by Peter Geye
I stood at the bureau for a long time, looking at us. When I could bear it no longer, I turned my gaze out the window, at the river curling into the trees and rocks. I stared at the river for many minutes. As I did, my reflection came into relief on the glass, and I saw my face suspended over the river. Crying. I hadn’t even noticed I was. And I thought of Harry crying into the snow.
Had it been necessary for him to go into the borderlands, for the two of them to have gotten lost up there, so that we might be together? Did the moment when he finally came to me depend on all that had happened up there? And if so, what did that say about our love?
AFTER THAT MORNING in the swamp—under the falling snow, with Harry’s weeping—came a week of days and nights surrendered completely to the wilderness.
Each morning broke in fog, and Harry and Gus decamped in silence. Always in silence. Harry was no longer checking the maps. They hardly ever spoke. The sound of their paddles scooping through the water was symphonic.
The first of those mornings they canoed across a shallow lake and found a stand of spruce. The trees were draped with old-man’s beard that hung white, covered with the morning’s frost. Gus passed beneath them thinking that ghosts guarded the world, and he felt all the safer for it.
They paddled streams that turned to swamps and back again to streams without giving up their currents, without a tree in sight above the brown reeds. On the smaller lakes, even the water lilies had gone brown alongshore. When they found the woods again, the only green thing left among them was the lichen and moss. The pines had gone to black against the wan light.
Another morning they woke on a beach, and when Gus walked around the curve of the shore for a piss, he found a riot of paw prints in the sand. He followed them to where they ended in bloodstains and the wolves whose tracks they were had caught their prey. A deer’s four hooves was all that remained.
They portaged through woods and on trails and over granite ridges that had been fractured. Crossing one of them, Harry said, “Wasn’t that last cold snap these rocks could no longer stand. No, sir, the cold that busted them came a thousand years ago.”
It was the first thing he’d said that day.
Each morning came later, each evening sooner. The moon rose after dark, low and bulbous through the trees, as golden as if it had been dipped in bourbon. The sun rose in turn the next morning and provided as little light or warmth as the moon it replaced.
They slept under their tent with a fire burning at the open end of the canvas. Some nights they’d spoon together for the body heat. It snowed twice overnight. On starry nights, Gus could see his father’s sleeping face as though it were in broad daylight. Harry slept untroubled, which troubled his son greatly.
There were log-jammed creeks where the water had stopped altogether, only to rise again as if from the soil itself a quarter mile down the streambed.
The stands of aspen and birch were white as bones.
And one day’s walk was through burnt-over timber. Miles of black, and only the white clouds above to break it. Their boots were coal-black when they took them off that night. “I guess it’s the devil’s stand of timber we crossed today, eh, bud?”
Gus couldn’t shake the blackness from his mind. “I guess it’s all the devil’s timber up here.”
Harry laughed out loud and said, “Good thing we don’t go in for that hocus-pocus!”
It was the last thing he said until days later. The birds were all gone. There were no chirping insects. No rustling leaves left on the trees. Gus found conversation with their snapping campfires at night instead.
The last of those nights he woke with a start. Their fire had died and his teeth were chattering, and when he stepped out of the tent to restoke the flames, he saw the pines on the opposite shore backlit by their own celestial fires: the aurora borealis, shimmering orange and red across the starlit heavens.
Surely, he thought, there was a way to burn with them.
THEY PADDLED through the morning and past lunchtime and still there was no end to the lake. Now the wind was stiff in their faces, the sun falling over their port shoulders. Gus looked toward the shore. He felt like they were being watched.
The cliffs and skerries they’d left behind that morning had given over to drab rolling hills. Between their aimlessness and the difficult paddling and their general and persistent silence, they had not yet spoken that day.
Gus, trying to change the subject in his mind, finally said, “Think we’re in Minnesota or Canada?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I’m hungry.” Gus nearly had to shout to get his voice above the wind.
“Eat some jerky.”
“I want a steak.”
“A steak?”
“And some spuds.”
“You’ll need a beer, then. And a crock of corn. While we’re at it, how about a slice of rhubarb pie for dessert?”
“And a gallon of strong black coffee.”
Harry looked ahead. “The coffee I could give you,” he said.
Their canoes drifted together and they both idly surveyed the lake.
“Dad, what are we going to do?”
“We’ll paddle until we find a campsite.” Harry dipped the tin cup he’d tied to the canoe’s thwart into the lake and brought it up for a drink.
“The sun’s gonna set in an hour.”
“Then we ought to quit lollygagging.” He dipped his cup for another drink and took up his paddle again.
“We’re in real trouble, aren’t we?” Gus said, and though he’d felt the certainty of this for some time, saying it aloud made it entirely more bothersome.
“We don’t know trouble yet.” Harry nudged his son’s canoe away. “Hell, we haven’t even met trouble’s third cousin.”
It was no relief for Gus to hear his father’s voice after so many days of its absence.
—
An hour later the shore to their right opened into a bay bulwarked by a beaver lodge. They paddled ahead as the sun settled behind them. The calm water was an improvement over going hard against the relentless wind.
Harry said, “There’ll be someplace to pitch our tent on this bay.”
“I thought the same thing.”
Gus scanned the shoreline. The forest stood in ranks. Cedar trees on the far shore, letting into a shadowy muskeg. Birch trees behind them. Maples ahead. Tall, rugged white pines where they steered their canoes.
“That could be rice over there.” Harry pointed the tip of his paddle toward the cedars. “I used to do some ricing with my old man and Mr. Riverfish. I bet I could dust the cobwebs off the old brainbox and harvest us some. It’s about the right season, if I recall.”
“We aren’t short on rice,” Gus said. And they weren’t. Rice and oats and buckwheat they’d packed in. Dried fruit. A sack of onions and another sack of potatoes. Sugar. Ten pounds each of oleo, salt, and coffee. Four jars of peanut butter. Six tins of crackers. Chocolate bars. More than a hundred pounds of food split into two packs. They’d hunt and fish for the rest of their provisions.
“There’s a spot,” Harry said, pointing now to a moon-shaped beach of granite in the shadow of the white pines.
When they went ashore, Gus said, “I didn’t think we’d ever see this much open ground again.” A dozen towering pines were scattered across what was otherwise a clearing the size of a highway intersection. In contrast to recent campsites, this was a royal find. They wandered from tree to tree, looking up at the canopy of heavy boughs as though at a cathedral ceiling.
“We’ll have no trouble finding a place to raise our tent here, eh, bud?”
“I guess not.”
Harry looked out over the lake for a clear view of the sky. “We have half an hour of light left. You collect firewood, I’ll get the tent up?”
“Sure.”
Gus took the hatchet from the pack and walked along the perimeter, gathering fallen branches, the wood in such abundance that he felt like a thief. He brought the firs
t armful to a spot between two trees eight feet apart, giving them both a place to rest their backs while they sat fireside. He kicked the duff clear, exposing a natural bowl in the granite, and piled the firewood beside it. He collected another several armloads and built a fire.
Harry joined him beside the flames after the tent was up. “It’s my turn to make dinner, isn’t it?”
“I can eat jerky.”
“Instead of steak and potatoes.”
Gus smiled.
“Naw, go catch us a fish to fry up,” Harry said. “I’ll get a pot of rice going.”
Gus went straightaway to the canoe, untied his rod from the thwarts, grabbed his tackle box, and stepped down to the shoreline. He tied a spinner onto his line and studied the falling darkness. Already there were stars flickering into view. He could hear the fire crack behind him.
But for the expanse of the water before him, casting into those stars shining off the surface seemed not so different than fishing the lakes he frequented around Gunflint. He wished he had a bucket of minnows and the right jig, for there surely were walleyes out on the ledge he’d noticed as they peeled their canoes ashore. But he’d have to make do and hope the spinner worked.
After five minutes his father came down to the shore and waded into the water to fill their pot. “Thought you’d have three lunkers by now,” he said, squinting up and down the shore. “What are you using?”
“A spinner,” Gus said, and cast again.
“Throw a Rapala right off the end of that log.” He pointed to their left and turned back to camp. “A silver one.”
Gus waited for him to reach the fire, then bit the spinner from his line and took a Rapala from the tackle box, tied it on his line, and cast it up the shore. The lure landed only feet from the log. He kept the tip of the rod extended as far offshore as he could. Before he’d reeled it halfway home there was a strike. He set the hook and stepped waist-deep into water to fight the fish, holding his rod high above his head. After a couple runs he landed the fish by its gills, a pike as long as his forearm even as its tail curled up into a beautiful J.
—
They ate fish and rice, scrubbed the pots and plates when they were finished, and sat in the fire’s warmth, drinking coffee, an hour later.
“I lost my compass,” Gus said.
Harry took a sip of his coffee. “You did?”
“Way back on that river. When I went under.”
“What good have our compasses been anyway?”
Gus reached for the coffeepot and refilled his cup, then stood and walked around the fire to refill his father’s. “I don’t understand, Dad.”
“You don’t understand what?”
“Whatever the hell’s happened.”
“Well, we’ve gotten in up to our necks. That’s what’s happened.”
“Obviously. I’m wondering what we’re going to do about it.” He went back to his side of the fire and sat down against the tree. “We should’ve turned around when you said to.”
“Nope. Not true at all. I was a coward for saying that.” Harry sat up. “When the sun comes up, I’ll make a good, long study of the maps. This lake here is enormous. The biggest we’ve been on since Kaseiganagah. It shouldn’t be impossible to figure out which one it is and work from there.”
“We’ll never find that fort. No chance.”
Harry looked at him for a long time with what Gus thought was maybe regret or apology. He’d felt that same expression settle over his own face hundreds of times over the years, trying to convey to Sarah or their children the depth of his feelings without having the words to express them. But that night, he mistook what was on his father’s face for irritation. “What?” he said.
“You’ve been tremendous up here, bud. You kept us going when I wanted to quit. I had no idea you were so strong. That you could work so hard. If we keep it together, we’ll be fine. If we don’t find the fort, we’ll find another place to winter. Hell, we’ll build a wigwam if it comes to that.”
“A wigwam?”
“Sure, as a last resort. I only mean to say we’ll be okay.”
“A wigwam,” Gus said. “Wigwam.” Having nothing more to say, he moved toward the tent.
Harry, speaking to himself, said, “I’ll be to bed soon myself.”
—
He woke in the middle of the night. He searched the darkness for his father but realized he was alone. He watched the fire’s shadow dancing on the canvas, then fell back to sleep and woke again, hours later, to Harry’s snoring, so he unzipped his sleeping sack, pulled on his trousers and boots and sweater, and brushed the tent flap aside.
The world outside was perfectly still. A heavy frost had settled overnight, bleaching everything a brilliant white. The lake was still as glass except for a beaver’s wake along the far shore. It couldn’t have been more than twenty degrees.
Gus walked the shore with the little garden spade and a roll of toilet paper in a coffee can. Thirty paces beyond the canoes, he stopped and set the can on a tree stump, lowered his britches, and squatted, resting his elbow on the stump and watching the beaver across the bay. The thought occurred to him that he was still asleep and dreaming, but an echelon of late-migrating geese came gaggling overhead, and for the first time in days he realized which way was south.
It was then that he saw it: a shack sitting on a knoll among blueberry bushes and deadfall. He cocked his head and rubbed his eyes and looked again. The shack was still there. Cracked windows hung on either side of a door falling from its rusted hinges. A roof of wooden shingles was cloaked in moss, two steps smothered in ferns. The river-rock foundation was held together by ancient mortar, the chimney fashioned of the same materials.
Gus again tried to wipe the sight of it from his eyes. Still it remained. He took a cautious step forward. “Hello?” he called, as if some voyageur might emerge from the collapsing doorway. But no man had crossed that threshold in years. Without taking his eyes from the empty doorway, Gus shouted for his father.
—
Harry pulled the door free. The shanty filled with sunlight and they stepped inside. A mound of husked pinecones sat on the middle of the puncheon floor, but otherwise there was no sign of life. Gus and Harry looked at each other, then slowly poked around the shack.
It was fifteen feet square. Along the southern wall a single bunk not much wider than one of their canoes sat on four birchwood legs. There were two wooden boxes beneath it. On the opposite wall, a small woodstove occupied the hearth and a tin flue rose up the chimney. In lieu of a mantel, three empty shelves hung on the pine-board walls. On the ceiling joists timber planks were stacked neatly. They appeared to be old floorboards. There was no furniture save for the bunk and shelves. The whole place canted toward the water.
“My, oh, my,” Harry whispered. He clapped Gus on the shoulder and then pulled the boxes from beneath the bunk.
The first one held two wooden buckets and a length of coiled rope. In the second was a jar of eight-penny nails, a carton of shotgun shells, a useless pack of wooden matches, two dozen paraffin candles, a stack of composition notebooks wrapped in cellophane, and a small sleeve that held the yellowing pages of a Bible.
Harry removed and replaced each item and pushed the boxes back under the bunk. He sat there on his heels and began chuckling and then erupted into such a fit that he fell on his rump, which only made him laugh more. When he collected himself he said, “This’ll do better than a wigwam, eh?” He stood still, laughing, and wiped a tear from his eye.
Unlike his father, Gus could not see the humor in their finding the shack. He felt more lost than ever. “This isn’t Fort le Croix, is it?” he said.
“No, it sure isn’t.”
“What is it, then?”
Harry took another look around the shack. “I don’t know, bud.” He wiped his eyes again and went to stand beside him. “I don’t know how this place got here or how we did, either. But it’s a good thing we found each other. I’m ready to admit that
now.”
“Now that what?” Gus said.
Harry put his arm around his son. “Now that we’re here.” He gave him a shake. “Now that we’ve discovered this place.”
“We didn’t discover anything.”
“Have you ever been here before?”
“Of course not.”
“Then call it a discovery.”
—
After they moved their gear into the shack, after they swept it out and took a more complete inventory, after they inspected the roof and floor and surveyed the area around it—finding the remnants of a garden now overgrown with creeper—they stood outside, looking at the shack. From the thigh pocket of his army pants, Harry removed a flask and unscrewed the cap and offered it to Gus without a word.
Without a word in return he took a short drink. All that fire and flavor after a month of fish and jerky was heavenly, even as the whiskey made him gag. He handed the flask back.
His father raised the flask toward the house. “To wintering,” he said, then took a long swallow. Then another. “Goddamn.” He took a third pull for good measure. “A hell of a reward, eh, bud? Those voyageurs used to haul rum by the barrel to their winter forts. I figured a couple sips wouldn’t hurt us.”
“Let’s not talk about voyageurs anymore.”
“Fair enough.” Harry held out the flask again, but Gus shook his head, and he screwed the cap back on. “We can finish this with dinner.”
Now it was Gus’s turn to cry. As he stood there, the whiskey still hot in his gut, his relief came at him furiously. There would be no more paddling. No more cutting through woods and swamps and rivers barely as wide as their canoes. They were home, even if they’d never known where they were headed.
Harry pulled his son into his arms and held him while he got rid of his tears. They’d be his last in the borderlands, Gus would see to that.
GUS RECALLED how the nights so often ended, pacing around the kitchen cradling his babies, finally drowsing after their fitful, colicky sleep. Sometimes he would nearly nod off with them while standing there looking out the window, watching the first reach into the darkness, twice seeing a fox cross the deck, stop to lift his nose toward the bird feeders, then jumping down onto the snow-covered yard. Usually it was his daughter, Greta, in his arms, Tom being quick to sleep. Gus could still see her eyes fluttering shut, and feel the heaviness of his eyelids and the lightness of her against his chest.
