievous.

  “I thought Dell was sending him to the pound.”

  “That’s what he said. But he keeps putting out food and water. And yesterday, when we were in town, he bought a big bag of bones at the meat store.” Corbett shrugged. “I guess we’re keeping him.”

  The dog sat down next to Corbett, raised his bushy eyebrows, and barked again.

  “You hungry?” Corbett asked, scratching the dog behind his ears. The little guy was actually growing on him. He got up to fill his bowl.

  “We should name him, Grif,” Pike called after him.

  Corbett came back on the porch with a bowl full of dog food. “Would you quit calling me that,” he said, exasperated. “The guests are starting to call me Grif now.”

  “Well, Corbett is just so serious,” Pike explained, “like you should be wearing a suit or something. Horace Coopersmith, you know in Cabin 3? Everyone calls him Coop. That’s where I got the idea. Your last name Griffith shortens to Grif. It’s perfect.”

  “Well, my father doesn’t like nicknames,” Corbett said firmly. “He thinks they’re silly, and so do I.”

  Pike shrugged. “OK. But I can’t control what other people call you. So, what about him?” he asked, pointing at the dog, who was now lying down warming himself in a patch of sunlight.

  Corbett returned to his tackle box. “I don’t know.”

  He picked up a large torpedo lure with propellerlike spinners at each end and began twirling them as he thought about a name.

  The propellers caught the sunlight that streamed in and sent it dancing across the porch. The movement startled the dog, and he jumped up and began barking and chasing the traveling light.

  Pike picked up a lure and joined in the light show. The two boys laughed so hard their sides started to ache.

  “I guess we know what to call him now,” Pike said.

  “Yep,” Corbett nodded, “Spinner!”

  Pike and Corbett were still on the porch when they heard two people talking and walking in their direction. Pike signaled Corbett to hush and lay low—the better to eavesdrop. Corbett recognized the voices as those of Vera Goodner from Cabin 5 and Uncle Dell.

  “You know I don’t interfere in other’s business,” Vera was saying, “but it’s just not right.”

  Pike and Corbett quietly rolled their eyes at each other. Everyone knew Vera loved nothing more than interfering in other people’s business.

  “That Cabin 4 is jugging. Practically every night! And with that lady from the DNR boating around,” she said this with slight disdain, “well, you could get in trouble.”

  Corbett looked at Pike. Pike shook his head dismissively and whispered, “Dell won’t get in any trouble, but Taylor Wilson in Cabin 4 will.” Pike held up his hand and rubbed his thumb across his fingers. “Big fine,” he mouthed. Then he whispered again. “It’s the DNR I’m worried about.”

  Obviously, so was Uncle Dell.

  “So the DNR’s been out on the lake?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Vera said sternly. “Not stopping anyone. Just looking around, it seems. A lot of gadgets in the boat. But that’s not the problem here. The jugging. What are you going to do about that?”

  “OK, Vera, I’ll talk to him. Don’t worry. And thanks for the information.”

  Corbett stared at his tackle box, deep in thought. Why was the DNR patrolling Lost Land Lake? And why didn’t Uncle Dell know about it? He knew everything. Maybe there was more to this monster walleye than was being told?

  “Oh, and Dell,” Vera called, interrupting Corbett’s thoughts. “That fish house needs a good cleaning. Cabin 10 had a run on crappie—must have caught over sixty of ’em down at the dam.”

  Just then a loud bang on the side of the porch startled Corbett. He and Pike jumped.

  “You hear that, boys?” Uncle Dell yelled.

  They did.

  “So, what’s jugging?” Corbett asked as the two boys made their way to the fish house.

  “It’s a lot of fun but illegal.” Pike explained: “You take fishing line and tie hooks along it.” He demonstrated with his hands. “So instead of one baited hook, you got a lot of baited hooks. Then you tie empty milk jugs to both ends and throw it in the water overnight.” He paused and looked at Corbett. “You know, so it floats?” Corbett shook his head to confirm he got it. “The next morning you pull in your line and, ta da, you’ve got fish.”

  “Why is that illegal?” It didn’t make any sense to Corbett. The object of fishing was to catch fish, after all, and jugging sounded like a great way to do it.

  Pike shrugged. “Something about the sport of it. Not being fair to the fish, I guess.”

  Corbett shrugged back. It still made no sense.

  Jill and Jenny Garfield from Cabin 10 were just leaving the fish house when the boys approached. The girls carried colanders stacked with fish fillets and swung their fillet knives as they walked. Corbett had little use for girls, but the Garfield sisters were different. Not only were they pretty and in high school but they baited their own hooks and cleaned their own fish. That was a wow in Corbett’s book. He hadn’t mastered either of those skills yet.

  “Hi, guys. Sorry,” Jill said. “The fish bins are overflowing. We’ve been cleaning fish for hours.”

  “Yeah,” Jenny chimed in. “Our dad cut and ran—went up to the cabin for a Coke and never came back.”

  The girls exchanged a look.

  “I tried to leave, too,” Jill said sheepishly.

  “But I wouldn’t let her,” Jenny finished. “No way I was going to get stuck in that smelly fish house by myself.”

  “You’ve got some nice fillets here,” Pike said, examining the contents of the colanders.

  Corbett pointed to Jenny’s cheek and grimaced. “There’s something on your face.”

  She reached up and flicked her cheek with her forefinger. “Scales,” she replied annoyed. “They get everywhere. Did I get them all?”

  Corbett nodded and then asked, “How many crappie did you catch?”

  The girls looked li
ke they’d just performed surgery. Their sweatshirts were splattered with blood.

  “We’ve got fifty-three here,” Jenny answered. “But we caught more—started throwing them back.”

  “It was soooo much fun,” Jill gushed. “We were pulling them in left and right.” She turned to Corbett. “You should get Dell to take you to the dam, Griffy. Or you can come with us next time.”

  Pike snickered. “He doesn’t like to be called that.”

  “Called what? Griffy?”

  “Well, Grif, Griffy. Anything but Corbett.”

  “Oh, I like Griffy,” Jill said, smiling at Corbett.

  “So do I,” Jenny agreed. “It’s cute.”

  Corbett’s face felt blistering hot.

  “He doesn’t li—” An elbow in the ribs stopped Pike mid-sentence. “Ow.”

  “It’s all right.” Corbett smiled back shyly. “You can call me Griffy. I don’t mind.”

  “Good. You let us know about the dam. Both of you,” Jill said. “Our dad won’t care if you come along.”

  “See you guys,” Jenny said and gave them a quick wave.

  The girls walked away, heading toward the freezer house where they would finish packaging their catch.

  “Hey, Griffy,” Pike teased and rolled his eyes. “At least I called you Grif. Geez, a couple of girls say you’re cute, and bam, it’s Corbett who?”

  “They didn’t say I was cute.”

  “Whatever, Grr-if-fy.”

  “Shut up,” Corbett/Griffy commanded.

  “Well, what about your dad?” Pike asked.

  “I don’t know.” Corbett/Griffy shrugged. “He’s not here. My name, my call. Right?” he asked with doubt.

  “Right.” Pike nodded his approval.

  From that moment on, the name Corbett was forgotten. Everyone, at least in the state of Wisconsin, called him Griffy, and he made no objection.

  A few minutes later, the boys stepped into the fish house. “Ugh! It stinks in here,” Griffy cried out. He looked around the small structure. “This is creepy and so gross.”

  “What?” Pike asked. “It’s not that bad.”

  The fish house sat on the banks of Lost Land Lake. Made of brown clapboard, it looked like a miniature cabin. The screened windows encircling the narrow building buzzed with flies and mosquitoes. Scalers, knives, skinners, and sharpening stones hung haphazardly around the room. The sink and wooden slab countertop were stained with blood. A large, bushy brush specked with fish scales and oozing slime sat to one side. A bare lightbulb surrounded by strings of novelty lights in the shape of sunfish hung from the ceiling. This touch of whimsy looked very out of place in a room that, to Griffy, resembled a torture chamber. The Garfield sisters had obviously cleaned up—the countertop had been wiped and sprayed down—but this place was beyond help. And the smell. Whew!