

Firestorm and other Pieces of Wind

by Christopher Dutton

All contents herein are the sole property and copyright of Christopher Thomas Dutton and are not to copied except for individual personal use. Quotations are allowed for other written, video or audio works with written permission. No commercial use is allowed except with written permission of author. Alteration of contents is not allowed. For further information or commercial requests contact the author at chrisdutton56@yahoo.ca

Front cover photography photo called Angry Island is the sole property of Jerry Schmanda and www.algonquinphotography.ca

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Thanks

Special Thanks to Jerry Schmanda for the gift of the stunning photograph called Angry Island which was used for the front cover of this book. Jerry is a very talented Algonquin photographer as well as a manager for Algonquin Outfitters. His work can be seen at The Algonquin Outfitters Lake Opeongo store and, as well, at his online photography site at www.algonquinphotography.ca

Thanks also to Brenda Green, Ron McIsaac, Stephanie McTaggart, Lynne Palmer who were once again my editors, word checkers, consultants, readers and shippers as well as providing support and encouragement throughout. Thanks again so much for being there.

Dedication

Dedicated to Brenda Green... Forever my love as forever long as forever is... in that place of heaven where souls walk in pairs.

Table of Contents

Story Title

Firestorm

Big Jim

Up and Down the Lake

Johnny Martin

The Strange Case of

William Gully

POW
Firestorm

Elizabeth Turner was tired. She had worked a double shift yesterday at the store to compensate for the switch she had done with the other girls to afford the next seven days off.

Then she had to grocery shoplast night with the list she had written up. The list she had for this camping trip with her thirteen-year old daughter Sarah.

A canoe trip in Algonquin Park. She hadn't been there in how long? Ten years? Since her and Robert went car camping at Two Rivers with two year old Sarah.

After that, Bob had switched careers. Real Estate. Couldn't go far from Ottawa or as long. So they had camped locally.

They. Right. As if. He might help set up. Might. He might show up the last day to pack up. Might. Mostly drive back and forth every day. Or maybe just come for an afternoon. Not stay overnight. Some meeting, big and important, the next morning. Bigger and more important than his family.

She shook her head. 'Get out of this, Lizzy. That old crap. He's gone. We've moved on. Focus, girl, pack!'

She packed a little more, getting the gear in its various 'category of piles' like she had done so many many times before as a councillor years ago at a girl's camp in Algonquin. Then it was a fun chore. Maybe 'cause she had been younger. Maybe because all the young girls were there...helping, chattering, swapping clothes and boyfriend gossip and asking her a thousand questions about the upcoming trip. Where were they going? How long is the longest portage? Is it all uphill? What are the thunderboxes like? How far back in the bush are they? Will we see moose? Bears? Boys? Are we going near a store? Is there a phone there? Do I really need a sweater and a jacket like my list says?

On and on and on. Same questions from thesame kind of eager, excited faces. Year after year. And she never grew tired of it. It was just too . . . well... contagious!

She sighed. Now she's packing alone with a thirteen year old in the next room with an i-whatever glued into her head but nonetheless singing along at a pretty irritating volume.

"Sarah!"

Nothing.

"SARAH!!"

The singing stopped. "What?"

"Can you please help me pack, at least, go over the checklist with me?"

"Whatever."

Oh that word. At least it wasn't done with that up-down-syllable totally rude inflection...what-eV-veeer...thing that all the kids did today. It was even on the fridge on the list of Don'ts that Elizabeth had posted from a Dear Abbey column. Amongst the ten Don'ts was: Don't assume your parents are rich. Don't treat your room like it's the wasteland for Middle earth. And Don't say What-ev-veer when you mean pardon me or I'm sorry but I disagree or Can we discuss this further or many other English sentences of constructive communication.

And right beside it Sarah had written in big letters: WHAT-EV-VER!!!.

Sarah came out to the kitchen; scanned the heaps with the same look that Elizabeth gave when entering Sarah's room.

'Exactly the same look' thought Elizabeth. Indeed Sarah had become a'carbon-copy' Elizabeth though right now a couple of inches shorter than five foot six.

Same slight but muscular build, same slender face, same wide oval green eyes, same slightly turned nose. Even the hair was the same, an auburn brown though Elizabeth's was now tinted with a bit of grey and Sarah's had a wide streak of white. That was her birthday present two months ago after much, much tedium of arguments.

They started on the list, Elizabeth in the center of the pile, Sarah on a chair, pencil in hand, one ear plug still stuck in her head, music still drifting out of it.

"Two sleeping bags?" asked Sarah reading from the list.

"Check."

"Two mattresses?"

"Check."

"Little camp stove?"

"Check."

"Gas cans?"

"Check."

On from rain gear into the clothes.

"Rain jackets. Two?"

"Check. Check."

"Two pairs of underwear each? Wait! Only two? Really? For five days?" The pencil hovered.

"You can wash them as we go along. Plus its three really with the pair you'll be wearing up there."

"Oh God." came out of Sarah with a grimace. The pencil moved. "Check then."

Clothing done, they moved onto the food list.

"Macaroni. Three packs?"

"Check."

On and on down the food list till finally...

" Toilet paper?"

"Crap."

"What, Mom?"

"Literally crap. I forgot it. And we only have one roll left in the house. I'll have to go back out to the store."

Sarah shrugged and answered " Why not stop and get it tomorrow? On the way?"

Elizabeth leaned back and looked at her daughter in her 'Mother knows best way' " The idea of a checklist is to make sure you have everything BEFORE you leave. Otherwise essentials get forgotten and a trip could be real uncomfortable...even ruined, my dear."

Sarah returned her mother's 'I know best look' with an equally expressive ' I am now as smart as you look' and retorted " And the idea of a vacation is to BENNNDDD a little!"

Elizabeth sighed. "Fine. Just remember to put the checklist on the dash of the car to remind us."

"I will in a minute." Sarah left.

Elizabeth started stuffing all the gear, food into the canoe packs. Packs she'd kept for years wondering if they'd ever get used again. She'd never had the heart to let them go.

Maybe Sarah was right. Why bother? They had argued for a week over this vacation. Sarah had wanted to drive down to Wonderland. Motel it. Restaurants. Lots of rides and distractions. Take a friend too.

Elizabeth knew what all that meant though. She'd be the driver and the money tree. That wasn't so bad but there would be no talking. Real talking. Between the motel tv and the wifi and i-everywheres and the teenage chatter she'd never get any one on one with Sarah. Elizabeth wanted that badly.

This last year and a half with the job and extra hours and trying to hang onto the house and Bob never givin' them a goddamn cent, it was getting so her daughter was just someone in the house she threw food at at the end of the day. And argued with.

Elizabeth wanted to go to Algonquin to look for change. A change between her and Sarah. Or maybe in herself. She didn't know. She couldn't forgive. She knew that.

Bob. All the goddamn support for his business; then his drinking had got worse, then he quit booze but that lasted only long enough for the asshole to get hooked on cocaine or whatever. Then he finally runs off with some twenty year old or whatever thingy called Jess. And ends up shacked up with her with his parents. No job. No business. Just a no-support paying dead beat.

She still couldn't believe Jack and Emily, Bob's parents , had allowed that. She had thought they cared more about her, her feelings and their granddaughter than to do something like that. Take that asshole and his bitch in.

She gave her head a good shake. 'Stop it. Remember? This trip is about forgetting, not remembering. About building something new.' She remembered an old canoe guide in Algonquin who once told her "When I'm packin' for a trip, esp solo, I always try not to stuff any old bullshit or anger into my pack the night before. Don't really belong where I plan to go. Plus the weight of the damn canoe and food is already enough for these old shoulders."

Elizabeth shook her head again. 'Stupid old fart. But there was a truth there. And Algonquin does things. Not miracles but little things. Things that can change people or help them or something.'

Debbie. She remembered a fourteen year old girl named Debbie when she was a camp counsellor. Debbie stuttered so bad, it was so sad for her.

Lizzy would see her at the girl's camp, sitting with a group of chatterbox girls, Deb taking it all in, acting like she was a full part of it. They were all nice to her, never made fun, but the trouble was they all talked so fast that Debbie never got a chance. Sometimes a couple of words then someone would finish her sentence for her; not to be cruel but just because...well...they were all chatterbox girls.

Then they all went on a week and a half canoe trip. It was a long loop; good weather but long portages, lots of paddling.

Elizabeth remembered the second night. The campfire. Ten or eleven girls in that mellow 'we've done it' stage. Physically tired but not to the point of exhaustion. Just mellow...very very mellow.

No one chattering. Just the odd sentence about a moose or an extra steep hill on a portage.

Out of the fire shadows, Debbie spoke. Still with her painful stutter, but this time the chatter boxes were calm. Debbie finished her whole sentence. Later said another. And another. No real big thing to the world outside but likely the first time, socially, with her peers, that Debbie had got to do that.

The next couple of nights, the chatterboxes had more energy but there was still enough 'mellow out' for Debbie's complete sentences.

After the trip, talking to one of the girls, Elizabeth asked her what she had liked best.

"Its kinda strange" pig tails bobbed in reply "but I liked Debbie being able to talk. All the girls said so."

Elizabeth had teared up. She had thought she was the only one who had noticed.

It wasn't a miracle but it was what Algonquin did best. Give something to someone almost offhand, casually but nonetheless also, often, life changing.

Elizabeth and Sarah left Ottawa early the next morning heading for Opeongo to get their rented canoe. After that they planned...well Elizabeth had planned anyway...to drive further onto Cache lake and start the trip from there.

The list, of course, still with one unchecked row...the toilet paper...was still neatly folded, resting on Sarah's computer desk.

The drive hadn't gone well. Both were a little tired. Elizabeth from work and thinking too much; Sarah from getting an extra 'fix' of music, tv, tweets, facebook to hold her over a few days.

Elizabeth had started out talking about her memories as a camp counsellor. The trips. The wildlife. It had soon, however, degraded into a lecture about 'everyone pitching in with cooking, getting firewood, not whining about the rain or bugs or portages etc when Sarah pulled a plug from her ear and said in a very uppity-type tone " Mom, if you wanna play camp counsellor again lets wait till we get there ok? Till then can ya just shut up for awhile?"

Elizabeth was instantly furious. She pulled over off the highway and began a long lecture on respect and consideration and all her sacrifices for Sarah. While Elizabeth vented on and on, Sarah just stared at her, not saying a word.

Still mad, Elizabeth then gunned the car and with a spin of gravel got back on the highway. The sound of a horn and a passing motorist flipping her the bird reminded Elizabeth she had obviously not checked her rear view mirror before pulling onto the road.

To add insult, as the finger sped ahead of them, Liz heard Sarah say under her breath "I couldn't agree more, buddy."

At Opeongo, they got their permit only to be told that the weeks of dry weather had resulted in a complete fire ban. No camp fire.

"Adding even more to the fun" was Sarah's only comment at the desk.

They then went over to the outfitters to get their rental canoe. Elizabeth realized she had made a mistake and instead of renting a lightweight Kevlar she had booked a much heavier aluminum one. The outfitters didn't have any lightweights left. It would mean either waste a couple hours trying elsewhere to get one or double carry on the portages. She decided to stick with the aluminum.

"Whats double carry mean, Mom?" asked Sarah.

"Instead of one trip, we have to carry the packs over, then walk back and get the canoe. So if a portage is five hundred meters long, we actually do a kilometer and a half.

"Nice." was Sarah's reply but her face certainly said otherwise.

Canoe tied on, pop and chocolate bars bought, they got ready to drive to Cache Lake.

That was to be their starting point. Then down south through Head, Harness; west through Kirkwood, Bonnechere; north up through Porcupine, Ragged, Smoke; east through Little Island, Tanamakoon; arriving at Cache again in four days.

They had five days worth of food in case of delays. Plus Elizabeth hoped there would be time to walk up to Canoe lake from Smoke for another pop and chocolate bar fix.

She hadn't seen Canoe Lake in a long time; she wanted to stick her bare feet in it; see the dock where many many times she had went with the boat shuttle driver to pick up a new bunch of excited, gabby, wound-up camper girls.

The route too was very historic for her. How many times? Eight summers a counsellor or an assistant and a couple years before that as a camper herself. It had been her whole world from June to September. How had she lost such a thing as Algonquin in her life?

"Mom."

"What, Sarah?"

"We forgot toilet paper."

Elizabeth turned around at the Costello creek bridge and drove back to the store. Parked in the parking lot. Got out, went into the store. A minute or so later, Sarah saw her mother come out empty handed and go up the hill towards the washrooms.

A few minutes later, Liz returned and got into the car.

"Mom, what the heck are you doing?"

"What, dear?" said Elizabeth turning the ignition key all the while a big grin on her face.

"Uh, under your shirt?"

"You mean these?" Liz gave her now very ample bosom a couple of pats with her hands.

"Yeah, those."

Elizabeth giggled and reaching into her shirt pulled out two flattened rolls of toilet paper. "And that, my dear Sarah is how we used to walk around at camp to pretend we had a set of 'big ones'!"

"Jesus, Mom." was all Sarah could think to say.

"Language, my dear lady, language. Besides I didn't have room for four in my pockets." Elizabeth pulled out two more rolls, one from each of her cargo pants pockets.

"But, Mom, you stole those!"

"Well, perhaps. I went into the store but the kid said they had none. So then I asked him 'Well, what do you use, then? Marshmallows?' Then I went up to the washroom and...well...scavenged these as we used to say at camp when we would raid the kitchen after hours.

Besides the Park regulations specifically say not to damage the flora so in a way 'borrowing' these means we won't hurt any trees by pulling off their leaves! I would think that following that importantrule supercedes any petty theft considerations, wouldn't you?"

Sarah had to laugh. "You should have been a lawyer, Mom."

"Hey, I am not that bad a person, am I?!"

The drive to Cache Lake was a lot more lighthearted with even Sarah enjoying the hills and lakes from the highway. Elizabeth...well...she literally had tears in her eyes, remembering so much; bus trips with a great load of packs and a trailer of canoes behind; late night returns from Huntsville or even Barry's Bay from a day off with some of the other counsellors. Her parents driving her up in late May to begin her summer job.

Her parents. She missed them too. So very very much. They had both died in a`terrible car crash five years ago. They had adored and loved Sarah so much. Like Jack and Emily had too. Bob's parents. She put it all out of her mind. No Bob here. Rule number one, there is to be no god damn Bob here.

Gear and canoe unloaded, car locked up, they were ready to head out.

Sarah tossed her paddle into the canoe to get into it from the dock. It made quite a loud bang on the aluminum hull.

"Hey, missy! You have any idea how old that paddle is?"

"Sorry."

"Well, ok. It's just that my dad, your grandfather got me this pair when I was seventeen."

"Ok, ok, Mom. I'll be more careful" Sarah was in the canoe and picked up the paddle. She brushed her hand across its flat surface. She added "Besides, I was only testing it."

"Testing it for what? To hit a moose?"

"No, to hit you. I owe you one."

Elizabeth looked at her daughter with real sincere remorse. " You're right. I was a little hard on you this morning. on the road. Sorry."

"Naw, that's ok. It wasn't for that. I owe you one for that marshmallow joke...you know...at the store.

"How come?"

"Cause I will never be able to eat smores again!"

They both laughed and pushed off, their paddles moving in unison, pushing the canoe south on Cache Lake.

The first day's portage and the night camp was pleasant. Elizabeth was very pleased how Sarah easily took to the tasks at hand.

Once Elizabeth got the pack set on Sarah right and the tumpline adjusted, her daughter went down along the portage in a steady determined stride without complaint.

Elizabeth would take the other pack and follow. Then they would come back for the canoe and life jackets and paddles. The canoe, even with the paddles tied on andsome padding as a yoke, was definitely a chore.

Elizabeth was way out of shape for carrying this kind of weight. Her legs and back were great with all day in a store; moving and lifting stock but her shoulders...another story. Nothing replaced this kind of exercise...though Sarah did grinningly suggest that her mother try carrying the vacuum cleaner around on her shoulders for an hour whenever she cleaned.

It was hot and humid that night but mother and daughter slept well, too exhausted and too mellow to notice any discomforts like sloping tent sites or the odd stray mosquito.

Supper was a wonderful mix of boiled weiners, frozen bagged baked beans, cheese and, wonders of all, a third of an apple pie Elizabeth had frozen and then carefully packed as it was Sarah's fav.

They had reached Head Lake around three pm and decided to camp there rather then get to Harkness too late. Camp at Porcupine was scheduled for day two, then a short lazy day to Ragged, then the third day would be Smoke. They would paddle up it, walk over to see Canoe Lake, then backtrack a little to camp on Little Island for the fourth night.

Elizabeth figured if they had to they could skip the camp on Ragged and go straight to Little Island but she hated to miss Canoe. She had so many memories there. Even the little paddle incident with Sarah at Cache had reminded her of stuff.

Like when she had first met Bob. There was always an ongoing competition between the male and female counsellors especially around the skills of camping and paddling. Good hearted but quite intense at times. One contest was that two 'combatants' faced each other, each standing in a separate canoe. Winner was the last boy...or girl...standing!

Elizabeth was in the 'finals', down to the wire as they say and then she was paired up against a long lean lanky arrogant fellow with wild red hair and an exasperating look which obviously regarded Elizabeth as an easy push over into the lake.

It didn't finish that way. Rather, the end came with a ,perhaps, slightly over zealous swing from Elizabeth's paddle to the side of Bob's head. He was knocked out...out of the game, out of the canoe and out of consciousness.

Fortunately life jackets were worn as a precaution though more for gladiator padding than any concern for safety. (After this, hockey helmets were added...or as they were called at Canoe...Lizzy Lids.)

Only Elizabeth's acceptance of a first date would compensate for how guilty she felt looking at Bob's now lumpy head grinning up at her on the Canoe Lake dock.

There was a lot of that stuff buried inside Elizabeth. She didn't know if it would be good or bad to feel it all there..esp with her daughter there...but she wanted to try. Didn't know why.

So she would like to see Canoe Lake again if all went well. Sometimes plans go a little awry in Algonquin, with weather and all, but being on Porcupine tomorrow would help.

They didn't make it. Though the portages were short, there was a heavy westerly wind which really slowed their paddling down. Perhaps, too, a little too much 'go' the first day had caught up with them and bypassed the first day's enthusiasm.

At four pm, they were on Bonnechere Lake and decided to quit.

Strangely for July, they had seen only one other canoe so they figured they weren't going to 'bump' some other campers at a campsite. Perhaps it was the heavy dark looking clouds which crept in with the evening's dyingwest wind and then hung there which had caused trippers to cancel. It was very hot, very humid, the sky black and still.

The storm did finally break that evening. Not the one above, however. The one below. Between Elizabeth and Sarah.

The portages and hard paddling hadn't given them much opportunity to talk the way Elizabeth had envisioned. So as she cooked their macaroni, she thought she'd get things going...just light stuff...so she started talking about all the great camping she had done with her parents as a kid.

Sarah listened for awhile but finally interrupted with "That's all fine for you, Mom. So you got some memories with them. I can't remember much of them. I'm sorry but I would at least like some more memories with Grandpa Jack and Nana Em.

Elizabeth was hot, tired and didn't want Bob or Bob's entourage crashing into her Algonquin right now.

"Look, Sarah, we've discussed it. Over and over before. Closed subject. No way. They choose your father and his floosey over us. Their choice. Not mine."

Sarah pressed on with her point anyway. "But why can't I see them. It's because if I visit them I'll see Dad there too isn't it? And his ...whatever ... Jessie...isn't it? You can't get past that, can you? What do you care anyway?"

Elizabeth took the macaroni off the stove to let it cool. Turned off the stove. 'Damn' she thought 'I wanted to boil water for tea.'

"MOM!"

"What, dammit?"

" I asked you a question."

Elizabeth stared at her daughter, then started wiping some stove soot off her hands onto her pants. She looked down at her hands then back at her daughter "Care? Why do I care? Because I care and they don't, Sarah. They don't goddamn well care about us. That's why I care. 'Cause someone has to. Care. You know. Like rent. And bills . And groceries. And that laptop for your birthday. And the new tires for the car. To get to work. And the goddamn washing machine leaking. And the sixty hours at work. And where's the goddamn grandparents?

Caring for their baby Bob and his...bitch. That's where.

They all turned their back on us, Sarah. (Elizabeth felt a twinge of guilt, of a lie here because they had called, left messages but she had never returned any) You don't run after people like that. You don't spend your life constantly wiping their spit off your face. They don't care, Sarah, so I care. About you. Just you. No one else. The rest of them can all go to hell for all I care!" Elizabeth stood up; walked towards the cooling macaroni.

"Shit, Mom, why are you so bitter? Lots of people split up, lots of my friends have step-parents. Lots of my..."

Elizabeth interrupted Sarah almost with a shout, stepped closer to her, her finger jabbing towards Sarah. "DON'T you ever, ever use the word step-mother near me. That slut ruined our lives, she doesn't deserve any other name but whore!"

"Whoa, take a pill! It's not all her fault."

Elizabeth glared at her daughter "Then exactly whose fault is it? Who exactly walked away, deserted his home and family and never glanced back? Me? Huh? Is it mine?"

"Jesus, Mom, would you quit..."

Elizabeth yelled "And I told you to quit goddamn swearin' at me. One more time and so help me you'll be grounded for a month!"

Sarah jumped up and shouted as loud as she could "AWWLLL RIGHT! I WONT SWEAR!"

Elizabeth backed off a foot. "Ok. You...you want some macaroni?"

Sarah replied, not as loud as before but just as angry, "No! I don't want sh...I don't want any! I want to know exactly why I can't see my grandparents and my father just because you are so...well...so bitter." Sarah almost spit the last word out.

"Father? Where? Did I lose a year or two from my memory? What father? What vacation did he ever show up on? Longer than an hour? How many birthday parties of yours was he at? How many volleyball, basketball, soccer games? All those swimming' lessons, Sweetie? You must remember how proud he was; it must have been great for you to see him there every time you got a new certificate. Do you remember? 'Cause I sure as hell don't!"

Sarah had tears in her eyes. "Ok, maybe he wasn't the best but he is my father. I love him. And Grandpaand Nana too. Why do you have to tear it all down with you?"

Elizabeth glared at her daughter. "Love him? After all this? Her? And before? Don't you remember some of it? The drinking? The knocking me around? Then the money . Losing our nice home with the pool you loved. How can you love someone like that?"

" He didn't do all those things to me. Besides didn't you love him once? Before?"

A flood of memories came to Elizabeth's mind. Memories she could have chosen right there to share with her daughter. Like the paddle on the head story. Memories and stories of a Bob and an Elizabeth and later a Sarah that were beautiful and should be shared with someone. Someone should know about Bob before that Bob was all completely dead. Dead to her, Elizabeth.

Bitterness was hardening Elizabeth's heart a little more and more...day and night...those kind of memories...spoken out loud...well...they might melt it again...her heart...or shatter it.

Elizabeth was tired of taking chances again and again on Bob. For Sarah's sake. It had not changed anything. Again and again. It was easy to let this chance go by now.

"Sarah, it doesn't matter what was before. What matters is now. Now he's a bastard."

"No, you taking my father away from me, that makes me the bastard."

Elizabeth stepped towards the macaroni "I warned you, young lady. Your mouth just got you grounded for a month."

"Really?" Sarah's voice was cold, deliberate. "Well. How many months does this get me then...I WANT TO SEE MY GRANDPARENTS AND MY OWN FATHER, YOU BITTER OLD BITCH!!"

Elizabeth screamed back " AND I F%^KING SAID, NO!!" and she kicked the macaroni pot as hard as she could.

Seeing the meal scattered over the rocks, the pot severely dented, broke something in Elizabeth. Her fight was gone. Stupidly, with tears flowing, she tried picking up the dirt-speckled macaroni, trying to pick away the pine needles and debris from it.

It was her life really. Some things are worth gathering up. Some things are not.

Yet there she was. Stupidly on all fours; hands and knees; carefully placing each Bob, each one of her parents, each old dream, each hope, each Bob again, over and over; now dirty and sullied and placing them back into the dented pot she called...what?...home? Her life? Her emptiness? 'Cept for Sarah. Her hands were Sarah, her life was dirty macaroni and a damaged pot. Her Sarah...

Elizabeth looked towards her daughter but all she saw was Sarah's boots now outside the tent.

End of discussion. Elizabeth's favourite expression whenever her daughter disagreed with her. End of discussion.

As Elizabeth poured the macaroni into the lake and watched it sink between the rock crevasses below, she knew she could never be a good camp counsellor for Sarah. She had failed her. And failed herself.

Being a good counsellor you have to able to step back. To let people grow. Make mistakes. Let them learn. Expand. You're really only a safety net.

Elizabeth realized she wasn't a good safety net for Sarah. 'Cause the reality was, Sarah was her safety net. Emotionally. Sarah being there, as a child, helped Elizabeth keep safe. Away from the rest of her life. Not look at it. So long as Sarah remained a child.

Being a mother was different than as a counsellor. At least the kind of mother Elizabeth was becoming. The kind who had nothing else. The kind who couldn't let go. Not for their daughter's safety.But for their own.

Elizabeth remembered when, a long time ago, she would keep removing her hands from her daughter in the pool. Letting her go to learn how to swim. Shorter intervals then longer and longer.

Now her daughter was a life guard.

To that she added 'and what was Elizabeth now?'

All Sarah was asking for was some time, some love from some other people.

She shook her head. Elizabeth knew she didn't have the courage inside her to let go. Most of her heart was so hard, the only part that beat, that had life, was the heart she had with her daughter.

She packed up the food, hung it in a tree 'cept for a couple of granola bars each. She'd break a rule and eat them in the tent.

It was now dusk. She crawled into the tent, removed her boots, lay down on the sleeping bag.

She knew by a mother's instinct that Sarah had just finished crying even though she was quiet and had her back turned towards where Elizabeth lay..

Elizabeth turned on her head lamp, and looking over, placed two of the granola bars near Sarah's hand.

Then she laid back down, switched off the light. She wasn't hungry for her bars yet.

There was a silence for awhile 'cept a loon call a couple times. Then Sarah's voice spoke softly. "Mom?"

"What?"

"Can we go home?"

"You mean early? Tomorrow?"

"Yes."

Elizabeth thought about it. They couldn't paddle up Smoke if the west wind was bad again tomorrow. Not with Porcupine and Ragged too. Then three portages to Cache Lake. Suppose they could paddle to the north of Smoke to the highway then walk the fifteen kilometers back to Cache but what was the point?

If they just turned back and went east with their lighter packs they could definitely get to the car by six or seven pm at the latest.

Elizabeth had never, ever, over literally hundreds of trips, ever turned back. Delays due to wind or storms, yes. Alternate routes taken because creeks had dried up or portages had too many downed trees in spring sure...but turn back? Never.

If you planned to go from A to B to C, that's what you did. Maybe you might have to go A to B to D then C but that's what you did too. Built character. Taught that determination and perseverance...

Elizabeth shook her head at her own thoughts. 'Shut up, Elizabeth. What did it teach you? To persevere in your marriage? Determine the exact outcome of your whole life? Shut up, Elizabeth. You failed.

You failed but your daughter hasn't. She hasn't failed. She's just sane. She wants to go home. Let her. For once let your failures actually make someone else, at least, happy.'

"Sarah?"

"Yeah?"

"We'll go home tomorrow."

They didn't say anything more that evening. In a little while Elizabeth heard her daughter sleeping softly. She quietly reached over and removed the granola bars. Tossed all four outside far from the tent in case a bear did wander along. That was safer.

She could still, at least, be a little bit of a camp counsellor.

There was enough moonlight peeking through the clouds that she could make out the silhouette of her daughter's hair and head outside her sleeping bag.

Elizabeth reached out gently, touched it softly, stroked a few loose strands.

She marvelled again, as she often did, of how this DNA copy cat of her physically could be so different mentally. Or was she? Besides, did Elizabeth really want Sarah to think exactly like her, make decisions like her and, thus, have her life turn out exactly like Elizabeth's had?

'Different thinking yields different actions yields different results'. Wasn't that some dumb camp slogan from somewhere?

Maybe different attitudes do too. Elizabeth lay there, drifting , a few strands of her daughter's hair still in her hand.

'I wish I'd told her I was sorry' she thought...'but there is always tomorrow...'

Tomorrow came and Elizabeth had slept in.

Sarah had got up and made coffee and was now started on the porridge.

As Elizabeth sipped her java that Sarah had handed to her, she thought 'Now's the time to say sorry' but she was too ashamed. She decided to wait till later and just got up and started packing up the tent and stuff.

They then ate breakfast quietly, looking out at the lake or up at the heavy blacken clouds above them. The air, even this early, hung humid, hot and still.

"Think it will storm?" Sarah finally asked while they were loading the canoe.

"Maybe, but usually it's over quick when the clouds are like this. At least we are not on any big open water if lightening starts. We'll be able to high tail it to shore quick."

Just before they left, Elizabeth took a last look around and spotted the four granola bars. She picked them up and stuffed them into her cargo pants and got into the canoe.

They headed east. Elizabeth didn`t ask if Sarah had changed her mind. She did not want Sarah to think Elizabeth thought in any way that Sarah had failed. Herself or Elizabeth. Only Elizabeth had failed.

Not as the camp `leader`. Elizabeth didn`t give a crap about that stuff now. But as a mother.

She didn't know where or how it was broken. Inside her? Between them? Because of Bob? What?

Just go home first, Lizzy. Go home first. Then think.

With a dead wind, they made better time. Quietly paddling. Not talking much. Same on the short portages.

By mid-morning they were just reaching the end of Kirkwood Lake when heat lightening started.

Elizabeth spoke up as the canoe touched shore "Glad we are getting off the lake, Sarah. maybe it will finish before Harkness Lake" For some strange reason Elizabeth dreaded they would be delayed, or worse, stuck for another night. She just wanted to go home now. Safe.

Weird. She had never felt like that before. 'Getting citified I guess' she thought.

The wind had picked up. From the east. Getting stronger.

'Damn' thought Elizabeth. 'Figures. Never fails. Though at least they were going to head more north than east. And actually west again on Harkness.'

For some reason, probably tiredness, and other things on her mind, Elizabeth had them move the packs first down the seven hundred meter portage to Farley Lake.

The suggested rule was to 'Keep your canoe nearer to civilization than your pack' or in its shorter form 'Boats before Baskets'. In other words, move your canoe last if the lake you are leaving is the closest to civilization (ie help) than the one you are going to. And vice versa. That way if you sprain an ankle or break a leg or something, the canoe is already where you can paddle towards help than if you have to go back on the portage to retrieve it.

Dumping the packs, they grabbed their rain jackets out of the main pack and then headed back to get the canoe, life jackets and paddles. It still wasn't raining but lightning was certainly still around. Elizabeth hoped it would clear soon, the wind from the east was starting to come on strong. She could see it bend the tree tops above the portage trail.

The return trip with the canoe was a sweaty one for Elizabeth especially under the aluminum canoe on a day already very hot and sticky.

'Wish it would damn well rain' Elizabeth was thinking when they had gone about five hundred meters when there was a horribly loud crack and then a crash up ahead.

Sarah actually screamed and Elizabeth stumbled from the shock of the noise and literally threw the canoe away from herself to keep from falling.

It landed with a good bang. Elizabeth hoped there were no dents...well...any new dents anyway.

Sarah looked over at her mother, both still wild eyed, "Mom, what was that!? Was it the lightning?"

"I think so, Sarah. Remember that big huge pine right at the lake at the end of the trail? I'll betcha it got hit."

"Well, I'm sure glad it was now and not five minutes from now!"

"Me, too" answered Elizabeth. She started picking up the jackets that Sarah had dropped when the lightning had hit. "Well, kiddo, let's go and see if the packs survived. "

Sarah re-loaded, Elizabeth hoisted the canoe with a grunt to her knee then up on her shoulder.

They took a few steps, then Sarah stopped, sniffed hard and said " Mom, do you smell smoke?"

Elizabeth stopped, let the canoe stern lower to the ground. She sniffed too. "Yeah I think so."

Sarah looked at her mom " What dummy would make a campfire now?"

Elizabeth felt her stomach go very odd, a sick feeling of intuition. The lightning strike. And a strong wind coming from the east. Coming directly at them.

She was tempted to lower the canoe, walk ahead to check and see but Bob's father, Jack, had been a forest fire specialist. Told her lots of tales. How the fire could race across the tree tops pushed on by the wind, easily trapping men in minutes... the rain of hot embers and swirling smoke adding to the confusion... setting all the dry pine needles ablaze on the ground even before any lower tree branches were even starting to catch fire.

"Listen, Sarah, I think we'd better go back to the lake to be safe. Just in case. Help me turn the canoe around between the trees. Elizabeth tried to sound nonchalant but she wasn't sure it sounded that way.

As Sarah and her maneuvered the canoe to westward she heard Sarah shout "Oh my god, Mom! There's smoke for sure where the packs are! I can see it! Up in the trees! And maybe fire too! Why would it be up there?"

Elizabeth felt sick with fear for her daughter. "Sarah. Go! Go ahead! Now! With the life jackets. Get your t-shirt off. Put on your rain coat. And your life jacket. Don't lose your t-shirt. You might need it to for the smoke. Go ahead, I will come with the canoe but go! Go! Get to the water!"

Sarah started but she obviously was lagging to stay just ahead, keep in sight of her mother and the canoe. Elizabeth, in her haste to get Sarah ahead of the fire ...could she actually hear it now?... walked too fast, misjudged a loose rock and fell.

"MOM!"

Sarah rushed back to help her mother get the canoe off from on top of her.

"Are you ok? Get up!"

Elizabeth started to but immediately felt a very intense sharp pain in her left ankle. "Shit. My ankle. It might be broken. At least sprained." The pain had momentarily made Elizabeth forget the bigger danger growing, racing towards them. She swivelled her neck around. Thick smoke was definitely behind them, maybe even almost beside them. Was it her imagination or were there embers falling?

Elizabeth pushed her daughter away."Go dammit! Run! Go ahead. I'llfollow you in a moment, I promise. Just go!"

Sarah almost screamed at her mother, her fear for her blotting out any concern for her own safety, "NO!! I'M NOT GOING WITHOUT YOU! Here..." She tore out her little belt knife and cut one of the paddles loose " Here! Use this! To get up."

It helped. With Sarah's help, she could get up. Hobble.

Elizabeth nodded her head "Come on! Let's go now."

Sarah started then turned to her mother and said "Mom, Wouldn't it be better if we had the canoe? To get to that island?"

Elizabeth didn't know how long they might be in the water till help came. Ironically they could die from hyperthermia in the middle of a forest fire.

"It would but you can't carry it."

"I know but we can...or I can...drag it. It's all level from here to the lake."

Elizabeth thought a moment "Ok but if the fire gets any closer to us, we just run for it, ok?"

"Ok!"

Sarah grabbed the front tie-up rope on the canoe and made a dragging handle with it. Throwing the life jackets in the canoe, she yelled "Lets go" and starting dragging the canoe towards the lake, leaning into the rope like a longshoreman hauling cargo down a dock. Elizabeth hobbled along behind with her paddle crutch.

It was only five hundred meters but it seemed forever for Elizabeth, she was so sick with worry and fear for her daughter.

The smoke was getting thicker and there was definitely embers drifting falling down. Elizabeth kept checking the sky as she grimaced along step by step; the sky ahead had smoke but no treetops were on fire. It was certainly getting harder and harder to see up there though.

She'd had enough. It was too slow dragging the canoe. Too risky for Sarah. She was going to yell at Sarah to quit with the canoe, just grab the life jackets and run when she heard Sarah yell out " I see it! The lake! Mom! Come on!" The canoe 'surged' ahead and Elizabeth watched the stern of it disappeararound a corner of the portage.

A few more painful steps and now Elizabeth could see the blue green shimmer of the lake too. And fire in the tops above them and to the left of them as well.

'My god' she thought 'what has it been? One minute? Two? Five? Jack was right. He said it could go as fast as the wind. Literally. If the wind was thirty kilometers an hour then the fire could move thirty kilometers an hour at the treetops. How long for 500 meters then?

She heard the canoe bang a couple of times on some rocks.

"Mom! MOM! WHERE ARE YOU?!" Sarah came racing around the corner.

"Here, silly. Slowdown or you'll knock me over."

Sarah helped Elizabeth hobble over to the canoe.

As they were both getting their life jackets on, they heard two gun shots back down in the direction of the portage where they had come from.

"Shit, Mom. Was that gunshots? Is someone signalling for help?"

"Those weren't gunshots, Sarah. They were our gas cans. In the pack."

Sarah was about to reply when Elizabeth pointed to the flames now visible on a couple of treetops at the waters edge twenty or thirty yards meters away. "Come on! Let's go. And wet that t-shirt. Hang it around your neck in case we need them."

They got the canoe out. Elizabeth took her t-shirt off, put on the raincoat even though she certainly was sweating way too much to want to.

They both put on their life jackets then started paddling for the little island campsite part way down the lake.

They got to the island but didn't get out. Just sat and looked back at the terrible sight behind them.

Elizabeth had seen some pretty big bonfires in her time at camp and at college, even a barn on fire once but those were nothing compared to this.

Trees seventy-five to one hundred feet high, then double that for the height of the flames. Above swirled a dense black smoke, the air below the trees a fast moving dense gray wind of smoke and oxygen be pulled inward to rapidly feed the fire.

The air was already gettingthick around them, the wind didn't reach down to the lake surface as much as the fire was pulling air towards it, feeding its hunger. Enough wind did touch Elizabeth's face that she knew it was there and hopefully would help keep the air more breathable.

" The wind's your enemy and your friend. Like the fire" Jack had said once. "It can keep the smoke movin' away so you can breathe better but it can push the fire ahead too. That can trap ya."

"How can a fire be your friend Grandpa?" Elizabeth remembered little Sarah at a campsite looking up at Jack in absolute awe.

"Well, kiddo, you can use fire to control burn a line of say small trees, then put it out, then when the wild fire gets there, it stops. Got nothing to burn to keep going', you see." Jack reached into the bag of marshmallows. "And then we'd sit with thirty foot long sticks and cook marshmallows and weiners for lunch just like you're going' to cook for me, ok, kiddo?"

"Grandpa, really? Thirty feet long?"

"Now, why would I make that up?"

Elizabeth came out of her trance when Sarah asked " Mom? Mom?"

"What, Sarah?"

"I think I still seelightning through the smoke."

"Yeah, you're right. Let's get on shore but tie the canoe well. We may still need it."

'Geez' thought Elizabeth ' Whose the counsellor now? She'd never even thought of the lightning.'

When they had sat down under some trees Sarah asked "How's your ankle, Mom?"

"A little better" she said. It really wasn't. Elizabeth didn't even want to look at it. Didn't want to know if there was bad internal bleeding or just bruising or what. Just leave her boot on tight was the best first aid either way. And hope for the best.

For some reason looking at all the fire and smoke she wished she had a cigarette though. She hadn't smoked for years. Since she was pregnant with Sarah actually but right now...

Sarah interrupted again " Mom, look. Down by the marshy end of the island."

There in the water, looking as frightened as Elizabeth and Sarah probably did to them, was a cow moose and a female calf. They must have been either on the island or fled to it like they had.

" They're beautiful, aren't they, Mom?"

"Yes, dear, they are". 'Always the highlight of every canoe trip' thought Elizabeth. 'To see a moose. Never a forest fire, though. All those years camping and no one ever thought of its dangers. A burnt out island campsite maybe but no one thought of this. No one ever thinks of how fast things can change. End.'

'Stop that, Lizzy,' Elizabeth snapped at herself. 'God sakes we're only ten miles at the most from the highway and help. Someone will come soon but then it occurred to her that it was like a house fire. You can have a hundred neighbours gathered outside but if you are trapped inside it doesn't matter.'

Elizabeth looked out. The fire was easily racing down both sides of the lake now. it was getting even hotter where they sat. She took off her life jacket and rain jacket.

"Mom?"

"What, Sarah?"

"If the smoke gets bad, are we supposed to pee on the t-shirts? To breathe through them?"

Sarah was looking at the t-shirt in her hand with a definite look of disgust at the thought.

Elizabeth had to laugh.

"No, sweetie. That's for mustard gas. Like in World War One. Water is fine for smoke. Here give it to me. I'll get it wet and show you how your grandfather taught me to wear it so you don't need to hold it on your face. Keeps your hands free.

"No, I'll get it wet. You sit still."

Sarah walked down to the lake and dipped both the shirts in. Then wrung them out a little.

When she turned to walk back, she looked above her mother's head and real terror came across her face for the first time. She didn't speak, she just pointed at the island tree tops.

"Sarah, my god, what is it?"

Sarah stammered out a reply. "The trees, Mom. on the island. They're... they're on fire."

They hadn't noticed with all the smoke and debris drifting in the air from the mainland fire. Embers had gotten carried over and landed on the dry pine needles above them.

"Come on, Sarah, we have to get out of here. Let's get back in the canoe."

Sarah looked back over the lake sky "What about the lightning?"

Elizabeth shook her head "We'll have to chance it but I hope it's mostly moved on by now. I don't hear any thunder , do you?"

She hoped it was gone. Not only because they had to go out in the water again but also because no rescue plane could fly with lightning all around.

As she painfully stood back up, Elizabeth could smell, even taste, there was more smoke in the air five feet off the ground than at three. No doubt, it was getting bad. It seemed ,too, that there was no wind anymore. With the mainland trees fully burning, the smoke was closing in, descending down upon them, especially as the lake itself was surrounded by small hills.

They pushed out from the island, their jackets and life jackets back on.

"Do we really need these rain jackets on, Mom? It's so hot already."

" We might have to go in the water for awhile, Sarah. Then we'll need them on to keep warm."

Paddling out a bit, Elizabeth really noticed now the air was getting thick. They were already coughing a little so they wrapped their faces with the wet t-shirts. They used the neck hole over their nose like a bandit's mask; tied the arms in a knot behind their heads; tucked the rest under the collars of their rain jackets.

The coughing stopped but the breathing was almost as hard through the wet cloth.

'How could they work? Shovel and dig in this?' thought Elizabeth. And worse. Jack never told those stories but Bob had. His mother's worrying. The men lost. Desperately digging pits in the dirt to crawl into, hoping to shield themselves from the heat; save a little air.' She shook her head.

' Stay calm, idiot, think only happy thoughts' she told herself.

The island was now fully ablaze.

" Mom, the moose!" Sarah pointed towards west. The cow and calf had moved into the water, standing chest deep at first, then beginning to swim in a circle as the heat of the island on fire drove them out.

"Mom, can we help them?"

" No, Sarah. if we get too close, they'd panic. Maybe upset the canoe. The mother would likely kick us to death."

Sarah couldn't resist the chance at a playful shot "Yeah, I got a mother like that too!" Her eyes were smiling above her already black sooted mask.

Elizabeth thought to herself ' 'Your daughter is still joking with you and you have probably dragged her out to her dea... NO!' she barked in her head ' That's not going to happen! It's not! But now is as good a time as any to apologize for last...'

An enormous explosion came from the island, as sharp as the gas cans but many times louder. Then burning wood flew everywhere out into the air from the island's edge.

"F&#K!!!" screamed Sarah as she ducked down even as burning debris rained down all around them. It sent giant hissing clouds of steam as it hit the water. A huge piece of burning wood, 'the top' thought Elizabeth, had missed their canoe by mere yards.

Elizabeth wet her hands in the water and then quickly began throwing the bigger pieces of burning wood in the canoe into the water. "Are you ok, Sarah?"

Sarah sat back up "Yeah, Mom. What the hell was that?"

"A pine tree. Your grandfather said sometimes the sap will boil inside them from the burning trees nearby and then they'll explode" She couldn't remember whether white pine or red. ' Not really f%^king relevant now, counsellor' she told herself.

"Sarah, we'd better move further from the island."

"It's getting so hot everywhere, Mom." Sarah looked at her mother with real fear again.

"Let's paddle out and then get in the water. Turn over the canoe and get under it."

They paddled out, then took turns getting into the water while the other steadied the canoe.

The lake was cool, even in July, it felt good especially on Elizabeth's still throbbing ankle.

" Sarah , hang onto your paddle, ok, but let's tip the canoe over.Hopefully, there will beless smoke under there."

They did that. Underneath was cool and dark. They couldn't see each other.

"Mom?"

"What, Sarah?"

"You there?"

"No, I went to the store for a pop."

"Good one. Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Sorry, I swore. When the tree blew up. And at you...before."

"Honey , as far as I'm concerned on the rest of this 'wonderful' trip, you're allowed to swear as much as you g.d. want to!"

" Ok, Mom, here goes" Sarah let out a spew of cuss words. It jarred Elizabeth for a moment but then the contest was on. She answered with her best string of 'descriptive' obscenities befitting the occasion.

The contest lasted a good five minutes. The laughter getting louder as the language got more raucous and more absurd.

Finally they were all laughed and cursed out.

" You ever do that on any of your camp girl guide trips, Mom?"

" No way. Well, at least, not out loud."

After a moment, Sarah asked "Is the water warmer, Mom? Can it...can it get too hot?"

" No. There's no way, Honey. Actually it's warmer because I peed in it."

"HEY! I'm under here too, ya know"

" Well, here, I'll flush it out then."

Elizabeth gave a big splash towards Sarah's end of the canoe.

Now two camp girls were having a hilarious splash war under a very battered up aluminum canoe in the middle of a lake surrounded by a full scale forest fire.

They stopped when another tree exploded, the explosion sounding like a big thump on the canoe hull...followed by some bits of wood debris even this far out.

Elizabeth spoke up "I'm going out to see if the fire burned down yet. Stay here and keep an eye on the place , will ya?If the phone rings, answer it ok?"

" Sure, Boss. Gotcha."

Elizabeth ducked under and then resurfaced. the smoke was dense, quite low to the water. Even squinting from the dark, she could easily see the intense glow of flames all around them. It was if looking into a wood stove through very dirty glass. She couldn't tell where the island was or the main land but she guessed the canoe hadn't drifted much from the center of the lake.

She ducked back under the canoe. It was definitely cooler, cleaner air. Somehow the water was filtering out the smoke. It was colder for them though. In the water.

She couldn't feel the pain of her ankle anymore either but if she bent her foot at all it was definitely still there.

'Was it numb from the cold...or something worse? Not much she could do about it either way' shrugged Elizabeth

"Bad out there?" asked Sarah.

"Well, it's still burnin' strong but at least we're still far out enough from shore. Haven't drifted much. We won't be walking back to get our packs for awhile yet!"

"I'd just let them go if I were you, Mom. I think they are definitely history."

'Algonquin history' thought Elizabeth

"Mom, how long do you think it'll be till we're rescued?"

"Don't know, Sarah. I'll be honest with you, Hon. First, we are off schedule. If they are looking for us, we are supposed to be on Ragged Lake. That's not as big a delay though as the storm and the smoke. Plus, if this fire is moving as fast as it was for us, the real concern will be the hundreds of campers and cottagers on Smoke and Canoe. It will take a lot of time and people for that.

Couple of campers like us, kiddo, well, we'll be on the bottom of the list for now."

Sarah replied "Well, it's my fault we're not on the route. I wanted to go home early, remember."

Elizabeth wanted to take the blame, the blame for the whole fiasco, starting with last night. Instead she said " If I'd listened to you right from the start the biggest danger we would be in would be maybe a bad hot dog at Wonderland."

She heard Sarah laugh and reply "Hah! With our luck our ride probably would have fallen off the track!"

Elizabeth laughed too and then they were quiet for a moment.

Elizabeth felt the top of the canoe. 'Shit , it was actually warm. How is that even possible' she wondered.

"Mom?"

"What?"

"I...I want another chance." Her daughter, for the first since last night, was crying.

Elizabeth reached out to her across from the center thwart, took Sarah's hands in her hands.

"Oh, honey, we'll be ok. This is nothing. You'll have lots of chances. We're going to be ok. I promise."

"No, Mom. I mean, another chance with you. I don't want it to be this way. Fighting all the time. I don't want to see Grandpa or Gramma...or Dad...if it hurts you so much. I love you the most, Mom. I know I don't act like..."

Elizabeth interrupted her by bursting into tears. "Oh, Sarah, I'm so so sorry. All of it. Your father. Your grandparents. I was so wrong. It's not about who loves who the most. I know that. I just...I just..."

Sarah ducked under the thwart and hugged her mother as close as two life jackets would allow. They didn't talk, they just cried it all out.

In a minute, Elizabeth spoke through a sniffle "Well, sweetie, seeing as you're over here now we might as well huddle together for warmth."

Sarah replied "Ok, Mom, but only if you are done peeing."

They opened the life jackets, reversed Elizabeth's so it clipped to Sarah's and held them together chest to chest. Then they wrapped their legs together and their arms around each other.

Sarah laid her head on her mother's shoulder.

"Help? You any warmer?" asked Elizabeth.

"Well, not really, Mom" replied Sarah "I think you're sucking all the life out of me actually."

Elizabeth laughed "Well, that's the way it should be as I get on in my years. Why do you think people have kids, anyway?"

"For the tormenting?" replied Sarah.

"Yes, but who torments who more?"

"Based on my friends and their parents it's about equal"

Elizabeth laughed "Yeah, most families are like a prickle ofporcupines in a bag."

" What the he...what's a prickle of porcupines anyway?"

" More than one." answered Elizabeth

"Really? That's true?"

"Yup. Google it, you'll see. Like a flock of birds. Or a sneak of weasels."

"You makin' this up, Mom?"

"Or a raft of otters, did you know that?"

"Must I drown you, Mother, to make it stop?"

"No, but it's all as true as we're in a scurry of squirrels."

Sarah snorted " And so ends another very necessary and very educational Algonquin Counsellor flora and fauna lecture."

"Sarah?"

"Yes, Mom?"

"Was that sarcasm, dear?"

" Course not, Mom."

They were quiet for awhile.

"Mom, what would a bunch of mothers be called? A bellow?"

Elizabeth shot back "Not sure. I do know a bunch of teenage girls is definitely called a cackle."

"Touche, Mom, touche."

They listened to the water for awhile breathing with their movements inside the canoe hull.

"Mom?"

"Yup. Right here, remember?"

"Smart a....uhhmm...Mom, if I tell you something do you really promise not to get mad? Cause there is only me left to kick under here."

"Honey, I ain't kickin' nothin' with this ankle right now. There's absolutely nothing you could say right now to make me upset...'cept maybe you're pregnant!"

"Mom! Gross!"

"Ok. Ok. What's your big confession?"

"I've been seeing Grandpa."

Even in the cold, even above her wind burnt and fire burnt face, Elizabeth felt the blush of anger overtake her. She kept her mouth shut for once and let her daughter continue.

" I was going to tell you last night but you got so...well, anyway, he phoned at school, the office called me, let me talk to him. So we arranged to meet after school. I lied and told you it was extra volleyball practise. We met a few times. Grandma came a couple times too. I'm sorry, Mom. For disobeying you. And lying to you. It wasn't right."

All Elizabeth could think to say, to ask, was " Did your father come?"

"No. Grandpa said that would be way out of line.That would be way too disrespectful to you. Said he didn't blame you feelin' the way did about Dad and all that."

"Well, I'll give your grandfather that much."

"Mom, he said Dad was really sick anyway. Couldn't hardly get out of bed. Sir-er-ria-usis or something."

"Cirrhosis, Sarah."

"Is that bad?"

"It can be Sarah. It depends."

"Oh." Sarah continued "Grandpa wanted to give me money...to help out...maybe even talk to you, not about Dad but just things but Gramma said that wouldn't be right..to interfere."

Elizabeth started to say 'Is Jess still around?' but she didn't. She really didn't need to know. It wasn't the issue anymore and she didn't need to use Sarah as a go between. All she needed to do was grow up a little. Try to stand as tall as the young lady floating in a life jacket in front of her.

They were silent for a moment then Sarah spoke "Mom, are you mad?"

"Maybe a little. I'm still a pot kicker inside but with a broken leg now." Elizabeth took a deep breath through the cloth, tasted smoke, tears, lake water, sweat, possibly urine (though she hoped not) and let it go. Well, most of it. A damn good start on it, anyway.

In letting go, she gained enough room in her heart for Sarah to have more in hers. For her grandparents that Elizabeth knew loved Sarah very much and had been heartbroken by all this. She even let go a little for Sarah's father though this was much harder.

"No, I'm not mad, Sarah. Not that much. Most of it was my fault. Over your grandparents. I lied. They did...do care. They tried to phone lots. I just...just...I don't know. Maybe it was because I lost my parents. I don't know. I was just so angry, so hurt at your father. I wanted everyone, even you I guess, to feel the same hurt as much as me. I guess that was why. I've never even thought of why. Just stayed angry and...miserable.

I know now at least that it wasn't fair to you. I'm sorry, Sarah.

I know it would have been really hard to see you go with them the first time but really now that I know it's already happened, it's easier. I was wrong, Sarah. All along. You, Grandpa Jack, Nana Em were right. Thanks for not letting me completely ruin what you have between you three."

" Between us all, Mom. The four of us. Cause we three really like you too, ya know."

Elizabeth heard the words...and knew they were true. She had never thought of the conflict Jack and Emma must have had between choosing her and Sarah and abandoning their only son and child.

" Thanks, kiddo. So..well..anyway, it's ok. I'm not mad...but.." she kissed her daughter's forehead "this is THE exception. No fibbing or sneaking around to see some damn boy, ya got it! Rule breaking will not become a trend in our household, right, sister?"

" I know, I know, Mom. End of discussion, right?"

"Sarah, listen to me. With all my heart and soul, I'll make you a deal. If I ever say 'end of discussion' again you can kick me in the ass as hard as I kicked that pot, then swear all day and say What-eV-ver for a whole month, ok? Deal? 'Cause I don't ever want any end of any discussions with my daughter as long as I live. Understand?"

"It's a deal, Mom, though you will likely regret it."

Elizabeth laughed "Likely" but she hugged her daughter real tight suggesting she felt otherwise at the moment.

They were quiet again.

"Mom?"

"She left an hour ago."

"Huh?"

"Never mind, what is it nnnnoowwww?"

"I'm hungry."

"Hey, that reminds me. You, young lady, never ate your supper last night!"

"Umm, seems to me, Mom, you kicked it into the lake, didn't you?"

"Just like your mother, aren't you? Never forget! Besides it wasn't quite cooked right and you know what a perfectionist I am!"

"Ok, I'll buy that. I just wish you had kicked it this far."

"Well......Elizabeth dug into her cargo pant pockets...I meant this supper! Surprise!"...and with that she shoved a granola bar into her daughter's hand.

They each ate one package, saving the other packages in case they were here overnight. Elizabeth certainly hoped not. They were getting colder in the water but at least still could laugh when Sarah questioned her mother on her 'pee schedule' before drinking more lake water from under the canoe.

Elizabeth decided to have a look outside the canoe. They undid the life jackets and bobbed under and out into the lake air. There was still about the same amount of smoke but the reddish fire glow behind it might be a little less, maybe not. It certainly encircled them completely ; all around the lake. Elizabeth figured maybe another half an hour than they might take the canoe closer to shore, maybe bail it out with their hands and get out of the water.

They got back under to breathe a little easier for awhile. They snapped back into their huddle for warmth.

Sarah spoke "Mom, you got any toilet paper?"

"Yeah, right, guess again. Why?"

"Why do you think? Cause I gotta have a sh..er...a number two."

"Well, just do it then put your pants back up. What's the difference in all this water?"

"Yuk-oh! I don't think so. You still have to wipe!"

"Whatever."Elizabeth had actually used THE WORD. Oh my god, next it will be OMG."

"Mom?"

"What?"

"Can I borrow your t-shirt? To wipe?"

" No, you certainly may not. Use your own t-shirt if you want to."

"Ok, Ok. Geez, some mother. Where's the sacrifice you hear about in books, eh?"

"If we had a book, you could use it. For now either use your own t-shirt... rinse it out after."

"No way. That's gross. It will still stink."

" Ok then, Princess, use your hand and wipe it off on the canoe. The OUTSIDE of the canoe please."

"That's not much better but ok."

There was no movement, no sound for a minute, then came....

"Mom?"

"Yessss, dear?"

"Will it...will it sink or float?"

"What for god's sake?"

" You know. The pooh. Will it sink or float? If it floats, we don't want it in here bobbing around, do we? And if it sinks, I don't want it going into my pants when I pull them back up, do I?"

"Sarah, oh my god, how would I know if your damn pooh will sink or float?"

"Well, wouldn't it depend on what I ate last? Like porridge, granola? What's that? Oats? Do oats float when you put them in the pot? Or do they sink?"

"Sarah, this is absolutely ridiculous! And besides, it will depend on what you had a day or two ago, not today."

"Ok, ok. Ease up, Mom. So it was weiners and beans. Weiners float, don't they? And beans have gas so they should..."

Elizabeth rudely cut her daughter off "Listen, kiddo! Here's what ya do. Stick your bare arse outside the canoe. Tuck into the recovery position. make sure your pants and underwear are well up your ankles out of harm's way. If the pooh sinks, you're clear. If it floats, it's away. Drifts to shore and gets barbequed! There! Done! Anymore problems for your old ma?"

Sarah didn't move. "What about my rain jacket? What if the jacket floats outand the pooh floats maybe it will get trapped under the coat. I could end up bringing it back in here."

Elizabeth groaned loudly." Are we going to write a manual on this for god's sake? Then take your damn rain coat and jam it under your life jacket and hold that tight around you so no damn pooh goes under it! Ok!? It's not rocket...no, sorry, apparently it is a type of rocket science! Gods sake!"

"Mom?"

"WWWHHHaattt now!?"

" You'll have to go with me."

"No, I don't. Just unbuckle. Stay near the canoe."

"I don't want to go out there alone. What if another tree falls? Explodes?"

"There's no more...oh shit...fine, I'll go!"

Elizabeth unsnapped the buckles and shoved out from under the canoe. Anything to get this stupid problem solved. God, what a kid! From the resolve and foresight of saving her own mother to this stupidity over a crap! Just a g.d. crap, for crying out loud!"

Elizabeth looked around. Was the smoke getting better or worse? The fire less or more? She couldn't tell. Logically , it should be burning out in their area but the smoke was still so low, trapped in the hills. Hopefully soon they could get out of the water.

Elizabeth looked at the canoe. Where was that kid anyway? Had she went out the other side by mistake?

Elizabeth ducked back under the canoe. Surfacing she knew Sarah was there by her breathing.

"Well? Are you coming or what?" said Elizabeth impatiently.

"No."

"No?"

"No. I'm done."

"What? You did it in here?"

"Not exactly"

Exasperated, Elizabeth couldn't help barking "Not exactly! Not exactly what?!"

"Sarah answered "Here, feel my face. See for yourself."

"What?"

Sarah reached out and took her mother's hand. She pressed it to her own face. Her mask was pulled down.

"And what the hell am I supposed to be feeling for?" Elizabeth asked.

Sarah answered "Well, I'm grinning actually. Well, really now I'm laughing" Sarah started into a full giggle. "Do you...do you know...Mom...you were exactly thirty mississippis out there waiting for me. I counted." Sarah really started to laugh now.

" You mean...you mean...the whole damn crap thing was just a...JUST A JOKE!"

" Yup! Gotcha good! I had to get even for that marshmallow line. Did it work? Eh, Miss Counsellor?"

"YOU...YOU BRAT!"

And another splash fight was on!

After they had calmed a little from laughing, Sarah was just going to ask if they could get out of the water soon when she stopped and listened. "Now what's coming? A train?"

" Yeah, kiddo, that roller coaster you were talking about is going to land on us. No, I'm pretty sure that's a plane."

"Let's go out and wave!"

"Wait. It sounds too big for a rescue." Plus Elizabeth doubted the smoke was thin enough for them to be seen. But what the hell, why wait? What's to lose anyway?

Just as Elizabeth was gonna tell Sarah to get out and wave with her, she heard a few rain drops on the canoe. Then came a tremendous thud. The canoe literally bounced a little on their heads it was hit so hard.

Sarah shouted "What the hell was..."

Her mother interrupted "Water bomber, my dear. The Ontario Parks way of saving us!"

"Is it safe to go out now?"

" Sure, they dump in one pass, I think, but be ready to duck back in, just in case. They'll likely be back to do another one on the other side of the lake.

All of one side, including the island, was smoke and steam now. Just a few small fires. The air around them was already a lot better; they didn't need their masks now.

"Can we get out of the water now, Mom?"

"Let's pull the canoe to the island. I don't think they will dump there again."

They tried a couple of times to 'recover' the canoe by turning it hull up and throwing it clear of the water but it was either too heavy or they were too weak. The best they could do was right it and , by rocking it, slosh half of the water out. Not enough to get in and paddle but it was a little lighter to tow at least.

They pointed the canoe towards the island and tediously kicked and splashed their way towards it.

Finally they were close enough to stand on rocks. The ground ahead on the island was black and steamy. All around were blackened stumps with burnt limbs sticking out. Elizabeth wasn't sure how hot the ground might still be.

She turned and looked back...across the lake. On the south side the ground was still burning.

They were standing in the water up to their waists when they heard the plane coming again.

"What should we do, Mom? Get under it again?"

"Let's push it out more and be ready. Just in case.

They could see it coming. They waved, then stopped; watching if it was coming their way.

It came down close but stayed to the south side. As it passed, a huge plume of water descended. Both Sarah and her mother remarked later that they could not believe the fierce blast of steam heat as the south fire was extinguished in one huge hiss.

They both plunged into the water to escape its blast.

Bobbing back up, Sarah exclaimed "Shit, they'll kill us saving us! Do you think they saw us, Mom?"

"Maybe, I thought someone waved from the window. I'm not sure."

Sure enough the plane came back low and as it lifted up from the lake, they saw the plane wag its wings a little in the universal sign of recognition.

"How long do you think it will be, Mom?"

"Not too long, kiddo. If they water bombed in here this quick then the fire must not have got too far out of control before it was spotted." Elizabeth looked up. She now could see clouds still heavy and black though there was no lightning. Probably depend on the weather now before a small plane would dare come out.

"Well, anyway, Sarah, we lived through it. Thanks mostly to you, bringing this tin can along. Come on, lets go sit on that big rock there and have a celebration buffet with all the fixings" Elizabeth hugged her daughter around the shoulder while handing her one of the granola bars.

They got to the rock, tied up the canoe and sat down. Behind them the island was still steamy but it felt good after a couple hours in the water.

'A couple of hours' thought Elizabeth. 'Is that all it's been?' She looked at her waterproof watch. 'That's what it says. It was ten am when they had started the second time down the portage. It was now twelve thirty.

A whole lifetime in the time it takes to finish two loads of laundry, orwatch a movie and a half, or go grocery shopping. The time it takes to watch the clock at work between starting time and the first break.'

Elizabeth remembered a couple of 'stupid' times in her early years as a counsellor. Looking at clouds. At wind. At how far the next point was. Only fifteen or twenty minutes to cross.

Then halfway, the wind picks up more. The next ten minutes full of fear, of concern, of admonishment and regret at her careless unnecessary risk of the children in her care.

Children here for fun. Not death.

Like her daughter.

"Sarah?"

"Yeth, Moom?" Sarah lost some crumbs on the rock but started picking them up and putting them back in her mouth.

"I'm really really sorry about all of this. Not just the fire. Everything. Being so mad. So bitter. You'd have had a much better time if I'd smartened up a month ago and let you, say, go off to Grandpa and Nan's cottage."

" I'm not so sure."

"Really? Wanna try again next weekend?" Elizabeth grinned white teeth in a very dirty face.

"Don't push it, sister" Sarah replied." I still got this paddle and I know how to use it!" She lifted up the paddle she was holding across her knees.

"You keep it."

"But, Mom, it was a gift to you from..."

"And he'd be really really proud of you today. Or any day for that matter. For what you are. For what you did for me today. Dad would want you to have it, Sarah. I know that. Here give me your knife and I will carve your initials in it."

"Its ok. I can do it."

"Just don't stab yourself PPPLLLEEAASSSEEE!!!"

While Elizabeth watched her daughter begin carving an S carefully into the paddle, she added "And by the way, thanks again."

"Thanks?"

"For saving my life back there. If you'd have went on ahead without me like I'd said I doubt I would have made it."

Sarah leaned against her mother's shoulder. " I couldn't leave you, Mom. I just couldn't. Besides, you'd have done the same."

"Yeah, I guess so. Got your back, Jack, right?" Elizabeth hugged her daughter real hard again.

"Is that a rule out here too, Mom?"

" No. Well, yeah, I guess. I guess everywhere. But it's not really a rule. It's...well...family. I'd forgotten that."

"No offense, Mom, but that was just about the corniest movie line I have ever heard."

"Thanks, ya little turd, and I had been waiting for years to use it too."

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Mom, I love you."

Tears again. Elizabeth wiped at her nose and mouth.

Soot. Salt. Water. The taste of renewal.

The carving was nearly done when they heard a new noise. Past the trees, coming from the north.

"Shit" Sarah said standing up. She looked at her mother sheepishly "Well, sorry, but I really really hope this time it's a happy noise.

It was.

A rescue helicopter.

With much yelling and waving and whooping (actually not really necessary as the pilot knew exactly where they were from the water bomber's radio report), the chopper came to hover over them and lowered a rescue harness.

"You first, Sarah. Get in, I'll tighten it."

"No, Mom, you first. You're injured."

"Thanks but no thanks, kiddo. I'm a mother. And what's left of a camp guide and counsellor. How would it look if I bailed first?" She grinned at Sarah as she opened up the harness for her."Geez, leave me a little pride, will ya.? Get in, ya little squirt."

So up went Sarah first, clutching her paddle, very much enjoying the 'ride of the day'.

Elizabeth picked up her paddle. She watched her daughter climb into the helicopter and waited for the harness to come back for her.

Then she went up.

Handing her paddle to one of the two army reserve medics, she then got swung into the chopper.

"Easy, ma'am, we'll let you down real slow. Your daughter said your foot is bad. Is it the ankle?"

"Yes. The left one. I don't think it's broken though. I'm just really glad to be here with you guys." She pointed at Sarah buckled up into a seat.. "And that kid over there. She tell you she saved my life?"

Sarah blushed, embarrassed, though no one could see it for the dirt. "Oh, Mom please!"

Elizabeth got lowered onto the floor, the medic gave the thumbs up to the pilot.

"Mom, look!"

As they swung north, Elizabeth looked out the bay window where Sarah was pointing. At the end of the island, the cow moose and her calf stood. Looking a little odd in a black wasteland of steam and stumps but alive and safe.

Elizabeth reached over and squeezed her daughter's hand.

"Mom, I'm glad they made it too."

"So am I , buddy, so am I."

The medic got Elizabeth's boot off, and after an examination, wound it tight with elastic bandages. "Not bruised much, ma'am. I don't think it's broken, just a real bad sprain. Sittin' in cold water probably helped it a lot, that's for sure."

"Thanks, it feels better." Elizabeth turned to the other rescuer. "And thank you so much. For coming so quick. And thank the pilot too."

The rescue guy yelled at the pilot, the pilot yelled something back with a thumbs up.

Elizabeth didn't catch it with the blade noise.

"What? What did he say?"

"He said your welcome. Then he said you guys really stink! He can smell it way up there!"

Canoe Lake parking lot, cleared of campers, had become the designated helicopter pad.

They landed. Sarah climbed out first, not forgetting her and her Mom's paddle. She waited while Elizabeth was helped out.

"We got an ambulance here, Ma'am.('damn' thought Elizabeth, 'does he have to keep calling me that old lady name'), we'll just wait to get clearance from the Coordinator to send you into the Hospital. They sometimes wait to make sure there isn't more serious cases to go first."

Sarah shouted "Mom, look! It's Grandpa ...and Dad."

Sure enough they were both standing off in the corner of the lot, unsure of what to do but obviously very happy to see the grimy pair of girls safe at last.

Sarah looked at her mother who answered her look with "Get over there, Sarah. I'll be right behind you if you give me my crutch back."

Sarah handed her mother her paddle and then raced over. First to her grandfather , who got a great big hug, then her father, a little more shyly. Then she started jabbering a mile a minute. As Sarah hobbled over with her paddle-cane, she caught words like 'moose', 'explosions' ,'awesome', 'scared', 'Mom remembered everything you told her to do Grandpa, she was so cool'. Hearing that, Elizabeth felt a little prouder of herself as her eyes met Jack's.

The conversation calmed down as Elizabeth drew up.

She glanced at Bob. He looked like hell; like he had been through two fires. Awkward what to say, she turned to Jack "How the hell did you get here from Arnprior so fast? The highways gotta be sealed off for this."

Jack grinned. "Well, I just happened to be at a buddy's place whose a short wave addict. Never turns the damn thing off even when he's got company. Anyway, word came over that there was a fire in Algonquin. Fast movin' one south of Canoe area." Jack shuffled his feet "Well a little birdy...well, had told me your canoe route..."

Sarah glanced between Jack and her mother.

Elizabeth interrupted, rubbing Sarah's head "Yeah, a little birdy told me what her and the old birdy have been up to." Jack looked embarrassed but Elizabeth continued with "It's ok, Jack. I was wrong. You were right."

"Can I get that in writing? The part about me being right about something for a change. To show Emily?"

Elizabeth grinned "Not a chance, Jack. She'd figure it for a fraud anyway."

Jack nodded his head. "True, so sad but so true. Well, anyway, I phoned a friend with a bush plane with floats. He phoned the Super of the park to volunteer. The Super ok'd the flight in. In case they needed to evacuate people. Me and Bob just happened to get a ride along."

"I'm surprised you're not out there yourself with a shovel."

Bob interjected "Crazy fool almost was. When they told him they'd found you guys but weren't going' in for a couple of hours waitin' for the storm to clear, ya should have been here for that. Dad got so mad. Started into his 'In my day, we had some balls' speech. The coordinator just had to give in and ask the crew if they'd go."

Jack looked embarrassed now. "Aw, it was nothing. They're all good men, as good as we ever were, just a hell of a lot more rules. I told him that. Besides, they were going' soon anyway."

Bob spoke up again "Sure they were. The pilot told me he was going because he was afraid you'd steal his helicopter and crash it if he didn't.

A Park Warden walked over and addressed Elizabeth. "Glad you two are ok. When it's all clear in a day or so we'll get your canoe out for you , Miss."

" It's a rental. At Opeongo. Gears all gone. It got left on the portage trail when we had to run for it"

"Too bad. Well, the canoe's no problem. Glad to do it. Even if you two wanted to get it, ya can't. Area will be closed for quite awhile till the new growth can start. Likely a year or more."

Elizabeth asked "Any...any other campers, trippers...er...out there?"

" Nope. With the big storm, lots of people cancelled. Or waited. Good thing. Although the fire didn't get far. It was spotted real quick. Any idea on what happened?"

"Lightning, I think. It hit just ahead of us. On the portage where we had left the packs. Between Kirkwood Lake and Pardee. The wind brought it on us so fast."

The Warden nodded "Figured that. Lots of reports about bad lightning from Cache Lake and around. Well, I'm just really glad you're both ok." He grinned" A lot less reports to fill out when it turns out happy. Just letting you know, too, that they are still waiting for the clearance from Huntsville. You know, in case there's an injury we don't know about. Usually your leg heals by the time it comes through!"

Elizabeth spoke up "My car's at Cache." She reached into her cargo pocket. "Still got the keys. Why don't we just drive to the hospital?" She turned to Sarah "Get a motel..."Then she hesitated, realizing she couldn't drive herself but didn't really relish a night with Bob around.

Grandpa spoke up "Works out. I'll drive if that's ok. Bob has to go back for his medicine by tonight anyway. I doubt my buddy with the plane is staying much longer now. Only deal is..."he winked at Elizabeth "...you pay. After all, it's your foot, right?"

The Warden nodded. "Ok, I'll tell them. Get you a drive to Cache. Then I still gotta do four hours of paperwork."

He put his hand on Jack's shoulder.

"Worse part of fightin' a fire, right Jack, the paperwork?"

"I'm old. The memories going'. All I can remember now is the really bad coffee."

They all laughed. The Warden left. Jack gave Sarah's head a rub." Well, my little marshmallow, how about a pop at the store?"

"Sure! Two please! And ten Mars bars!"

"Ok. Ok. I can see this ain't gonna be cheap. What about you, Elizabeth? Bob?"

Bob said he was ok but Elizabeth replied "I'll take the biggest damn coke they got and twenty chocolate bars!"

Jack groaned.

Elizabeth spoke up "Hey, I'll pay for it" She pretended to search her pockets "Oh dear, Jack, wallet's in the car I'm afraid."

Jack shook his head "So is Emily's usually. Am I just dumb or am I just being taken advantage of all the time?"

Bob grinned "It's ok, Dad, You're just dumb. No woman would dare take advantage of you."

"Good. I prefer dumb to being a pushover. Wait! That reminds me, I'd better phone Emily right now. Far as you are all concerned, I phoned the minute the helicopter got here, right?" Jack had a face of true commiseration. "She'll be worried sick." He winked at Sarah "Especially over me flying."

"You already phoned her four times since we got here Dad. I think Mom knows you have landed ok."

"Good. Good. Let's get to a phone, pipsqueak. You can run in and get the stuff in the store. They will probably give it to you free without me, seeing as you are a hero. It's a good angle to play. We used to throw dirt and soot all over ourselves when we went into town for a break. Get all kinds of free food and stuff that way."

Jack and Sarah started walking towards the store.

Jack gave Sarah a light poke at her shoulder.

"So how'd ya like bein' in a fire like your old grandpappy used to play in for years, eh?"

"Well, I liked the helicopter ride the best, I'll say that" She poked back, her finger into her grandfather's arm.

"Yeah, me, too" answered Jack "Especially the ones coming out , not going in."

They kept walking but Elizabeth and Bob heard one more question. This one from Sarah.

"You ever have any close calls, Grandpa?"

"Yeah. Once. Real bad. Once I was fightin' a fire and got home really late for supper. Forgot to phone to say I would be late. Your grandmother tried to hit me with a frying pan. I was definitely terrified that day, I'll tell ya!"

"Oh Grandpa" and the poking war started up again.

Elizabeth shook her head "He's still Jack, that's for sure."

"Yeah, he is."

She looked at Bob."I missed him. And Emily. I really did. And Sarah did a lot too." She kicked at a little gravel then her ankle reminded her not to."I was wrong to keep her away from them...and you. It was..."

Bob spoke up "It's ok, Liz. I probably would have done the same and for what it's worth, I'm sorry. Real sorry. Everything. All those years. You wasted on me. And sorry for Sarah, not having a real father. I mean even before I left."

He faced Elizabeth, his eyes on hers for the first time in a year and a half.

"She's left, Liz. Gone. When I got sick. I'm not telling you because of us. I know I killed that a long time ago. I'm just telling you so if you'll let Sarah visit...well..." He looked down.

"I didn't really have the right to stop her, Bob. Even with her...Jess...there. Yeah, we're dead as a couple but, thank god..." Elizabeth started to tear up, fought it down then continued "...thank god, not dead as parents today. I was so scared for her today, Bob. I was never so terrified in my life."

She was crying. Leaning into her paddle. Staring towards the store. Bob didn't move, say anything; just stood there. Finally he said " I couldn't imagine it, Liz. Just thank you so much for bringing her out of it. Safe."

" But it wasn't me, Bob, not really. She did it. She was so brave. Always joking through it all.She saved MY life, Bob. Literally, she did. She wouldn't leave me behind when I told her to. Made me go on with her hobbling on my ankle. She pulled the canoe down..." Elizabeth stopped, wiped her nose. "Sorry. I'm a mess right now."

"No, you're not, Liz."

Elizabeth looked at Bob. "You ok? Sarah said your dad said you are pretty sick."

Bob nodded "Cirrhosis. Hepatitis. Some other kinda immune problem. You know, drugs, needles, too much bad booze. Can't complain though. I did it all to myself, Liz."

Elizabeth looked sad and concerned. "You...you gonna make it?"

" Docs say about sixty percent chance, I was that far gone. My old man says I can't die till I pay him back all the money I owe him from this last couple of years. So I guess I'll be around quite awhile. I can't work, Liz. I can't pay ya any money right now, Liz, but Dad says he'll help you and Sarah if..."

Elizabeth interrupted "We're ok. Well...I know Em likes to shop. Clothes for Sarah would always help. She grew up fast."

They could see the pair, heading back towards them, a couple of bulging shopping bags with them. Jack and Sarah were looking through them like they were a couple of six year old kids at Halloween.

Elizabeth looked back at Bob. "Just one thing, Bob, before they get here."

"What?"

"Bob, We're through, I know, but I want, really want, you and Sarah to have something together. More than before. I can step aside a little for that but remember our last camping trip with Sarah? Together? I was so flippin' mad I didn't talk to you for two weeks?"

"I deserved..."

Elisabeth interrupted to continue " Well...well...maybe. But my point is that underneath that mad was jealousy, Bob. We were there camping for a week. You came out exactly for one hour. And you were the big hero as far as Sarah was concerned. You got all the hugs, the chatter, the excitement. Later, for days after, all she talked about was everything you guys did in that one hour.

I never even got a hello from you, Bob. There was no way though that I was going to admit to myself that I was jealous of my daughter or jealous that your one frickin' hour seemed to mean more to her than my whole week.

I wanna change, Bob. Grow out of that. It will be really hard for me with no Sarah around some times I know that but that's no reason to stop her from seeing you and Jack and Em. These couple of days, Bob, I'll admit I saw some things in me I didn't like, didn't know were there. I'll try to not let them wreck Sarah's happiness anymore.

She loves you very very much, Bob. She's already forgiven you for everything. There's no work for you, Bob. She's done it all. You just have to be her father."

Bob nodded, looked up at Elizabeth. He started to say something but she continued "But I'll tell you something, Bob. I don't care if you see her every week or every month or every day. Whatever she wants. But you go back on a promise, you break a date, you disappoint her and I'll shove you head first right back into that god damn fire! No, worse! I'll tell your father, he'll shove you in there a lot slower and deeper than I will!"

All Bob could say was "I wont Liz, God, I promise I wont. I wont hurt her ever again." He said it meekly but he said it with real conviction.

Sarah and her grandfather came walking up. Sarah looked at them.

"What were you two talking about?"

Elizabeth grinned. "Your visitation schedule."

"Really?" Sarah's face brightened, still under much grime.

"Yeah but I told your father he'd have to wait till September 'cause your whole summer's booked with camping trips."

Sarah set her shopping bag down and patted her pockets exactly as her mother had done. " Oh my god, Mom. My schedule for the summer was with our gear. It's gone. I'll have to start my bookings all over again."

That caused a chuckle all around. Then Jack interjected " More importantly, will you look at this haul. All free! They love her! We got something good going here, I tell ya. Let's hurry up and get to Huntsville, start spreading the word around at the restaurants. Get the free meals flowin' in."

"I think my daughter would prefer a bath and clean clothes rather than be an old con's trained monkey begging for handouts!"

Jack groaned. "Bath! Ohhh! Pure gold. Down the drain. See look here." He started handing out pop and chocolate bars from one of the well-stuffed bags. "See! All free, compliments of the nice kids in the store. You two area gold mine , I tell ya!"

Jack took the bag from Sarah and handed it to his son. " Well, anyway, come on, son. I got that ride to Cache for us in a Park's truck. Phoned John too. We'll drop you off at the plane. He's ready to go.

I'll be back with the car, Elizabeth. Oh yeah, and Em says hi and sends her love. She says phone her as soon as you get settled at the motel. When you get back in Ottawa she wants to take you guys shopping. Apparently she managed to convert one of her rose bushes into some kind of a money tree!"

Bob hugged Sarah, promised to call tomorrow when they got back. He'd maybe drive Grandpa back up if they dropped him off or come and get him at their place.

He turned to Liz. Thanked her, his eyes teary. Promised he'd get Jack off their hands as soon as possible.

"Hey, what the hell am I? A dog? I'm right here, you know. Listening! I have feelings too!"

Sarah and Elizabeth watched them walk away , Sarah still giggling at her grandfather.

She then turned to her mother. "Mom, didn't you want to do something here? At Canoe Lake? We got time now."

" I forgot about that, Sarah" She looked towards the lake, the dock. "It doesn't seem as important to me now."

Sarah took her hand. "Come on. It helped make you what you are. The best mother there is. And that's real important to me."

They hobbled to the sandy beach. Where the canoes loaded and unloaded. It was empty, a rare occurrence.

Elizabeth sat at a picnic table letting the memories flood in but best of all watching her daughter sit down and start taking her boots and socks off.

"What are you doing?" Elizabeth asked.

" I'm walking in too. With you. If that's ok?"

"Ok? Ok?" Elizabeth said softly and then she started crying again.

Sarah grabbed her mother's hands " Mom, what? What is it?"

"Sorry, honey. Just well...these past weeks I thought so much about how it would feel, you know, the past, the memories, to re-live it, but...I...I`m sorry I kinda forgot about you..."

"It's ok, Mom. I`m here."

"No. I mean, I know, but it suddenly occurred to me that the girl at 22 who walked out of that water fifteen years ago had no idea that one day her and the most precious person in her life, her daughter, would go through a hell together, a forest fire and walk together into that lake again.

I'm so grateful, my god, and it's weird but I know she would be so grateful too. Knowing that in all the pitfalls and disappointments of her life, she would return to thismoment, this place with you. Somewhere, between us, between you and I, that girl exists too. Here. Alive. In me. In you. I can almost see her in the water. Walking towards us. Then dissolving into both of us, you and me. She's not a ghost. She's me becoming you. She lives again and again, coming out of Canoe Lake."

Sarah did not know this girl. Yet. All she knew for sure was that in her heart she knew that girl would bring her to return...to here...again. And again.

Sarah didn't have any words. Crying a little too, she helped her mother take her one boot off, then hand in hand, each with a paddle in the other , they stood; mother and daughter, looking outward, knee deep in Canoe Lake.

It was to become the most precious moment of Algonquin for Elizabeth to hold on to forever.

Though another came quite shortly after....forElizabeth remembered something from a book she had read one rainy day in Cabin Two. She spoke it out loud for her daughter.

" The great do not seek to be discovered, they seek only to discover themselves."

Silence but for the gentle lapping of the water on the beach sand behind them, then...

"Mom?"

"What, Sarah?"

"I have to go pooh!"

In spite of a bum ankle, Elizabeth, using all her strength, shoved her daughter sprawling out into Canoe Lake.

THE END

BIG JIM

Big Jim worked the docks. Well, not like the docks at Portland or San Fransico.

He worked at the dock at Lake Opeongo. In Algonquin Park.

He didn't really get paid. He just hung around, kinda staying out of the way, but if the college kids that worked there needed help loading up the tourists' gear or canoes onto the big water taxis, he'd lend a hand.

The tourists or fishermen might tip him direct or give an extra big tip to the kids. Then they'd share it with Big Jim if there'd been a lot of gear and stuff.

Jim didn't get mad if they didn't always tip him and he didn't 'horn in' if the work was slow that day.

Everybody liked Jim. He was pretty amiable and soft spoken for a guy at six foot eight and three hundred pounds.

Most of the kids at the outfitters or the ranger office called him either Big Jim or Jim. The boss at the outfitters called him Jimmy for some reason even though Jim was at least ten years older than him.

He wasn't being disrespectful, he just naturally thought of Jim as just one of the kids workin' around there.

Some of the Maintenance staff though, the local guys, the wags, still called him Big Dumb Jim or D.J. or BeeDeeJee. 'Cause in the town where he had grown up thirty miles east of Opeongo, that's the name he'd had all through school and stuff.

Well, school till the first year of high school anyway.

Jimmy didn't really have what you'd call smarts. That would be a good way of saying it and still being kind to Jim.

He probably got to high school based on his size alone. Teachers just passed him along, grade by grade, mainly 'cause he grew so fast he would look even dumber if they kept him back. Sittin' with kids two thirds his size. Besides, all the teachers liked Big Jim. He was never a bully, despite his size.

In fact, it was always the other kids who bullied Jimmy, teased him, played all kinds of tricks and even pushed him around. Jimmy never hit back or anything. Just kinda stood there grinnin', lookin' a little sheepish (or dumber they'd say). Not really ever knowing what to do socially.

He wasn't good at sports. Too big and clumsy. Always breaking in a new pair of feet his mother would say.

He probably would have gotten into football in high school (the coach would have grabbed him up for sure) but he only lasted there a week.

Jimmy had lived with his mother, Anne, and his step dad, Bill. No brothers or sisters. His dad had died when he was too small to even remember him.

The only other relative around was his grandad, him mom's dad. He lived about forty miles east of the village. Grandad worked as a boat engine mechanic, handyman, gardener, fishing guide all rolled into one at a resort that ran year round. Had a little house on the grounds that he rented cheap off the owners.

He'd come see Jimmy (he was always Jimmy to Grandad even when he was thirty) and his ma when he could; more in the winter when he wasn't as busy.

Grandad didn't like Jimmy's step-dad very much. Actually, Jimmy was pretty sure neither one liked each other very much.

Jimmy's step-dad used to knock Jimmyaround a lot. No reason. Jimmy was never a bad kid; he listened to his mom, did his chores.

'Course, he was slow at stuff. Especially anything new. Jimmy's step dad had no patience for that. So he'd slap or hit him a lot. Shoves. A swat in the back of the head. Stuff like that. Sometimes more.

Like a belt whipping for something like getting mad cause Jim forgot to take off his boots before coming in the front porch cause he was all excited to show his mom the C+ he got in spelling that day.

Always stuff like that.

Jimmy took it. Like he took the other stuff, the shoves and name calling from the kids at school. He didn't grin, though, at his step father. He would stare at him, blank in the face but his insides were angry. Starting out a slow simmer but gettin' to boilin' up more and more.

Sometimes his step dad might curse at his mother, or even shove at her a little. He never hit her hard but Jim just boiled a little more when something like that happened.

Now, just into high school, Jimmy was already real big. Near six foot, two hundred or more pounds.His step dad was a lot smaller but he still shoved at Jim, or slapped him in the back of the head, especially if Bill had been drinking.

Well, one time, a week into high school, Grandad had stopped by to pick up a new sweater Jimmy's ma had made him.

The step dad was home, a little drunk, somehow there was some angry words. Jimmy was just coming back home, he stood on the porch, not knowing what to do. Should he go in or not? It seemed rude to interrupt the adults like that. So he just stood and listened.

It got a little louder, the voices of his step dad and his grandad, then Jimmy heard a chair fall back. Next thing, Jimmy saw his step dad came storming out, looking real mad.

As he stomped by Jimmy, he stopped and sneered at Jimmy "...and what the f%^& are you lookin' at?"Then he shoved Jimmy off the step hard enough that Jimmy fell on his butt.

His step dad just laughed and then walked past him. Got to his car and stood at the car door, fumbling for his keys.

Jimmy got up real slow. Turned and looked towards the car. Brushing the seat of his pants off, he just stared. At his step father. Stared at him with years of anger and hate starting to surface. Jimmy couldn't see anything around him, it was like there was only a tunnel surrounded by blackness...a tunnel leading directly to his step dad's face...Jimmy just kept staring, slowly opening and closing his two ham sized fists...

Then he took a step towards the car...

A voice came behind him. His grandad's. "Jimmy, don't. Don't do it, son. Just let him go. There's been no harm done here. Just let him go. He ain't worth it, son."

Jimmy stopped, just stood there. Caught between his blind rage and his grandfather's voice.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Bringing him back into the kitchen.

Grandad talking. Saying it might bea good idea for Jimmy to come stay with him for awhile. Jim remembered his grandad saying " He'll kill that drunk some day, Anne. Or Bill will have to kill him first. Jimmy's too big, got too much anger from that sob provoking him all the time. Can't say I would blame the boy but why should he end up in jail all his life? Let me take him away, Anne. Before it's too late.

Besides I got a lot of work at the resort, I'm falling behind. Could use him. Probably get 'im on permanent. Let me take 'im, Anne , before we all regret that I didn't."

So Big Jim went to stay with his grandad when he was fifteen. Worked with him. Cutting grass. Painting docks. Stuff like that. Physical, not too much mental.

School just kinda got forgotten. He liked it. Grandad never cursed at him or called him dumb. Never let anyone else do it either. The people at the resort covered his room and board, even gave him some money now and then for working. He could get fishing stuff and the like for him and Grandad. And gifts for his mom.

She was ok. They'd see her regularly. Visit her at a restaurant in town. Or Grandad would go get her and bring her over for the day. Grandad seemed to prefer it that way rather than chance Big Jim meeting up with Bill again. Though the step dad didn't bother Jimmy's mom anymore, still Grandad was afraid he might try 'one last run' at Jimmy...and, well, he didn't know if he could pull Jimmy back one more time or not.

So Jim just kinda never went back. He ended up living with his grandad for about twenty years. In that little two bedroom cottage at the resort.

Till Grandad died. Heart attack cutting the grass. Doc said he was gone before he hit the ground. Everyone said that's what he wanted anyway. In fact, he used to joke with Jimmy and say "Shoot me before ya put me in a home, boy. Have some mercy, son, and treat me at least as good as a dog and shoot me!"

The resort people were understanding and let Big Jim stay on at the cottage awhile but he really couldn't do all the work Grandad had done. Mechanics and carpentry and stuff. Didn't have the smarts for it.

As luck would have it however, well, luck for some, as Jim would have said, the stepdad killed himself. Drunk at the wheel one Saturday night. All alone, straight off an icy road, right into a tree. Broken bottles and whiskey stink all over the inside of the car said the cops. "Guess, that's the way 'he' wanted to go" was all Jim could say about that.

So he moved back with his mother. It worked out ok. Winter he would shovel snow for neighbours and things like that. Fall season come on, he wouldcut and split wood for them. Spring and summer was a little slow.

He was used to the resort, doing stuff with Grandad and fishing out of his little cedar canoe he'd bought from a Yankee one year for a quarter its worth because the guy had camped one week of which six days was solid rain and he never wanted to "see that rain sodden canoe or god damn leaky tent again in his life."

Grandad had loaned him the money sayin' it was a great deal and Big Jim shouldn't pass it up. He knew how much pride Jim would take owning and fixing up such a great canoe. Jim paid him back by giving him half of every tip or dollar he earned at the resort. Took him over a year but it was worth it.

Evenings at the resort he would go out alone or, even better, paddle Grandad around while Grandad hand trolled for lakers.

When everyone else had cursed the empty lake and went to their cottages to lament their failure at the creel, Jim and his grandad would go out and in an hour usually come back in with a nice one for a late supper.

Big Jim loved how all the tourists would gawk at Grandad and his fish; nobody callin' him dumb. Of course no one would ever call his Grandad dumb; he could do anything. He had smarts.

The fishermen would ask where he caught 'im and Grandad wouldn't lie. Show them on the map exactly where they had caught them. Show them the lure. Tell them exactly how much lead line to put out.

He'd tell Jimmy though, that no motor and a rod stuck in the back of a boat can simulate the subtle dart and twitch of a silver lure one hundred feet below the surface, dancing with the combined forward-up, then drop-back rythmn of the paddle stroke. Making it dance like a minnow hunting for food. Amplified by the holder of the hand line sending little 'twitches' with a short jerking wrist action which simulated the twitches of a minnow tail.

"Damn it, Jimmy, the damn lure has gotta look like something the trout wants to eat, not an unopened sardine can whipping by real fast." Then he'd wink and add "Trout got no can opener down there, ya know!"

So, after Jim had spent half a summer not doing too much, his mom suggested he go over to the Park for awhile. Eastern side, like Opeongo Lake. "Set up a little camp, near a phone" she said "So I don't worry about you. You could do some fishing, son. I'll be fine. Got lots of neighbours around. Especially in the summer. Too many visitors really. I hardly got time to clean the house with everyone stoppin' in."

So he got a neighbour to take him and his canoe and fishing stuff and an old tent he had up to Lake Opeongo. It was an old prospector style tent a neighbour had given him. Heavy canvas thing with wallsbut it was dry and even came with a little wood stove that went inside.

Most people who come to the Lake, travel 'way up' to get away from it all, though not necessarily from their biggest problem as Grandad used to say.

Big Jim didn't really care about that. Years with Grandad at the resort, he liked being around people. Not so much talkin' direct but just sitting near them. Listening maybe. Maybe not.

Having a tea. Or a chew of tobacco ( a habit he had inherited from Grandad.)

Anyway there was a little campsite about a quarter of a mile or so south west from the dock. In a little bay after you left the landing where the outfitters and canoe rental and Park's office was.

Nobody used it much. It was in the opposite direction of where most people headed up to camp and fish. In fact the best fishing holes were two to three miles away.
But Big Jim didn't mind that. In the early morning, around four a.m., he'd paddle up. Fish a few hours overlapping daybreak. Maybe catch a trout, maybe not. Back for a nice hot breakfast of trout, eggs and toast around eight or nine a.m.

Rest of the day he cleaned up around the campsite. Made a little table and chair. Out of dead wood and string. No nails. No hammering into trees. Grandad never liked to see that done. "Trees got a soul, son. Trees have been here a hell of a lot longer than us, be here a hell of a lot longer after. If you need wood, well, that's different. Like shootin' a deer for meat but you do it with respect, son. Puttin' a nail in a tree is a sign of disrespect for nature. Ain't right, just ain't right, Jimmy." It was Grandad too that taught Jim to put a pinch of tobacco in the Lake out of respect, as an offering for each lake trout he took out.

The campsite after a few days looked very cozy, snuggled away in some small pines. Big Jim could sit evenings under a small bug screen tent he had made from old discarded poles and some nettinghe had tied together.

It was a real pretty view of the water with the sunset colouring the sky and water on the left side of the lake.

Tea again and maybe a chew. Spittinginto an old tin rusted can. Remembering Grandad again who never spit on the land or into the water. 'Cause he said 'spittin' in the water would scare the trout away'. Jim used to wonder how that would scare a fish away one hundred feet down but he long since had learned not to argue with Grandad about trout.

A few mornings after, he caught a real nice trout, about ten pounds. He would have let it go as it was too much meat for him but it's gill was damaged and it would likely not survive.

So Big Jim killed it, cleaned it and paddled over to the Landing to give it to the ranger. The ranger thanked him but declined the offer. He said he never liked fresh fish that much having been raised on 'salmon from a can'. He figured the Outfitter kids would love to have it, though.

So Jim, a little shy, reluctantly took it over to where he saw a couple of twenty year old kids having a smoke. They were taking a break from varnishing a huge heap of canoe paddles.

Man, were they glad to get the fish! "It's weird but," the one kid with the long hair said "we don't get much time to fish here. After a twelve hour day all you wanna do is veg with a few brews in the evening."

Jim talked a little about where he got the fish and how. The boys were impressed.

Crew cut kid laughed and said " Guys with fifty thousand dollar boats and gear can't catch in a week what you got with a canoe and lead line in an hour!"

Big Jim pointed over at his canoe. "That's my canoe over there."

They were doubly impressed. Cedar strips were getting rarer and scarcer even in such a traditional canoeing haven as Algonquin.

The three went over and discussed its lines and construction.

The crew cut stuck out his hand and said "I'm Russ. And this hippie here is called Jake."

Big Jim shook both their hands. "I'm Jim."

"Well, Jim, we gotta get back to work but you want some of that fish to take?"

"No, it's ok, I had a couple this week already."

The two boys laughed, thinking Jim was kidding and then with a wave headed back to the 'heap' as they called it.

Big Jim knelt down at the dock and started to get in his canoe. He felt good. It had been along time since he hadthat kind of easy conversation with someone. Well, 'cept maybe his mom but this was different. These guys reminded him of the way Grandad used to talk and be amongst all the people at the resort. They all respected him.

Jim untied the rope holding the canoe to the dock and was about to paddle away when a shadow came over the canoe.

He looked up just as Russ dropped a plastic bag into the canoe.

"Couple of chocolate bars and a bag of chips for ya. For the fish. From the Jaker and me. Thanks again." He gave Big Jim a grin and walked back towards the stack of glistening canoe paddles where Jake was already varnishing away.

Big Jim just kinda gravitated towards the Landing and the Park every summer after that. He became a permanent add-on to Algonquin so to speak.

Even the tourists, the regulars who came up year after year, got to feel that Big Jim was as much a part of the Park experience as moose sightings or loon calls.

At the Park office where they got their permits the questions would go in the order of...How are the bugs?...what's the weather going to be like?...how's the fishing?...any bears?...how's Big Jim?...still here?...is he around, we could use a hand loadin' our boats?

Out of his tips, Big Jim bought bread and stuff at the store. Paid for his permits to stay in the park. Always camping in one or two sites close by. Sites never used anyway.

'Course he'd get confused and forgetful over how many nights he paid for in advance. He would never try to cheat the park but...well...smarts for Jim?...

He'd wait till the Parks office wasn't busy. Big Jim was still shy of crowds and felt awkward and foolish in a line up. (Like he was back in school again and someone had wrote 'Kick the dumb ass for a nickel' on a piece of paper and stuck it on the back of his shirt without him knowing.)He'd go in and say to one of the young Parks Rangers at the desk "I think I owe for last night and wanna pay a week ahead."

Sometimes they'd take his money and sometimes they'd say "Now, Jim, Computer here says you're paid till the twenty-first. That paper you got there printed wrong" Then they'd take the paper and scribble a new date on it and send Jim on his way, a little more befuddled but just as wealthy as when he'd come in.

Big Jim didn't guide at all but one old fellow who came up every year would hire Jim to go with him to do chores and stuff. Cook. Get firewood. Set up. Paddle the seventeen foot canoe the fellow always rented.

The old fellow wasn't lazy, just gettin' up there and needed help. And ...well...Jim was company. And knew the fish.

The old fellow liked to fish Jim's way, slow troll out of a canoe.

And talk. And talk. And talk. The old lad was a lawyer, still at it at seventy-eight years old.

Loved to sit by the fire and sip whiskey mixed with lake water and tell Jim all kinds of his lawyer-type war stories.

Do the same in the canoe while they trolled. Talk and fish that is. Without the whiskey.

Big Jim would just listen. Nod. Laugh. He enjoyed all the talking, even if he was just listening all the time. He often wondered, as he told his mom, "It's a wonder he don't run out of words Ma. He uses so many a day but he don't. Ma, he just don't. He never does!"

Another fella Big Jim became pals with over the years was a much younger camper named Bobby.

Bobby had started camping on Lake Opeongo when he was four.

Showed up one July hot day with his parents all decked up in a perfect pint-sized ensemble of new green cargo pants, hiking boots, ranger shirt and a canvas fedora camper's hat complete with roll down bug screen netting inside the rim.

And a book.

A big thick green thing, printed in the twenties, written by a fellow named Colonel Riley. It was the 'Complete Camping and Mountaineering Guide for Living and Surviving in the Woods.' Bobby loved it too because it had lots and lots of hand drawn diagrams and pictures...essential for a young woodsman not quite yet fully literate.

While Big Jim helped Bobby's parents load their boat from the van, Bobby kept showin' Big Jim all the neat stuff he could build out in the woods from his book.

Chairs, tables, best way to build a fire pit, log cabins and over-nite lean-tos, it was all there. Bobby couldn't even read half the words yet but from the pictures, it had become Bobby's bible since his father had given it to him before their first trip.

Bobby's dad had said it was his dad's and would Bobby like to have it? Like to have it? Really?

You would have thought the book was glued to Bobby's hand!

He never let it down. Brought it to the dinner table. Had it open watching TV. Slept with it tucked around like it was a teddy bear. Only place he wasn't allowed to take it was in the bathtub!

So when Big Jim told Bobby he had built a chair and table kinda like the ones in his book...well...Big Jim had a fan for life.

Every summer Bobby came up and, first thing, looked for Big Jim. Discussing all kinds of fellow woodsman secrets and 'how-to' stuff from the book. Plus things Bobby had done at cub scouts as he got older.

And most all, Bobby loved discussing all the intricate theories and black magic practises of lake trout fishing.

Bobby's dad didn't fish so Bobby only fished from shore at the campsite but every small bass or sunfish he caught could have been a laker.

'Cause Bobby knew as much as Big Jim knew about fishing for lake trout. Every nuance, like a wind shift sending lake currents and thus feed for minnows and the lakers which followed them to the other side of the lake. Or when treble hooks were better or worse than single hooks depending on the water temperature and, therefore, aggressiveness of the hitting lake trout.

Bobby remembered everything. Everything Big Jim told him from his experience and that of Jim's grandad.

Bobby loved to spend time at the dock at the Landing sittin' and gabbin' with Big Jim...Uncle Jim as he now called Big Jim.

His parents never minded. Bobby's mom and dad liked Big Jim though they never let Bobby go out in Big Jim's little canoe out into the lake. It wasn't that they didn't trust Big Jim. It was that tiny (to their eyes) little fragile craft compared to their twenty foot cruising boat.

They weren't snobs, in fact anything but, it's just that Bobby was an only child ...and well...some folks are just like that.

Big Jim looked forward every year to being 'Uncle Jim' seeing Bobby over the couple weeks they vacationed. Helping load and unload, dropping off a fresh cleaned lake trout every now and then in exchange for a wonderful Mrs. Bobby's Mother (as Jim called her) fabulous home cooked meal from their portable camp stove.

Then one summer, it stopped. When Bobby would have been ten. Bobby and his parents didn't show. As they lived a hundred miles away to the south, the Rangers didn't know why.

Next year, no show again. Or the next.

The third year, when Bobby was thirteen, Bobby arrived. He had his book, was as happy to see 'Uncle Jim' as before but he had a sad tale to tell.

Sitting with Jim a little away from the busy dock, he told Jim that his father had died a month after they had got back from their last camping trip. It was a heart attack. Real sudden. Nothing the doctors could do.

So, his mom and him had skipped a couple of years camping. In fact, had sold the boat and stuff.

Then his mom had met a feller and remarried. Just a couple of months ago.

He worked at a bank.

"Do you like him ok?" asked Big...er...Uncle Jim.

Bobby replied, kicking a piece of stick off the dock into the water, "He's ok."Bobby didn't finish his sentence out loud. Not like his dad though. Kinda strict more.

Bobby was happy for his mom though. She, at least, didn't cry so much anymore.

He was real excited to be camping again. His mom and step dad had even bought a new boat for it. Bobby, of course, still had his book safely stashed away with his gear to take up the lake.

Bobby took Uncle Jim over to his mom and step dad. His step dad had just backed a brand new boat, just as big as the old one into the water and was maneuvering it up to the dock.

Bobby's mom was really glad to see Big Jim again. Even gave him a hug.

The banker fellow just nodded hello, he was kinda pre-occupied with keeping his new boat from banging into the dock as he walked it around the end of the dock to tie it up.

Big Jim offered to help unload the car and load up the boat. Bobby's mom said thanks but the banker fellow said it was ok, they could manage all right on their own.

So Big Jim said he'd see them later, better let Bobby help and went over to the store to buy some bread and tea.

About an hour later, Big Jim was getting ready to paddle back to his campsite for lunch. He could see Bobby and his mom and step dad were ready to leave so he strolled over to wish them a good trip.

Bobby told him to drop by their campsite, they were going to try for the one just west of Windy Point. Bobby's mom nodded agreement but the banker fellow didn't say anything. So Big Jim said he would see but that it was pretty busy at the dock right now but maybe he'd see Bobby for sure when they came to get bread and eggs and stuff.

Over the next week, that's the way it went.

Big Jim saw Bobby a few times at the Landing. They chatted while Bobby's mom and step dad shopped.

Bobby was enjoying the camping again. Missed his dad a lot but he was real excited about a camp chair he was making using deadwood, string and their new Swede camp saw.

The shopping done, Bobby's mom called him away and off they went in the boat.

A couple of days later, as Big Jim came up to the Landing about nine in the morning, he could see four or five Parks trucks in the parking lot. Bobby's parent's boat was tied up at the dock.

He went up to the office door but there was a big crowd of people. At least ten or twelve Park rangers. Bobby's mom and step dad were there too. Bobby's mom was crying. Seeing that, Jim hurried in.

It seems that sometime around four or five in the afternoon yesterday, Bobby had wondered off into the bush alone.

They hadn't noticed Bobby being gone for awhile. Bobby's mom had been napping till about seven. They had spent the next couple of hours wandering back in the woods a little, calling out his name.

Then they had come down to the Landing for help.

Two rangers and a Warden went up right away but by then it was getting dark. They drove the Parks boat up and down the shore line for a couple of more hours flashing lights and calling for Bobby but no luck.

This morning the Head Warden was organizing a larger party to go deeper into the bush. The local provincial police were coming in the afternoon with a couple of dogs and a plane but the Head Warden wanted to start right away.

Big Jim, of course, offered to help too. When he did, snickers came from a couple of Maintenance volunteers when one said in a whisper 'and then there were two'.

The Head Warden gave them a scowl and then turning back to Jimsaid kindly "No thanks, Jim. Not yet, anyway. I don't have enough radios and gear to do a big sweep. We'll organize that later if we need to. Right now I just wanna stick to Parks people; Hopefully Bobby's not in too far."

Big Jim got out of the way then but he did offer to Bobby's mom to paddle up and see if he could help at the campsite. She just kinda said thanks in a dazed way. Bobby's step dad just shrugged.

Halfway to the campsite, paddling up the lake, Big Jim saw all the boats go by.

When he got there, the rangers and Wardens were all ready to go off into the bush with one Ranger behind at the campsite monitoring everyone else with a large portable radio.

Big Jim didn't really know what to do. Bobby's mom and step dad weren't really hungry. Big Jim thought maybe he'd cut some firewood in case they wanted to cook later or if people got cold. He really hoped, though, that Bobby would be found before tonight. Still, cuttin' wood was something to do.

He found the axe but no saw. Asking Bobby's step dad , he just said "It's broken" and left it at that.

'Odd' thought Jim but kept it to himself. Then, on a hunch, he asked Bobby's mom if Bobby had his book here or with him?

"What the hell is the difference..." started Bobby's step dad but Bobby's mom interrupted with " I don't know, Jim. Check his tent over there if you want."

Big Jim unzipped the door and crawled in a little. 'Bobby's a neat camper' he thought. Sleeping bag, pillow made up neat. Extra clothes folded up on top of a little pack on the floor to keep them dry from the morning dampness. No book, though. A couple of other things missing that any camper would have ready to grab when they crawled in at night. Like where's the flashlight? A knife? It was warm yesterday but where was Bobby's heavy camp coat?

Big Jim backed out of the tent and zipped up the fly.

He asked Bobby's mom if Bobby had a coat around? Was it hanging on a chair or tree?

She said he had brought a green army coat but it wasn't in the campsite. Wasn't it in the tent?

Big Jim then told the ranger running the radio that he was going to paddle the shoreline for awhile, just in case Bobby came out that way. The ranger just asked Big Jim not to wander into the woods too far.

As Big Jim paddled east along the rocky but shallow shoreline he kept thinking about the stuff missing from the tent. He wished the Head Warden had been around to talk to him about it.

Big Jim knew this area pretty well. The campsite where Bobby and his family camped was the same one the old lawyer used to like to get. Big Jim would set up a day or two before he got there. To reserve it and get a load of deadwood in for fires. Jim always checked out all the other campsites nearby too, keeping them clean to discourage bears in the area. Though the old lawyer had said that he had faced too many with gavels in their hands to be afraid of them anymore.

There was a campsite about a half mile down, west of the campsite next to Bobby's. This campsite had a peculiar thing to it. Back of it was a trail that led up to a little clearing. Sunny and open. Surrounded by some old pines missed by the loggers of years ago. In the middle of the clearing was a big dead one. Trunk split to the bottom years ago. Made a cave big enough for a bear to hibernate in.

Big Jim pulled up to that campsite, got out, tied up his canoe. Walking up with the paddle he looked down at the ground but he was no tracker.

"Son, you're like me" his grandad would say "couldn't find a train if you fell over its' tracks."

Using his paddle like a walking stick, Big Jim strolled up to the clearing.

Right away he saw the crack in the tree had been barricaded up expertly with dead pine logs and then covered over with branches. In front he spotted a small little fire pit that hadn't been there before.

Big Jim stopped about ten feet from the tree, squatted down and spoke out loud "That's gotta be the best fort I ever seen. Keep out a bear or a wolf for sure."

Nothing was heard for a moment but the light breeze in the trees. Then a young boy's voice spoke up "That you, Uncle Jim?"

"Yes, it is, Bobby. You ok?"

"Sure. You alone, Uncle Jim?"

"Yeah, I am, Bobby. You wanna come out? I think your mom's really worried."

Big Jim heard some movement and then the branches fell over. The logs parted and Bobby crawled out, bringing along his camp knife, book and flashlight. He stood up and brushed off bits of bark from his heavy coat.

"What time is it, Uncle Jim?"

"Around ten."

"Geez, I guess I slept in. I didn't fall asleep for quite awhile in there last night. I think there might have been ants."

Big Jim smiled. "I suppose that's why bears eat them first. You wanna tell me what this is all about? You hungry, though? I got some bread and jam in the canoe."

"Naw, I'm ok. I had some chocolate bars and stuff with me."

Big Jim nodded "So why'd ya stay here last night? If you don't mind me asking."

Bobby looked away "Well...well...got lost. So when I found this spot I figured I should stay put till I was found. You know...like Colonel Riley says in his book.

Big Jim replied "That's right. Though, ya didn't think to come down to the shore? Down that little trail?"

Bobby kicked a little at the grass and looked at Big Jim "I'm...I...didn't come that way, so I didn't know."

Big Jim nodded "No compass, Bobby?" Big Jim could see the cord hanging out of Bobby's coat pocket. After all Bobby had showed Jim how it worked at least a hundred times over the years.

Bobby didn't answer. Just looked into the pines.

Big Jim spoke again "Ok, Bobby, maybe we should go back now. Your mom's real worried. But can I ask ya one more question?"

"Sure."

"What happened to the saw?"

Bobby could have lied again but he'd had enough. He started crying. Then made himself stop. Still the last hours of frustration, pain, even hatred wanted to get out somehow.

Big Jim didn't know what to say so he just waited.

Bobby wiped his nose on his coat sleeve and told Uncle Jim the story.

"I broke it. It got stuck in the log I was cutting and when I pushed on it, it broke. It was his. He had said I could use it but be careful with it.

When I broke it, I knew he'd be real mad but I was going to tell him anyways.

I went over to tell him where he was reading a book but Mom wasn't there. She must have been napping in the big tent. I figured he'd be less mad in front of her so I'd wait till she got up.

So then I just went down to the shore and started skippin' rocks for awhile. Guess I was thinkin' about the saw and not paying attention cause I threw a big flat one and somehow it went out of my hand wrong. Bounced off the motor on his new boat. I seen the chip of the paint fly.

Then I heard a noise behind me and it was him. He was carryin' the broken saw. I'd left it at the top of the bank. Guess he seen me hit his boat too.

He just turned real red and said 'You little bastard. I'll teach you to give a shit about other people's things!'

He dropped the saw and picked up a long stick that I had cut for marshmallows. Started hittin' me with it all over. I covered my head but he must have hit me twenty or thirty times on my arms and legs and back."

Bobby had pulled back his jacket and shirt sleeves and Big Jim could see the welt marks.

"Then he just dropped the stick, picked up his saw and walked back to his chair. Started reading again like nothing had happened."

Big Jim asked "Well, sorry, Bobby. It weren't right, what he did. Didn't your mom hear? Why didn't ya yell for her?"

Bobby looked at Big Jim with a deep scowl. "I never cried or yelled while he was hittin' me. I wasn't gonna give that bastard the satisfaction."

Bobby was sitting on the ground. He took his knife out of its sheath and stabbed at the ground, saying cuss words under his breath.

Big Jim didn't know what to say, just watched Bobby stabbing at the ground. "It ain't right, Bobby but ya shouldn't maybe get so mad. Maybe if ya told..."

Bobby interrupted "Don't tell my mom, Uncle Jim. She...well...she likes him. She's happier now. And he ain't never hit me before. Before this. He's strict but never hit me before. Besides, it was kinda my fault. I mean the saw and the rock and all.

Don't tell them I run away. My mom will ask all kinds of questions and I want my mom to be happy. I just ran 'cause...well...I was so mad. I couldn't stand lookin' at him. Sitting there again, readin' that f%^*ing book. Like nothing had happened. Like he'd just kicked a dog or something.

I got my stuff and just walked away. Down the shore. Then I found this place.

I feel bad about hurting mom, her worrying, but I just couldn't look at that son of a bitch again. I heard them calling for me last night but I just couldn't...go back then."

Big Jim thought maybe he should tell Bobby not to swear so much but he didn't. He remembered that kind of anger. Instead, he just said again, "Ain't right , Bobby. Ain't right what he did."

"Yeah, but don't tell Mom. Or anyone. Please. 'Cause there was a kid in my school whose step dad hit him and they took him away to a foster home."

Bobby looked sad "I wouldn't want to leave my mom, Uncle Jim."

"I won't tell Bobby. I promise. We'll just say ya got lost."

Big Jim stood up to go "Ain't right though, Bobby. Just so you know. It wasn't right what he did."

"I know, Uncle Jim. Just don't tell, ok?"

They walked down to the canoe and got in. Paddled back to the campsite, talking about lake trout fishing.

When they got to the campsite, Bobby's mom was, of course, in tears, hugging Bobby and thanking Jim.

The other rangers had returned by then preparing for a bigger sweep.

The Head Ranger asked Big Jim where and how the hell he had found Bobby. He was grinning of course, glad the search had ended soon with Bobby safe.

Big Jim just said he was paddling along and Bobby had appeared at the shoreline, followed a little creek down to the lake. The way Colonel Riley's book said to.

Meanwhile, Bobby's mother was looking Bobby over for any 'worse for the wear' signs. She noticed the marks on his arms right away. Bobby was explaining that he had gotten into some real thick cedar and kept falling as he tried to get through. The marks were from branches hitting at him.

The Head Warden and Jim were listening. The Head Warden looked kinda sceptical. Looked at Big Jim, Bobby, then the step dad.

"You sure about that, Jim? Don't recall any streams around here."

Big Jim replied "It's a pretty small creek, dries up usually. Lucky for the rain we've had, I guess."

The Warden nodded "Well, I guess I'm just jealous you'll get all the credit for this one, Jim. There goes another promotion for me." He laughed.

Big Jim blushed "You...you guys would have found him five minutes after me anyways."

The Warden replied "Maybe." He looked again at Bobby, his mom, his step dad, then back at Jim "And maybe not."

'Course, Bobby's mom and step dad had enough of camping. They were ready to go home. Bobby wanted to paddle back with Uncle Jim but with the frightened look in Bobby's mother's eyes, Big Jim hastened to say no. His mother had been through enough worries without Bobby going' down the lake in a little canoe. Big Jim said he would pack up for them instead.

The Warden stepped in and said "Look Jim, there's a bunch of us here to help. You go ahead now and paddle down to the Landing and see them off there."

So Big Jim headed out. It was good in a way because it gave him a chance to mull over in his head all that had happened this morning. He knew it wasn't right but what could he do? Bobby didn't want to go away from his mom but would it get worse? Big Jim remembered Bobby and the knife, he remembered his own anger and hatred years ago...how his grandad had saved him from...Bobby didn't want him to tell anyone...still...it wasn't right, not right at all...

Big Jim got to the Landing just afterall the Park's boats and Bobby's family had arrived.

News spread quick that Bobby was ok and Big Jim was the hero of the day.

Big Jim, of course, was pretty shy of all the attention. He would have scooted away to his campsite but he promised Bobby he would stick around to say goodbye and...well...what had happened to Bobby still bothered him a lot.

'Ain't a right thing' he kept thinkin'. He sure wished his grandad was here to ask him about it.

Finally the boat and car was loaded and while Bobby's mom and Bobby went in the store, Big Jim walked over to Bobby's step dad.

"Mr Johnson?" Big Jim had gotten his name from the Warden.

"What?" Johnson actually reached for his wallet. Whether he was going to 'tip' Big Jim or expected Big Jim to ask for money was hard to tell.

Big Jim continued " Could I please talk to you alone for a minute, sir? Say over there away from the people?"

"Look, we're leaving. It's been a long day. Whatever..."

Big Jim interrupted "It's about a saw, Mr Johnson. A broken saw."

Johnson's eyes widened but his face remained unchanged. With a shrug, he walked over with Jim to a quieter area.

Turning to face Jim, Johnson asked, "Well?" He glanced at his watch as if to indicate to Jim that this had better be brief, he had 'things' to do.

"Mr Johnson, sir, I don't have a lot of what people call smarts. So I'm kinda real confused what to do. See, Bobby told me about everything. The saw, your boat, the whippin'. Pardon me for sayin', Mr Johnson, but it ain't right, it just ain't right what ya did to Bobby."

"Well, what business is it of yours anyway? Besides, the boy..."

Big Jim help up a hand to interrupt "Well, sir, ya see you may not know it but I've known Bobby a long time. That's why he calls me Uncle Jim. To him, I guess, I'm family and well, right now, if he needs me as family, then I guess I am family, sir."

Johnson just scowled at Big Jim but Big Jim didn't stop, even though he felt nervous as hell speaking out like this.

"I figured out when I paddled down here that I guess family looks out for family, Mr Johnson. You know, helps out when there might be helpin' needed. I kinda think right now Bobby's needing my help a little so I wanna do what's right for him. Like my grandad did for me years ago."

Big Jim shuffled a little at the dirt, finding his ground so to speak, then continued " Now Bobby didn't tell no one else he run away. I guess you must have figured out he run away by now, Mr. Johnson. I ain't told no one either. Not even his mother. Especially his mother. 'Cause Bobby said he was afraid of upsetting his mom, ruining her happiness like. He was afraid too of ...well...bein' sent to a foster home. I don't rightly know how that works...perhaps you..."

Johnson interrupted, his face reading impatience with Big Jim's apparent ramblings "Get to the point, will you, Mr...er...what was your..?"

Jim replied "Jim. Just call me Jim, Mr Johnson. Okay, sir, my point is...well...it ain't right what you done, Mr Johnson, it ain't right at all and what I want, Mr Johnson is to make sure it don't ever happen again to Bobby. A whipping like that."

Mr Johnson almost smiled "And what, one may ask, is such a fellow...er...as yourself...to do...to go about that? Ensuring such a thing doesn't happen again? If, indeed, it did 'actually' even happen the first time? Which I deny." Mr Johnson was definitely heading towards smug.

"Well, sir, I have been thinking and I know this lawyer fella. I don't really have no smarts, not like a banker, but a lawyer does."

"So you are going to get a lawyer, are you? For Bobby, perhaps? Try to sue me, perhaps? For alleged damages?"

"No. No, sir. I was just remembering what this old lawyer fella said once. He said 'Everyone, Jimmy, gets a free one."

"A free one? A free what?"

"In court, sir, he meant. A free one. He said to me that short of actual murder or stealin' a lot of money like a million dollars, everyone gets a free one in court. Whatever ya done wrong, he said, the judge will usually go real easy on ya if it's what he called...ah...your first time...your first offence."

The banker replied "Are you talking of taking me to court, sir? Charging me with the 'first offence?" He almost laughed in Jim's face.

Big Jim got a real serious look on his own face. "No, Mr Johnson. I'm talkin' about me in court. I'm sorry I'm dumb, Mr Johnson, this is hard to explain. What I mean is...I will use that free one, that first time, on you Mr Johnson.

I will give up my first one by beating the absolute hell out of you, Mr Johnson, if you ever touch Bobby again."

Mr Johnson had stopped looking smug, in fact, his pallor through his new tan was distinctly pale now.

"Now, maybe I'm wrong Mr Johnson. Maybe the court will think breaking both your legs is too serious for a free one. I don't know. Don't really much care either, sir. After all I'll get fed in prison, do chores. Not much different than life now.

I'm too dumb, too big, too old to be picked on in prison either. Don't matter much anyhow."

Jim scratched at the stubble on his chin but his eyes never left Johnson's.

"That's not really the trouble anyhow, Mr Johnson. It's stoppin'. See, a long time ago, my step dad used to hit me and my grandad took me away from all that.

But it's still in me, Mr Johnson. Still there like a 'bear in a bag' Grandad used to say. So when I start, it'll be for Bobby but then 'the bear' will take over and then it'll kinda be for me then. Me as a kid.

Not sure when it could stop, Mr Johnson, I'll be honest with you. You won't know, you'll be...what's the word...un...unconscious. But even then I don't know how long it'll keep going', sir. I ain't just sayin' that, Mr Johnson. It really worries me.

I'd lose my free one, I guess. Don't much care, though. In the end. 'Cause it'll be for Bobby anyway.

Now, just so you know I'm not talking just about up here next summer and all, your missus, Bobby's mom gave me your phone number and address. Not 'cause of this, sir. Said if I was ever down that way over the winter to look you people up.

Now, Mr Johnson, I would never impose, never stay a night or anything like that. I wouldn't be comfortable though...I do..like..them (Jim said the last four words very deliberate), but I guess I could bus down just for a day. See Bobby and all." Big Jim was still staring at Johnson's face, his big fists clenched tight at his sides.

Johnson finally spoke "And what if I simply get a restraining order against you...and perhaps...have you charged, as well, with giving bodily threats?"

"I'm sorry, Mr Johnson, a what kind of order?"

"A restraining order. It's a piece of paper issued from the courts that tells you to stay away from my family and I."

"Well, Mr Johnson, I don't think you're listening. Do you think holdin' up a piece of paper between me and you is gonna save you? After all I just said? And tryin' to keep me away from Bobby, well, to me that just says you want to be left alone to keep whipping him.

And that ain't right. So if you wanna keep me away, if you try that, well, I gotta think you're gonna whip him more 'cause why else would you try to keep me away? I ain't got many smarts like I said, Mr Johnson, but your tryin' to keep me away from Bobby is like sayin' to me right now 'Go to hell, I'll treat the boy the way I want.'

Big Jim leaned closer to Johnson. "Is that what you mean, Mr Johnson?"

"No." was the answer.

"Well, like I've been saying Mr Johnson I ain't smart but I do know that men like my step dad, you know, drunks, the mean kind of drunks, well, it wouldn't matter me telling them all this. 'Cause they'd just get drunk like he always did and then forget all about what's been said. Then go ahead and do it anyway.

With someone like my step dad, you'd have to beat 'im real bad first, then tell 'im you'd do it worse next time. My grandad used to say 'most people learn to walkcareful at night by running into things in the daytime.'

But I don't think you're like that, Mr Johnson. A drunk like. I just kinda think you're used to gettin' your own way and, well, kids, well, they mostly get in the way, I guess.

So I don't think you're a bad man, Mr Johnson, but what ya did ain't right. Weren't right at all so all you got to do is not do it again.

No one knows' cept Bobby and me. No one else needs to know.

I ain't threatening you, Mr Johnson. Just makin' a promise between Bobby, you and me, ok? 'Cept Bobby wont know either. About this I mean.

My grandad explained to me the difference one time. Between a promise and a threat. A threat's what the other fella heard ya say thinking ya don't mean it; a promise is what the other fella heard ya say when he knows ya damn well do mean it.

So I ain't threatenin' Mr Johnson, I'm making a promise, on my word and the word of my grandad. Do you understand, Mr Johnson? No more beatin' or whippin' or hittin' Bobby, ok?"

Johnson nodded, moved to go.

Big Jim stepped in front of him, extending his hand out. "I'd like your handshake on it, Mr Johnson. Like business people do. So we both know we both know."

Johnson replied "It's not necessary. I understand your point."

"Well, Mr Johnson, you're not shakin' my hand on it makes me feel like you're thinkin' twice on the deal. Second thoughts like. Are you sayin' we got no deal, Mr Johnson?"

Johnson hesitated for a moment then said "We have a deal." and he shook hands with Jim.

They walked back to the car and trailered boat where Bobby, his mom and the Warden were waiting for them.

More hugs, goodbyes, then they drove off leaving the Warden standing beside Big Jim.

He turned to Jim. "You did good, Jim. Saving that boy."

"Ahh, you guys would have found him in five more minutes."

"Yeah, ok, Jim, have it your way, then. But ya still did good."

They were quiet for a moment, then the Warden spoke up "What were you and Bobby's step dad talking about, Jim? If you don't mind me asking?"

"Nothin'. He was just thankin' me."

"Yeah, sure. That's why he was as white as my granny's wig and looked like his arse had sealed itself up for the winter!"

Jim said nothing.

The Warden laughed "Ok. Ok, Jim. Have it your way. I still say , though, that you did good. Helpin' that kid." He slapped Jim on the back as he moved away. "See ya, Jim."

Big Jim stood for awhile, looking out across the stillness of Lake Opeongo, quiet in the beginning of the afternoon sun for a change.

'He'd done good' he thought. 'That's what the Warden had said. He'd done good. He'd hoped so. Like his grandad had done for him. Saved him. Maybe this time too, for Bobby. Tellin' Jimmy inside his head what to say to help Bobby.'

Jim went over to his canoe, got in, setting out to paddle back to his campsite for a nice supper of toast and jam and fried bologna.

Before he shoved off, the Warden came back out and yelled over at him "Hey, Jimmy boy, you like pizza?" He walked over to where Jim was holding his canoe to the dock.

Big Jim replied with a grin "Well, I prefer pork and beans but you guys won't let me take the cans into the Park."

The Warden laughed " Every camper whines about his pork and beans. I swear the man who finally puts beans and beer into plastic jars to sell in the Park is going to be a millionaire up here in a week.

Anyway, the damnest thing just happened. That banker fellow just stopped at Sheila's Café in town and paid for a dozen large pizzas to be sent up here. I'll send one of the boys in to get 'im. The whole darn Landing, including the Outfitter kids, is gonna have pizza for supper!

You too, my friend. You gotta join us. No way out of it. You're the guest of honour as far as we all are concerned."

What could Jim do but retie his canoe? He went into the Parks office and made himself a cup of tea. Then he came back out with it to sit on the picnic table.

Taking a sip, he looked out again at the lake and waited for his pizza party to begin.

THE END

Up and Down the Lake

Jane, at that awkward, skinny, tall age of tomboyish twelve, was very excited. This was going to be her second camping trip this summer at Algonquin Park.

Last month, in July, she had come up with her parents and camped with Grampa for four days.

Her Grampa stayed up there all summer, setting up a camp on Lake Opeongo or moving around on short canoe trips with his lighter solo canoe.

She loved looking at his worn, torn and re-taped Algonquin canoe map with him.

Three things she liked about that. The way Grampa would describe the portage trails in phrases like 'only one valley and one small mountain' or 'that way is always nice and dry for the first three feet.'

He'd also point at spots on the map and tell Jane "saw two calf moose there" or "that's where a bear mother and her cub were by the lakeshore when I paddled close."

The other thing she especially liked about the map was all the red lines showing canoe routes from lake to lake. They were exactly like the history books at school about real explorers like Champlain and Franklin. It was neat thinking she could do the same thing one day.

Have a big map up on the wall and draw in her routes, in yellow or blue, like Jane Reinart, 2018 or J.R. summer of 2020.

Well, right now , she was only twelve, so the first trip had been with her parents along. "So" as her grampa had said "there were three people to slave over the princess, not just one old peasant, i.e. me!"

This next trip was going to be different. Just going to be Grampa and her. For a couple of nights. Plus, of course, Fifi or Fido or Fi-duh or Do-see-do or any of the other nicknames that Grampa called his little poodle-jack-russelly terrier mix male dog. What his actual name was Jane had forgotten but she did know he looked like a black and white fox on a really bad hair day!

The campsite was already set up, in a quiet cove away from the main stream of boat traffic on Opeongo in August.

Grampa used to grumble a lot at the boats. He'd see them go too close to a family in a canoe, cutting them off to get to the turn at the Point. "Appears that's what a vacation is for, Jane. Get it over with as quick as you can. So you can go home and work yourself half to death for the next one."

Jane loved sitting in the front of Grampa's square stern canoe, moving slow along the shoreline with the little motor pushing them along. Less work than paddling, a little nosier perhaps but you still saw lots of stuff.

Like the otters and beavers way down into the cove past Grampa's campsite in the evening. Five otters there, a whole family.

Grampa would cut the motor and paddle around gently. The otters would swim out from their home under an overhang on the shore to check them out. Five heads would then line up facing the canoe, swimming back and forth, keeping a watchful eye on Jane and Grampa.Then they would lift their upper bodies higher out of the water, snorting in the air to smell what was coming into THEIR home.

"Makes you remember we're the strangers around here, doesn't it, Jane? We're just borrowing a little space of nature from them. All they asked is that we give it back in as good a shape as when they loaned it out."

Even when there was no wildlife to see, the evening shadows of the shoreline were fascinating enough for Jane. The shapes and twists of roots, water and wind washed driftwood, boulders and stones reshaped by the artistry of centuries of time; these created a language between Jane and the Spirit voices of Algonquin.

One evening, her and Grampa left her parents relaxing at the campsite and just paddled along quietly with the motor up.

Gazing at the 'shadow talkers'(as Grampa called them) again, it occurred to Jane that the Indians had not thought of such spirits as an extension of only their own imagination but as a reality. They were a reality of another world, another language that could be seen...and heard...and felt.

These shapesweren't bringing the spirits to life, the spirits were actuallyalive and what was actually happening was that Jane was 'shedding' a little of her 'city eyes' and was seeing more, feeling more of the Algonquin language around her.

At dusk, her Grampa said the spirits were more willing to be seen , to walk along the shoreline, or linger at the edge of camps. Just as deer and moose come down to the edge of the lake to drink, so , too, the Algonquins journey out from their 'sleep' inside the forests and emerge...and mingle.

Grampa said this was what made campers scared, not really because they could see less in the shadows, but because they could see more. 'Civilized' man does not dwell easy amongst what he does not understand.

Grampa said that's why campers made so much damn noise half the night. To drown out the sound of too many gods speaking to them. When all they needed to do was answer back with their own reverence of silence.

Another night, Jane had went down to the water's edge at twilight. Sitting by herself, she could just hear the murmur of the older voices at the fire. The flames flickered a change of light and shadows occasionally through the trees between herself and the camp.

She had at first went to fish but soon forgot about that.

Instead she just watched the lake. It was going to sleep. Its surface slowing from the rapid breath of the afternoon waves to a slower pulse of gentle breathing. A rise and fall of only an inch or two,...a rythmn that Jane watched being painted upon a large stone centuries old.

It seemed to Jane that slower rythmn was doing more to reshape the stone than the more violent waves of the day acting upon it.

As if one grew more in the soul when one slept than when one was in the motions of conscious times.

For it was the hands of ice, rain,

water, wind which painted this stone. Time alone sculpted it.

Jane stretched out more and leaned back against the pine tree right behind her. Her eyes once again looked out across the evening surface of the lake.

Everything here talked in centuries.

This lake itself had breathed like this for centuries. A huge living creature slumbering at her feet. Centuries and centuries old and alive. It was organic.

Behind her, all around her was the seasons of trees and the shorter ones of the people she loved.

Above her, the revolutions of a moon, centuries old too but feeling faryounger because of its ever shifting status.

For the first time in her life, Jane felt deeply in her own young soul, the passage of time, its mystery of definition, its elusiveness of containment, its ever shifting presence between the moment and the eternal. It carried life and death as if a right and left hand, as if the simple rise and fall of a lake's breath. Each life, the rise and fall of a waterline marked upon a wind shaped stone.

It was the opposite of when her cat, Mittens had died last year. When that happened, Jane felt not just a loss but a sense of puzzlement that life existed with Mittens and, now, without Mittens. It was hard to explain the feeling to anyone, even to herself. Mittens was not just a 'broken toy', not just a TV movie watched and then the whole thing advances forward.

To be discarded from her mind by a new toy or new program in front of her eyes.

Was Mittens not more than the Mittens she had experienced with? They had shared life? That was the difference between Mittens and Algonquin.

Her life contained the beginning and the end of Mitten's life. Algonquin contained the beginning and ending of her life. Jane's life.

None were greater or lesser for this. It was not a measurement. Nor a paradox. It, too, was organic.

Jane had quite a collection at home of old stuffed bears and one armed or one legged Barbie dolls. Her dad had told her to take the limbs from one and make a whole Barbie but Jane was horrified by such a process. Without really knowing why.

Perhaps it was in the choosing of which 'carcass' is then discarded that gave Jane such tribulation. Not so much an abhorrence of playing 'god' at such an early age as playing... resurrector. Not just the burden of 'beginning' but also of perpetuating it.

Choosing what is to be 'reborn' involved more than merely being god, it involved being Destroyer as well.

So the broken dolls stayed under her bed, in her closet but, of course, mittens could not. Only her mind could keep Mittens 'born'.

A mind contained now in the time of Algonquin. Would it welcome Mittens when she entered it herself?

She had watched a TV show once where people had done a thing on a drowned boy called CPR. They had worked for two hours because the air ambulance was delayed by bad weather in getting to him. In the end, they had succeeded in reviving the boy back to life.

How come no one had done that for Mittens at the vets she had wondered?

A week later, she watched her dad fix a lawnmower that wouldn't start. He took it half apart then reassembled it. One pull of the cord and it was back to life!

Why hadn't the vet done that to Mittens? Took out the sick part, fixed it, put it back in, then with CPR brought Mittens back to life?

She had felt stupid asking her mother, like she was five years old or something, but she really wanted to know why.

Her mother's explanation didn't help much. About organs and circulation stopping and brain decay. She had already read all that on the Internet. That answered how, not why.

The weekend with Grampa and her parents she had talked to her Grampa about this when her parents went out fishing for awhile.

Grampa's answer was a little better though still lacking.

"What we call death, kiddo, the bigger universe calls change. We see a tree fall and call that, change, but the tree calls it death.

Next question would be why there is change? Well, 'cause things move in the universe. You know your science and stuff a whole lot more than this old fart does I imagine. So they say the universe is gettin' bigger and bigger and everything keeps racing outwards away from the start and time itself is just part of that equation.

Flow. Like a river. Stop a river, at least one end of it , andit becomes a lake. The river is dead.

'Course the lake gets bigger and bigger till a new river is born.

Or evaporates. Clouds. Rain. Rivers on the move.

Didn't I hear tell that matter is just 'stuck' energy. And probably gets edgy about it, you know like, full of that energy like holding onto a cat by it's tail. Time to let go. That's death, letting go...of the cat's tail!

Don't look at me like that, I'll be thinking I am a scientific genius."

Jane was most decidedly NOT looking at her grandfather like he was a genius but she declined to say so.

He continued poking at the fire, expanding upon it...and his theories "Every atom in the universe is on the move, Jane. Why? 'Cause that's the way it started out so that's the way it's gotta finish.

You see that wild rose over there? At the bank? Well, let's keep it there forever. Now, if we do that, a lots gotta stop around it too. Moose can't walk over here and step on it. Ground can't freeze 'cause it needs water. Spring can't come and maybe flood it away. Another ice age can't come and crush it. End of the world has to be permanently delayedtoo.

In order to hold onto the rose, we have to stop all the time around it. First thing you know you are chewing on the same bite of hot dog forever and ever and ever.

Tasty now but for hundreds and thousands of years? Not even my cooking is that good!

So everything around has to move to make room for everything new to come in.

The old gettin' the hell out of the way for the new. 'Cause there is only so much space available any one time, ya see.

Yeah, I know, but sometimes the young die and more than likely at times the old don't die soon enough (he laughed there) but the whole idea is that the universe is in motion and that's just the way it is.

Everything just gets rearranged all the time, atoms and such. 'Cept, ya see, people look at death and then they look at themselves and say 'But I die!'

Get it? Pointing at himself he said again 'But I die!'

Everyone wants consciousness forever, to be born but without death. It's not possible. We need the nature of Time itself in order to be born but then we can't end it. Time itself that is. Can't just stop the process.

It's like that old saying 'Don't curse the rain while you are paddling across the lake'. Get it? No rain, eventually you're on a very long portage buried inmud."

Jane had sort of 'got it' and sort of not. Her head was beginning to 'know' but she didn't feel it. She knew Grampa 'felt it' and so now his head could forget it.

Now, here, at the evening shore, she 'felt' a part of herself pulled, dissolving into the rhythmic motion of the lake...felt in her palms the slow breath of the smooth rock face...heard her 'time' being softly spoken behind her, through the trees, beside the camp fire.

She didn't feel separated from these things, these 'so different from each other' things. Not the separation she had felt when Mittens had left her...or had she left Mittens?

She reached down into the water and felt the wetness on her finger tips. Lifted a few drops upward in her palm.

These droplets were so old. They had travelled so far already. They had been oceans and clouds over Asia and a river descending in Africa. Moving, moving, moving...coming to this place...resting before her...then moving, moving again.

She remembered something she had read at school, on the internet. Some Hindu thing on creation. That god created the beautiful mountains and then he filled the valleys with his tears of joy. She had liked its simplicity, its beauty without answering anything.

She had returned from the lake shore that evening and her and her Grampa had talked of these things late into the night even after her parents had 'crashed'.

When she told it to her Grampa he said " Those are the best answers. They answer only the heart, not the mind."

Perhaps, in her palm, these droplets had come from a god, too.

Grampa didn't really say wether he believed in god, he only said he didn't need a god to lead him to death. Nature would do as well for that task as she had been the one to lead him this far.

Then he added "Be careful of us adults though, Jane. Soon as you ask about death, we'll start on about god. No one knows anything more about that then the other.

Adults talking about death and god is like a convention of blind people in a dark room. Someone yells fire and the least blind guy leads everyone away from the light. 'Cept that light might have been the open door, not the fire itself.

Most of the time, you're better off just following your own nose."

Grampa continued "I do know this though. The natives say that some God didn't invent Nature. The whites invented God. 'Cause they were afraid of Nature. Lost their soul with her. Couldn't hear her talk anymore. You know, like that language you were speakin' of. Along the shoreline, down at the lake, in the wind, in your heart.

Strange thing is when you cant hear somethin' you think you should still hear, when you're just catching the edge of it, people get scared. And start praying, I suppose.

All I know is that what's here is real. It's as alive as you and I. No fairy tale.

You reach a point of understanding it , believing in it, feeling it...that...well...not to eventually return to it would be a terrible thing to have to live with forever..."

So now Jane had returned to the lake and this trip was just going to be her and Grampa...and, of course, Fidel. If that was his name now she wondered.

Jane was excited this weekend, too, because this time she was to drive the canoe. Or was it, steer? Whatever you called it, she was excited.

At the landing, when Grampa had picked her up, he went through the whole start up and shut down of the motor three times before they could even leave.

Lower the motor. Check gas. Pump the gas line. Choke out. Neutral gear. Gas at half throttle. Pull cord. Reduce gas feed when it starts. Slowly push in choke.

Grampa had said she had to know how to run the motor in case he got mad at her and walked back to the landing on his own!

So her gear loaded and goodbyes to Mom and Dad, Grampa leaned over to the dock, untied the canoe and with a light shove set the bow out towards the lake.

Jane shifted the motor into gear and with a slight turn at the throttle, the little motor grew a bit louder and the canoe started up the lake.

Grampa and Fiddle-dud (Fidel's new name for the day) sat up front and watched for logs and pirates and drank tea with his camp slouch hat tilted very precariously upon his head.

It was a great ride up the lake for Jane.

Then she unpacked her stuff, set up, had supper, and then, finally, best part of any camping trip...the camp fire (or was it the fishing, or the canoe rides or the...well...a fire was great too!) "Grampa , you got so many names for him, what's his real name.? I forget." Jane asked while she gave the fire a good spark flyin' poke with her fire prodding stick.(Different, of course, from her marshmallow cooking stick.)

"Why that's it! I-forget. Come here, I-forget, you want a 'mallow?" Grampa took one out of the bag and stuck it on the dog's nose. They both laughed as he pulled it off with his paw and stared licking it clean after eating up the marshmallow.

"No, really, what was it?"

"Hmmm. Well, I'm guessing here but maybe it was Bob. Or how about Pepe, you know the skunk from Bugs Bunny. 'Cause he looks like the skunk from Bugs Bunny."

Jane took him up in her arms, brushed her cheek against his bristly fur. "How about Bepe, then?"

"Sure. I like that."

"Yeah but Grampa you can't keep changing his name all the time. It's really not nice. Probably confuses him. I wouldn't even do that to a stuffed toy."

"Well, I suppose you are right. I'm just teasing him. Honest and true, when I got him from the pound they said his real name was Fluffy. Fluffy? Can you believe it? Did you ever see a dog that was definitely NOT a Fluffy?

I feel the same as you do, though. It wouldn't be right to change it. His name. like I owned him or something. "Cause I don't believe we can own another living thing, another soul. So I just 'kid' at him with other names but deep down we both know he's Fluffy."

Jane ran her hand over his steel wool fur "Sure isn't a Fluffy though."

"No, he isn't. His problem reminds me of your problem you mentioned last time you was up, remember?"

"You mean...like death and stuff?"

"Yeah.I was thinking after that maybe the problem is in the names."

"Names?"

"Yes, like you ever notice that a lot of people with the same first name are the same way? Like all the Stephens? or the Pauls?"

"I guess that's true. I know three Janets and they are all quite similar."

"There you go. Now the thing is were they all the same or did we just see them all the same 'cause they had the same name and then did they become the same because we treated them all the same way and they responded the same way so they became the same."

"Huh?"

"Well, look at Pepe, Bepe, Bob here. I cant see him as a Fluffy because I already think I know what a Fluffy is and I am not willing to change that. MY mind is closed. No new Fluffys can get it. And that's what we do with dead people too. Bury them. Inside our closed minds. So they can't get out and change the way we think about dead people.

"What do you mean, Grampa, about changing what we think about dead people?"

Grampa poured a little top-up of tea into his cup from the pot leaning against a rock at the edge of the fire. "Well, like water, I mean, the Lake has many many names. Some names come from the way we look at it...some come from places that have nothin' to do with us.Places between other Natures and the Lake herself.

A word of something is always more than just the reality of what we see. So much more. So much more feeling and spirit and emotion.

Like canoe. The word canoe. What is that word to a city fella who has never been here compared to what that word is to me...or you?

Even between me and you, see the difference? I hear 'canoe' and I think of so many trips and places that beat-up yellow thing down on the shore there has taken me to. For you , so much younger, the word canoe means more like a wonder in possibilities of new adventures, explorations, discovering.

So it's not just a 'canoe' is it when you look at things as much with your heart as with your ol' noggin'.

Even the Wind has many names depending on its spirits or where it's going or why. Like Child... or Old Woman or The Bull or A Knife.

If ya think of it, Death and Life and the Wind are really alike 'cause these things come out of nothing, return to nothing but even when nothing we still know they exist. I mean we say 'the Wind dies' but then don't it come back again just as easy as the sun or the moon showin' up?"

"Do you mean dead people don't die, Grampa?"

Grampa laughed "Oh they're dead all right, kiddo. It's just that we don't know what Dead really is. Least ways, we only know one Dead. One way of looking at it. One word for it. Just like we said if we only used one word for Wind or Water...well...we would be missing a lot of nature of Algonquin, wouldn't we?"

Jane thought a moment as she watched the height of the fire rise and fall over and over with the night's gentle wind coming and going. Then she asked "So, do you believe people come back then, Grampa? I mean from the dead? Like ghosts...or spirits ...or reincon...i mean reincarseration...is that it?"

" The word is reincarnation, Buddy, but reincarceration might be just as good. That means 'go back to jail'."

Jane laughed too. "Yeah, but what about ghosts...are they real or not?"

The breeze was up a little more so Grampa wrapped his old camp coat around himself tighter and then replied to Jane's question " Well, I believe this much. When winter starts comin' on, we put away our summer things. The canoe rests up on shore, paddles lean on shed walls, jackets and fishing poles get hung up on hooks.

We, ourselves, wrap up in something thicker and tighter. We get out shovels and sleds. As an old Taoist saying goes 'we assemble different tools for a new day's journey. Death is no more than that.'

So that last footstep is what we see but that last footstep has become a new footstep in the snow becoming a new journey becoming a new day becoming a new lifetime.

Maybe a ghost is just a footprint in the snow? The shadows of a new journey?"

Jane spoke up "I can sorta see what ya mean, Grampa but to be honest it's a lot of words that kinda don't fit together...you know...like a book answer does."

Grampa nodded " True. True. Books are great for the person writing them cause they can only argue with themselves while they're doing it. They don't have to try and make themselves understand...i mean they probably don't really understand what they are writin' but the point is it don't matter...they write it anyway, hoping someone will read it and explain it to them later."

Jane looked doubtful at her grandfather "Grampa, are you just being goofy now?"

Grampa pointed at himself. "Me? I'm hurt. Truly hurt."

"Yeah, ok, right."

"Ok, here's the straight goods. Thoughts, emotions, dreams, reason are all very wide and inclusive...that is... we use them inside ourselves to 'gather up' one hell of a stockpile of believes and doubts and wondering.

However, soon as we try and talk to someone about it, share it, we gotta use language, words. And language narrows the view. So like...a snowball used for tennis...back and forth, back and forth, the concepts get smaller and smaller. To get you to understand me...and to get me to understand you...we lose the wonder of not understanding.

We lose that open door. We lose that Wind from nothing to many many things and then returning to nothing again."

Jane replied "So why try to understand each other?"

Grampa answered " I guess in life we most times wont know where we are because so many things seem to be where they should be but we don't seem to be where we should be. Ya know what I mean there?"

Jane nodded. " Like when my cat died. I didn't know why I kept going, it somehow didn't seem fair to Mittens. She had left, it was like staying in a room with only three walls now."

Grampa continued " Yeah, ya feel lost. They say we exist because existence exists. But then, existence changes and we don't. Like the road turned and we didn't. Are we lost now?

I say, no. I say we are not lost when we know who we are. And we really don't know who we are, and why we are, until we move outside the 'little house' of our language and learn to talk Wind. Speak Water. Or Moose. Or Otter."

"Grampa, are you bein' crazy again?"

"Naw, not this time, kiddo. I am trying to say that once I throw away trying to not change, not die actually, by not having the world, my road around me change...once I let it all become what it is...changing always...even the words themselves change...so that in my head and in my heart, I get my 'sea legs' and can move around in a pretty topsy turvy chaotic (or so it seems to us humans) universe called Algonquin.

They were quiet for awhile and then Jane had to ask one final direct question on the whole 'subject'.

"Grampa?"

"Yup?"

"Do you believe in God?"

The tea pot was lifted up and an offering made to Jane. She shook her head no. Grampa poured the dregs, that sweet, slightly bitter boiled-near-dry peppermint tea concentrate he loved so much into his cup.

"Well, it is not in the certainty of what I see that becomes my god or my belief but, rather it is in what I don't see, what I feel, what i don't know or believe which becomes my god.

What one might call puzzlement or doubt, another might call, especially sitting on this lake tonight, a gentle rapture.

And that, Jane, you could call my god and if ya want ya might as well wrap my beliefs in life and death up in it too."

*****

The next morning Jane and Fluff got up earlier than Grampa. (she had decided to at least try and call him Fluff for awhile, to see if it stuck...stuck to Fluff, she giggled),

This was great because on the other trips, Grampa had always been up first. He'dget the coffee all ready then tease everyone about being lazy kings and queens and how he was the only one who worked.

She knew how to run the stove so she started it up. Got some water from the lake and sat it on to boil.

She got the food bag down from where it was hanging in the tree. Dug the coffee out and added some to the water.

While she was waiting for it to boil up, she noticed a nice patch of sunlight appearing on the ground now that the sun was just above the pine trees.

She carried her chair over to it and sat down, waiting for the coffee smell to drift over.

She loved the morning quiet. A slight cool breeze, no bugs. A few early birds carried food or bits of song here and there in the trees. Out in the cove, she could see two loons taking turns poking their heads under water, looking for breakfast.

The coffee was ready. She turned off the burner, poured the coffee into Grampa's old green battered thermos to keep it hot. Kept out a half a mug for herself. Only when camping was she allowed to drink coffee. Grampa had argued for her to be allowed as 'otherwise' he said ' she'll never get started and I'll have to do all the work!'

As Jane sipped at the coffee, she wondered if she should start breakfast or wait till Grampa got up. She decided to wait.'Cept maybe a handful of dried dog food to Fluff to hold him off for awhile. Grampa always cooked an extra egg for him plus a half a toast. "Made the mutt more civilized" he said.

She poured another half cup. Jane could definitely see why Grampa liked to get up early and sit here alone for awhile. The coffee, the lake, the warming sun, just so...what...I guess there isn'ta word for it she thought.

Jane leaned back into the chair, her legs crossed and feet resting up on the 'log-legged' stool Grampa had made for just this purpose. Holding her coffee cup in her hands, the warmth of it and the sun's ray made her feel like... well...not on top of the world...but rather off to the side...in a real snugly, warm, just-for-herself corner of it.

After awhile she thought again 'Should she start it or wait? Breakfast?'

"Well, Fluff, what do you think? Are you hungry?" She looked around but no Fluff nearby.

Jane looked over at the tent and Fluff was sitting by the tent. Usually he was off harassing chipmunks (or they were harassing him) which he never caught but persevered at most of each day anyway.

"Well, Fluff, according to you, I guess it's time Grampa got up, right? And I'm hungry, too!"

Jane crouched down by the side of the tent and called out softly "Grampa, coffee's ready, your highness! Get up, Mr Lazy."

Nothing.

Jane banged the side of the tent hard like Grampa often did to her making her jump wild eyed out of her sleeping bag. Again, no answer.

Oddly, Fluff whimpered. Jane unzipped the tent flap. "Grampa, you up?"

His bare foot was sticking a little out of the sleeping bag. He hadn't zipped it up last night 'cause it had been warm.

Jane grabbed it and shook it to wake him up but even as she did she couldn't believe how cold his foot was to her touch.

It frightened her. A lot. So much so that she burst into tears.

"Grampa, wake up. PLEASE, GRAMPA, PLEASE! WAKE UP!" The loudness of her voice sounded so foreign and strange in the quiet morning campsite.

She reached in and shook the bottom of the bag hard but her voice was low and soft...."Grampa, please, please, wake up, please."

Her grandfather didn't wake up. He wasn't ever going to wake up. Jane sat back at the tent flap, hugged Fluff and fought the urge to run. Run away. She fought the 'big scared' rising up in her gut, she fought it with something bigger.

She knew she had go inside the tent and look at Grampa. Look at his face, maybe even his eyes, just to know...to know if he was...ok or not ok. She had to know for sure.

She went in. He faced against the tent wall. Jane put her hand on his shoulder. She shook it gently but she didn't yell like she had outside. She spoke "Grampa?" very quietly. A whisper almost.

She tried again. She kept her hand on his shoulder , hoping to feel a rise and fall under it. Nothing, no movement.

She reached over near the wall of the tent and grabbed the other side of the sleeping bag. She pulled and Grampa rolled over on his back.

Despite the empty hole growing in her insides, Jane still hoped that grey grizzled bearded facewould open up in a big 'BOO!' and a grin. But...nothing.

His eyes were closed, his face was calm. Jane put her hand to his cheek; she felt how cold it really was. She knew for sure he was...but, she couldn't say it.

Jane started to cry again. She sat back again, folded her arms around her knees. She just cried some while Fluff was half in the tent and half out, confused too.

'Grampa didn't look more peaceful now' she thought. 'Well anymore than he did before. Or in no pain or...well, all those things people said when they peeked in a coffin...to Jane, it always looked like people were sneaking a peek when they looked in a coffin. The way they had to lean over a bit and then look down. The same way people look in a baby cradle or puppies in a box.'

'I don't want none of that' Jane remembered her grampa saying. 'Not unless the funeral fellow is willing to make my tongue stick out. Now that would be funny!'

Through her tears she could see...well, he still just looked like Grampa. He hadn't left yet.

Later thinking about it, she wondered why she hadn't tried CPR or run down to the lake and yelled for help but she knew...

She knew why sometimes people didn't do CPR or make a big fuss trying to save someone, especially an older person or if they had been real sick a long time.

Cause , well, they were like Grampa. They're de...well she still couldn't say it but she knew it, they knew it and there wasn't going to be any coming back. For sure, you just knew that.

She finished crying, wiped her eyes. Jane touched her finger tip to her lips then touched her finger to Grampa's cheek.

"Goodbye, Grampa"

Then she shifted around, wondering what to do next, heading out of the tent to think. She saw Grampa's hat crumbledin the corner of the tent where his arm had laid on it all night.

Jane picked it up and straightened it all out again. Well as straight as it ever could be having seen so much 'action' as Grampa used to say.

She thought of putting his hat over his eyes like she had seen being done in the movies.

She didn't. Jane didn't want him to be in the dark. She knew his eyes were closed but still it was too formal a thing. It's 'what people do' and Grampa didn't generally do 'what other people did'.

She placed the hat on his chest instead. As if saying he might need it.

Jane crawled back out and perhaps what would seem strange to some people, she picked up Fluff and went over and threw out her cold coffee and then poured more hot coffee from the thermos and then went over to her chair.

She sat down with Fluff in her lap and sipped again at her coffee.

But it wasn't like nothing had happened . Now Jane was twelve and sitting on a chair again but no longer waiting for her Grampa to wake up and come out.

She wouldn't be able to kid him and say who's a sleepy head now and look it's King Grampa finally arising from his feather bed and...well...time had moved past that now.

That's all Jane could think of it 'Time had moved past that now.'

'Instead, she had a dead man on her hands'

"Oh my god!" Jane said out loud to Fluff "what a terrible thing to say"

'To think that, but then its Grampa's fault really because he was always making bad jokes like that.'

"It's exactly what he would have said, isn't it, Fluff?"

Then Jane cried again. Holding Fluff. Looking out at the lake.

She stopped after a couple of minutes, sipped her coffee and wondered what she would do now

The sensible thing to do, she told herself, was to leave with Fluff in the canoe. That's why her grampa had taught her how to run the motor. 'Just the day before' she thought 'just the day before'

There was no real point in waiting for another boat as few came down into this cove anyway. 'Cept maybe in the evening to watch for moose in the big marsh at the end.

Even if she went out and hailed a boat, well, it would a half hour to get to the Landing. Hour or so maybe to get some Wardens to help. Half hour back up. Two hours.

Or help would come from the Landing right away. So one hour.

An hour. That's all.

She thought it over again. 'Grampa would say ...go to the Landing. Don't hang around. That's what I taught you for. For an emergency.'

She should leave with Fluff.

She got up, poured one more half cup of coffee for herself. sat back down with Fluff. Another sip.

'What if a bear came and dragged grampa away?'

'Well, that's a stupid thought' she answered back.

'Could happen. How would you feel about that?'

'Bears don't wander into camps through the day'

'One could. One could and drag him away'

'That's stupid. Even if it did, they'd still find Grampa by the drag trail and chase the bear away'

'Sure but meanwhile, the bear's tore Grampa half to pieces. Didn't grampa say something about his body donated to hospitals? To fix people he said?'

'Yeah, so?'

'Well, that's what he wanted so...'

'So?'

'So, just sayin', no bears is all.'

'Yeah, no bears. WE, I mean, you, you and Fluff should make sure no bears get him.'

'But he didn't want to be buried ,he wanted to be...a ...a... what's the word?'

'Donor.'

'Yeah, donor.'

'So let's help him donate.'

'Okay'

Child phycologists might call such a conversation shock or something. Whatever the reasons or conversations in her head, the conclusion was that a twelve year old girl must get her grandfather's ...well...get her grandfather down the Lake.

Not really a big deal in the world. Still a lot of soldiers, or a lot of explorers, might understand why she had to take Grampa down the Lake.

How was she to do it? Her, a skinny twelve year old girl and grampa not an enthusiast to much dieting over the years. Not at all.

Could she even move him to the boat. Then she remembered a special block of wood Grampa had showed her yesterday.

One end he would tie to a bag of rocks to anchor it out in the water. The other end was a big hole thru the wood that acted like the pulley on a clothesline pole he said. He put a rope through it and a food barrel could be sent out back and forth out into the lake. Keep it away from the bears at night. Saves hauling the heavy thing up into a tree.

Could she use it to drag Grampa down to the canoe.

Foolish as it seemed, she decided to try. She still had a giant hole inside her but she could work around that .

She got some rope and tied it to the tree beside the tiny sand beach where the canoe was.

She walked the rope that was through the 'pulley' end up to Grampa's tent. Unfortunately, she could see that Grampa was going the 'wrong way'. He was pointed east whereas Jane needed him to be heading south. Well... his feet going south.

She wondered what to do about this as there was no way she could get grampa out of the tent and 'steered' the right way.

"Guess he'll forgive me if I cut up his tent" she said to Fluff.

Jane got out a fillet knife from the kitchen stuff and sliced open the tent. She took out all theirstuff and put it in separate little piles. The she took out the poles.

She was going to cut all the tent away when Jane thought 'Why don't I just tie the tent back around Grampa so he'll slide down to the canoe better?'

So that's what Jane did. She cut the tent in a bunch of strips so they could wrap around Grampa, well at least his lower legs. that's all she could lift a bit. The rest of the strips she just tied tight across Grampa so he was 'cocooned in Eureka tent. Coloured yellow. All across his chest and arms, just leaving his face uncovered.

Grampa's hat was squashed up in there somewhere. Jane hadn't thought of it till she saw some of it peeking out like a wrinkly tan brown weird little leprechaun or something.. She almost giggled.

She was still very sad but doing this chore for her Grampa was helping. A little. She couldn't forget, how could she, the task was there because of Grampa's dea...but the motion of doing and solving somehow got Time moving around her again. So it did not just sit in an empty chair or lie inside a tent where her and Fluff could remain frozen forever beside it.

Not that Jane wanted to 'leave' her Grampa already...it wasn't about him...it was about the...dea...it was like an accident. People in it move away at first, to get separate from its consequences, its randomness of fate. Once some distance is perceived the rational mind can slowly return and begin to re-approach the intersections of fate. Reassemble the time before, the time after. To make sense the way humans try to do...out of everything that will not make sense.

Now it was time for the slug work.

The long green rope she tied around Grampa's feet and the sleeping bag/tent tightly wrapped around them.

She used a noose knot which Grampa had taught her so it wouldn't come loose.

Pulling on the other end, she found Grampa did move. Not too easily but he did move.

She got him turned in the right direction and had gone about five feet when he snagged on a root. Well, his 'wrappings' did. Jane tried a couple of good heaves but no go. Plus she was worried that the wrappings would start tearing off.

Jane dropped the rope and went up beside Grampa. She sat down and dug in her heels while alternating tugging on his feet and shoulders to move him over a foot.

Eventually he came clear of the root and was 'ready' to go again.

Jane got up and walked back to the rope. She took a moment to check out the rest of the trail. There was another root so she went and got Grampa's hatchet and got rid of it.

She started pulling on the rope again and Grampa eventually came all the way down the little path to the beach.

Now Jane had to get Grampa into the canoe. This was going to be a new problem. There was no way she could lift Grampa up into the canoe, even half of him at a time.

Then Jane remembered another thing Grampa showed her, when her parents had been here. He had taken the motor off the canoe and took the canoe out into a couple of feet of water to wash all the bits of wood and bark out of it from collecting firewood along the shore.

After it was clean but still full of water, he pushed ita little up on the shore as far as he could.

He called Jane over and told her to lift the canoe up by the bow handle. Of course, with the canoe full of water, she couldn't budge it.

Even her and Grampa together couldn't budge it much.

Grampa told Jane to go round to the middle and watching out for her toes, grab the other side and start tilting the canoe towards herself.

Well, she did and some water ran out but she slipped and fell back on her butt and they had a good laugh.

Still, she got up again and this time the canoe was lighter and came up all the way up on his side. Most of the water ran out. Ran out on her feet actually!

She went back up to the bow and now she could drag the canoe up further and then get the rest of the water out.

"Congratulations, my dear" Grampa saluted her. "you've just reached Class Three of your Opeongo Degree in Tipping.

You would be surprised how many people don't know how to do that! Remember where there's a will there's a way. And where there's a way, there's usually an easier way!"

Could Jane tip the canoe sideways and load Grampa in and then tip it back?

She thought about it. She dare not remove the motor . Though it was small, she knew it would probably be too heavy for her. She certainly didn't want to accidentally drop it in the water trying to get it off.

She got some firewood so she could jam it under the canoe to hold it up. Then she grabbed the canoe and tilted it.

Well, Jane started to do it but then she heard the gas can fall over. "Stupid" she said out loud "Why not take all the stuff out first?" Which she did.

It was stillheavy with the motor on it but by heaving up and then kicking logs under she got it raised up to a good angle. Not too straight though because she didn't want it tipping all the way over and dunking the motor into the water. To get it ready for Grampa she secured it up using pieces of driftwood jammed into the canoe and the sand on both sides.

She was sweaty now. Splashed some water on herself. She went up and grabbed a snack bar. Sitting down on the ground her and Fluff shared it, and then some fancy jerky that her parents had left for Grampa nd Fluff.

She choked up again petting Fluff, looking down the slight hill at Grampa lying in his tied up tent.

"Back to work, squirt" she said, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her shirt.

She inched Grampa along till foot by foot, hand then arm , then shift and pull she was able to get him all into the canoe. Kinda curled up a little, kinda draped over the center thwart with his feet up on the bow seat.

Then one by one she pulled out the logs propping up the canoe and with a shove it went over, back on its bottom.

Grampa was in there, she'd done it! He didn't look too cozy but at least he was ready to go home.

Jane stopped. hugged herself and cried again. Again not hard despairing sobs but gentler...like at the end of a sad movie. Crying. Letting it out.

It was the word home. Seeing her parents. Having her mother hug her and hug her.

Still, she also remembered how Grampa used to confuse her at first at the Landing. When with the canoe all packed he'd say "Well let's go home." "or when he she be leaving with her parents after a weekend trip and Grampa would kiddingly but grumpily say "Would ya git! I gotta go home and dust ya know!"

Jane came to realize that for Grampa, at least all summer, Opeongo, Algonquin and its smaller lakes was ...home.

Jane got the canoe stuff back in the canoe and picked up Fluff, ready to go. She'd come back for the gear and stuff later.

Then she remembered Grampa's lecture on 'be prepared'.

So she went back and got some food, the bear spray, her pack, thermos of coffee, toilet paper and a tin cup. And a knife. And the flashlight. She had to tell herself stop or she might pack it ALL up!

She took her pack back down to the canoe and tied it to the canoe. Clipped the other life jacket to her Grampa's tent tied around him.

Seemed a little odd but well if the canoe tipped...

Fluff loaded again but when Jane gave a big heave on the canoe, of course, it wouldn't budge. Of course. It was stuck on the sand with all the weight in it.

Now Jane could have cried with frustration. How could she be so stupid? 'Course the canoe weighed a lot more with Grampa in it. She should have moved it closer to the water before she loaded him in it.

Jane sat down on the edge of the canoe for awhile. Fluff got bored and got back out.

At least the lake was calm. She wouldn't have to worry about those three footer white caps Grampa would talk about and tell her they were no fun, no treat at all.

Then she saw the tree down the shore twenty feet or so. It grew out of the bank at an angle almost parallel to the water. It hung out over the water a good ten feet at least but only four feet or so above the water.

It was perfect. She would tie the pulley to it then pull the canoe's bow into the water!

Jane got the pulley, and after only dropping it into the water once, and swearing, which she wasn't supposed to do, but figured she had earned the right to by now.

Finally she got it tied on. Got the rope through it. Tied one end to the bow of the canoe and started pulling.

It took some good heaves, but eventually the canoe turned and was mostly in the water.

She removed the rope from the bow and was going to leave it just in the water but she couldn't.

Grampa again!

Jane had to coil it all back up and toss it up the trail.

Tying the canoe back up so it didn't get caught by the wind, (Grampa's lessons again!) she tracked down Fluff and loaded him once again into the canoe.

She waded around to the water side of the canoe and moved it farther out in the water. Then she climbed in.

The motor started without fail and finally, they were off.

Jane putted along close to shore heading south towards the point where she planned to turn southeast to the Landing.

The way Grampa had told her even though the lake was very calm

"It's habits, you see, Jane, habits. Like every time you step out of your canoe you tie it. Hundreds of times it don't matter. Then one day you don't even think of it anymore.

Say ya gotta go to the bathroom bad. Get your t.p. ready. Up ya go to the woods.

Ya come back, where's your canoe? Ten feet from the shore. Adrift in the wind. But still tied! Tied to a tree.

Wearing a life jackets like that. Or staying close to shore. For that one day, you forget something, something in your pack up front. Your thermos of tea, say. Well, you get halfway up there ,leaning ahead and you stumble. You fall off balance and go over and that tips the canoe over too and it's too swamped to get back into and bail out. But look!

You only got ten or fifteen feet to go to shore to bail it all out, not a half a mile of cold water with no help for maybe hours.

Algonquin, Opeongo will let you come up here and do all kinds of stupid things for a few days but be here all the time and do dumb things over and over and over, well, how many times do you shut your eyes and run across the street and hope you make it without getting hit?"

"Never, Grampa, that's dumb!"

"Well, but there goes your camper with bad habits!"

She could see the Landing now.

She wondered if she would ever see it again. Coming from this direction. Coming from Grampa's home.

Would she ever come back? Could she? She pretty well knew her parents wouldn't and wouldn't let her come alone but later...later in life...maybe with friends.

Would it break her heart? Or heal it? She told herself to shut up, she sounded like she was writing a book or something, Something cheesy.

She looked at Grampa again. And then the shoreline putting along.

The tears came again.She let them drop into the canoe from her cheeks. Let the rising wind carry some into Opeongo.

She was running the canoe along the shoreline all the way down across from the Landing. Then cross the channel to the Landing.

Her and her grandfather's time was done. At least for this trip.

She poured a bit of coffee, raised it up wordlessly in the wind, then took a sip. For Grampa.

She looked for boat traffic and turned, heading for the dock.

Fluff perked his ears up and barked the way he always did when the canoe was close to the dock.

A couple of campers looked over and saw a young girl running the motor and the old guy slumped in the middle of the canoe. They laughed, thinking he was drunk.

But the Outfitter kid didn't. He knew that canoe, that motor, that old guy. He turned white and then ran over to grab the bow as Jane slid the canoe in beside the dock and cut the motor.

"My Grampa, he's...he needs...help. Please."

An hour later, the ambulance had taken Grampa away.

The ambulance was, of course, was just a formality, Park procedure.

The Warden, that got there right after the Outfitter kid, had checked Grampa for pulse and all that after they got him out of the canoe. Everyone knew the answer in the sad shake of his head.

A lady Ranger had come out and got Jane and the pack and Fluff. Right after Jane had made sure that Grampa's canoe was tied up properly.

Jane was going to ask for help to go back up and get all their gear but the words never came out.

She cried again while the lady Ranger sat with her. While she watched the outfitter kids and the Warden gently put Grampa on a stretcher and take him into the back of the Parks office out of view of a gathering of campers and tourists.

Grampa definitely would have preferred that!

They had phoned her mom, told her what happened, her parents would be there within an hour.

The lady Ranger was very kind and told her mom, no, she'd watch her while they were coming up, no problem. She heard her say on the phone how much they all liked Grampa and were real sorry.

The lady Ranger got her an ice cream from the store. Jane wasn't that hungry but the coolness might help settle her stomach.

So with Fluff, she sat quiet at the bench outside the office where the lady Ranger could do paperwork but still see her.

Jane gave Fluff a few licks of her cone. "It's ok, Fluff, you can stay with me. I know Mom and Dad will let me keep you. You'll miss him though, wont you, Fluffer ?" She gave him a big hug.

Thinking of Grampa again, though she never had really stopped, but she felt better having talked to her mom, she was going to go in and as what about Grampa's gear and canoe and motor, though she thought maybe the Outfitter kids were going to get it and she wanted to tell them about the special pulley tied to the tree and not to forget it when she spotted something.

Something on the dock. By Grampa's motor and canoe. It was his hat.

They had pulled it out of the way to listen for his heart beat.

And it had been left on the dock.

Jane was thinking she'd better get it before some ugly fat camper stole it. Then it moved.

The wind had picked up a little, coming from the southeast.

The hat inched its way along the side of the dock. Little by little.

Jane kept thinking she should go get it but, well, it was so...comical...so hypnotic...like a trick hat...inch by inch. Sometimes it sat still for awhile, then a couple of quick short hops. Like it knew...or thought it did...when no one was watching. No one noticing. Then maybe a longer run, two, three, four inches.

Once Jane thought it was going in the lake but it just kinda slid near the edge of the dock, just the brim peeping over, then decided to move on.

Till it got down to the end of the dock.

Nothing left but the lake. Heading northwest.

Jane still hadn't moved to get it. It had moved like it had a will of its own, she was spell-bound.

The dock was usually so busy but right now it was strangely empty. No one near. No one to interfere.

Then the hat moved. But not into the lake. First it actually turned its pointed crown towards her. The brim tilted up. With the wind. But it looked like it waved. She almost giggled.

It waited. Then it did it again. The brim tilting up. A little higher.

Jane had to. She couldn't help herself. She waved back.

The hat turned then and, after a tiny hesitation, literally sailed off the dock into the lake, landing full square upside down on its crown.

For all the world it was a boat heading up the lake. Northwest.

Jane wondered again, had she done right, should she still get it? What if some boater found it, joked with it?

She could see the back part of the rim lift up...like the flap of a sail and the little hat boat plowed ahead into the waves.

Heading northwest. Up the lake. As it did, it very slowly, gently began sinking.

Not really sinking, Jane thought.

No, joining. Like her tears, the hat was joining the lake.

She watched it as it grew smaller and lower in the lake yet still seemed moving with a sure steady pace, a purpose even.

She couldn't see it now. It must be under. But she knew it was still going.

Still going northwest. Up the lake.

THE END

Johnny Martin

Johnny Martin was ruined. Financially. It was all gone. Everything. Job. House. Investments.

Even the pension, twenty-two years of his life's worth, even the god-damnable pension. When his company folded, it had imploded inward like a collapsing star. It all went, right down to the office chairs. Including the pensions.

Johnny and his wife, Sylvia, had admittedly been living the high life. Big house. Risky but lucrative investments dolin' out the cash. Livin' high on the hog day to day, Johnny convinced, like allthe others, that it would never end.

It happened like it had happened many many times before in the history of human folly. Market collapse. Though, if it had just been that , Johnny might not have been so bitter.

Most of his investments had been mortgage related, like the company he worked for. So not only had the bubble burst but a lot of shady sham deals had floated back up to the surface.

Nothing Johnny had been involved in. He was just a minor appraiser but when the Feds and the FBI hiteverything toppled to zero. No chance of a recovery on any of it. Too many people had got scammed; too much money was owed.

Funny thing in all this was that Sylvia didn't care. Sold her jewelry. Best dresses. They rented a small apartment.

"What the hell" she said to Johnny "With no kids, we're just like young honeymooners again. We might get it back. We might not. Who cares really? Lots of times I thought it was too hectic, too fake anyway. I missed the old way we were in the beginning. Now we got it back."

She got a job before he did. Working at a shoe store, a place she used to walk into and a couple of sales girls would hustle right over; knowing her to spend well. Now she just laughed and said it was all just training for the job, to know what the costumers really liked in service. The other girls working there liked her, the boss liked her...'hell,' thought Johnny 'and I haven't even got a job interview yet.'

Doors were closed. In Johnny's field or anything related.

Even if there was an opening, any mention on his resume of Wingham and Bros. and, well, that red brush painted everyone. Regardless. Coast to coast.

What was he supposed to put down? Been in jail for twenty-two years?

This had all happened in the late fall and by mid spring Johnny was pretty well despondent. Feeling real depressed.

In late May usually him and a few pals went up across the border into Canada for a four or five day canoe trip. Trout fishing in Ontario at a big Provincial Park called Algonquin.

Been a ritual for ten or eleven years now. Some of the guys changed but Johnny had went every time. His grandfather (on his dad's side) had taken him there every year while he was a teenager till Grandad died of a heart attack when Johnny was eighteen.

Johnny hadn't seen his father, Grandad's only child, for years. So Grandad had really been his father too.

After Grandad died, college, marriage, work had prevented Johnny from going back.He got restarted at it with friends when he was in his early thirties and he never stopped going after that. Every year.

Till now. Now those friends weren't around or they, themselves, were knee deep in debt and destruction. No one could go.

Johnny wanted to. Needed to. He haddwelt on it all winter. It seemed all he had left. That connection to sanity and Grandad. Plus, of course, Sylvia. He had her too. She had stood by him in all this.

Sylvia understood. She even offered to try and get a few days off work to go with him.

Johnny knew her heart, good as it was, really wasn't into a bug-filled canoe trip. She was very much a city girl. New York city girl, born and raised. So he said he appreciated the offer but it was a 'guy thing'.

Besides they couldn't really afford it.

" I mean, like you're workin' and I take off fishing? Nice guy I am, right?!" he said to her.

She argued with him to go anyway. Enjoy himself, but be careful. Don't stray too far up into the wilds alone, stick closer to other people.

She worried about Johnny...a lot. The whole thing had really deflated him, hit him hard.

She didn't know but maybe up there, he'd rediscover Johnny. The charismatic, optimistic, fun-loving guy she had fallen in love with the moment he grinned his way into her life at that college dance.

She still loved him just as much but she knew Johnny needed that Johnny back most of all.

Maybe a few days of camping would help.

Johnny finally agreed to go. He wouldn't have agreed to go just for the fishing trip or the being by himself. Just going' there and comin' back wouldn't change the world.

Like Grandad said to him one time when Johnny had asked about his own father " Son, the guy that'll give the most trouble in your life puts your boots on every morning. No need to look for more than that."

Johnny knew that was true. Bitter and mad as he was at all that had happened Johnny knew the trouble was with Johnny now...no one else.

Johnny, old 'Johnny on the spot' they used to call him, had to get back in the game. No, not really that game. He didn't really have the heart for it now. Now that he could see the truth of it all.

The big players playing the full scams and lies, all the two-bit players like himself spinnin' around them with blinders on. Not wanting to see the real truth of it all cause there was just way too much 'gravy' at the trough...

In the end far too many little people had got really hurt, ruined. Johnny didn't want to be part of that game again. He did want to get even though and he did want to make it up to Sylvia somehow.

Johnny had been married to Sylvia twenty-one years but he still didn't know much about women.

He thought her bravery, her shrugging off the lost luxuries or her good cheer heading off to work was all a disguise to avoid hurting him. Avoid him seeing the real disappointment she must have about him.

Johnny, being a man, couldn't believe that the first thing a woman wants and needs is love; real love. Everything else is a bonus...and everything else can be lived without...except love.

Sylvia had love and was loved. Few, if any, women would have traded that for all the gold in the world; all the goldnot found in a small ring around a finger.

But Johnny was a man, and being a man got mixed up with being a good provider and being strong and being something to the world and not losing pride before his woman's eyes.

So over the late winter, Johnny came up with a plan.

Lying with his head on a pillow, after kissing Sylvia good night, listening to her soft breathing, Johnny came up with his plan.

His life insurance had been set up separate from his company's benefits or even his investments. By initialling paying six months premium up front years ago, the plan carried for a full year even after no monthly premiums were paid. Which, of course, they could no longer afford.

So in the event of an accidental death, Sylvia would get two million dollars. Though they were flat broke, their house had sold at a high enough amount to clear all their debts so they owed nothing. Two million for Sylvia would ensure she wouldn't have to work anymore and could live comfortable too.

The trick, of course, was it had to be accidental.

There was a very large lake in Algonquin Park, so cold, so deep that it had claimed a number of lives over the years and never 'returned' the bodies.

Initially when a person drowns , their lungs fill with water and that is enough air displacement that, without a life jacket, the body becomes less buoyant and sinks to the bottom.

In most lakes, warm water temperatures and active organisms like bacteria begin the decomposition of the body almost immediately. This results in carbon dioxide refilling the lungs and inner body. The common 'bloating' of the body resulting in an increase in buoyancy and the body refloats to the surface. To usually drift to a shoreline by wind and wave action to be discovered.

The problem at Lake Opeongo was that the water temperature at the bottom of 150 feet was only slightly above freezing, as low as thirty-five degrees fahrenheit. This greatly slows down the decomposition process which keeps bodies at the bottom for a long time.

Opeongo has a number of rock shelves at its bottom so that undercurrent action often has time to lodge the bodies under obstructions where they can't rise up from later.

On the lake, there are some very large areas, measured into square miles where these deep conditions exist.

For these reasons, a substantial portion of drowning victims at Opeongo have never been found.

Even with diving equipment, sonar, etc, it is very unlikely to find an object of such small per portions as a human body. About 12 cubic feet of body in a square mile of water at 150 feet deep. Four billion cubic feet of water. Not very good odds.

Of course, rescue and recovery attempts were always made. Factors such as wind and weather conditions, low water temperatures, likelihood of hypothermia, were taken into account. As well, evidence of boats upright or submerged, life jackets worn, air plane and dog searches of the shoreline in case a survivor was lost in the bush.

It was the passage of time itself with no recovery which, in the end, would lead the coroner's conclusion to be'death by accidental drowning'.

Thinking it out Johnny knew it would be painful for Sylvia but he felt at least it would give her back all she deserved in life. What he had got for her and wanted to keep for her.

So why not just slam the car into a tree?

Trouble was Johnny really didn't want to die. He wasn't a coward but he wasn't that crazy either.

He at least wanted to give himself a chance. Fifty or twenty-five percent or what the hell ever.

He'd have to do it when it was dark just in case another boater spotted him. Unlikely 'cause the lake was pretty empty in early June but still there were outfitter boats and such moving around in the day.

He'd have to dump the canoe out far enough to be convincing. It would likely drift anyway but he couldn't take the chance. He'd swim away from it, into the wind, towards shore.

If he made it, he couldn't take much gear, partly because of suspicion but mostly because of the swim.

Then he thought of a water survival suit but he couldn't take that chance either. Someone might check up and find out he had bought it. Though he did think that he was definitely drifting into paranoid here. Or sometimes the Rangers look at your gear before you go in because glass bottles and cans were banned. They might see it, remember it later. Besides if he used it, how would he get rid of it? What about dogs?

Dogs. That was a good reason too for doing it up at Opeongo. Limited resources. Plus a very huge shoreline. And if they did use dogs, well, what then?

He'd have to swim far up a creek before hitting shore. No one would expect a drowning man to do that instead of going to the shoreline right at the creek mouth.

If he lived, what the hell was he going to do? Where was he going to go? Couldn't stay in Canada. Go to Mexico? How? Walk. Hitch a train. Bus. He needed money. He had two thousand stashed away from an obscure cash advance five years ago into a bank account he had originally set up for a surprise vacation fund for him and Sylvia. He had forgotten all about it till this November. He'd withdrawn it. Hid it. He wanted to tell Sylvia about it but kept delaying. Didn't know why. He'd never been like that before.

He'd always just kept thinkin' on it. About it. Investing it, a big comeback, surprising her with new luxuries, picturing her happy face as he told her how he was climbing all the way back up, taking her with him.

But the economy was sad and getting sadder. He never risked it.

Should he take it with him? Waterproofed? But what if he was searched at the border and they found it? It wasn't illegal but it would be recorded. If his death was investigated by the insurance company any glitch like that and they would withhold the money for ever. Sylvia deserved it as soon as she could get it.

Sylvia. He knew either way he would never see her again. A big lump was in his throat but he held it in, not to disturb her beside him. He knew it would very much sadden her at first. He knew somehow the money wouldn't change that. He knew there was no way she would trade two million bucks for his love if he asked her.

She would never keep the money if he turned up alive somewhere or if she knew he was. No way she was like that.

No, if he was doing this for her, it was just for her. There was no money in it for him. In a way he didn't want it anyway. By cheating them, just another big crooked organization and getting the money to someone he loved, was he not makin' the world a little fairer, squaring things a little? It made him feel cleaner, better this way.

It was like a war. A guy in that kind of business doesn't ask " Look , Honey, there is a good chance I'll get killed defending you by going away like this so let's you and me run away instead." No, he picks up his gun and does what he's gotta do. For her and his own pride.

The two grand, he had an idea. Years ago, his grandfather had taken him to Illinois to visit a 'cousin'. Turns out the cousin was actually his half-brother, though no one knew it 'cept his grandfather and the kid's mother. She died a few years ago.

His father, after leaving Johnny's own mother when he was eight or nine had just shacked up with a woman...er...a lady , long enough to have another son.

Grandfather found out about it and took Johnny there because as he said " Boys, someday there may come a time when all ya got left is family to turn to...or them turnin' to you. If I'm dead then, I want you two to remember you each got a brother. You just might need each other."

So they'd kept in touch. They kept onpretending to be still justcousins for the sake of Johnny's mother's feelings. Never visited again but letters came and went, cards...and later...emails. Johnny had a phone number. Hadn't called it in a long time.

When Sylvia was at work, he went to a pay phone with about ten bucks worth of quarters and called.

"Jack? Johnny here. Johnny Martin."

" Well, you old crazy bastard, how the hell are ya? Haven't heard from you in awhile but I still think about ya. And ol' grandad too. Still miss that guy. Why only the other day I was telling the guys at work`about the time grandad took me to my first ball game. It was freakin`hot that dayand..."

Johnny had to interrupt , he knew Jack could gab up ten dollars worth of time like nothing.

"Listen , Jack, I hate to be rude but I'm at a pay phone. Can't call from the house. I need ya to do a little favour for me."

"Sure, Johnny. Anything. You in trouble? "

" Not really. Things are bad, yeah, but I'll get by. I mean, me and Sylvia are ok , nothing like that. But I want to send you some cash. Not a lot. Two grand. Put it in a bus locker for me. Somewhere in Illinois. Somewhere they don't open them up all the time. Send me the key with the locker number and address. Send it to John Mills PO Locker 12B, Beaville Station, NYC, 12114. Got that?"

"Sure. I'll write it down now. Repeat it, will ya."

Johnny did. Added quarters when the operator cut in for more time.

" Listen, Jack, it's not somethin' illegal. Mob or drug money or nothing. I wouldn't do that to you."

Jack laughed " Yeah, I know that Johnny. Besides if it was that kind of shit, Grandad would rise all ornery out of his grave and came after your ass with that hickory cane he always carried!"

Johnny had to laugh too, rememberin' how Grandad threatened to hit Johnny's arse with it a hundred times a day but, of course, never did.

" Listen, Jack, please, if anyone asks about this or me, you know, snoopin' around later, even Sylvia, you wont tell nobody nothin' ok?"

Jack snorted. " Geez, boy, now you're really hurting my poor feelings. Grandad always said " Family first...the rest...well, that's what a hickory handshake is for!"

Johnny thought to himself 'Christ, it's like Grandad was reborn. Can't be a bad thing though.' To Jack he said "You sound like him more and more, Jack. We must be getting old, pal."

For once there was a moment's hesitation on the Illinois end of the phone line then Jack spoke a little softer " That probably was the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a long time, Johnny. Thanks."

" Ah, ok, Jack. Listen you still at the same address in Illinois?"

More quarters. His last.

" 28 East Road, Jerseytown 11345"

" Ok. Package will be there in a couple of days. No return address. Be a little thick. I'll try to hide the money. Wrapped up in something."

" Gotcha, boy. Glad to do it. Hey, Johnny?"

"What?"

" You ever hear from the old man...Dad? Is he dead...or what?"

" Don't know, Jack, never heard from him."

" Me neither, Johnny"

"Well, listen, Jack, operator says half a minute left and I am out of quarters. Sorry we can't talk more. Your family, all ok? I forgot to ask."

"Right as rain, kiddo, and they're all still as mouthy as hell...especially the wife."

Johnny laughed at that. " You're somethin' Jack, don't know why you haven't been shot a long time ago. But thanks a lot for doing this for me."

"Any time, squirt!"

The line went dead. Johnny smiled. Jack was at least a foot shorter than him based on a picture he had sent of him and his wife ten years back.

The money got mailed. The key and address returned. No written note. Just a thumbs up sign drawn on the paper with a J beside it.

June the second, Johnny left for the Park. His gear and food packed for six days. He always took an extra day's food in case he got wind bound on the lake.

On the map he showed Sylvia a couple or three of the campsites at which he might stay at for the five days.

It took Johnny all he had to nonchalantly kiss her goodbye, teasing her about being a working stiff while he fished away in glory. Knowing either way, wether he lived or drowned, he would never see her again.

The drive was long, he had left at 4 am, got to the landing at the lake about 6 pm. His rented canoe was ready, life jacket provided. He got his camp permit, nonchalantly chatting with the young Ranger at the office. Who was courteous but just a little bored with yet another fisherman's questions about the fishing at fifteen minutes before the office closed.

He paddled out, didn't go too far up the lake. He would camp here first, then go up further tomorrow.

The next day he moved up about two miles, setting up camp on the east side of an island.

He rested all day and one night. He thought of paddling to the Landing and calling Sylvia but he needed to be sure he was well rested for the swim.

And they had agreed that he didn't need to phone a lot. It would maybe upset his routine and Sylvia thought he might take a risk on a windy day paddling down if he said he would call that day.

It was mid-week and boat traffic had been very light. Only two boats moving fast up the middle(one in the morning; one in the afternoon). Then back an hour later. 'Taking canoe trippers to the upper end of the lake six miles away to start their trips' thought Johnny.

He had seen no fisherman, no fires the first night.

In the afternoon he had went out fishing a little. Or at least appearing to do so for the sake of anyone coming along after 'the accident' being able to tell of a lone fisherman not wearing his life jacket.

Just after dusk, Johnny decided it was time. Dark enough that no boat would see him (none had come along last night anyway) yet enough light to see shore as he would surely become more and more disorientated swimming in the cold. Even for the few hundred yards the canoe would be out from the creek mouth.

He carried a few chocolate bars, bug spray, waterproof matches (though he wouldn't be able to chance a fire for a few days), a couple of survival army food rations, a compass and a cheap disposable flashlight sealed up in a clear sandwich bag. And a knife. The one his grandfather gave him many years ago.

He hoped his heavy coat wouldn't deter his swimming too much. He wouldn't stand a chance in the bush without it or his boots.

Taking off his boots he used an extra set of laces to tie them on his back that they wouldn't drag as much as he swam.

With some duct tape, he then sealed up his coat sleeves and pant cuffs to keep the air in and the cold water out as long as possible. He left 'pull tabs' on the tape so he could remove it easily if the water got trapped inside too much and started dragging him down. He left his socks on. Pulled a black toque down on his head.

Threw his tackle box, pole, life jacket (he attached the safety whistle to it for 'good show'), his fishin' hat and light day pack into the canoe.

At the last minute he spotted the picture of Sylvia that he had been looking at off and on all day. It was resting on a small log by the fire pit. He had already wrapped up three Canadian twenty dollar bills and four American twenty dollar bills in layers of cellophane with the locker key and taped them on his upper leg under his pants.

He found some more cellophane and wrapped up her picture too. Put it inside his coat pocket.

He decided to place the small logthat the picture had been on into the canoe. It was about five feet long and might help a little. He could let go of it far enough from shore that it would drift away and not leave his scent on it if a dog came across it later at shore.

He had thought of greasing up his body for warmth but all he had was margarine. He doubted it would help much and he didn't want to delay or leave weird finger grooves in the margarine tub.

He was ready. He walked the canoe into the shallows and then stepped into it. Using his paddle he gently pushed against the sandy bottom and moved the canoe outward. A couple of pushes and the water was deep enough for Johnny to use graceful Canadian-j strokes and silently head out into the dark lake.

The wind was just right. The lake not too choppy to make swimming impossible. He would dump the canoe in a really good tip ensuring everything spilled out, then head for the west side of the lake where there was a creek mouth. As well as being the less busy side of the lake for roads and access.

He made it. Though the last five minutes he was sure he would not. The last minute decisionto use the log, the log Sylvia's picture had leaned on all day, had saved him. He remembered thinking of that in those last five minutes. Thinking somehow Sylvia had saved him. Every arm pull in the water, every weaker and weaker kick, he had thought her name. He would sink with it on his lips, that was all he wanted.

Then his knees had struck a rock. It hadn't even hurt he was so numb. My god, he was five feet from shore and hadn't even known it.

Forcing himself with a little more awakened strength he moved towards the darker opening of the creek. Soon he could touch bottom. Desperately he wanted to go to shore to leave the water but he willed himself to go on up the creek bed.

When the water was about three feet deep, he stopped and, somehow, managed to get his boots off his back and onto his feet before they were cut up too much by the creek bottom.

Then he staggered on. A mile or so. Sometimes in a foot of water; sometimes briefly over his head. Mud. Rock. Log jams.

Finally he crawled up on land. No one was going to bring a dog down this far. What drowning man would go a mile up a creek when he could have hit dry land ten feet away on either side?

He literally cried for sleep but knew he mustn't. He had to keep moving to get warm, to live. A fire was out of the question.

He got his compass out. Checked for south. His mind was clearing a little, though the cold was still exhausting. He had the foresight to check with his flashlight that he had left no muddy footprints on the shore. Just in case. Nothing, it was grass here.

He had crawled up a little strip of grass and rock...a strip that went directly up into the thick cedar bush.

Johnny did likewise.

The story could now be told of Johnny Martin's trek southward. A seemingly impossible tale.

It could easily be a full book. Finding food. Avoiding planes, rangers, lumber trucks. Later hitching rides, by then an unlikely possibility because though beards and grubbiness and a certain ragged wildness remained a good disguise, they did not encourage help from strangers.

He crossed into the US again but this time walking the endless hardwoods and dirt trails of Eastern New York.

Down through Penn and Ohio. At least here there were free rail rides but there were a few dangerous lessons learning to get off and on the moving trains. SallyAnn meals. And free pairs of used boots over and over again.

Finally the money at Illinois. Jack had added five hundred dollars. For the first time since Johnny had tipped that canoe, he had tears.

Spent a few, a very few, bucks at the SallyAnn to get cleaned up with new used duds. He couldn't take a chance sleeping with all that cash at the SallyAnn so he splurged on a bus ticket and slept all the way to Alburqurue, New Mexico.

There a room, an anonymous janitor job for awhile to get a bigger bankroll. Cause he didn't dare hitchhike through Mexico, or Central America.

Crossing the US/Mexican border on foot was the most frightening thing he had done so far. Worse than the canoe. But no trouble from either side.

Then more buses. Avoiding the policia because he had no visa.

Chartering a fisherman to drop him off at Panama. Then more of the same kind of 'boat hops' till the coast of Peru. Many times terrified they would just kill him at sea. For the extra money hidden on his body.

But wasn't he a dead man anyway?Besides the fishermen who moved him slowly south were poor but honourable businessmen. Honourable businessmen. Johnny had forgotten that species even existed.

Finally safe in Peru near Chimbote.There, he settled, started a little business making a tiny living, paid off any inquisitive local officials, learned the language, made friends, not close but friends...and always continued to miss Sylvia terribly.

That story could be told step by terrible step but it wont be. Because Part Two of this story isn't Johnny's story; It's Sylvia's story.

Part Two

Four days after Johnny left for Algonquin, the phone at their apartment rang and rang for a long time. Then again later. And again.

Finally the desk sergeant ordered two police officers, a male and a female, to go over to the apartment. A neighbour next door told them where Sylvia worked.

Sylvia was with a costumer when they walked into the store. She didn't look up till she heard her name mentioned at the front desk.

She looked over puzzled at the male officer's face. When she looked into the female officer's eyes, she screamed and fainted.

Coming around in a couple of moments, with the female officer holding her up a little and the male officer checking her pulse, she felt very ashamed. Yet somehow she had known it was about Johnny. Something really bad.

The officers did not use the word 'drowning', only missing, but of course, Sylvia did get the complete story of the found but empty canoe on the lake, a boating search and, as well, dog and aerial surveillance along the shores.

The male officer left on another routine call; the female officer stayed longer, taking Sylvia for a tea at the food court.

She told her there was no point in her going up to Canada, The NYC 168th South Precinct desk would be in touch with the Park authorities hourly. Sylvia could phone in anytime for news day or night.

She asked if Sylvia had family close by. Sylvia shook her head no. Two sisters, one in Florida; one in Jacksonville, Iowa. "She'd be fine" she said. She'd just get a ride home from one of the girls rather than take the subway. Tell her boss she needed a day off to be by the phone. They'd find Johnny by then for sure.

Sylvia had gotten brave real quick but the NYC officer could tell she was still shaken up inside. Very worried and anxious to get good news about her husband soon.

The police officer walked Sylvia back to the store, waited till arrangements were made, gave Sylvia all the numbers at the NYCPD desk.

She left when her partner came back and then Sylvia got her things; the boss was kind and was letting one of the other girls go early just to take Sylvia home now. Told her they were all praying for her husband, they would find him for sure. And not to worry about time off, take tomorrow off, she was sure her husband would show up by then and phone her at home.

Sylvia rode home quiet. The girl driving her asked her if she needed anything first before she dropped her off. Groceries or anything? Sylvia said "No, she was fine."

She was anxious to phone the NYC police. 'After all it has been an hour or so, hadn't it?' she thought to herself.

She went in after saying thanks and goodbye to her ride. Closed the door. Forgot what she was supposed to do first. Phone. 'Oh, my god, yes, the phone. How could she forget that?'

She phoned. The desk sergeant was very kind but they had heard nothing from Canada for awhile. The Park authorities would contact him as soon as they found Johnny. That's how he put it, so positive...as soon as they found Johnny. He would phone them again soon. Please call him back in a couple hours he said if he hadn't phoned her. Sometimes it gets very busy and he might forget. Just call anytime he kindly added.

So began a series of endless hours, days and sleepless nights for Sylvia. The phone ringing but no news of Johnny. Just a friend or relative inquiring or offering help. It seemed cruel to her to phone her like that. Then the phone wouldn't ring for hours or days and that was just as cruel.

People, too, came and went. A few fellow workers from the store. Her sisters. Dropped things off. Food. Stuff. Stayed hours. Stayed days.

They talked. Sylvia nodded. And watched the phone. They cooked. Sylvia sat with a tea. And listened for the phone. They watched TV. Sylvia watched too. Sitting by the phone.

She wouldn't bathe or go to the washroom with the door closed unless someone was there to answer the phone.

Someone took what they thought was pity on her and bought her a cordless phone. First it felt so secure having it near her, in her hand, her bathrobe pocket and, best of all, beside her in bed while she dozed fitfully night and sometimes day if she hadn't slept all night.

But then she worried that it didn't work or the batteries were dead so she gave it up through the day. But at night, beside her in bed, asleep or in tears, it laid always in her hand or was tucked to her chest.

The blur and the pain of two months went by. Nothing. The searches had ended. A NYC detective had personally come and saw herafter a month and told her that.

As kindly as he could. That the Canadian coroner had signed the documents declaring Johnny officially 'drowned by accident'. That whenever she wanted, or one of her family if she preferred, wanted it, he could get her a death certificate for any arrangements or insurance or pension or things like that.

She did go back to work eventually. The boss lady had Been very good and financially supportive but no small business can carry something like this forever.

Working helped. A little.

Except, of course, for the phone ringing at the counter. It never failed to stir her hopes but it was always business, never about Johnny.

Somehow, somewhere his stuff and car arrived. One of her sisters or the NYC police must have arranged it. She couldn't empty it out. His gear. One of the girl's husbands from work did it for her. It went to the SallyAnn 'cept any personal stuff that had been found in his tent by the Rangers.

After three months, both her sisters came to her. Together. Wanted to discuss having a funeral. Suggested it would help 'heal' Sylvia. Give closure.

She was furious, there was a huge argument. It was a small wonder the super didn't call the police.

There was to be no funeral.

She knew Johnny was dead, yes. Facts were facts as explained quite well by the police detective. Hypothermia. The lake at night, no life jacket, all that. And there was no way Johnny was alive and didn't want to get in touch with her. There was just no way. She knew he loved her too much to just walk away.

There was no body though and she felt she owed Johnny that much to wait. Which made no sense.

But she didn't have to make sense. To herself. Or anyone.

She only had to survive. Going on with the fractions left of her life. Which, in her heart, many many times, didn't make sense either.

Her sisters left after patching things up. They said it was all up to Sylvia, none of their business. They would call soon or Sylvia could phone anytime she needed them.

They hadn't even got to asking about finances or insurance or anything like that. They hadn't dared.

So even the insurance hung in limbo.Due to Sylvia notifying the Insurance Company as a formality about stopping Johnny's private medical insurance, the company had notified her with a couple of letters about needing death certificates etc to process any insurance claims. They would, of course, stop medical insurance deductions immediately.

Again, as a courtesy, she phoned the Head Office and finally reached someone who took down all the verbal information about Johnny's death.

Again the death certificate was brought up but Sylvia informed them she hadn't got it from the Canadian authorities yet. She never even asked how much insurance money was there. She didn't care really. In her mind, she thought it might be ten thousand dollars, enough to get Johnny a nice headstone. She'd get it later before his funeral.

She never did. Sylvia didn't like thinking about Johnny's death. The lake. So empty that night for him. The cold. His cold. And her cold.

She liked Johnny now when he was twenty-five or thirty. She liked Johnny dancing with her. Or making her laugh. Holding her. She liked Johnny handing her coffee in the morning, grinning as his other hand brushed the hair from her face, cupped her chin and lightly kissed her. She liked Johnny coming home late, sorry he had to work late; then bringing out from behind his back a ridiculously cheap looking but outrageously expensive stuffed toy he had bought at a variety or late night grocery store on the way home.

She liked Johnny...well...she liked Johnny alive. In her mind. That was it. That was how it was going to be. Johnny was just late. He hadn't got home yet, he was late. That was just the way it was going to be.

And that`s how it was for the next year and a half.

Then one day a stranger came into the store. Took her a little aside, out of hearing of the rest, and told her his name was Jack. From Illinois.

That he was Johnny`s cousin. Sylvia had, of course, remembered Johnny talking about Jack over the years.

Jack asked if they could go for supper after. That he felt real sorry about what had happened. That he missed Johnny. Wondered if they could talk a little.

They went to a quiet little diner in the Mall which stayed open after most of the stores had closed.

Jack told her he wasn't Johnny's cousin. He was his half-brother. Then he talked a lot about their Grandad, some stories Sylvia knew, some she didn't. Jack didn't do it to convince Sylvia he was who he said he was, he just liked talking about Grandad. But it convinced Sylvia nonetheless.

He did not say anything more about Johnny after the half-brother thing. Then he said he kinda owed Johnny a favour. Wanted to help out but it had to be a secret. Between only Sylvia and him. No one, absolutely no one, was to know.

He handed her an envelope. Said there was a couple of hundred dollars in it.

She went to give it back, beginning to say 'thanks, but it wasn't necessary' when he interrupted her.

There was something else in there. A plane ticket. For one. Return. To Peru. For four days. Leaving in three weeks.

Could she get a passport in time if she didn't have one? Could she take a few days off work ok?

She started again to argue, to ask what this was about.

" No" he said , "Absolutely no questions, please. You have to trust me...and Grandad. There's also a reservation in there. For the Hotel Plaza, right near the airport. It's not a sleazy place. I checked it all out on the internet. The four days is paid for, the money in the envelope is just in case you need it for something for the trip...or when you're down there.

Take the flight. Go straight to the hotel. Register with the desk clerk in your own name, of course. It's all legit. And safe. I promise you. It's no weird stuff like drug smuggling or something.

Just trust me, please. I know it's asking a lot but just trust on this, can ya, please?"

All she could think to say is she would have to think on it.

"Ok" he said. " I don't blame you. Being a bit leery and all. Check it all out online. The reservations and all. But I can't really get in touch with you again or you, me" He shrugged " If you don't go, you don't go, ok? Just don't rip up the ticket till the very last minute, ok. In case you change your mind."

She had a thousand questions, a thousand possibilities in her mind but again Jack said " Look, I'm sorry I can't answer any more questions. Just go, ok. Stay in the Hotel. You'll be safe there"...then he added..."and wait."

He stood up, shook her hand goodbye and grabbing the cheque, walked to the till.

Sylvia just sat, stunned.

Jack paid and with a brief wave back to Sylvia, left.

She did what Jack said. She didn't rip up the ticket right away. She didn't decide anything but she didn't rip up the ticket right away.

Then she went to the library and used the internet to see if the Hotel really existed. It did.

Then she phoned to confirm the reservation was in her name. It was.

She had a passport, of course, from trips to the Cayman Islands with Johnny before they...well...she had a passport.

Then she booked the time off work, telling her boss she wanted to see her sister. After all, she could if she ripped up the ticket.

All that took a couple of weeks. In between staring at the ticket. With a thousand questions and only one way of getting any answers.

Now it was two days before. Should she pack for Florida or pack for Peru? She grinned to herself, 'What's the difference?'

So she just packed.

The following day, after her last day at work, she went back to the same restaurant where Jack had given her the ticket.

To try and get a 'feel' of it all again.

What should she do? Was it real? Was it safe? What if it was a drug smuggling thing?...or worse...one of those awful human smuggling rings?

Despite herself, she giggled. 'Imagine,' she thought, 'someone going to all this trouble to kidnap a forty-five year old woman.'

Then she paused, looked into her empty coffee cup.

'I giggled. When was the last time I giggled...or laughed? Or even smiled? She remembered yesterday, before she packed, deciding about where to pack for. She had smiled then.'

She knew without saying that most of her had been dead since Johnny...nothing had changed...except for an envelope. She would not call what was in that envelope...hope...she wouldn't let her mind speak that word even in secret to herself...but she knew it was there.

And she knew she wasn't going to rip that hope up.

She got to the airport a couple hours early. Got a magazine on fashion, she had books for reading on the plane in her carry on. Bought a coffee and took it over to one of the less busier sitting areas.

She just kinda gazed at the magazine. Just being there. Just being...well... not Sylvia anymore. Sylvia at work. Sylvia at home. Sylvia killing time between work and home by shopping without buying.

This was nice. A new Sylvia. Somewhere else. Just that.

In awhile though she felt something else. A sense. Not a good thing. Certainly not bad, or in danger. After all, this was a very crowded airport, but she felt a sense of being watched. You can't live in NYC, especially as a woman riding buses and subways and not develop that extra sense of wariness and intuition.

She looked around. The man across from her, balding, greyish blue suit, ordinary shoes, a paper in his lap, glanced away.

She looked at her paper again, then in a moment, glanced up again.

Again he glanced away.

She decided to move. Didn't know why. She wasn't frightened. She wanted to walk around a little before the long flight anyway.

As she gathered up her things, the man across from her spoke up.

" I am very sorry, Mrs. Martin, I seem to have put you off. I apologize, it was very rude of me to just sit here and not introduce myself right away."

She stared at him, noting of course, that he knew who she was. Who was he? A costumer's husband?

He stood up and gestured to the empty seat beside her " May I? Just for a moment?"

She nodded and he sat down. While doing so he pulled his wallet from his jacket. Handing her a card out of it he continued " My name is Robert Stevens. I'm an investigator for the Chase Build Insurance Company."

She remembered it as the insurance company where she and Johnnyhad their medical insurance. Hers was still there.

"Yes?" was all she could think to say as she handed back the card.

" Your travelling abroad, Mrs. Martin?"

" Yes, I am. Your company is aware of it and ok'd any coverage if necessary when I applied for this trip. I have the letter with me if you would like to see it."

He smiled " No. No. That's not necessary. I was just curious really."

"Curious?"

"Well, yes. Peru, I believe, is it not? For four days?"

She declined to answer, just waited.

"Mrs Martin, I will be frank with you. Peru seems an unlikely choice for a single woman..er..a woman travelling alone. Is it for business, may I ask?"

"No, no, not really and, franklyMr. Stevens, I can't see what concern it is of yours."

" You're right. Again I apologize. An investigator's curse, I suppose. Really, though, Mrs. Martin , I would be a little concerned about your safety if you plan to wander all over Peru on your own."

She retorted back a little haughtily, giving him 'her don't look down on the working classes honey, tone if a costumer got too uppity with her at the store' look, "I do not, as you put it, intend to wander all over Peru. A few bus tours with lots of other American tourists is as dangerous as it will get."

Mr. Stevens stood up.

"Ah, bus tours. Good idea, Mrs. Martin. You are interested in the relics, perhaps, are you?"

She gathered up her things indicating she had no wish to continue the conversation with Stevens.

As she began to move away, he stopped her by putting his hand lightly on her arm.

"One last thing, Mrs Martin, if you don't mind. You're not visiting anyone, are you, say some relatives perhaps, while in Peru?"

She moved past him without answering. He did not follow her.

An hour after she checked into her room in Peru, while she was still arranging her clothes and extra things, a knock came at the door.

It was, of course, Johnny.

The next few days they never left the room, using Jack's gift of two hundred dollars for room service.

During that four days, Johnny never seemed to stop crying and blubbering and apologizing for causing her so much pain, so much hurt over the last year and a half.

The only way she could keep shutting him up was to press passionate kisses again and again against his lips.

The return plane from Peru was smaller than the other flight before. There were only two seats on each side of the aisle. She had a window seat.

The seat beside her was taken by an older man, kind looking, darker skinned, very well dressed with a distinguishedwavy crop of grey hair. He was engrossed in a bundle of documents but when Sylvia asked politely to get by to her seat, he gave her a friendly hello in English but with a distinctively Spanish Peruvian accent. Then returned to his documents.

She loved this window seat. For the rest of her life she would remember looking out at Peru and remembering those four days.

They had made no plans. Johnny had been very glad no money had come to Sylvia. The guilt was already too much in hurting her, at least he knew he had not dragged her into anything criminal.

They talked a little about Jack, what a great guy he was. Johnny didn't want to involve him anymore in case there was trouble with the authorities but he did very much want to pay Jack back somehow. The money that is. If Jack would take it. They could never repay the fullness of his kindness to them.

She told him about Stevens but Johnny thought they might be able to clear it all up. Nobody stole any money. Maybe then he could go back to the States. Even if they gave him a month or two in jail as a slap on the wrist.

She asked about her living in Peru but Johnny wasn't sure. He was kinda forgotten here but with a landed American wife without a visa could they hide forever? Would the government care?

The little city where Johnny lived, no one bothered him there. He was liked, had picked up the language good. Paid off some amiable officials. He didn't know what would happen if Sylvia also appeared on the picture, he just didn't know. He would look into it.

So the world outside that plane window was a beautiful thing again for Sylvia. Living brings to life Life again. She would never forget the land, the clouds, the sun, the ocean.

It was about an hour into the flight and two figures came to stand beside the gentleman's seat beside Sylvia's.

The stewardess...and Robert Stevens.

Stevens handed his card to the gentleman and spoke " Excuse me, sir, for the interruption but I wish to speak to the lady beside you about a rather delicate but urgent matter concerning her. I've already asked the stewardess and she has agreed to allow us to switch seats for a few minutes. Would that be ok with you, sir?"

The gentleman handed Stevens back his card after reading it, "Yes, indeed...then he added, turning to Sylvia..."if ,of course, it is agreeable to this young lady?"

All Sylvia could do was shrug.

The gentleman gathered up his papers and left with the stewardess.

Stevens sat down.

"What do you want?" asked Sylvia very tense and angry.

"Did you have a nice trip?"

"Again, Mr Stevens what do you want or shall we just call back the stewardess?"

" Well then, Mrs Martin, let's be open about this. You were at the Hotel Plaza, were you not?"

She did not answer.

" Mrs Martin, bus tours came and went from there for four days but I do not believe you were on any of them."

"You followed me then?"

" Well not from where we last met. No. But I came down later. Simply to look around. And ask around Mrs Martin." He reached into his wallet, handed her a photo of Johnny, probably from three or four years ago. A driver's licence photo maybe.

"To be honest, Mrs Martin, I showed this around the Hotel Plaza. Bus boys. Tour guides. Maids. That sort of thing. Along with a few American dollars. A few said they might have seen this face, most not. The tour guides and bus drivers never saw anyone of your description either, I might add.

The odd thing was I`ll be damned if I could get your room number from the desk clerk. No matter how much cash I offered. Someone had paid him more already or the desk clerk liked me a lot less."

"I wouldn't know anything about all that."

" No, Mrs Martin, I really believe you don't. I do believe, however, Mrs Martin that you know a bit more than perhaps you did in New York City five days ago."

" Again, Mr Stevens, we come back to...what do you want exactly?"

"Well then, I'll be frank with you, Mrs Martin. Our company doesn't really want you. We want your husband."

" My husband, Mr Stevens?" Sylvia turned and looked out the window, seemingly to ignore Stevens.

Stevens shrugged. His voice was harsher. "Should I continue or not? For the sake of argument?"

" Very well, continue."

" Mrs Martin, our company doesn't really want you not really because you are not guilty though that is very likely the case here. The police reports alone give a good indication that you weren't, if you pardon my bluntness, faking. We don't believe there was any compliance on your part in insurance fraud. You really did believe your husband was dead...yet, strangely, have as yet not claimed for any insurance money."

She broke in " Well I intended to. For a headstone and the funeral if they found his"...she could not say body now, it seemed too much a lie, too much untruth near her beautiful window.

" Mrs Martin, be frank with me. Do you know how much money your husband was insured for? With you as sole beneficiary?"

" No I didn't, don't. I assumed around ten thousand dollars."

" Two million dollars, Mrs Martin. That's why Chase Build doesn't mind picking up the tab for my little excursion into Peru."

Johnny hadn't told her that. She had assumed he had just wandered away , to escape it all, finally ending up in Peru. To start a new life. The jack ass! That explained it all. He had wanted to give her back her life. The money. That old life. What damn life? Without him?

And that's why he was so relieved I hadn't the money yet. They probably never stopped chasing people over that much! The idiot! Probably claim he did it for love! Stupid, stupid, man! My god, she thought, is he ever going to get an earful the next time I get my hands on him.

Steven's voice brought her back " Chase Build doesn't want you, Mrs Martin. First of all because likely a prosecution wouldn't stick. Greedy people want their money right away."

" However", here he stopped and pulled out a document from his jacket which he handed to Sylvia " this is essentially a police warrant to detain you for questioning about this whole affair after we land.

We'll go along this route and charge you because we want the charges against you to become known. Known especially in Peru. We will make sure of that."

" Charge me? Charge me with what? No money was taken."...and she thought to add...and my husband is dead...but the window again wouldn't let her.

"Oh, people don't have to get the money to be caught, Mrs Martin. Before is just as good. There's intent to fraudand aid and abet to commit fraud and conspire to fraud, and obstruction of justice to commit fraud, and perjurize with intent to fraud, and falsify information to police to commit fraud...the list is quite endless, I won't bore you."

She shrugged, looked out her beautiful window. " So I'm charged. I'll take my chances. Is there anything else, Mr Stevens...before you go?" The last three words spoken with a dismissal of tone.

" Mrs Martin. You miss the point. Again, we don't want you. Frankly the publicity alone of having you up in court would do us more harm than good. After all, the money wouldn't be paid out, you didn't ask for it so it will be hard to make you into a bad guy in all this.

What Chase Build wants is your husband. The publicity of his case will send a good message for us out there. First, we always find out, so don'ttry fraud. Second, we always win in court so don't try fraud. Third, the money's big so the jail time will be big, say fifteen or twenty years...so don't try fraud."

Sylvia looked very pale. " But he wasn't getting the money. I'm the beneficiary, remember?"

Stevens chuckled " Really, Mrs Martin? I might believe you but how many jurors will think you weren't going to show up in a couple of years with a mittfull of millions and then the two of you live happily ever after...thanks to all those same jurors who get to pick up the tab with their own hiked up premiums for all that fraud?"

She stared out the window, saying nothing.

" Well, Mrs Martin, I should leave and go back to my seat. I can see that this is painful for you and I regret that.

I sincerely think your husband will return to the United States and turn himself in as soon as he hears you are being charged. Your charges will probably be dropped right away if that's any consolation."

She did not reply. Nor turned back away from her window.

She didn't notice at first that the older gentleman had returned. It wasn't till she let a small sob out and sniffed back a tear that she noticed him as she rummaged for a tissue in her purse.

"Miss, If I may?" he pulled out a fresh travel pack of tissues out of his travel bag and handed it to her. " I always carry these around with me. Allergies, you know. Especially travelling back and forth a lot across the equator, you never know what's in bloom."

She thanked him and was about to turn back to her window when he added " Miss, forgive me, but before I left this seat I had not seen such a radiance of happiness for quite awhile as from your face. Now I see tears. Forgive me if I am prying but I cannot help but surmise that you have received some bad news from the gentleman who switched places with me."

She answered out of courtesy " Well, yes, but there is nothing that can be done I'm afraid."

" Again, forgive my prying, and if you wish to be left alone, please feel free to say so but I hope it was not some illness...or worse...of a loved one?"

" No. No. Nothing like that" Sylvia didn't know what else to say. She didn't really want to just sit and think, think alone so she asked " Your accent? You are from Peru?"

He laughed. " Yes. Well, actually, I am of dual citizenship. My mother was French Canadian and my father was from Peru. They met at the Consulate for Sweden of all places.So, is my English that bad?"

" Oh no, no. It's excellent. Forgive me, I just find the Spanish accent very nice. Can I ask you what you do for a living? Or are you retired?"

" Aw, the gray hairs. I could say they come from wisdom but then my father used to say that wisdom only comes with gray hairs but gray hairs alone do not always bring wisdom." he smiled. " And also I am not wise enough to retire. I am still a lawyer. Of sorts."

" Of sorts?"

"Yes, I am a strange lawyer. Well, strange to other lawyers, I would say. Most lawyers find much more lucrative doings in deeds, the deeds of land, of criminals and of the deeds of a husband`s wandering eye. Though forgive me , Miss, that joke is a little in bad taste. More suited for bars."

"That`s ok. I thought it was funny."

" Well, anyway, as I said I am a strange lawyer. I specialize in International Law."

" International Law?"

" Yes, the laws between countries. Treaties, contracts, and such like. It's very very dull work, believe me"

Sylvia replied " Hardly, I would imagine. I sell women's shoes. Now that's dull."

He smiled at her " Good lord, Miss. The landmines and negotiations and pitfalls of women's fashion makes such a thing as an extradition treaty seem like...well...old men at checkers!"

Her mind caught at the word. She didn't know why. Though she knew vaguely what it meant. "Extradition treaty? What is that?"

He answered "That's where countries agree to swap criminals. Right now, for example, Peru is a little reluctant to just hand anyone over to the US. The USA has been a little too pushy in their demands especially over crimes of property or money. There have been, shall we say, abuses in the past of false charges for political reasons. The South Americas, I am afraid, or rather, I am glad, are a little tired of the USA thinking the world belongs only in American pockets."

" I see. I wondered if...well...never mind."

" Please. Old men, and old lawyers especially, love questions; all most as much as we love our answers."

" No. I couldn't. It's, well, confidential if you'll forgive me for saying so."

He nodded " Understood. But let me ask you this, if I may. This question you cannot ask, is it somehow related to our Mr Insurance Card?"

Sylvia nodded " Yes. Yes, it is."

" Would a lawyer help...or not help?"

" Well, I don't really know. I doubt it could make it worse."

" My doctor always says the same thing when he adds more pills to my daily diet!"

She had to smile.

" There, it's working. See, a lawyer has actually helped."

She didn't answer.

" Miss, my apologies, I do not mean to be flippant. How about I am quiet and if you like you can talk. My name , by the way, is Fernando Perez. May I inquire yours, Miss?" He held out his hand to her.

Shaking it briefly , Sylvia replied " Sylvia Martin. And it's Mrs but , please, call me Sylvia."

" Well, Sylvia, if you wish you can hire me as your lawyer and thus guarantee confidentiality by lawyer and client privilege."

" Thank you, but I cannot pay you. I have very little money left."

He reached over and took a bag of airline peanuts from her cup in the seat arm between them.

" There. The contract is binding. Verbal agreement is as binding as written signed agreement where both parties agree that it is so. Payment by any commodity wether cash, property, consignment, percentage of proceeds or even peanuts binds the verbal contract for the mutual agreed upon duration of contract of...shall we say...one day, 24 hours?"

She had to laugh and nodded agreement.

They shook hands again to finalize the contract and then Perez spoke "There Mrs Sylvia, you have officially contracted the services of a lawyer, although not a particular good one I must warn you. Now what can I do for you?"

So Sylvia told the Peruvian-French-Canadian gentleman lawyer everything. All about Johnny. The loss of house and money and Johnny's despondency. Then the lake. Her pain. Then Jack. Then Steven's at the airport. Then wonderful Peru. The window. Then Stevens again.

The old gentleman was particularly interested in the document Stevens had showed Sylvia on the plane. Asked her quite a few questions about it. She asked if he wanted her to get Stevens to show it to him but he said " No. Surprise gets more speed out of a mule than sometimes just the asking."

After she told him the whole story, he asked her to let him think on it for some time.

Awhile later, opening his eyes and looking at Sylvia (who, if the truth be known, had actually thought that Mr Perez had fallen asleep) he spoke.

"Mrs. Sylvia, I think I may have an idea, a little plan of sorts. Please delay getting off the plane till you are the last. Do the same thing exiting and getting your luggage. Do not go past Customs under any circumstances until you see me return. That is very important. I will go through as quickly as possible and complete a little 'job' and then return to you before you meet up with our Nemesis with the card, Mr Stevens."

He told her Stevens could do nothing until she was on US soil which was after she went through Customs.

" What was this job you had to do?" she asked.

" Now, my dear, allow an old bird dog his free run on the hunt if you please." He pointed his finger in the air with a great flourish. "Like a bad play or a good play, all shall be revealed when the curtain finally goes up!"

In another hour the plane landed. The old Peruvian lawyer and Sylvia had talked a little but mostly she had her window again and he went back to his papers.

As soon as the plane stopped, Perez was up and out of his seat nudging and dodging his way around passengers towards the exit in an unpolite manner most unlike him. He could only mumble about a 'late meeting' as an excuse for his behaviour.

Stevens got up and nodded at Sylvia but she ignored him. He left the plane and made his way to baggage and Customs.

Sylvia delayed till she was the last. Took as long as she dared walking down the ramp. Going to luggage pickup she hoped for the usual delays. There was but today it seemed to be much too efficient. After watching her luggage go around the carousal six times she figured she had better finally pick it up.

Leaving the luggage area, she could see the US Customs desk a long way down the hallway. Another plane had landed and that had resulted in a much longer than usual lineup. A lineup her 'lawyer' had fortunately managed to be ahead of by minutes.

Sylvia lounged at a couple of benches but finally she had no choice to get in the Customs lineup with her baggage. After all she couldn't just sit there waiting on a bench with no one in the lineup and all the Customs officers looking at her suspiciously.

When she got up to the desk, she could see Stevens standing in the hallway behind the glass doors which were on the other side of the Customs desks. Standing beside him was an airport security guard. Sylvia could not see Mr Perez.

Customs was done with her quickly, despite her offers of vague answers in an attempt to get them to at least search her bags a little. Damn her honest face for once!

She had no choice but to head towards Stevens. The glass doors opened but before she stepped across the white line, a Peruvian accent called out in English " Step no further, Mrs Sylvia!"

Stevens, who had moved closer and was about to grasp Sylvia's arm, hesitated as well.

" And you, Mr Insurance Card, I suggest you cease and desist as well."

" Who the hell are you anyway?" asked Stevens.

Perez answered " My name is Fernando Perez and I have been retained as Mrs Martin's attorney. He handed his own business card to Stevens.

Stevens looked at it than at Perez " Is this a goddamn trick?"

" Well, Mr Stevens, in front of two witnesses, Mrs Martin and this security official I have informed you I am Mrs Martin's council. Act otherwise and you violate a good many procedures and statues in US law. As I am sure you are familiar with. Generally, large fines and prison sentences come as a result of directly interfering with the process of attorney client privilege.

Now, I believe you have with you what you claim to be a police warrant for Mrs Martin's arrest?"

Stevens pulled out the paper. " No. It is a warrant for questioning."

Perez shook his head. " Mr Stevens, we both know there is no such thing. It's either a warrant for an arrest, a warrant for seizure and search of property or it's...nothing.

No judge issues warrants to confine people for questioning."

Perez looked at the document. " Just as I thought, this is meaningless. It is merely a police validation allowing you to detain Mrs Martin briefly if you warrant justification. You are not the police so it is not a warrant for arrest. It is essentially a citation giving you the 'theoretical' right to detain as a citizen's arrest. Which as a citizen making an arrest you didn't need anyway."

Perez handed the document back to Stevens with a smile. " In short, Mr Stevens, it was a bluff. To coherence my client and most likely to mislead this security officer here that you had some 'official' standing" . Perez gestured to the officer who was looking a little hostile towards Stevens now.

Stevens replied " Well, I will make a damn citizen's arrest anyway!"

Perez answered " And so you legally can. As a US citizen on US soil. Mrs Martin, however, is not yet on US soil."

Stevens gestured at Sylvia. " Yes, she damn well is. She is past Customs."

" But Customs, my friend, is never on its own soil. Otherwise anyone walking up to Customs, anyone having landed with a plane has already gained the status of landed immigrant because they are on that land. So all nations set their Customs on non-land, land given to the International Borders and Boundaries Commission so that an illegal immigrant is always technically outside that country while being interviewed by Customs.

Now you can make an arrest here if you are an agent of Interpol or are currently employed by an approved police force such as the FBI and you have a valid arrest warrant. Or you can make an arrest as a Customs agent or security officer or police officer if you suspect the person is either an illegal immigrant or smuggler or likely to endanger the safety and security of the airport. "

Perez turned to look at the security officer " Isn't that right, sir?"

The officer certainly looked puzzled but replied " I believe that to be true. Though it is a little outside my jurisdiction."

Perez smiled "Well, perhaps, you should seek clarification from your supervisor. I would hate to see your name embroiled in a civil rights and international protocol litigation based on this fellow's piece of paper and overzealous nature."

The officer nodded and walked away, obviously happy to be out of it as it was definitely not an airport security matter. He would see his supervisor about it right after he grabbed a coffee and a smoke outside.

Stevens shrugged "So what? She has to cross over that line sometime. The airport wont let her camp here."

Perez replied " A good point. I almost forgot. My client has instructed me to purchase for her an airline ticket back to Peru plus extend to her from accounts the amount of five hundred dollars."

He handed such to a very surprised looking Sylvia.

" The plane leaves in"...he glanced at his watch..." twenty-three minutes. We best not linger too long here. We can reach the boarding desk by that corridor just behind you which runs between Customs and the US border line so diligently guarded by our good citizen Mr Stevens."

The he turned back to Stevens. " And you, sir, have 23 minutes to go get a real FBI agent to go to a real judge and get a real arrest warrant based on such flimsy hearsay evidence as the opinion of a bribed bus boy. I might add, the way a real investigator would have done it if they weren't so eager to not share the 'glory of the catch'. Of course, getting all that is considerably more work than just trying to bluff and bully an innocent woman!"

Perez continued, after 'puffing' himself up a little " As a gentleman ...sir... I do not like to see a woman bullied. Especially bullied with her own love."

With that , Perez turned away and he and Sylvia walked with her suit case towards the hallway on her right.

Sylvia was still a little stunned by what had happened, almost not believing she was still free and, even better than free, returning to Johnny.

Johnny. How will Johnny know she is back in Peru? She turned to Mr Perez and asked him.

"Leave that to me. You just stay at the hotel. I think I know where Johnny is. I know someone who will track him down for us. Just don't you go running of in the jungle looking for him. I don't think he is too far away.

And I know a lawyer in Peru who might be quite helpful over the insurance fraud matter."

Sylvia turned to Perez again after she handed her ticket and passport to the stewardess to validate. " Why, why did you do all of this? How can we repay you? The ticket? The money? How can..."

Perez interrupted her. He pulled the peanut bag out of his pocket and waved it playfully under her nose. " All taken care of, Mrs Martin, all legal. As for the ticket and the money, do you have any idea how long it has been since I had that much fun with the law? With such an ass, a buffoon, as that Stevens.

Do you have any idea, my dear, how many free drinks that story will earn me at any of my old lawyers' watering holes?

And to be honest, I don't even know if half of what I quoted to Stevens was true or not but like my mother's father used to say about his boxing days ' Once I had that deer in my headlights, I just had to pile on the gas!"

She had to laugh at that. She got her ticket stub and passport back and they stood a little aside to talk while she waited to board.

Sylvia touched his arm and asked again " But really? A complete stranger? It seems so strange to me. All the mess up to this. Then God puts you in the seat beside me."

" Well, maybe, God is a good dramatist but a poor Shakespearean. He loves to build a good plot but in the end succumbs to a happy ending!"

She smiled but waited for more.

His eyes softened , even began to tear up a little.

"When you told me your story, I remembered something. Even before that actually, when you first came on the plane. Your happiness reminded me very much of someone.

Someone I loved so very very much and she loved me. Then one day I made a mistake. A very bad mistake, the kind that a lot of men do ...well... because they are stupid I guess.

Well, that mistake hurt her very much. Caused her a great deal of pain.

But she forgave me. When I asked for her forgiveness.

We went on to have many years of happiness together. Much happiness. Much joy. A great love, the kind poets speak of.

I never spoke of that time again to her. Of her forgiveness. I did not want to remind her of her old pain. But many times in my heart I would remember that forgiveness, that forgiveness out of her great love for me and I would again thank her in my heart for it.

Just two years ago she died in my arms. Cancer.

She is gone now. But not from my heart. Never from there. Nor will that forgiveness ever be gone from my heart.

You. You and your Johnny are like that love. That forgiveness.

I helped, I guess, not really because you asked me to, for you didn't really. Indeed, I forced it on you. I helped because Maria, my Maria, told me to. In my heart, I heard her."

He sighed. " Besides, It's very good for an old man to know that window you told me about still lives on in the world, even after he too is gone from it.

To know that the kind of love and forgiveness he had does not die out with him." He smiled at her "Lawyers like things that last, I guess."

Sylvia was crying softly. Then she hugged him very hard. As hard as she had ever hugged her own father.

Finally he pushed her gently away. "Go. Go. Your flight. Stop making old men blush."

"Will you come and see us in Peru?"

He thought a moment " Yes. Yes, I will. I would like that." He winked "And perhaps it will keep that crook of a husband of yours on the straight and narrow if he knows his wife's lawyer may stop by unannounced at anytime!"

They laughed, and after anotherquick hug, Sylvia moved towards the boarding ramp.

The stewardess looked down at Sylvia's suitcase and said " I'm sorry Ma'am but you can't take that suitcase on. And I'm afraid it's too late to book it for baggage for this flight."

Sylvia turned and set it down. She looked at Mr Perez while one of her eyebrows raised itself up in an inquisitive manner.

He smiled.

She spoke " I couldn't possibly ask. After all you have..."

Perez interrupted with a laugh " Pardon me, Mrs Sylvia, but so like a woman on a sinking ship. Save those I love first, of course, but, if you can, please save the shoes as well?!? Yes, my dear, I will send on your luggage for you!"

She hugged him once again and then headed down the boarding ramp. She turnedand waved and then turned back towards the plane.

Glancing for the first time at her ticket she was so glad, so very glad that Mr Perez had gotten her a window seat.

She would be able to see Johnny all the way back to Peru.

THE END

The Strange Case of William Gully

William Gully. It could have been worse. Least it had been for his little brother, who died of some childhood disease when he was only ten. His name had been Charles. Charles Gully. Seems ok. Till you do the initials. Then you get C. Gully.

William Gully. Bill Gully. Billy Gully. He went by all of these. When people talked to him. Which was seldom.

He had a way of lookin' at people, or not lookin' at people, that those people, especially tourists in the Park, didn't want to start a-chit-chatting' with him.

'Cept maybe the dumb ones. Ones ya find everywhere in the world. Beside you on a bus, next table at a coffee shop, behind you in a line up. Feel the need to talk, ask questions, nose around and, worst of all, give their opinions.

Bill would meet them at a dock somewhere in the places he would 'popup' into in Algonquin.

Cedar, Opeongo, Cache, Smoke. More obscure places too like Kiosk, Kingscote Lake, Hay Lake, Kawawaymog, Shall Lake.

Seeing a 5 foot 3 inch sixtyish man, thin, grizzled beard, mostly bald, ragged clothed, usually either tying up or untying a faded, red,patched up cedar canvas canoe, they would almost think he was 'planted' there by the Rangers to give the Park a nineteen thirty's or forty's kinda colouring. Like those wax figurines at a Klondike theme park.

"Where's the fishing the best? How deep are they at this year? Where's the best campsite on this lake? Is the portage uphill or downhill from this lake to that? Is it always this windy? Many bears around? How are the bugs?"

"Why don't they just go and find out themselves?" Billy would say to the Warden, who was one of the few people, (another was Old Jensen at the Brent store), that Gully would speak civil to. "Can't learn nothin' yakin' your ass of at a dock. Park ain't a dock. Some things ya gotta find out for y'rself, ain't a thing a lawn chair can help ya find out."

The Warden replied "Billy, some people haven't got the time to see every inch of it like you do."

"So they wanna steal my time too! 'Cause that's what they're doin', wastin' my time when apparently they ain't got any of their own time to waste."

The Warden shook his head "Well, don'tworry, Bill, no one in Parks will ever put an Information Booth sign over your head."

Billy fired back "Wish they would. Could use a nice plank for a table at my site."

"Where are you camped, William?"

"There." Bill pointed northward.

"Aw, where, exactly up there? What site?"

"North. Got my eye on two or three. Pick whatever's free when I get there."

The Warden looked into Gully's canoe. Aside from a rod, two lures and a little bag of groceries, there was no gear 'cept the paddle he had in his hand. Obviously Bill was already set up somewhere.

Well, the Warden let it go but asked instead "Got your permit?"

"Going to get it now. See ya." With that, William Gully got in his canoe, flicked off the little tie rope from the dock moor, and with a nod to the Warden, gently scull-stroked away from the dock.

The Warden wasn't offended. No one had ever actually seen Gully camp anywhere in Algonquin. Sometimes he was seen camping on Crown land just outside the Park. Travelling down lakes half in, half out of the Park. Lakes where Gully could enter the Park, fish, go to a store, return to his camp in a day.

Like Wendigo, Kioskokwi, Rockaway, Hay, Galeary, Victoria to name a few. There were also many little rivers where Bill could 'tuck' himself away at.

Of course, travelling through the Park Gully should have had at least a day use permit on him. After being fined a few times, it was obvious that a man with no fixed address, no fixed income was not going to be much of a treasure chest to the Crown. So his 'travelling' through was overlooked.

Long time campers had seen Gully moving along a lake as late as 9 pm. On a lake well inside the boundaries of the Park.

It was speculated that perhaps Billy only took a campsite after dark or just continued travelling at night. The preferred theory was that he slept in his canoe wrapped up in a sleeping bag or just misquoto netting; the canoe anchored off some land point, the bow tied to a tree and the stern anchored by a rock. Whatever or wherever William did it, he had been doing it for years and years.

He had been born and raised in Brent, a railroad town sitting on the edge of Cedar Lake in Algonquin Park. The family of four, at least till Charles died at an early age, hadlived in a shanty built by his father in between drunken sprees. You wouldn't call it a house but , so long as his mother was there, you could call it a home.

Sadly, William's mother passed away of diphtheria when he was only fourteen.

His father left him to work on the CPR lines out west when he was fifteen. He never heard from him again.

Got a letter from the CPR a few years after that. His father had been killed at work. Alcohol was involved so there was no pension, no insurance.

Billy didn't care anyway. Didn't want nothing from him now when there'd been nothin' all the time he'd been growin' up.

Billy got a job on the CNR, the railroad that run through Algonquin. So he stayed on at the shanty. Fixed it up a little more.

Got married at nineteen. A whirl wind romance with a young girl named Maggie. She was waitressing in Ottawa where Gully would lay over from runs up and down the rail line. She was a nice girl and after a couple of months of dating, they were married and William took his new bride home to Brent. A year later, they had a daughter.

Between the railroad job and his almost obsessive need for camping and fishing in the solitude of Algonquin, Gully really wasn't much of a father or a husband.

Well, least not around much to be a good husband and father. Not mean, not cheap, just not there.

At twenty-six, he had an accident at work. Saved a man's life by shoving him out of the way of an uncoupled runaway grain car. Cost him his leg from just above the knee down. Got an artificial leg and a pension out of it.

The artificial leg gave him a severe limp; he walked with an almost sideways swing to the one leg.Added to his name, it would have led to a lot more abuse if he'd still been a kid. Now, well, not a lot of people made fun of William Gully anymore. He just had a way of staring, even as a short little man, that made folks shut up.

Sensible ones anyway. One time he was in the Opeongo store lookin' for mail when he gave his name to the kid working there. (Sometimes the Wardens might drop off something they had gotten through some round about route. It hadn't happened very often but Gully always asked anyway. Which did nothing to decrease the aura of mystery and harmless gossip which followed him around the Park.)

Anyway, a couple of fat fisherman, even more obnoxious than obese, had seen him come gimping in. Now armed with his name, Gully and the kid could hear their jokes and laughter at Gully's expense.

Bill never said nothing. Got a loaf of bread. Left. Later the comedians went outside only to see a strong wind from the west had blown their (mysteriously now untied!) big bass fishin' boat all the way up into Costello Creek. It was already very much mired into soft mud and bulrushes. A red canoe was seen heading east, purposely into the wind, the sound of a whistled tune carried back to the dock.

Besides the pension and a limp, the other thing his artificial leg had got him was a divorce. His wife didn't leave him over his handicap. She loved him. And that's why she left him. Because she loved him. She left him over the loneliness.

Living in the little shack his father had built (more a drunk than a drunken carpenter Billy used to say) days and days, even weeks and weeks, Gully's wife was beginning to regret her decision to marry Bill and spend the rest of her life in the little village of Brent. The neighbours were kind but without William around most times she missed her family in Ottawa more and more.

Perhaps, too, if she hadn't loved Bill so much she might not have felt the loneliness so much. Might not have had to fight the bitterness rising in her heart and mind and voice that he preferred weeks alone in the Park to her. Worse now that he did not work. Why must he be gone so much?

She knew that William loved her, loved their daughter. That did not make the 'why' any less bitter.

She did not wish that 'bitterness' to become the reason William could not spend a little more time in Brent.

Shortly after Billy paddled away once again on a trip, she left a note saying she had moved with their daughter to Ottawa to live with her sister. If she didn't hear from Gully in a couple of months, she'd go ahead and get a divorce. She didn't want to just sit and feel the years ahead turn her slowly more bitter each day.

Wrote that she knew they still loved each other but this life was no good for their daughter. Said she understood his love for Algonquin but it was no good for their daughter, having a drifter for a father. She , at least, deserved better. Billy would have to choose.

Gully never wrote to her, never phoned. 'Cause he figured his wife was right; they were better off without him, without the what he couldn't be for them.

So that was Gully's life. Wandering the Park. Some might call it pointless, useless, without purpose. Some might call it fulfilled, even romantic in the way of old frontier tales.

Never had a job again. Most folks assumed he lived on his pension though no one knew him to cash a cheque. Old Jensen at Brent loved the taste of lake trout. Gully would take him a trout, leave with some groceries. 'Exchanging gifts', a 'border-line' in legality of sorts.

What he did in the winter, no one knew. Never returned to the shack after he got the letter. No one even knew where he wintered his canoe.

It was rumoured that he would poach a moose outside the park for food. Build a temporary cabin. Show up at minus forty in Mattawa or Maynooth to get flour. Again the trade of 'gifts'. Moose meat. Maybe deer. No one ever saw him with a rifle.

Ice would break up. Algonquin lakes would open. Gully would show up like the spring geese or loons; a faded red canvas canoe moving quietly across the frigid waters.

William Gully couldn't swim. Never had a life jacket. He said once to a Warden who told Billy technically he should carry one according to the law "When the Lord wants me, He'll shove me in the lake. No point bobbin' around makin' Him wait any longer than He has already."

Most folks wondered why he wasn't dead long ago. Froze or drowned or a hemorrhaged ulcer from carrying a canoe that had to weigh a hundred pounds.

Travelling, living like that , day after day, did make a man stringy tough though. Not that Gully acted like that. Kept away from any trouble. Town or Park. Didn't drink( didn't even smoke). Said it wasn't religion. Said it was because those kind of things led a man to depend on people for those kinds of things. Next thing you know a man's more people and more them kinds of things than he is his own man.

There was one story they liked to tell around the Park. Warden seen it happen from the front porch of Jensen's store.

Gully had come in to get some copper tacks to do a canoe repair. Had his canoe up on the dock.

As he was walking back from the store with a little grocery bag, a camper's loose dog came over and pissed on his canoe.

Bill just walked over, picked it up by the collar and threw it twenty feet out into the lake.

Well, no sooner done when a big red-faced camper came over and started cursing Gully up and down, waving his arms wildly, threatening to pick up the little man and do the same to him.

Gully didn't budge, didn't blink. Just listened to the big man for a half a minute, taking in all the abuse.

Then, without taking his eyes off the man's face, he reached in his little shopping bag and pulled out a five inch long, thick, brand new metal William's Wobbler lake trout lure.

All the while, the big man, a good foot and a half taller than Gully, is still mouthing away. ThenWilliam holds the lure up to the man's face with one of his paddle swollen hands. With just a thumb on one end and one finger on the other, he very slowly, without seemingly much effort, folds the metal lure neatly in two.

The big man shuts up. Steps back. Turns. Walks away.

"Mister?"

The big man turned back to look at Gully.

"Mister, now you owe me a lure."

The man delivers another volley of obscenities at William but, nonetheless, turns away and starts walking across the grass.

Gully starts to follow when he feels a hand on his shoulder.

It was the Warden.

"Forget it, Bill. That sob ain't worth it." He grins at Bill. "Plus for the good chuckle I had watchin' all that, I'll take you in the store and buy you two new lures!"

William looked down at the lure. Starts bending it back out straight. "Naw. That's ok. Crease in it might give it an extra wobble or two. Trout might like it."

The Warden laughed. "Maybe. Well, I gotta go back to work now."He looked down the beach at the camper trying to retrieve his wet dog. "Guess I should go fine a camper for havin' a dog loose. That should cheer him up a little."

So it was generally agreed that Bill fit into the 'moose in the marsh' category. Don't poke at him and you're fine.

Bill Gully did have a couple of weird hobbies. One was storms.

He loved storms, the wilder the better. Very often when even fisherman in boats had seen enough of the white caps and were motoring in for lunch, Billy was heading out.

Sit bobbin' in the middle of a lake, expertly riding the waves, watching the clouds and sky, tasting the wind.

Lightning, rain, it didn't matter, Gully went out to ride in it.

Sometimes tie off at a point. Let the wind and the rope hold him in the water like a kite, only usin' the paddle from time to time to keep the rope from jerking the bow cleat right out of its screws.

Asked why he went out therefrom an old time camper, he just said "Don't know. Like it, I guess. A good wind's like Algonquin's way of laughin' at us all. Folks drag all kinds of conquering-nature ideas up the lake. One good fart from mother nature and their fish poop. I like that.

Same as some guys leave here after scurrying from some rain drops then hurl down the highway with a million other fools at a hundredmiles an hour. Everyone dependin' on everyone else not to be an idiot and kill themselves and everyone else which seems to me to be pretty unlikely.

In that storm, there's the wind, there's me, there's a canoe. Water's something we share. Between us. Like being with a bear in a blueberry patch. Don't steal from their half, everything's fine.

Wind's the same. Share the water with her, you're ok. Don't get in her way. Let her go around you, easy like.

I see folks out there doin' all kinds of crazy things. If the wind is up ahead , shit, don't go a heavin' and a barragin' up to her....just sit, keep your paddle quiet, just talking, stirrin' a little in the water. Drift a bit...geez I see canoes trying to run away from the wind or worse, stickin' their great big sideways canoe ass in front of it.

And they expect the wind not to give them a good kick in it 'cause she wants to get by.

Ever see a duck in a storm? Ever see it tip over? Know why it doesn't tip over?It just sits there' that's why. It don't argue with the wind and the waves. Did you know ducks and gulls ain't like loons, they can't swim? Can't swim underwater, they can only float on top. Well, sir, the day a duck tries ploughing across four foot swells is the day it gets tired and sinks."

The old time camper laughed. "But Bill, some people just can't do that. They gotta get places, like the next campsite by the end of the day."

"Now that's more stupid than arguing with a storm. City time will kill ya here. It don't belong.Ever see a tree with a watch on it's limb so it knows when to grow and when it's quittin' time for the night?

And the day a moose stops me on a portage to ask me what time it is and how many more minutes it will take to get to the lake, well, you get a Warden and have me put in the loonie bin!"

The other 'hobby' William had was ...well...call it, scavenging. Not stealin'. Not at campgrounds or the docks. Billy did his scavenging at campsites after the campers left. Anything he found that belonged to an Outfitter or one of the kids' Camps turned up either in person or left by their door overnight.

Anything else, anything good, he'd trade for groceries and stuff.

Plus clean up. All the garbage stuff. Burn it. Pack it out. Turn plastic and crap like that in. "Shouldn't burn it. Ruins the fireplace for cooking, you know, the stink of it."

That's one of the reasons the Parks people liked him. For helping out. Though once in awhile they would get the odd complaint about Gully being 'overzealous'.

Like the time a Warden met him at the dock one day.

"Mornin' William. Listen, no offence, but we got a complaint you were circling a campsite with your canoe like a sea...well, hovering till the people left. Made 'im real nervous. Said it was an old guy in a red canoe.

And a couple of weeks ago a party of two canoes left a campsite. Half an hour later you caught up and threw two full yellow garbage bags in their canoe and yelled...he flipped open his notebook..."oh yeah, here it is...Mother Nature ain't your mother. Clean up after yourselves!"

One guy said he got hit with a bag when you threw it. They were talking assault charges till I said I would have to charge them all two hundred and fifty bucks a piece for leavin' a campsite dirty. Let the judge work it out. So they just let it go."

Bill shrugged. "So what are ya telling me to do exactly. Stop cleaning up after them?"

The Warden held up his hand. "Don't get your dander up, William. Just saying give 'im some space to leave."

The Warden grinned and added "Maybe they'd clean up better if they weren't so jittery with you hoverin' right there. And maybe don't get so riled up either. Don't want anybody gettin' hurt out there."

William shrugged "Didn't know you cared that much."

The Warden put his hand on Bill's shoulder "It's them I'm worried about Bill. Well that and you going to jail. Wouldn't be hard to figure out who beat a bunch of campers to death with a yellow bag full of tin cans."

So the years went.

William Gully travelling across the Park and back. Ridin' storms. Camping at the edge. Trading trout for bread. Wintering who knows where. Friend to few. Alone, yet strange to almost everyone, seemingly content to be so.

Till one dsy...

It was summer. At Brent. William Gully had just paddled up to the dock. Was gonna go up to the store when the Warden for Cedar Lake area strolled up.

"Morning, Bill."

"Mornin'"

"Glad I caught ya. Can I have a word, Bill, just for a minute?"

"Sure."

"Listen, Bill, there's some folks here. Camping at Site number Twenty. Like to have a word with you if they could."

"Me?"

"Yes, sir. Asked yesterday when they came in if I knew of a William Gully. I said 'yeah, I'd keep an eye out for you."

"Who are they?"

"Well, Bill, it would be a lot easier if you just went over to see them, ok?"

"Why?"

"Why? Well, then, I wouldn't have to be standing here gabbing when I could be out giving moose tickets for vagrancy, that's why."

"No. I mean why do they want to see me? I don't guide or nothing."

"Yeah, we know that."

"So why?"

"Well, Bill, I'll be honest. They kinda told me a little of it but they figured you'd just go away without going over if you knew ahead so just go on over, ok?"

Bill answered "Well, if I'd go away if I knew now, I'm probably just gonna go away when I know then so it will save me a lot of wasted time if I go away now, wouldn't it?" He picked his paddle back up.

The Warden let out a big sigh, thinking to himself 'Did it have to always be this difficult with Gully?' He spoke up "Hold on, Bill. Let me say something first."

Gully looked at him.

"Now, I like ya, Bill. All the Wardens do. Ya help out; clean up a lot. That kinda stuff. But, really, if you're seen on, say, Tannamakoon Lake at nine thirty at night there's no damn way you're going to get out of the Park by ten pm. That's trespassing and that's a fine.

I know too you probably pick a lot of wild rice and other stuff for food in the Park but, technically, 'cept for an emergency, that's a fine.

Now I doubt you poach moose or deer in the Park but I know ya trade lake trout with old Jensen for groceries. Maybe you can call it a 'gift' but if I told old Jensen I'd fine him for it, ya know he'd stop right away.

And that rod there. Havin' it with ya, now that's fishin'. I'll bet a year's wages you ain't got a fishing license.

Got any I.D. on ya, Bill? Probably not...and that's vagrancy...and another fine."

"What's your point, Warden?" Gully was lookin' a little mad.

"Hold on, Bill, let me finish. What I mean is I could just fine and harass and follow you all over the Park till Doomsday. Now I know the money don't mean nothin' to you but eventually I'll make you a big enough criminal with unpaid fines that I could get the OPP interested.

They'll come with dogs and planes and probably a swat team or two and we'll find you and drag you before a judge and he'll put you in jail 'cause ya got no money and I'll betcha another year's wages that in a month, Bill, you'll have died in that jail from the people all around. With no trees. No water. No wind. And no quiet, Bill, there's no damn quiet in jail.

Now my point is, Bill, that I don't wanna really do any of that but I will... I swear to God I will...if you don't walk over to that campsite and just hear them people out. I think it's that important, Bill, I really do.

So will you...please...go the hell over there? You do that and we never had this conversation. I promise I'll never bring it up again, ok?"

Bill sighed and threw his paddle back into the canoe, started walkin' over.

"Site number twenty, Bill. They're there now. I just walked by. And thanks."

Gully just kept walking towards the campsite.

The Warden watched him go, relieved, and a little proud of himself for bluffin' the old fart. 'Never get away with it again' he thought 'and as if the OPP would ever even find Bill back in there anyway.'

As Gully walked up to the campsite, he saw the usual stuff. Mid-size car or SUV, whatever they were called now. New tent. Another tent, looked like a fly screen eating tent.Young man, young woman, sitting at the picnic table drinking tea or coffee.

The young man, probably near thirty, looked slim and tall, wore glasses. He saw William walking up the sand road and obviously coming towards them.

He nudged the woman's arm, said something; she turned around and looked at Bill. Then she got up and walked down the road towards Bill.

Gully stopped walking.

The long chestnut coloured hair, the green eyes, the shape of her nose and chin and face, for a moment William thought he was nineteen and meeting another person, a person he had almost forgotten what she had looked...

"Hello, Dad."

"Hello, Kat."

Katherine or Kate or Kat ( you had to be pretty close to her, like best friends and family, to be allowed to use Kat) stopped a couple feet from her father.

"I hope you don't mind the surprise?"

"No. It's ok."

"I was afraid if the Warden told you first you'd run awa...well...not come over."

"Might of. Maybe not."

"How are you? You look healthy."

"I'm ok."

'Jeez,' thought Kat ' This is a spectacular reunion.'

She pointed to the table. "That's Henry, my husband. Seven years we've been married." Henry waved, obviously knowing he was being discussed but giving them privacy.

William nodded. Shuffled his feet."Seems like a nice fellow."

Silence for a moment.

Kat tried again. "We're here camping for a week. Just got here yesterday. Rented a canoe but just for here at the campground."

Bill nodded towards the tents "Seems like a nice setup."

Kat sighed. "Dad. Dad, I'll be honest with you. One reason we're here is I kinda wanted to see the old place...you know...where I was born."

Gully shook his head "Can't. Fell down years ago. Neighbours used it for firewood. Your mother always said it was the kinda house that would be warmer in a wood stove than with a wood stove in it."

Kat almost flinched to hear the words 'your mother' coming from this stranger. She felt an anger surge up in her but fought it.

"Great, well, the town's still here but I hear the railroad's gone."

"Yup."

Kat started over. "Dad" Might as well get to the point. " Mom remarried, maybe you know, maybe not. He was a wonderful husband and step-dad..." She didn't have to add that, she saw a little hurt in Bill's eyes. 'Well, who cares?' she thought. "John died five years ago. Sudden heart attack."

"Sorry to hear that." Gully's face was blank.

'For god's sake' Kat thought 'is the man a machine?'

"At any rate, I just decided to come up here, me and Henry wanted to try camping and well..." Kat's voice trailed off. 'Obviously' she thought ' This has been a stupid idea. She doesn't care. He doesn't care. Why get hurt anymore...or anyone else get hurt...?"

Kat sighed. "Dad, there's something I want you to see. OK? Then if you want you can go. Out into your park. Will you please just wait here a minute and not go?"

"Ok."

"Promise? Don't go. It's important."

"I said ok." He toned down his bluntness. "I mean...I promise."

Kat turned away, walked towards the dining room tent, leaving her father standing in the road.

As she walked by Henry, they had a few words of exchange. Henry remained sitting.

Kat went into the fly tent and in a moment came back out. A blonde-curled, blue-eyed five year old girl was holding Kat's hand. The other hand was clutching some kind of furry toy and the little girl was chatting about something a mile a minute.

They started walking towards William. Gully noticed the little girl had a slight limp, an awkward lift of one leg as she walked along.

Henry reached out and patted the girl's head and she laughed and said something but as they got closer to Billy, she quieted right down.

Bill could see the strong resemblance of Kat in the girl and, even from a distance, some of Henry. There was something else as well, something deeper he couldn't name but knew.

They came up and stopped.

Kat spoke first. "This is Isabel." She stopped talking for a moment, seeing her father startled for the first time, then she continued "She wanted to meet you, Dad."

Isabel spoke up.

"Are you my Grampa?"

" Well, they tell..." William stopped, saw his own mother's eyes in the wide eyes looking up at him. He realized that was the deeper thing he had not recognized at first. "I mean, yes. Yes, I am."

"Wow." Isabel looked at her grandfather like she had just unwrapped him at Christmas. "Is your name Huckleberry? I'm reading about him and you look like what he's dressed like but much much older."

" No, Sweetie" Kat spoke to her daughter " Your Grampa's name is William Gully, remember? We talked about it."

Whether Isabel heard wrong or was just being a kid she came back with "Gilly? Billy? Billy Gilly, why that's just silly!" And she started to giggle.

"Now, Isabel, you know we don't make fun of people and their names!" admonished Kat to her daughter.

"It's all right" Bill broke in. "I'm tired of Gully. I like Gilly more. How about we go with Grampa Gilly?"

Isabel spoke up "I like it! Silly Grampa Gilly! Mr. Gilly meet Mr. Brent Bear. He used to live at the store but now he's going to live with me. He is a real live actual Algonquin Bear! Mr. Johnson said so."

"Mr. Jensen, dear."

William Gully held out his hand towards the bear. "I have heard of him. Pleased to finally meet you Mr. Brent Bear."

Isabel took the bear's paw and held it out to Grampa Gilly. They shook hands to paws.

Isabel looked Grampa Gilly over again and then spoke up "Do you know how to catch fish, Grampa?"

"A little. Do you?"

"Well, not really. My dad is really smart. He builds skyways and castles and..." Kat cut in with "Well, actually, Sweetie, your father's an architect, not a magician"...Isabel looked at her mother with a little consternation, obviously preferring her father to be a great wizard but she continued to say "...well, anyway, he's really smart but he doesn't know how to fish."

Very much out of character and very much to his own surprise, William asked Isabel "You wanna go fishing?"

"Wow!" She turned up to her mother. "Can we, Mom? With Grampa Gilly?"

"Well, ok. Maybe just the dock, not the canoe, ok, Dad?"

William nodded his head "That's the best way anyway. But dock's crowded. That little rock point ok?" Gully pointed to a rock outcrop just in front of the campsite at the lake.

"Of course. I'll just go get her life jacket to wear"

William nodded to his daughter. "I'll be right back. need something at the store." he looked down at Isabel. "Be right back...ah...Isabel...I promise."

Isabel smiled. "Ok. Me too. And you can call me Isabel or Isabella or Bell or Bella or Izzy or sometimes I like Ellie or even Ell..."

"Whoa, kiddo" spoke up her mother "Pick one new name a day, remember?"

"Ok. Today I'll be Ellie!"

Ten minutes later, they all met again at the Point. Henry came too, formally introducing himself to Bill.

Gully, or Grampa Gilly now, had a box of worms, a little fishing box and a brand new spincast rod and rod. He now owed Jensen two lake trout.

Ellie, wearin' her life jacket and a new pink hat with a "Big girls don't cry, they fish!" logo on it, was also carrying one of those supermarket pink Barbie fishing poles with a tiny tackle box too.

She looked at Grampa Gilly's pole and said "Is that your stuff, Grampa Gilly?"

" No. Bought it for you."

Kat spoke up "Oh, sorry, Dad. I should have said she had one already. Can you get your money back?"

Ellie looked at her mother, looked at the 'big people' rod and reel but never said anything.

Bill shrugged. "Well, tell ya what, Ellie. I never used one of them fancy pink rigs like you got. Wanna trade? I mean for the day? See which ya like? If it's ok with your mother?"

"Wow! Mom, can I? Is it ok?"

"Sure, Ellie, if that's what Grampa Gully, I mean Gilly, wants to do?"

So they took the rods and to the Point. Got the hooks, bobbers, worms on.

William showed her every detail, every step of the way. Wouldn't move on to the next step till she could tie her own line, set the bobber to the right length on the line, put the worm on.

Took an hour just to get ready. All the while, Henry and Kat sat backin lawn chairs, reading, drinking a cool beer, watching Ellie and her grandfather.

And, of course, Ellie never stopped talking. Told Grampa Gilly all about her house, her room, her toys, her friends, her junior kindergarten teacher, her whole world in an endless stream of never ending detail. The detail that makes a child's life much more interesting than an adult's.

Finally bobbers in the water, Ellie holding onto the 'big person rod and reel'; as proud of it as if it was a pony. William Gully beside her holding athree foot long pink rod and reel.

Now it was Grampa Gilly's turn. To talk. A little prodding at first. Five year old girls are good at that. Using the tool of a couple of hundred questions.

Where'd he live? How old was he? Did he eat blueberries? Did he have a pet? A bear, maybe? How many fish were in this lake? Where does the wind go to sleep after it's blown all day? Did he like camping? Did his canoe go in a garage at night like their car? How high is a beaver's dam?

On and on. And William just sat there. Answering. Adding more. Telling Ellie all kinds of moose and bear and deer stories. What lakes had what fish.Where the loons nested. What kind of food you could find in the wild. How to build a cabin with only an axe and no nails and...

They kept catching little perch and bass and then there was always the same question.

"Is it big enough to keep?"

"Yup" was always the answer.

Ellie would look at the fish, hold it in her hands, sometimes look close in its eyes.

"Should we let it go?" Ellie asked her grandfather.

"Up to you. Your fish." or if he had caught it, making a great show of playing the fish by holding the three foot rod very high and reeling in real slow. "Up to you. I'll give it to you if you want it."

And always the reply either way "Let's let it go. Get a bigger one."

The fish got bigger and smaller but it was always "Let's let it go, Grampa.Get a bigger one."

A couple hours went by. Kat walked over to the campsite to make a lunch for everyone. Decided to get her camera, get a picture first.

The Warden was there. Ellie walked up with three beers, a pop and her camera.

"Oops, sorry, Warden. I guess we shouldn't have these off the campsite."

The Warden didn't really hear; he was watching Billy and Ellie.

"What? Sorry, Ma'am, what did you say?"

"Please call me Kate. I was saying that I guess we shouldn't really have these (she hoisted the beers) off the campsite."

"Well, I'll overlook it this time if you promise not to start heaving the empties at the gulls like a few city kids tried last week. They left sooner and poorer than they expected."

"Ok, we promise. Want a pop, I'll get another?"

"No. No, thanks." The Warden gestured at Gully and his granddaughter. "Never seen your father talk to anyone longer than two sentences at most, including me. And I think he actually likes me. I think. Now look at him."

"Well, it was nice of you to find him for us."

"You don't find your dad, Kate. He just arrives."He told her the story about how he 'bluffed' her dad into going to see what site twenty was about.

Kat asked " You mean he doesn't have a home or anything?"

"It appears not. Least not one me or anyone else around here knows about."

"He just travels around the Park? For months?"

"Yup."

Kat almost felt sad for her dad, though his 'bad father' image still prevailed. Still her mother had said he was 'different'.

"No family? No close friends?" Kat corrected herself "I mean...sorry... didn't mean you weren't his friend..."

The Warden interrupted "Well, guys like me, you know the other Wardens, Jensen at the store, we're not really what you'd call friends. Like what friends usually are. I've never even had him in my office for a coffee, even when it's rainin' out, though I've asked lots of times.

I guess your dad just tolerates us. Best you could say is he don't bite if we come up close. That's about as friendly as your dad gets.

I mean don't get me wrong. Your dad is a good man. Honest, trustworthy. If I was in trouble anywhere in the Park I'd prefer your dad come out after me than any provincial response team anytime. It's just he don't like people. Period. Even in the store. If there's more than one or two people in there, he'll just leave.

I mean not just wait outside butleave. Leave Brent. Might have taken him a half day or all day to get here. Don't matter. Come back the next day. Or the next.

Told me one time the trouble with a store is 'people keep lettin' other people in.'

He's a loner for sure your dad." He nodded towards the little rock point "Till maybe now."

The Warden left and Kat took a picture of Ellie and Grampa Gilly fishin' and talkin'.

Then she walked the beer and pop out to them.

Ellie took the pop but Gully declined the beer. "No thanks, Kat. Don't drink."

"Not at all?"

"Nope."

Ellie was curious as always.

"Why not, Grampa?"

"Well, cause, it makes my canoe go funny."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, in circles. But that ain't the worst part."

"What's the worst part, Grampa Gilly?"

"Well, most folks, now I'm not sayin' your mom and dad mind, but most folks when they drink, well, their mouth gets bigger and bigger but they don't know it, see, cause their brain gets smaller and smaller. The worst part is that their feet get bigger and bigger too ya know. Then they get trippin' over 'im and then they curl up at the toes 'cause of all the trippin' and then the next thing ya know a person who drinks a lot is just really a big mouth with two feet stuck in it and a really small brain to run the show. Now do ya think that person is gonna make much sense when they talk to ya?"

Ellie pictured the mouth getting bigger ,then from out under the chin the giant curly clown feet stuck in the mouth, like a cross between a Mr Potato Head with huge court jester shoes which kept sticking in its mouth as it tried to walk. She started giggling and replied " No way, Grampa Gilly."

"Well, there ya go."

Kat had to laugh too. She was a little bewildered that the old codger, her father, was not what she had expected. Indeed, she had been a little afraid to come here. Afraid he would be dead, or worse, find only a drunken, mean reprobate that she'd be ashamed for Henry and Ellie to meet. Her father was unusual but at least not something to be ashamed of.

"I'll get you a pop then Dad."

"Want to split one , Grampa?"

"Sure. Save your mother the walk. You drink what you want, then I'll drink the rest. Save ya from gettin my disease."

"Yuk, Grampa, what disease?"

Billy scratched his chin. "Whiskeritis. Terrible thing for a kid to get. Ya don't want to start shavin' like your dad does every mornin' before school, do ya?"

"No. No way."

Kat left to get lunch on. The fishin' and the gabbin' continued with the duo at the rock point.

Kat came back in ten minutes to get them for a wash up and tell them lunch was ready.

Ellie was up and eager, hungry as newly hatched starling but William glanced over at the table set for four and turned a little red.

"If it's ok you, Kat, I'll skip lunch; got some stuff to do. Don't usually eat but one meal a day anyway. At the end, when I'm done paddling."

Kat was a little hurt but just said it was ok, he was welcome either way.

Ellie looked very worried however. "But you'll come back, won't ya, Grama Gilly? Soon? After lunch? So we can go fishing some more?"

"Well, I was actually thinkin' of showing you something. Something we can make here at the campsite. Something you could use at the beach."

"What? What is it?"

"Let's make it a surprise. Just in case, I can't find what I need it for it. Ok?"

"Geez, I sure hope ya do! Come back though even if you don't. Promise?"

William glanced at Kat who was looking at Gully both as a mother and ...well...perhaps a little as someone else might have...years ago...younger like Ellie...

He turned back to Ellie. "Listen, Ellie, you got all the fishing stuff, right?"

"Yup" Indeed, Ellie was clutching right onto the big person rod and the tackle box. Kat had picked up the rest of the gear.

"Ok, so, number one I can't fish without them so I gotta come back and Number two you got the worms right?"

"Ellie looked around "Oh yeah, Mom does."

"Well, there ya go. If I ain't got no worms, I got nothing to pull my canoe, so I can't leave , can I?"

"You mean like Santa Clause? Only with a canoe and worms?"

"Exactly. 'Cept a lot less presents 'cause my elves are actually beavers and they chew back up just about everything they make out of wood anyways."

Ellie looked very suspicious. "Grampa, are you making all this up?"

William bent down, looked Ellie straight in the eyes "You got me, kid. I knew you were sharp.. Too sharp for an old fool to fool. Worms don't pull my canoe, you're right. I ain't foolin' though when I say I promise I will be back. It's just that what we need is in the woods so I'll get it while you have lunch, ok?"

"Can't I come to? If my mom lets me?"

"Well, not today, ok? 'Cause I might have to look around a bit. We wouldn't get very far with you askin' a hundred questions a minute, would we?"

"Well, ok...But hurry back!"

"I will" He nodded to Kat and left. Kat was relieved to see him actually head for the woods northeast of the campsite, not his canoe. Relieved for her daughter. And perhaps a little for herself too.

After lunch, they relaxed, reading in the lawn chairs but, of course, Ellie's eyes lifted from her book towards the woods about every ten seconds.

Finally, after an hour, Grampa Gilly emerged; a white rolled up bundle of something under one arm, a handful of twigs and a kind of string in the other.

"Sorry, Ellie. Took awhile to find. Didn't want to strip a live tree of bark and there's not too many around that are down and not half rotted yet."

"What is it, Grampa? What's it going to be?"

Gully answered Ellie " Birchbark. Still nice and pliable. Sometimes, if it's too old, like me, it don't bend well and ya got to soak it in hot water lots. This stuff will be ok as it is, though."

"And the twigs?"

"Cedar boughs and some spruce roots. Don't hurt so long as you just take a bit from a bunch of trees, not from just one."

"What are you gonna make with it?" Ellie was already arranging the twigs in order of size from short to long.

"We, Kiddo. We are gonna make baskets."

"Wow."

"You were talkin' about collecting clams and pebbles at the beach so I figured we could use them for that. I'll make one and you make one. All on your own 'cept the knife cuttin'. Better let me do that."

They got started. William doing the cutting but telling Ellie what he was doing and why each step of the way. Cutting out strips from the birch bark`exactly the same width with a piece of plank as a straight edge.

Then setting up the crisscross pattern , remembering, of course, the long thicker piece which would become the actual handle. How to use a rock of a certain size and shape to get a flat bottom and a rounded wall. How to use the twigs as a reinforced edge, with the spruce root woven through small puncture holes all around the edge. Ellie counted the holes. There were fifty-two!

Step-by-step, just like the fishing lesson. No progression to the next step till Ellie could do it herself.

Meanwhile, of course, the Ellie driven word machine continued its perpetual 'enchanting' motion. With Grampa Gilly keeping up pretty well too.

Kat and Henry watched for awhile, playing cards. Then walked to the store. Then Henry had a nap while Kat went back to her book. Ellie kept giggling whenever she would hear her daddy snore from the tent.

"Hear that, Grampa? Doesn't he sound just like a bear?"

"Don't know. Never sat weaving a basket this close to a bear before."

Kat kinda dozed in her chair too and when she woke up, they were done. Now having a pop each and there between them were two birchbark baskets sitting on the picnic table. They were almost identical 'cept one was half the size of the other.

Kat came over and looked at them closely. Her daughter was beaming. Obviously very very proud of herself, though the words had yet to burst.

William held up his pop. "Hope you don't mind , Kat. Us helping ourselves. She was quite a slavedriver on this project. Wanted it done today."

Ellie reached out, turned her basket round to look at its almost flawless symmetry. She held it up to her mother.

"Look through it, Mom. At the sky. There are no holes. Really. No holes."

Kat did. There were indeed no holes.

"Did it all herself, Kat. I never touched it 'cept to cut the strips and holes for her. I'm a bit jealous. I think it's better than mine."

Kat marvelled. 'How could her daughter do such work? In one try? She was smart for her age, but, really, the crafts she brought home from school were...well...whatever other average kids did. Was her father exaggerating? For Ellie's sake?'

Seeming to read her mind, he said again "Honest, Kat. I never put a finger on it. Not even laying out the pattern."

"I even carried up the rock to hold it down to bend the strips, Mom" Ellie looked at Grampa "Well, most of the way. I got tired and Grampa Gilly was afraid I might drop it on my toes!"

Kat picked up the larger basket. "Dad, where did you learn to do that?"

"My mother, er...your grandmother, she taught me."

"Would that be my great-great-grandma then, Mom?"

"Great, Ellie, your great grandmother.

Kat was looking at the two baskets now, one in each hand. It was uncanny.

"Was she real smart too, Grampa? Like you?"

William shook his head, a sad look in his eyes. "I ain't smart, kiddo, I'm dumb in a lot of ways." He glanced at Kat. " A lot. But, yeah, your great grandmawas real smart.

Why she even taught me how to fish. Not even with a pole neither. With just a hand line and a lure made from a kitchen spoon. To catch fish, lake trout, this big." Gully held his hands a couple of feet apart. Ellie's eyes widened to twice their size.

"Wow."

Her grandfather continued "She could find food anywhere in the woods. Rice, herbs, shoots, sprouts, even mushrooms. Now don't you try that. Especially mushrooms, cause most make ya really really sick. You have to really know which ones to eat.

She even built her own canoe. Out of this stuff here, birchbark. Ten feet long it was. So light you could hold it up in the air with one hand, just sittin' pretty in your palm.

"Wow. Her own canoe. How'd she get to be so smart?"

"Well, I guess, a lot was 'cause she was half Algonquin Indian. Her grandfather taught her a lot of woods stuff. He had no grandsons, I think, so he passed it all on to her. I remember, though, she said he told her she had a real knack for it anyway. And other things too."

"What other things, Grampa?"

"Hmm" Gully glanced at Kat, a little unsure of how much to say here to a five year old. "Well, let's just say she had a way of knowing things, kinda early, like before the rest of us. Her grandpa, he called it 'the Sight', I think. But it was more a feelin' about things.

She'd say to me 'Billy , stay off such and such a lake for a couple of daysand I would and sure enough there would be a big storm in that area.

Or the clouds would change and the temperature drop and she'd say ' Billy, stop fishin' the north end of Cauchon lake. Go south on Cedar and sure enough I'd get us a mess of trout.

Gully skipped some of the other stuff. The strange fainting spells, only to have a neighbour's husband found drowned the next day.

Or the time she woke up in January, hot and feverish despite the coldness of the house. There was going to be no peace the rest of the night till finally, after getting all bundled up, Billy agreed to go down to the MacKaw place and knock on their kitchen door. It was two am. No answer, of course. They were all asleep upstairs. He peeked in the window only to see a fire starting on the wooden kitchen table.

Billy kicked the door open and dragged the burning table out into the snow. They figured the cat had knocked over a small kerosene lantern on the table. Probably trying to get warm near it.

Lots of stuff like that. Nothing big but add it all up and even, he, old Gully , still could get a chill up his back over it. The neighbours used to kid her that if it was the 1700's still , they would have had to burn her at the stake. William refrained from tellin' his granddaughter all that, might give her nightmares.

Henry was starting to rustle around in the tent, getting dressed. It made Kat think of supper.

"Would you like to stay for supper, Dad?"

Ellie looked hopeful.

"Well, thank you, but even leavin' now, it will still be dark before I hit my camp."

Ellie was so crestfallen, he quickly added, "But if it's ok, I'll come back tomorrow, help pick up some shells. Seems to me that was on Ellie's 'to do ' list"

"It was, Grampa, but I must tell you that tomorrow I might be Isabel or Isabella or Bell or Bella. Not sure which yet."

Kat added " I think, Grampa Gilly gets the picture, Ellie."

"I do, yes. And when exactly will we know the new name?"

Before Ellie could pipe up, Kat said "Usually first thing in the morning; though sometimes she forgets and it doesn't happen till later"

"Ok, I'll remember to ask when I get here."

"When will that be, Grampa? What time?"

William pointed at his arm and grinned "Don't know, kiddo. Haven't got a watch"

"Why not?"

"Can't tell time"

"Really? I can."

"Wow. Can you teach me?"

"Sure, wait here." Ellie jumped up, scurried off to the car to dig through her extra bag of stuff.

Kat pointed at the basket again. "Dad, tell me the truth. It's ok if you were 'pretending' for Ellie's sake. That's cute. But did she really do that all by herself?"

"Kat, I never touched it. Honest. My mother taught me the same way. With everything. Step by step. Can't go to step four till step three is good. Not demanding. Just patient with me. I'll tell ya this, though, Kat. My first basket sure didn't look like that. She's definitely got her grandmother's skill."

"I guess so.. I..." Kat was confused. So much of a family she didn't even know existed. So much, so quick.

"Can I ask you something, Kat?"

"Sure, Dad"

"Why...er...why did you name her after my mother, Kat?"

"Dad, honest, I'm afraid I didn't. I'd forgotten her name really. We just came up with Isabella and we both liked it. It wasn't till later that Mom told me it was also your mother's name."

William had something else to ask but hesitated, just said "Oh."

They looked at each other for a moment, silent but for the occasional 'I know its here somewhere' or 'Did I even bring it?' coming from the interior of the car.

"Did she...did your mother mind, Kat? I mean, the name?"

"No, Dad, of course not. She actually told me what she knew of your mother. How much she had meant to you. Didn't say much about Grandpa though. Did she ever meet him?"

"No, he left when I was fifteen. Never saw him again. Died out west. Train accident. Drunk. Another man killed in it too, I think."

"Oh, sorry."

Bill shrugged "Don't be, Kat. He wasn't worth it. He was a mean man. Even sober. Don't know what Ma ever saw in him. For all her sight she must have been blind the day she met him. They were so different."

Kat nodded. "Happens that way a lot, I guess."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Dad?"

"What, Kat?"

"Dad, for what it's worth, Mom forgave you a long time ago. Told me a bit of it all. You know, when I was older. About the way you were and how it would have killed you to live in a city or even town.

She said you once said that if you had to live that close to people you were afraid you'd have to drink and end up meaner than your old man."

"Guess I said that."

"Well, anyway, she said she was really the one to blame. She had started out thinking she could live the 'frontier' life but she just couldn't. Said it was kinda of a lie about a better life for me, for her daughter, said a lot of it was for her. The loneliness, the lack of people, she couldn't take it anymore."

"It was rough on her, I know. Don't blame her for..."

Kat continued "Anyway, with John...well...that doesn't matter now but she always said even if she could have got you out to a town or city you would have been as unhappy there as she was unhappy here.

Mom said you should have been born in early eighteen hundreds. Died exploring new lands...or...something like that.

Or she thought you should have moved to the Yukon or somewhere like that."

Kat stopped, looked at her father again "Why didn't you, Dad? Move to the Yukon? Probably a whole lot less people."

Gully answered his daughter "Would be...that's for sure...but" William didn't continue.

"What, Dad? But what?"

William looked away, towards the town, then the lake, then back at Kat.

"Part of me wouldn't go, I guess. Even if I'd have left, part of me would have stayed. Here. Man can't survive in that kind of wildness up there unless he's whole. True around here too, I suppose. To survive long."

Kat was going to ask what part of him would have stayed...was it Algonquin...or was it something else...when her dad found the strength to ask Kat what he needed to ask. The question that had lurked (except perhaps during the barrage of Ellie's questions) in his mind all day.

"Kat, how is your mother?"

"She passed away two years ago, Dad. Cancer. It still really really hurts...I miss her so much...Maybe that's why I came here. To..." Kat didn't finish.

William was white in the face. Gaining some voice, he finally spoke out softly "I'm sorry, Kat. So sorry for you that she is...gone. And for Ellie. I'm sorry I wasn't..." he couldn't finish.

Henry and Ellie both emerged the same time. Ellie had a Minnie Mouse watch in her hand and was about to assault her grampa with a full scale time telling lesson.

Henry, sensing that his wife and her father needed a little more time together alone suggested that he take Ellie to the store if she wanted before it closed. He, himself claimed to have a gigantic thirst on for an ice cold pop and they were getting low. Whispering aside to Ellie, he suggested Grampa might like a special treat from her, like gummy bearsmaybe?

"Good idea" whispered Ellie back. After another exacting promise that Grampa Gilly would not leave without a goodbye, they were off.

As they headed for the store, hand in hand, Ellie talked to her Dad about a birthday present for Grampa because...as she had decided...he was so old, but nice, so he must have lots of them every year. So chances were, they were close to one right now.

William watched her walk away. "If it isn't too rude, Kat, what exactly is wrong with Ellie's leg?"

"It was a birth defect. At first, the doctors talked about a hip operation but that would be very painful and she would be in the hospital half a dozen times. It appears she is developing ok and growing out of it. Maybe only take one operation later on for a complete fix so we are holding off."

"Hmm. It's funny, though."

"What, Dad?"

"Promise you won't laugh or get mad?"

"Of course. What is it?"

"Your grandmother, my mother. Had the same problem. Same leg."

"Hmm. I suppose it's genetic maybe. I'll tell the doctors that."

"Yes, I suppose, it is genetic..."

"Dad?"

"What, Kat?"

"We're...ah...we're here for a week. You're welcome to stay with us. Bring your tent and gear over here. Set it up on our site. We're allowed up to six people." Kat then added quickly, to save herself or Ellie any hurt "But either way is ok, if you got things you have to do..."

William interrupted "Kat, I have never, in at least thirty years, camped even on the same lake with other people, let alone this close to..."

Kat held up her hand "I understand, Dad. It's ok. Don't let it..."

"Listen, Kat. I'll try. Maybe not tomorrow night but maybe the next. Least bring my gear. Least be close. So I could have a campfire with Ellie and ...you...and Henry. I think I'd like that."
"Me too, Dad."

The chatter coming around the bend told them both of the impending Ellie.

Henry had a bag of pop cans and potato chip bags. Ellie walked with her hands behind her back and a huge grin in front of her.

They got up close and Ellie burst out with "We got something for Grampa. Something special. For taking me fishing and helping me with the basket. And for one of your birthdays, whichever one is closer. And...and something for your first day ever with us. To remember it. Always.

"Kiddo, I mean, Ellie, I doubt I will ever forget this day but, ok, I give up...what is it? I betcha it's something behind your back, right?"

"Here it is!" Ellie held it out. It was such a silly souvenir type of thing. Why would Jensen even have such a thing in the store? Bill, certainly had never seen it there so the old codger must have dragged it out from out back when Ellie was there looking for something 'special' for her grampa.

It was a small hand painted metal canoe about five or six inches long. In the canoe sat an Indian, an Indian maiden actually. Instead of a paddle she held, of all things, a violin. There was a little key sticking out the side of the canoe.

"Wind it up, Grampa, it plays music too. Listen!"

Ellie reached out, and with her grampa holding the canoe, she carefully turned the key a few turns and then let it go. Gully knelt down on one knee so they could both listen to it, ear to ear , so to speak.

A slightly tinny rendition of Swan Lake played out into the air of Cedar Lake

campground.

"Grampa, what's wrong? Don't you like it?" Ellie spoke up because she saw two big tears on Grampa Gilly's cheeks.

"Ellie, it's the best gift ever. Ever in a million years. It's a double wow, that's what it is!"

Ellie gave her Grampa a big hug and then said to her mother "Now, I'm going to teach Grampa to tell time!"

Kat spoke up "Well, Honey, Grampa has got a long way to go home."

Ellie's face started dropping but William cut in "...But he promises that he will be back tomorrow and stay for a campfire tomorrow night too!"

Ellie's face brightened up "And have marshmallows too?!"

"Sure. Whatever they are?"

Ellie placed both her hands on her head "Whatever they are? Oh my..." Ellie stopped with her mother's look stalling a swear word "...where have you been, Grampa, hiding in the woods?"

That brought some chuckles.

Gully knelt down in front of his granddaughter again. "Ellie, where Grampa camps it's pretty far and there's a bumpy trail and I sure don't want anything to happen to this wonderful present. Could you hang onto it for me?"

Kat spoke up, "Sure, Dad, we'll put it in the extra cooler in the car for you."

Ellie asked again "But Grampa, you do like it, right? And you are comin' back for it?"

William looked at Ellie again "Ellie, maybe when you are a little older I'll explain more what that gift means to me. For now just know I love it very very much and I will definitely be back for it."

"Ok." Ellie remembered the baskets on the table. "Grampa, your basket? You want us to save that for you too?"

Grampa picked up the bigger basket and drew Ellie aside. Whispered something. She nodded and he handed her the basket. Ellie then took it, walked over to her mother and handed her the basket. "Grampa and I want you to have this basket as a present. Do you like it?"

That got Ellie an enormous tearful hug and even William a shy one.

Ellie looked at her dad. "Aw, Dad, didn't get anything today. That's not fair!"

Henry laughed and said his nap was present enough but again Grampa whispered something to Ellie. She whispered something back then they both went 'shh' and laughed.

Apparently Henry was on the to-do list now as well.

Gully, or Grampa Gilly said his goodbyes and walked to his canoe. Kat's voice called at him as she ran up.

"Dad, you'll be hungry when you get there. Here's a can of beans and a can of ham. You can eat 'im cold if it's too late for a fire."

"Can't take cans into the park, Kat. Against the rules. Thanks anyway."

"But Dad, the way the Warden talked, you lived by your own rules."

"Bit of a misunderstanding there at times, Kat. Just because I abide my own set of rules doesn't mean I don't include theirs."

"Oh." A different man, indeed, the Warden had called her father.

"Well, wait a sec and I'll run back and get something else for you."

"Ok. I'll just get my canoe ready."

A minute later Kat was back with a bag of potato chips and, special from Ellie herself, a small bag of gummy bears.

"What the he...er...what are these?" asked Gully as he peeked into the colourful bag.

"They're called gummy bears, Dad. Don't eat too many at the same..." Too late as Gully threw a handful into his mouth.

A couple of chews then a muffled "Gummy bearths, eh? Yesth, I seeesth wwhaat youa mmeaan. Byeth Kath."

Grampa Gully did return the next day. A little pile of gear under a tarp in his canoe.

'Not much for a man to live on year after year 'thought the Warden as he took a peak into the canoe. 'No rifle, though. What the hell does he eat all winter?'

Gully stayed for the fire that night. Left late. After Ellie...actually she was called Izzy for the half the day but then forgot she was using that and they all fell back to Ellie...fell asleep.

Gully himself slept drifting in the canoe.

Next day, he and Bell (or was it, Bella?) set up his old army pup tent at the campsite. Bell loved laying in it with the flaps open and watching the campfire. She fell asleep in it, curled up on Grampa's old down faded green sleeping bag and was moved gently to the 'Home tent' as she now called it.

Kat doubted that her Dad actually slept at the campsite but he was there the next morning, their piping hot coffee ready as she and Henry blinked out of the Home tent.

Same routine next few nights , in between there was fishing, fishing, gabbing, fishing, gabbing, and some more projects. Not as ambitious as the baskets perhaps but things like leather moccasins and a bark rain hatfor Brent bear.

Finally the last day, packin' up, the promise to write letters every day...well, maybe every other day what with her 'studies at Kindergarten' (Eli's or Ellie's own words) possibly taking some of her time now this year.

Actually with all the activities and walks and making Henry (they didn't forget!) a new belt, complete with fish carvings on actualmoosehide leather and a buckle from a salvaged camper's pack, there was only time for one more short good talk between Kat and her dad.

Just after an actual real canoe ride where Isabella herself had held the lake trout rod and with the help of her mother reeled in a twenty-two inch lake trout. The words WOW and HUGE got ample use for a few minutes, then the rock-point-like conversation began...

"Is he big enough to eat?"

"Sure is."

"Should we keep 'im?"

"Up to you, it's your fish."

"Let's let him go. Try for a bigger one."

Kat spoke up "Honey, it's almost dusk. This is your last night for a fire. I think we should go in. So if you want a fish to eat, we'd better keep this one, ok?"

"Sure he's big enough to eat, Grampa?"

"Still sure he still sure is."

"Should we keep him?"

"Up to you, it's your fish."

"Let's let him go. That way he'll be bigger for next summer."

They had their fire and then Henry took Elly (now)into the tent for a quick bedtime read and to give Kat and Bill a chance to chat. Chat without the three foot high Word Generator in the middle.

"Dad, thank you for all you did for Ellie. It has really meant a lot to her...and me. She misses her grandmother lots. Knowing she still has some family will help her."

William didn't reply.

"Dad, I know you can't leave the Park. To tell the truth, I was almost wondering if I can stand Ottawa again after only a week here.

Anyway, I was going to say that Henry's business is really demanding and my job is too so I don't know if we could get up here again till next summer. I mean things like Christmas and that. I know Ellie will be nuts wondering about you...I..."

Gully looked at his daughter. He didn't want to disappoint her again but doubting...even for her and Ellie...the bus ride...the noise...the people...

Reading his mind , Kat interrupted "No. No, Dad. Not that. I mean you are welcome. Any...anytime. You have the numbers now to phone. The address.

But you don't have to come. I understand a little more now. Of you. Well maybe. Anyway what I wanted to say is that me and Henry talked and he likes it here too. And he likes you too, Dad.So we will probably come back next summer."

Kat laughed "We know Ellie will want to for sure. So if you could be around in July, we will be here. Not sure what week. Again jobs and stuff but I could let Jensen know to tell you."

"No need, Kat. I'll just circle from June to September. I do that all summer anyway. This side of the Park is less busy. Let Jensen know if you want but I'll be here. I promise." He hesitated then spoke again "And Kat...well, I am sorry...as a father ...I...well...failed ..."

"Dad. Stop. Mom said you didn't really have a chance. Who knows maybe if I'd have grown up here I'd have ended up wandering around with you all over. Kinda like the idea. But because Mom left, I got Henry and a career and Ellie and that's a good life too."

She poked at the fire. "Dad, you couldn't leave what you are any more than I could leave what I am now."

She looked at her father in the firelight; the toughest, most elusive hermit of Algonquin Park...and at the same time, a great big marshmallow of a grandfather and smiled. "Dad, being yourself, being whole like you said, isn't really anything to be sorry or ashamed of, is it? I mean most people are running in circles a mile a minute trying to find just that. What they already are. You already know, Dad. If people get hurt sometimes...well...Mom once said "If people get hurt it can be because they expected someone to be something they couldn't be. So whose fault is that?"

Kat put her hand on her father's arm at the armchair."Mom said that, Dad. She also told me in the hospital to go and find you. To take Ellie with me. To try and make up to you, Dad...and to me and to Ellie what she had to do but, at times, felt bad for. You understand, Dad?"

Her father nodded, didn't reply at first but then spoke up, his voice a little choked " If you or Ellie ever need me to...ever need me...there...I'll try...no dammit, I'll come...I promise..."

"Dad, if we ever need you that bad, we'll come to you. I promise."

The two next years, Ellie, Kat and Henry would meet up with Grampa Gilly at Cedar Lake.

A week of fishing, gabbing, exploring, making stuff.

One year they made snowshoes. Grampa made a pair while Ellie (more and more, it seemed she was settling on that version of her name!) made a smaller pair as precisely the same as if done by the same hands.

Next year it was two camp knives made from an old saw blade found by Gully over the winter. William cut out the blades and hilts with a hacksaw and filed them into shape. Then they made wooden handles from ironwood. The handles had an elegant fish shape yet each fit well into a palm, young and old alike. Copper nails were the rivets used to attach them to the steel hilts.

They made colourful sheaths from some moosehide Grampa had. The hide was dyed with berry juice which Grampa taught Ellie how to make too.

Ellie learned lots of other stuff as well. Especially about plants and wildlife. Like what plants you could eat and when and where to find them. What plants made medicine or delicious teas.

Walking the Brent Crater trail one day, Grampa and Ellie had a contest to see who could spot the most edible and medicine plants. Henry and Kat were amazed that Ellie nearly won!

In early May, heading towards the fourth summer of going to Brent, Kat got a call at home. She had stayed home and was working on-line because Ellie wasn't feeling well. A night of bad dreams. Probably junk food Kat had guessed.

It was the Warden from Cedar Lake.

"It's bad news, I'm afraid, Kate. It's your father. I don't know how to tell you this."

Kat felt her insides start to crumble; she almost fell down into a chair at the kitchen table. "Just say it please, Warden."

"Well, we had a real bad storm five days ago. Terrible. One of the worst in twenty years. 'Course your father had to go out in it. Couple of fishermen at Jensen's that knew your Dad saw him go out. Why the hell he wouldn't think of you and El...well, anyway, next day his canoe was found all smashed to pieces on the West side.

Couple of the guys gathered it all up but there wasn't any gear.

Kate, you know your Dad never wore a life jacket, couldn't swim either. Waters real damn cold too. Kate, there ain't much hope but we're still looking."

Kat was silent, feeling as if she was once again in a hospital room. Helpless. Desperately alone.

"Kate, Kate?"

"Sorry, Warden. I'm here."

"As I say we are continuing a search along the shoreline just in case your Dad did paddle close to shore but..."

"I understand."

"Um, Kate, last night...well...we burnt up all the pieces of the canoe. Kinda of a farewell thing. Few of the Wardens over here with the search, some fishermen who knew your dad, and Jensen. Sorry, we should have asked first. Just didn't want scavengers pickin' through it. Didn't seem right."

"It's ok. I understand. Dad would have preferred it."

' Like the house he was born in' she thought 'All smoke now. In the wind.'

"Warden, please thank everyone for their help, especially you and Jensen. You two were the kindest to him over the years."

"Actually, old Jensen was a little put out at first. Seems your dad owed him a trout for something."

"Tell the old fart I'll mail him up a frozen cod from the market here first chance I get!"

A snort was heard on the other end "Now that sounded just like your father, Kate." The Warden continued "Funny thing was I told you before he never even set foot in the office but last couple of years he would come in for a coffee."

"That's nice. Thank you for being good to him."

"Well, yes, thanks but what I wanted to tell you was when he was there all he ever talked about was the times with you and Ellie."

Kat couldn't answer.

"Which reminds me of another thing. He left me something. A case. For save keepin'. Had it for years and years. Got it locked up in my office. Your dad would ask for it once in awhile. Take it away for the night. Bring it back next day. I never opened it or seen inside it. Don't know what's in it. I'll ship it to you if you give me your address."

"Can you wait a bit, Warden? We were planning on coming up mid-July. I don't know now. I'll have to discuss it with Henry. If we did, it might be better to open it there."

"That's fine, Kate. I'll wait till I hear from you. I'll need your address anyway for the...er...official documents. You know death certificate and stuff. To be honest, Kate, you know his body may never come up. The coroner will decide when to make it official."

"Yes, yes. I understand, Warden. Thank you again."

"Kate?"

"Yes?"

"Tell...well...tell Ellie how sorry I am. About her Grampa. Tell her...how much he talked about her, will ya?"

"I will, Warden. Thanks again."

Kat hung up with a goodbye. Wiped her eyes. The clock said it was 11:35 am. She could hear Ellie's favourite TV cartoon starting up in her room. Still, there was no point in waiting. It might be better. She could tell her and then they could both sit quiet on the bed and watch the cartoon. Together. She got up and went down to her daughter's bedroom.

Ellie was watching the TV in her pajamas. Old Brent Bear was in her arms, a big blanket was tucked around them both. She looked up at her Mom in the doorway, they both had red eyes.

"Ellie, what's wrong? Are you feeling worse?"

"Not really. Just sad." She looked at the cartoon then back at her mother. "I just felt really sad this morning, Mom."

Kat sighed. Her news wasn't going to make it any better.

It was Elie most of all who insisted they stay with their Cedar Lake plans.

After the tents were set up, they all went over to the Warden's office to see what he had from William Gully.

The Warden had told Kat previously that no one as yet had found his camp. Someone had saw the army tarp in his canoe over some stuff so the common theory was that he was moving his camp and all had been lost. Nor had his body surfaced yet.

The Warden took them to a little side room for privacy. Then he went out and got the package.

He came back in carrying a very battered old violin case and bolt cutters.

"Have to cut the lock. He didn't leave a key with me."

Gully had added a gate latch to the case and a little lock.

When the Warden set the case on the table, Ellie ran her hand over it. "Did Grampa Gilly play the violin, Mr Warden?"

"No, Ellie. I don't believe he did. Said it was his mother's. Said his father broke the violin or sold it or some..." The Warden stopped. No point in Ellie knowin' that part of the family history.

Henry and Kat were staring at each other, remembering her father's tears over the little Indian girl toy with the violin. The wind up music.

The Warden continued "I do know the latch came of the house he was born in." He looked at Kat. "You too, I think, Kate."

The Warden lifted up the bolt cutters " Anyway, he said he left the case with me 'cause he wouldn't be responsible for his actions if someone found his camp and stole it. He'd hunt them down and well...let's just say, I believed him.

I'll just cut the lock for you then leave you to your privacy."

Kat spoke up "Warden, you can stay if you want.After all you knew him better than anyone. There might be stuff you could explain. If you have time?"

"I got time, Kate. Sure."

He cut the lock and Kat lifted the lid. There, right on top, was a well-oiled holster containing a very large pistol. A Weatherby forty-four caliber from World War One vintage.

"Whoa, Nelly" exclaimed the Warden as he very carefully picked it up. "I think I pretty well gotta confiscate this. Sorry. Turn it over to the OPP to destroy. Doubt if there's a license for it. I'll give you an official receipt, of course."

"It's ok, Warden" aid Kat "Just get rid of it, please."

The Warden carefully examined it. Checked that all the chambers were empty. "Kept it in good shape. That's for sure."

Henry reached into the case. "Here's the shells , I think." He handed the box to the Warden.

While the three looked into the case again, the Warden counted the shells.

"Funny" he said out loud "but it couldn't be."

"What?" asked Kat, looking up.

"Well, this box had fifty shells in it originally. Now there's twenty cartridges left and thirty empty casings. That's thirty fired. The thought occurred to me that if your father used one a year, that'd be from nineteen fifty-six to eighty-six. Thirty. From when he left the railroad till now."

"What do you mean?"

"One a year to kill a moose. For the winter. He was never seen with a rifle."

Kate and Henry still looked puzzled. Ellie was oblivious to their conversation. Just staring into the case, not touching anything yet.

The Warden explained "Sorry, no offence, but you're from the city. Ya gotta picture a man gettin', say thirty or forty feet, probably in deep snow or noisy fallen leaves, from a thousand pound animal and killing it with just one shot. Likely through the heart. Ain't the way most people hunt moose. Especially moose, 'cause it can move a lot faster than you can if you miss. Takes a lot of b..."he glanced at Ellie"...well...it's a might dangerous way of doin' it I'll just say that."

They were interrupted by Ellie exclaiming "My present! He kept it!" She reached in and gently pulled out the little musical toy. Wound it up a little.

The adults were all quiet while Ellie listened to it play, remembering her grandfather's joy over it.

After it was done, Ellie's mother spoke up "Well, Ellie, let's go through the rest. We don't want to keep the Warden too long."

They started.

There was a picture of Ellie and Grampa fishing that Kat had given her father two years ago.

Ellie pulled out another picture. "Mom, where was this picture of me taken?"

It was an older black and white.

Kat looked at it closely. "That's not you, Ellie. That I think is me when I was your age." There was a house, a shack really, in the background. She showed it to the Warden.

"Was that our house?"

"Yes, I believe it was."

There was another photo. A wedding picture. Kat knew it was her mother and father.

Henry pulled out a piece of paper. On it was just a phone number. "Ottawa exchange. Recognize it?"

Kat stared at it. "It was mine. My first apartment after university."

"Did he ever phone?"

"No. Well, I don't think so. I never had an answering machine there."

"How did he get it?"

"I don't know. Maybe Mom...I don't really know."

Ellie pulled out two medals. "Are these Grampa's? Was he in a war?"

The Warden looked at them "No. Don't think his father was either. I think maybe his grandfather. In World War One." He polished one a little. "Yup. Vimy Ridge. That might explain the gun."

His mother's birth certificate came next. With her Metis status letter. Both found neatly wrapped in plastic inside a folded, faded kitchen apron.

There was lots of little things unexplainable. A jack knife, one blade broken The initials C.G. carved on it. Perhaps it was his brother's. A couple of lures.

A faded deck of cards with two elastics around it. One held the whole deck of cards, the other held together five cards...four aces and the five of hearts.

The Warden shook his head "Didn't know he ever play cards. Maybe on the railroad.

Some money. Ellie counted it after she poured it out of an old bank envelope.Eight dollars and twenty-three cents.

Kat unwrapped a folded piece of paper in cellophane. It was a short letter. She could still read it. The handwriting she knew instantly was her mother's. It was addressed to her father.

It was the letter she had left in the shack. On the table. Telling William she had to leave. Going to her sister's with Kat. If he didn't show up within two months, she'd start filing for a divorce. Said she was real sorry. That she still loved him very much but she couldn't go on living this way. For her. For Kat. Wished him well if he stayed in Algonquin instead. She would understand. Signed it with 'All my love, Maggie.'

Kat was crying.

Ellie spoke up "Mom, what's wrong? What's in the letter?"

Kat wiped her eyes "Sorry, dear. Yes, it is the letter. I'll read it to you later. When there's time to explain it, ok?"

"Ok, Mom."

Henry had a letter too. Official looking. He read it, then asked Kat, "Kat, did you know about this?"

It was an official document from the CNR. Signed by William Gully. It directed the CNR to reroute his disability pension checks to Kat's mother. At a reduced amount but under the agreement that they would continue to Margaret Gully as long as she lived, not William, as was the norm back then.

Kat looked at Henry "Henry, does this mean my father got no money at all? It all went to my mother? Every month?"

"I think so. Did she know?"

"I don't think so, Henry. She said he sent money via the railroad every month. The checks stopped after I notified them of her death.But I'm sure she never knew it was all he had. She would have never accepted that if she'd known, I know it."

Kat turned to the Warden "Did Dad ever work? Guiding or something?"

"Nope. Can't really see your father takin' orders well. He did sell stuff he found after he fixed it. Like broken camp gear and the like. Not a lot of money in that, though."

Henry asked "Is it really possible to live here, around here, year after year, just off the land?"

The Warden replied "Very few people could but...well...maybe a fella that can shoot a moose with a pistol might be able to."

The only thing about Gully's father was a death certificate from the province of Alberta.

The rest of the stuff in the case was unexplainable. A recipe book, possibly his mother's? A ring, a woman's but no one knew whose. A wildflower dried to pieces in waxed paper. Little things like that.

They put it all back in the case 'cept, of course, the pistol and bullets.

Ellie asked to keep the Indian girl toy in the car. Just to be able to look at it. She promised to be real careful with it.

The Warden said he'd hold onto the case till they left end of the week.

Kat, Henry and Ellie returned to the campsite. Kat and Henry to discuss the contents and their meaning over the rest of the day...Ellie spending most of the day at the table, reading and listening to the music of the Indian girl and her violin.

Next day, Henry and Kat were sitting by the lakeshore. Ellie was fishing, her life jacket on, down at the usual point.

Henry watched Ellie for a minute then spoke to Kat "What's she doing, Kat?"

"Fishing."

"I know that but watch her. Really watch."

Kat shielded her eyes from the sun and stared down the shore at where her daughter sat.

Ellie was sitting on a long flat rock. She had made little rock piles and with sticks both her rod and Grampa Gilly's pink one (he had always insisted she take it home with her as it was too valuable to leave here with all the thieving squirrels and chipmunks around!) were propped up. Two bobbers floated in the water. the rods were a couple of feet apart and in between sat Brent Bear and Indian Lady. Both were facing out to the lake along with Ellie.

Once in awhile Ellie would reach over and wind up the little canoe. Let it play.

Sometimes she would uncap her pop bottle, take a sip, then hold it out towards the pink rod. After a moment's hesitation, she would put the top back on. Set it back down between her and Brent Bear.

Most of the time, she talked. Out to the lake. or a lot of times turning towards the pink rod.

Kat walked down to the lake.

"Honey, what are you doing?"

"Fishing."

"I know but who are you talking to?"

"Grampa. Grampa Gilly."

Kat didn't know if this kinda of make-believe was healthy or not. Imaginary friends was one thing Ellie had grown out of though all the stuffed toys were still very much alive.

Kat knelt down beside her daughter "Well, Sweetie, we talked about this a bit before, remember. Grampa Gilly...well...he's gone and..."

"He's not gone, Mom."

"Now, Ellie, you know Grampa Gilly drowned in the..."

"Mom, I'm almost nine now. I know Grampa Gilly is dead. I said he wasn't gone."

"He's not?"

"No. Grampa told me that if ever a summer came when he couldn't meet me up here it's because God needed him for a special job. To steer the Wind around the lake. That's what he said. 'Cause if the Wind was just left alone too long it either did crazy things and knocked over houses and stuff or it went away and then it would get too hot around here and no rain would come and then the people would have no strawberries to eat all summer long. That's what he said, Mom."

As she said it, the wind brushed at both the girls' strands of hair.

"Do you believe it's true, Mom? Do you?"

Kat saw resolve, doubt, hope, grief, love and something else, something veryvery deep in her daughter's eyes.

"Yes. Yes, Ellie, I do believe your Grampa isn't gone. I have to."

"Why, Mom? Why do you have to?"

Kat pointed at the bobber that Ellie couldn't see 'cause she was turned to look at her mother.

"'Cause Grampa just caught a fish!"

After the excitement died down, Kat headed back towards her husband. She saw the Warden walking up the road and she walked over to chat.

He looked over at Ellie.

"Fishing, is she?"

"Yes. With her Grampa. She says Grampa isn't really gone. God just needed him to steer the Wind around the lake.

The Warden just nodded, didn't reply.

They both just watched Ellie for a minute; her routine of violin music, pop, chatting, starting up again.

Then he chuckled.

"What is it, Warden?"

"Well, I was just thinking that actually your daughter ain't allowed to use two fishing poles at once in the Park."

"Oh, sorry. I'll go take one away now."

"No. No. Not at all. It's ok. After all, the other pole might belong to the bear and he doesn't need a license to fish in the Park" Then he grinned "Besides I wouldn't ticket that young lady if they threatened to fire me if I didn't" He nodded out towards Cedar. "I wouldn't dare take my arse out into the Park again with your old man waiting for me if I did!"

Two days later, the day before Packup and Leave Day, Ellie came walking up from the beach. One hand had a long piece of wood over her shoulder, the other carried a piece of driftwood.

Kat and Henry both noted she walked much stronger year by year, her limp almost gone. Now she looked so healthy, tanned and strong. Dirty T shirt, camper shorts and that little belt knife she had made the last year. She was now allowed to carry it but could only take it out if Henry or Kat were around.

"Watch ya got there, sport?" Henry called out.

Ellie swung it down off her shoulder and held it up. "It's a paddle. Found it floating in a little overhang on the shore. Over there by the Point. It's not even broken. Can I keep it?"

Kat spoke up "Well, maybe. Sometimes renters lose the Outfitter's stuff or it's from a kids' camp. Got any writing on it?"

"No." Ellie handed it to Kat; took her life jacket off.

"Sweetie, the Warden's truck is at his office. I'll take it over and ask him if anyone says they lost one. Is that ok?"

"Sure. Dad, can I whittle? I think this driftwood looks like a duck, don't you?"

"Sure. I think it does to. Just go easy with the knife, ok?"

Kat walked to the office. The Warden wasn't there. She tried the store.

Just Jensen and the Warden were in there. Talking.

Kat handed the paddle to the Warden.

"Anyone report a lost paddle?"

"Nope." He was looking at it very closely. Jensen too. "Where'd ya find it?"

"Actually, Ellie found it. Along the shoreline. I guess it was hid under an outcrop. Near where she and...where she fishes."

The Warden held it up to Jensen, blade first. Jensen put his hand on it, ran his finger along the edge." What ya think, Jensen, is it...?"

Jensen nodded his head yes. "Marks are there alright."

The Warden turned back to Kat.

"Kate, your dad told us he marked his paddle with two distinct notches. In case someone 'borrowed' it out of his canoe. he'd know who took it. There's the notches. There and there." he pointed at them, then handed the paddle back to Kat."Ellie found your dad's paddle, Kat. He only had one. He said people who needed a 'spare anything' were more likely to break the first one."

Jensen went back to his work at the counter mumbling to himself 'Lake just keeps gettin' stranger and stranger, it does, it does."

Kat thanked them both, turned to go.

"Kate, if it's ok, could I get a picture of Ellie and the paddle and you and Henry. Keepsake for me, I won't show it around or anything. It's just...well...it's almost a miracle, ain't it? I mean her finding it, of all people."

"Sure. Of course. The picture I mean. And yes. I am a little stunned myself really."

The Warden and Kat walked back with the camera and the paddle.

Kat handed it to Ellie and said "Ellie, Honey, the Warden says..."

Ellie interrupted "It's Grampa's paddle isn't it?"

"Well, yes, Honey. But how did you know?"

"Don't know. Just kinda did. Soon as I picked it up." She looked a little embarrassed at the three adults "but I kinda didn't say 'cause ...well...I thought you might laugh at me or something."

Kat gave her daughter a double big bear hug.

"Oh Ellie, no one would ever laugh at your feelings about your grampa. Ever. You remember that, ok?"

"Ok, Mom."

Nothing doing now they had to go out and go canoeing so that Ellie could use the paddle. That is, right after the picture, which was not as simple as the Warden had thought because the posing actually also involved Brent Bear, Indian Lady and numerous other stuffed animals which had joined the northern voyage up from Ottawa over the years.

Once out on the lake, moving along the shoreline, all three were paddling, but Ellie was so good with her Grandfather's paddle that after awhile Kat and Henry just stopped paddling.

Ellie was kneeling in the center and somehow had 'discovered' the J stroke. Her paddle pushed the canoe along straight and true.

Henry and Kat exchanged a 'how does she do it look'; she had paddled some before but never like this.

In fact, they had went pretty far south on the still lake when Henry piped up "Well, we'd better head back. We got to have the canoe back by five or pay for another day. And I'm hungry too! Plus there's the annual Last Night Campfire Routine, remember?" This latter 'do' was a great function organized and run by Ellie and involved stuff like marshmallows, stories, songs, hot chocolate, spider weiners and more.

"It's ok, Dad, we'll get help in a minute or two."

"Oh, really?" Henry joked with his daughter. "Did you book the Warden to fly down and carry us back in a bush plane?"

"No. Don't need a plane."

They turned the canoe around and started paddling north along the shoreline.

In a few minutes a northbound wind, rare on Cedar Lake, rose up and gently began pushing them along at their backs.

"See, Dad, told ya."

Ten years later, Ellie went on a canoe trip with friends. Cedar Lake, down the Petawawa, to Lake Travers.

A final hurrah of the summer before she left for a Forestry College in Michigan.

If Kat had any doubts left of her daughter's special...well..sight, they were all gone when Ellie came home after the trip and showed her a little piece of an old red canvas canoe. Ellie had found it on Radiant Lake while out solo paddling in the evening's light wind.

A piece of wood sculpted by the waves; now shaped, for all the world, like a violin.

THE END

POW

Hans Hamler wasn't much of a soldier. He had first tried enlisting in the Wermacht in Germany in 1941, at the ripe old age of fifteen.

His very small build at one hundred twenty six pounds, five foot two inches and a noticeable limp in his left leg due to a birth defect guaranteed him the salute of an impatient, disgusted gesture of dismissal from the inspecting doctor.

The same at sixteen.

In the years in between, Hans worked with his grandfather building furniture and household knickknacks for sale in the city at their small farm outside Schmallenberg. He lived there with his mother and grandparents. His father had been killed in a railway accident in nineteen thirty eight.

It was perhaps the influence of his grandfather's thinking which kept Hans from volunteering for such things as the Hitler Youth or SS organizations which at best would have eventually put him on the eastern front. Where he would most certainly would have lost his life.

Or, at worst, put him eventually in places where he most certainly would have lost his soul.

Grandfather was a very very staunch German but frowned (quietly, of course) on the Nazi way of politics and dogma.

Now that there was a war, he would say, the Fatherland must be defended but one does not have to trade in all one's brains for a uniform.

Grandfather had been in the First World War, he did not like the idea of his grandson, his only grandchild, risking his life or worse. However, perhaps it was better to go now than in what was to become a deadlier hell later.

He knew Germany would lose. The question was how far into that hell would the Nazis take Germany against all the might of the USA, the tenacity of the British and the ferocity of the Russians?

Besides Hans learning carpentry at home, Hans' grandmother taught English to him. She had learned it in studies at a Women's College. Hans' grandmother thought learning English would be useful to the boy later in life, in business.

It was Grandfather who suggested Hans make sure, at seventeen, that he tell the recruiting officer of his knowledge of English. Grandfather plotting that such a skill would be wasted on the Eastern front and guarantee a placement on the Western.

It had worked.

Hans was enlisted into the Reconnaissanceand Communications Corp of the 269th Army Brigade, Motorcycle Dispatch in Bayeux, France in September 1943.

Training had been slight, highlighted mostly by instructors and other enlists calling him Thumbtack or worse, Pinhead due to his ridiculous large steel helmet capped on his narrow, slight frame. A frame still at a hefty five foot five and one hundred and forty pounds.

His grandfather had more advice on his two day leave before Hans was sent to the Front.

"Just be a little brave, Hans. Try to get just nicked. That's the secret, just enough of a wound to exchange for a train ticket back here."

Hans thought this was particularly non-heroic advice coming from a German veteran but he declined to argue.

Grandfather continued "I had a buddy at Somme. Whenever no officers or NCOs were watching, he was always waving his hand up in the air above his foxhole trying to get it shot by snipers."

"What happened to him, did it work? Was he wounded?" Hans asked.

"Too well, I'm afraid" His grandfather shook his head "In the end he waved in a British artillery shell."

His grandfather stopped forking hay to their one and only cow and leaning on it continued "Better yet, Hans, be like a farmer. Look to the dirt. That's your friend. Like a miner. Stay on your belly as much as possible. Crawl everywhere. Even to the latrine.

We had officers who were always running here and there to give orders. And they were always getting shot. The Limeys' machine guns seem to like a moving target. On your belly, you're just another mud coloured mound. Who shoots at those?"

Hans didn't get a chance to be a mud coloured mound, however.

He was given a motorcycle (what glory for him, a farmer boy now with his own wheels!) and after a few mishaps( is there any greater indignation than commandeering a grinning French peasant farmer to help you pick your motorcycle dropped onto the French dirt road, when the kickstand sunk too far in?) he spent many a fun-filled day carrying dispatches of great (he was sure) military worth from place to place.

Up to his last day as a non-captive German soldier he saw 'action' only once.

The drone of an airplane miles away caused him some concern but with quick thinking he immediately turned the motorcycle into a thick hedge groove beside the road. The bike path made through the dense bushes was not wide but did, to Hans, seem to go on forever in slapping twigs at his hands and torso. Till finally resting between two thicker trunks.

The five kilometer walk back to the base for assistance earned him no medal...only the added nickname now of Peter das Kaninchen (Peter the Rabbit).

On June 7, 1944, the day after D-day, Hans was sent from Bayeux with urgent reports. As the highway to Caen was believed to be taken, Hans was sent via the side roads through Tilly-sur-Seulles.

Unfortunately for Hans, the French Resistance had been very busy laying traps for retreating German columns. Across dirt roads, the French had been very busy that night stringing trip wires connected to landmines.

These were designed to detonate a couple of vehicle lengths after the first vehicle so as to destroy any officers' car as opposed to the 'expendable' front escort of soldiers.

Hans doesn't remember the wire, only being jerked backwards violently off his motorcycle as if a giant had grabbed his collar and pulled him off. The red welt across his chest told how close he had come to being decapitated.

For some lucky reason, the mine did not explode.

So neither was Hans blown to bits nor was the attention drawn of wandering French resistance fighters who surely would have shot an unconscious German soldier for his despatches and their country's abuses.

Hans has no idea how long he lay unconscious in the French sun. His next memory was a grinning Canadian soldier prodding Hans with a boot, his Sten gun half a foot from Hans' nose.

For some strange reason, Hans first thought was of his grandfather. 'Well, I'm not on my belly but I'm on the dirt. I hope he's right about all this.'

Then Hans thought to move his hands above his hand to surrender. He thought of it but as of just now no movement like that was physically possible for his aching brain. Just as well because any sudden moves like that and Hans' headache would have ended in a machine gun burst.

"Careful, Jack, bloody bastard could be mined" Hans heard somewhere to his left.

"Bullshit" replied the grin. "They don't mine their own people if they're alive"

"Crap on you, ya f!@#&*! I heard they'll hide a grenade up their own mother's..."

"All right. Stymie it, Chishims. What ya got, Jack?" A new authoritative voice from the right had interrupted the voice to his left.

Mustering up all his inner strength and resolve, Hans decided now was the time for drastic and impulsive action.

Moving his lips ever so slightly Hans managed out the words, in English, of course, "I surrender"

"Balls!" said the Sten gun holder as he stepped back. "They must f%^&ing well teach them that in f%^*in' training camp!"

So with Canadian officer thinking an English speaking German POW could be useful, Hans was lifted up, dusted off, given water, relieved of his well-oiled luger, bullets and despatches; all to the good natured jokes and laughter of the Canadian soldiers; largely because Hans was their first bonafide captured German.

Then Hans marched thirty kilometers westward. At first, he was marched ahead of the sten gun but later all that was all forgotten, especially after he was loaded down with the pack of the soldier carrying the Bren gun, a heavy machine gun. (At first, he had been given the Bren gun to carry but the officer had objected; much to Hans' relief as he staggered the first couplehundred meters with the gun.)

In the whole march, Hans couldn't help but thank his grandmother for saving his life. 'Yet' he thought 'it seemed so absurd that in a world whose sole business seemed to be about men killing men, the ability to talk to them coherently was of such value.

At the Canadian and British field HQ, Hans talents were deemed unnecessary, or at least, untrustworthy and he was given over to a Canadian unit taking more German POWs back away from the new frontline.

So the next day Hans, with about a hundred others walked forty kilometer east back to the sea.

Then England.

Then Halifax, Canada.

Then the POW camp on the Nipissing River in Algonquin Park, Ontario, Canada.

It was late fall when Hans reached the POW lumber camp. He had expected to be sent to one of the larger POW camps near Halifax or Montreal as an interpreter.

Canadian Military Intelligence thinking, however, worked very similar to the German he had experienced and so his knowledge was deemed more valuable in converting the word 'Timber' into 'fallende Holz'. The officer of the camp, however, was quite interested in Hans' carpentry abilities.The Camp mess needed new tables and benches badly. As well, Adirondack style chairs were of a crucial shortage at the Canadian officer and NCO's lounge.

Hans was given a large shed, tools and so much lumber from Algonquin pines and cedar as a European farm boy could gawk at. And a book called "Backwoods Carpentry, Furniture and Other Such Skills".

Hans could read a little English, of course and with the pictures soon starting churning out furniture quite able to meet the military needs of the Camp.

For the most part, Hans was then left alone. Spending the day working in his shed. Morning and evening meals with the rest of the German POWs, of course. A time Hans did not particularly enjoy. He was ridiculed quite a bit by the other POWs due to both his size and the peculiar aspects of his military experience which the other veterans found quite amusing.

In fact, he had picked up a few more nicknames like Landmine Suchhund(landmine search dog) or Luftuberwachung Einheit Streifenwagen (aerial surveillance unit patrol).

The number of times trip wires were set across his doorway to his shed or on the path from his shed to the mess hall grew tiresome.

There was one POW who did not ridicule Hans; spoke to him as a father to a son, yet Wilhelm Schmidt was in reality only about ten years older than Hans.

Wilhelm was the only POW who had been to the Russian Front. For two years. Wounded there, he had rehabilitated in Germany, then by some fluke was sent to Belgium instead of his old unit. Usually battle experienced veterans were sent East where their skills were badly needed amongst the hundreds, and thousands of fresh German boys thrown into the slaughter. Perhaps it was because Wilhelm's unit had been completely annihilated at Stalingrad that Schmidt was forgotten, even his company commander too dead to sign for his return.

One evening, sitting outside the shed, after a particular nasty hazing by the other POWs, Wilhelm said to Hans.

"Pay no attention to those unwissend trottels, Hans. They talk of war like little boys who play with matches and firecrackers.

In Germany, in the hospital, I saw men and boys who had known the fires of hell. With their half bodies and their minds full of memories. You see it in their eyes. Only the cinders left of their spirit. No medal can cover over that, Hans. Or heal it."

Wilhelm poured some more tea into his mug from Hans' little outdoor fireplace.

"I will tell you a little secret, Hans. Of how three of our patriotic friends came to be here, though I will not tell you their names. To protect their 'military glory'.

They were with me in Holland when the Canadians attacked. Our unit was hiding in a small grove of trees. Across a long open field was at least three Canadian machine gun posts. To make matters worse there were British Spits strafing us from the air too.

So what does our last officer, an idiot of a fresh lieutenant order us to do? Charge across the field. At least he led it, I'll give him that.

When the corporal ordered us to follow, I just pointed my submachine gun at his guts and said "You go on ahead, I have to piss first."

Out of fifty men, not one got more than twenty metres across. 'Cept the three who stayed behind with me.

Jesus, even in Russia, in all that slaughter, we weren't that stupid.

In an hour, a full Canadian regiment swept around us and so we humbly...and patriotically...surrendered."

Hans poured them both a little more hot tea. "What...what was the Russian front like?"

"You said before, Hans, that your grandfather was in World War One. What did he say of it?"

"Very little. 'Cept about dirt." Hans then explained his Grandfather's advice.

Wilhelm chuckled. "Good advice. Though not really in Russia. Some killing genius had perfected tanks by then.

If you ran from a hole, they cut you down with their machine guns. If you stayed, The tracks going over would chew you to a pulp. If the tracks missed you, the Slawische panzer reiter (Slavic tank riders) took great delight in cutting you to pieces with their submachine guns."

He spit into the fire. "Hans, men who see war, real war, say very little of it. I remember a corporal in the hospital saying 'the more men see of war, the less they say of it till they have seen all there is of war and then they are completely silent."

They were quiet for awhile then Wilhelm spoke again. "I was a woodcutter before the war.

This place here. This Algonquin. Very pretty, very quiet. It still has a soul.

Hans, where men kill men, everything good leaves. Even the soul of the land itself leaves.

This place, here, though, is still whole. Maybe that's why those Canadians fought so hard. To save this."

He shook his head. "There were places in Russia like this. At first. But not long after we had been there."

They were silent again for a bit, then Wilhelm stretched out his legs. "Well, Hans, enough of this, I'm heading for bed."

He looked again at Hans.

"Forget war, Hans. Forget about men destroying everything. A little tea, a little tobacco, some food, a fire, the feel of wood sap on your hands. What more does any man need in god's name. No man needs to kill other men to have that little in the world."

He gestured his thumb back at the tool shed and then placed his handgently on Han's shoulder. "Build your things, Hans. They may not last forever but it's at least better than destroying instead. Only destroying lasts forever, I'm afraid."

With that he strolled away towards his bunkhouse with the other POWs.

Hans thought a lot about the advice of Wilhelm and his grandfather but he was still troubled by a twinge of his own consciousness. It was the foolishness of his youth. To proof to everyone, the other POWs, Wilhelm, his grandfather, his mother, perhaps Hitler himself, that he was no fool and no coward either.

In the little Countryman skills book were two things which pecked at Hans brain till he hatched a plan.

One was a map of Algonquin, or at least a ripped portion which someone had used as a marker. It showed the eastern portion of Algonquin plus the Ottawa River down to the city of Ottawa. Hans knew from his train ride from Halifax that the Ottawa River went to Montreal. Montreal, he seemed to recall, was very close to the United States. From the vagueness of his geography lessons ten years ago, wasn't Mexico beside the United States? And neutral?

Hans thought the United States was probably, like most countries in Europe anyway, three or four hundred kilometres wide so getting to Mexico and then South America should be possible.

Hadn't there been talk in Germany of a U-boat crew getting their heavily damaged vessel to South America and then returning later disguised upon a neutral freighter?

The other thing pecking at Hans' brain was a chapter in the book on building a birch bark canoe. By luck, some larger birch had been brought down to make room for an extra bunkie. Hans had salvaged the bark thinking at first it might make an attractive veneer top for a lounge table.

The construction of the canoe was simple enough especially for someone like Hans who had experience in steam bending wood. (This technique was necessary to make all the bent cedar ribs which gave strength and form to the birchbark hull.)

The big problem would be hiding itfrom everyone. Even the other POWS...and his superior officers. If they got word Hans could do this, no doubt they would commandeer the whole project for some bigger, more able POWs to escape with HIS canoe.

Besides, he told himself, it could only be for one man as he had to build it small to hide it easily.

That was his first concern. Where? Where better than his own tool shed where he could work piecemeal over the winter?

The tool shed was quite big and by rearranging lumber and old tarps, Hans was able to construct a small hidden working area in such a way that only a truly nosey Canadian guard would discover his 'escape boat'

No guard here was that ambitious. Besides deep snow, minus forty degree weather, no food for many many miles made the winter season an impossibility for escape. (Blackflies, mosquitoes and deerflies maintained a twenty-four very diligent guard the rest of the year.)

As an extra precaution, Hans also began building a full dining set of bent wood slat chairs for the Captain as an excuse for having a huge maple syrup kettle boiling up water.

He 'shrunk' the canoe plans down from eighteen feet long to ten feet, a more manageable length to hide. Hans hoped he had the right proportions of depth and girth as well. Balancing,...well...balance with the damn thing actually being able to move forward by paddling it.

He layed down the birch bark sections, overlapping all one way, after wetting it with hot water to help it curl. He'd built an inner hull frame and this he weighed down on top of the bark. Plus added rocks all over inner hull. Using stakes Hans bent the birch bark pieces to curve upward on both sides along the length of the canoe. He let all this dry.

Taking the frame out, he then made a gunwale frame to maintain the shape of the canoe. These he stitched through the holes in the bark using thin waxed twine which he unravelled from an old rope.

Hans then stitched all the bark pieces together. For that he used the more twine and sealed the holes well with melted pine gum. He added the bow and stern wood pieces; stitching and sealing them in, as well.

Cedar splints were placed to run inside the hull to strengthen the bottom of the canoe. Steam-bent cedar ribs were jammed under the gunwales against the hull and thus held in the splints as they helped keep the shape of the canoe hull.

It took Hans two months to make the canoe. He could only work an hour or two a day on it so as to not arouse suspicion. As well splitting all the cedar splints and ribs had taken quite awhile as he dared not use the outdoor gas powered cutting saw too much.

No one discovered what he was doing though he had one close call when a Canadian soldier walked in to chat as he was whittling the cedar paddle. While they chatted a little, Hans just cut it up in little pieces with his hand saw, acting as if this was to be it's planned use all along.

He never told Wilhelm his plan. He felt guilty that there wasn't room for another in the tiny canoe. He was also afraid Wilhelm might ridicule his escape plan. He liked Wilhelm too much, had too much respect for him to be able to bear that. So he kept silent.

Hans was stockpiling a bit of food from here and there. Being careful about it as the one thing which brought savage retribution was POWS stealing food and not sharing it with the others. Even if they weren't stealing from each other. There was plenty of it anyway but it was still the unwritten law of all camp life. Mostly Hans would just go a little hungry and save a small crust or a thin slice of cheese from his daily allowance. He had to be careful for even that if hoarded too much and noticed could raise questions from his officers. He kept it in the shed, in a waxed bag hung up from the ever prowling mice.

One day, in April, a bright beautiful day, the snow near gone, the river flowing wide and fast, Hans was asked to help drag slag into big piles to be burnt later by the woodcutters.

Wilhelm was there but he did not work. He sat away from everything, staring at the river. He did not move for over an hour, just starring.

Finally Hans decided to go over and ask him what was wrong. Was he sick?

As he came up to Wilhelm, another POW had walked over as well. He spoke first.

"Hey, Schimdt, ya 'faul schwein'. If you're not going to use that axe today give it to me to use."

Wilhelm's axe was noted for being the best of the woodcutters'. He kept it razor sharp and well oiled to keep sap from binding it in the wood.

Wilhelm looked at the POW with a hatred beyond anything Hans had ever seen before.

"If you touch that axe, I swear to God, I will kill you with it."

The POW stopped dead in his tracks, hesitated, and then stalked away without daring a reply.

Hans sat down beside Wilhelm. He noticed a piece of paper that Wilhelm held in his hand.

"Wilhelm, forgive me if I am bothering you, but what is wrong?"

At first, Wilhelm didn't speak but then in a voice utterly empty of any feeling he replied "I received this letter last night. Thinking it as from my wife, I waited to read it out here. Here, where there is something I could dream of sharing with her. Here where the loons come in spring...and..." He stopped. Handed the letter to Hans.

It was from a neighbour in the city where Wilhelm's family lived. It said a stray Russian artillery shell had hit their house. His entire family were hiding in the cellar. It had been all destroyed, burned to the ground. None one had been saved. None.

Hans choked " Wilhelm, I am so sorry. I don't know what to say."

Wilhelm took back the letter, looking at it again. "Say? What can be said to me now? Wife. My two boys. My father and mother. My sister. All gone. They had all moved in together. To save fuel for that asshole Hitler to put in his last few tanks. Say? To me, Hans? There is nothing to say. I have nothing now. Nothing. I am nothing. Just leave me alone.

Your grandfather was wrong. It is better to die in a war. Better to be dead than alive with this pain. This cage of nothing.

Everything is dead to me now, Hans. It all died inside with them.

Just leave me, Hans. Go."

Hans got up to leave but hesitated "I...Wilhelm...I..."

"I said go. Back to your war. Piling up things to be destroyed. Into nothing. Go."

Hans was hurt but did not reply. Tears for Wilhelm welled up in his eyes but he turned and began to move away.

"Hans. Wait."

Hans stopped, turned back to look at Wilhelm.

"I am sorry. You are a good...a kind boy. Er, a kind man. Stay that way. For me and your grandfather. Stay that way. As long as you can. Ok, Hans?"

Hans just nodded, choking on a 'yes'.

With that Wilhelm looked down again at his letter.

Hans had nothing , no reply. He returned to dragging slag, not caring if the other POWs saw or heard his tears.

Two days later, in the early morning, Wilhelm was found at the dock. Dead. He had hung himself by tying a rope to a nearby high pine then placing its noose around his neck.

Then he had swung out, exhaling his last breath into the world, into the morning mists over the Nipissing River.

The next night, Hans escaped. He didn't really do it for Wilhelm. Though he felt really bad, especially guilt, that his family was probably safe . Safe, far outside a major city on the Western side of Germany. The British and Americans would be there soon, perhaps even now. Odd how the type of enemy one surrenders too was now a relief or a real new kind of fear.

Hans certainly didn't escape for the war effort, for the Fatherland. Wilhelm had ended any belief in that.

He still wanted to proof something, he supposed. If not to the others at least to himself.

Mostly Hans was trying to escape his grief, perhaps even his feeling of hopelessness for humanity.

He couldn't stand how the other POWs talked like Wilhelm was weak; or was a coward. It all confused him inside.

He got very angry but he held it in. He supposed he had no answers anyway. For Wilhelm and his family, he really had nothing to say.

As a man, as a POW, he escaped. As a boy...he just ran away.

Yet, perhaps there was something that he did do for Wilhelm.

Aside from his food, his paddle, and his map he did take away something. Something of Wilhelm's. Wandering the bank of the river the day that Wilhelm was found, Hans found the broken handle of Wilhelm's axe.

Wilhelm must have broken it, snapping the blade away and then flung the two pieces into the river. The axe head would be at the Nipissing bottom. The handle Hans found caught up in some weeds downstream. He had fished it out and put it in his shed. At the last moment, he decided to retrieve it and now carried it with his canoe down to the river edge in the darkness of the night.

That first night was precarious and exhausting for Hans but he made the journey as well as a farm boy unaccustomed to small boats could do.

The canoe was dry, did not leak, but was quite unstable. He had nearly tipped it over half a dozen times while getting used to its "peculiarities of balance" as far as embarking and disembarking went.

Paddling it was tricky too. Hans had to learn not to shove so hard or the round bottom little canoe would easily spin sideways in the current. He slowly got the hang of it, switching side to side with every other paddle stroke less and less.

According to the map, and a few vague snippets of geography he had discreetly learned from the guards, he had about eight or nine kilometers to go from the Camp to Cedar Lake. Hans had no idea how fast he could actually paddle especially at night. He would just move along as well as he could but he really did hope to be at least across the lake by the morning.

The river was wide and the night was pitch black with no moon so Hans couldn't see very well ahead. Still with the current going east there was little chance of Hans losing his way.

The big risk was the rapids. Hans was a poor swimmer, the water was very cold and he had no life jacket.

Using his matches, he could see on the map the trails marked to go around the rapids. Finding them in the actual dark bushland was another story. The night was too dark to make out the little portage signs put up by the rangers.

He would listen to the white water getting louder and louder, till he would literally creep along the side of the shoreline looking for the darker opening of the path. He was fooled a few times but by and large made progress through the night.

He was tired but the exhilaration of his 'new' journey into freedom (though one would hardly call the POW camp oppressive) and the dangers of the river kept him alert.

The river at night when it widened and calmed itself was a delight. With the air being quite cool, there were no bugs on duty to harass Hans on his escape route.

He spooked a couple of beaver twice and jumped at the resounding whack of their tails in the water.

Some ducks fluttered on ahead of him once at a bend in the river.

At a wide part of the river, he even heard Wilhelm's loon make its haunting night call.

It greatly saddened him again. He wished he had made the canoe bigger and begged Wilhelm to come with him. Even just to hear that loon.

Hans knew, though, even in his regret of not asking, that he could not have saved Wilhelm.

Finally he reached Cedar Lakejust at daybreak. The last hour or so had made any portaging easier with the mist slowly rising off the river. Though the sun couldn't be seen as yet, the darkness faded enough that Hans could see a little more of the banks as he rounded each bend.

The last portage was almost a delight though Hans was indeed getting very tired. It certainly helped not to stumble over each root now that he could see.

Finally he reached the bank of Cedar Lake. He easily see in the distance the smoke of the town Brent. The fires of early morning breakfast starting up.

He went out on the lake, wanting to get away from the portage but he decided not to travel too far on the lake right now.

He was tired and hungry; needed some rest and food. He would have to risk crossing the lake in the daytime later since it would be impossible to find the Petawawa River mouth at night. The Petawawa would take him to the Ottawa River according to his map.

He paddled a bit then slipped into a small cove south of the river mouth.

Carrying the canoe into the bush, he made himself a soft bed of spruce boughs and took out his bag of food.

While he ate, he imagined that after roll call at the Camp, discovery of his escape would launch a full scale search effort. He hoped they would concentrate on the logging roads thinking he had walked away.

At any rate, he thought, as he drifted off to sleep on his fragrant bed beside a cedar log, he had escaped. He had done the duty as required of any POW. He alone at the Nipissing River POW lumber camp. Only he, Hans Hamler had done it. Only the Peter das Kaninchen, or Peter Rabbit, had actually gotten away.

Now one would not really say that the Eastern part of CanadianMilitary Operations leaped into action the moment rollcall discovered that Hans was missing.

In actual fact, first another POW was sent to poke around the shed to see if Hans was still asleep there as he sometimes stayed there working late. No luck. Then, a couple POWs and a Canadian soldier wandered down around the dock and a little on the bank on each side. No luck.

Tried another count (the usual military thinking here, even though thewhole Camp knew it was Hans who was missing ). No change.

So the duty sergeant told the Captain who called in the German Head Officer. A discussion over tea followed where the German officer swore upon his own honour that he knew of no escape plan. He told the Captain the rumour already circulating was that Hans , upset perhaps over Wilhelm, had wandered either into the bush around the slag piles or down one of the logging roads.

A few POWs were sent to the various lumber and slag piles to look around while a couple of Canadians were sent in a jeep to drive up and down a few roads. No luck.

By now it was ten am and the Captain was getting concerned. He liked Hans and he liked his new almost completed dining room set as well. The Canadian bush was no place for a German farm lad to get lost in.

He wandered over to the shed, killing a bit of time while the jeeps were out again. He didn't relish phoning Ottawa, where his bloody fool of a CO was, just yet. He wasn't particularly worried about the blame, he just hated talking to the disagreeable old SOB under any circumstances, good news or not. Just last month it had taken five phone calls and three re-done forms just to get ten extra pillows for god's sake.

In the shed, the Captain saw Hans' book for the first time since he had given it to him.

For some reason, he opened it and began fanning through it. He immediately noticed that some of the pages were gummed up together.

Peeling them apart, he saw where 'sticky stuff , like sap' he thought, was all over some of the pages...the pages on how to build a birch bark canoe.

"Naw" He said out loud but he started rooting around the shop anyway. In the back, he found a large long hole in a pile of wood. (Hans had not piled the lumber back in after he took the canoe out as he was afraid of making more noise late at night.)

Here, too, was more sap, shavings, some thin leftover cedar splints and twine peeled away from rope.

"Naw" said the Captain again but a little less strongly this time.

Then he had to chuckle to himself. 'The little bugger. I wonder. Well, balls to him if he did. Too bad the river will likely kill him!'

So the Captain radioed the ranger station at the town of Brent on Cedar Lake to be on the lookout for a five foot five inch slight build German POW escapee, who also speaks good English. He could be possibly walking the logging roads. Possibly lost in the bush; possibly heading for Cedar Lake by birchbark canoe. Or possibly dead by now.

That was that. Other than the remaining unpleasant phone call to Ottawa. The captain decided to leave out his theories on canoe building to the General. He would be sure to get a migraine trying to explain all that.

Such was the end and start of the 'extensive search' for Hans Hamler, POW at large. The Captain just hoped he would turn up alive sooner than found drowned later.

***

News, gossip and the common cold spread very fast at Brent with its Algonquin park ranger station and also having the CNR crew switching depot. It had a population of about 75 people in 1944. Well, permanent, that is , over the winter. In the summer, its numbers could swell to a couple of hundred on a long weekend, if you counted the campers on the lake too.

Normally, however, what was considered the residents was about two dozen adult males, a dozen adult females and the rest various forms of children. The offspring of the afore mentioned adults paired up in marriage, with the 'leftover' adult males being either young men on the CNR or young loggers not yet fully employed enough to leave the family nest.

The Algonquin park ranger, a one Francis Dubois, had a wife called Marie and one child. a daughter of eighteen years old. She was named Marie Mackenzie Molly Madelline Marguerite Dubois after various relatives of her French, Scottish and English ancestry.

Having the longest name in all the world (or so it seemed to her whenever the nuns at school bellowed it out fully after catching her at some prank) she also had the shortest form...Mmmmms...pronounced Ems, the plural of five Ms .

Ems, old enough now to be out of school but young enough not to be married, was the third at Brent to get the news about the escaped POW. Or the fourth.

Marie, her mother, got it from Francis. Well, not directly; she overheard it, listening in to her husband's conversation on the phone to the POW camp. She immediately phoned the neighbour when her husband went to the bathroom and Ems heard of it then.

In ten minutes, a committee of wives with a few pre-school toddlers in tow had assembled at the Dubois back door. They all immediately set to talking of such things as closing the school, evacuating Brent and even allowing old man Saunders to have back his gun after he shot at a train thinking it was the biggest one-eyed moose he had ever seen.

Francis spent an hour getting them all calmed down. He added a few 'little lies' about 'extensive on-going military manhunt' and 'firmly believed to have headed west'.The crowd eventually was somewhat calmed and then scattered to make lunch for the school crowd about to be let out for an hour.

Marie, however, was not fooled. She had heard the 'entire' conversation, both ends of the phone.

Once the last neighbour was out of ear shot, Francis turned and complained sternly beforehis wife's dubious expression."Well, Marie, are you happy? You got the whole damn village now in an uproar and a panic. That was confidential information privy only to official Park personnel and the Military, you know. You had no business listening in or releasing it to the general public without my permission."

Marie never was and never would be intimidated by her steely outside marshmallowy inside woodsman ranger husband.

"Hah! You men and your big secrets. Pooh! That's what I say. Keep it all to yourselfs...and I know why too! So you wont have to get off your duffs and do anything about anything!

It took nearly two years for you men to fix the town well cover and you bunch of 'lent crapauds' would still be sitting on your warts talking about it if old Saunder's poor deer hound hadn't fallen through it finally, 'stead of one of the town kids, fortunately. And what about the dock, them loose boards, shameful. And..."

Francis raised his hands in surrender "Ok. Ok. Quit, will ya! I got your subtle point, woman!"

Trying to divert attention from a what was likely to be a long list of unfinished tasks, he turned to his daughter. Ems had been grinning while listening and packing her day pack with some snacks and a hot thermos of coffee.

"What or where do you think you are going, young lady?" Francis asked his daughter.

Ems smiled warmly at her dad and shrugged. "Oh, just paddle around, Papa. I'm bored. Maybe look for some fresh peppermint for tea on the shoreline."

"Hah, I know what you are up to Margaret Marie." Other than the nuns in school her papa was the only one whodidn't call her Ems. Instead he was always using some shorter combination of the five, sometimes even forgetfully adding a new name she didn't have!

"You're thinkin' of poking around the lake looking for that POW. Well, forget it. You can go out but stay on the West side of the lake for today."

Her mother spoke up "Aw, leave her alone, Francis. That girl's got more sense than three of you rangers put together." She handed a couple of cookies to her daughter and kissed her on the cheek. Then she added "Still, for once, listen to what your Papa says. Stay over here on the West Side so your pauvre Maman doesn't worry, ok, Ems? Besides your right, some peppermint would be nice and it grows best on the west side, tu sais ça?"

Her father spoke up "Hah, she should be out hunting for a husband, not some peppermint!"

Ems shook her head at her father "Oh, Papa, all the boys around here are such smucks. They just want a wife who will give them lots of babies and cook pies all day. I want a lot more of a life than that!"

Her mother wagged her finger at Ems. "Now, Ems, don't sass back at your father too much" Marie then turned back to Francis "Still she's right you know, they are all smucks. Not good enough for her that's for sure."

Francis objected "What about the Renee kid? Jacques' boy? He's a nice lad and he's got a job now at the mill near Mattawa"

Marie took her spoon out of some dough she was stirring and shook it at her husband "Him?! He's only seventeen and as dumb as a deaf mule. It's a wonder he can figure out what foot to start with when he gets up to walk!"

"Ok. Ok. I can't do this all day. I got an escapee to deal with, remember?"

Marie put her hands on her hips and looked at her husband with very sceptical eyebrows again " And what, pray tell, has the Great Cedar Lake Ranger decided to do to protect the weak and helpless of Brent in these dangerous times?"

"Well, I have to radio this into the Super at Two Rivers. The Captain hasn't asked for a full search for a missing person to start yet. That's usually not for twenty four hours. So right now, it's strictly a military matter. The train will be in late this afternoon or evening. I'll get some of the crew together and then we'll see."

Marie laughed and turned to her daughter "And there you have it, Ems. Don't you feel a lot safer now? I know I do. Just knowing the men are going to talk about doing something for another day, well it, it just calms me right down."

Ems had to laugh. Then she picked up her pack, life jacket and paddle and after a kiss for both her parents, headed out the door.

As long as she could ever remember her mother always won every discussion, hands down. Poor Papa. It was a good thing he was still so much in love with Maman or one day his feelings might actually be hurt.

***

At about one pm in the afternoon, Hans woke up. He felt a little stiff and sore from some of the banging around he had taken last night on the trails but for the most part he felt fit and ready to go. The all night paddle had given him some stiff shoulders but he hoped they would loosen up again once he got going again.

He headed south in the canoe, snacking just a little to conserve food.

It took Hans about two hours to find the opening to the Petawawa. Fortunately, the wind had been relatively calm on the lake which helped him because he could hear the falls marked on his map from quite far away.

It also helped with his paddling that there was no 'chop' or waves. Hans hugged the shore both out of his own nervousness and to remain as invisible as possible.

Spotting what he figured to be the bay leading into the river mouth, he decided to cross over to it and save a little time.

He was a couple of hundred meters from shore when he heard an airplane. He stopped paddling and looked up all around over his head but could see nothing.

The drone got louder and louder, soon to be well above the sound of the falls. It occurred to Hans to look toward Brent.

Sure enough a plane was coming from the direction of the town. It seemed to Hans to be at an impossibly low distance from the water.

He started frantically paddling to get into the river. As the plane went over, Hans dove down on the floor of his canoe. He missed seeing the laughing faces above him, nor did he see a small heavy object tossed from the plane at his canoe.

Hans heard a long whistle and then what seemed to be a tremendous splash beside him. Mein Gott! He was being bombed!

While the plane banked tight for another attack, Hans grabbed the paddle again and furiously tried again for the river.

Again the plane swept over. Hans dove down, this time grabbing Wilhelm's axe handle and putting it over his head for cover. It wasn't much cover for sure but, then, he really wasn't thinking straight as he was really desperately concentrating on not emptying his bowels. He definitelydidn't want to die in that state!

Four times he was bombed while in between he paddled like a madman towards safety.

Once he heard a loud bang and the canoe shook. He assumed a dud bomb had bounced of the gunwale, at least saving the inner skin from a big hole. Not to mention, not being blown to bits!

Finally he was in the river enough that the plane quit its dive bombing tactics and flew away. Indeed it was lucky that Hans was that close when the plane spotted him. Had he been out further, the pilot would have been able skim much closer to the water and smash Hans and his canoe with his pontoons.

Hans just kept paddling fast, wanting to rid himself of that lake as quickly as possible. He finally recovered his 'senses' enough to notice again the sound of the falls. He stopped paddling to dig his map back out of his pack.

Looking down at it, he didn't notice a small green canoe parked on the shoreline at the cove beach along the river. Beside it was a young pretty girl in a slouch hat and a khaki shirt and pants. She was standing with a life jacket and paddle gawking at Hans going drifting swiftly by.

Unfortunately, by the time Hans saw how close the falls was to the mouth of the river on the map, he realized the current was already too strong. Try as hard as he could, he couldn't get his little vessel to even turn towards shore, let allow go there. Then he tried going with the current, to use it to get to shore but by then he was trapped in the white water.

The canoe tipped and Hans fell out. He went under. The cold water was a terrible shock, he almost passed out from it but panic took over. He started kicking frantically, clawing upwards and he came back up.

Hans was close enough to the swamped canoe to grab a gunwale with one hand and climb in with the other. Instead of a gunwale, however, he had grabbed Wilhelm's axe handle instead.

The current surged and Hans was pulled away from the canoe.

With a yell he went over the Falls, holding Wilhelm's axe handle as if it could still save his life.

Ems had seen what was going to happen. She grabbed a coil of rope and the life jacket and ran as fast as she could down the portage trail to the bottom of the falls. She knew if the man survived the rocks, he would end up going round and round in the swirl pool that the high spring flood waters made at the bottom of the falls. No matter how good a swimmer they were no one could get out of there alone. They would only have a few minutes before the icy cold water would kill them.

Ems reached the bottom of the trail, then smashed through the underbrush to the water's edge as fast as she could.

She waded out as far as she dared, then stood scanning the whirlpool. Nothing.

Then a head appeared, sputtering. Then arms flailing.

Ems tied the rope to the jacket and wrapping the other end around her left hand so as not to lose it. She flung the jacket out at the head as it came towards her in the moving current.

"GRAB IT! THE JACKET! GRAB IT!" Ems screamed above the roar of the water.

Hans heard the voice but at first didn't realize what was going on. He missed the jacket the first time but as he came around again, fighting to stay above water, Ems pulled the life jacket across the whirlpool. It hit Hans in the head and he grabbed it.

He hooked both arms through the arm holes and gripped tight on the axe handle. Hans immediately felt the rope tighten and start to drag him towards shore.

Ems stumbled backwards across the rocks with the rope twisted around both her hands. Then she turned around and with the rope now over her shoulder, heaved, slogged and cursed (she was a Ranger's daughter after all) her way up onto the bank.

She got the rope around a tree and was then able to winch Hans easier out of the pull of the whirlpool and into calmer eddies.

When she saw he was in the shallows, she tied off the rope and ran back down to drag him out.

Once on land, Hans just lay still for a few moments, drained of any strength. Ems understood and let him rest a bit but then she started tugging at him. "Come on, mister. Get up. Get movin' or you'll freeze to death even out of the water. Come on, I've got hot coffee and I'll build a fire."

Hans managed to get on all fours, then finally on his shaky feet. He took a good look at his saviour...er...the girl. She was very pretty, probably around nineteen or twenty he thought. Brunette hair in pigtails under a Capone style hat. With large green eyes, petite nose and a very wide smile, her only flaw might be, to Hans, that she was an inch taller than himself.

Even half frozen through and through, Hans felt the heat of his face as he blushed deeply for staring at the girl so long.

"Er...tha...thank you...umm...Miss..." he stammered out between his shyness and his chattering teeth.

"You're welcome. My name is Ems Dubois. And...well...you, sir , are very lucky to be alive. It was lucky, too, that the water was so high; it took you right over without smashing you up on the rocks."

"Yes, I...thank you again, Miss...what was your name...please?"

"Ems. Short for Marie Mackenzie Molly Madelline Marguerite. Five Ms, get it?"

"Yes, I think so" said Hans as he proceeded to wring out his sleeves.

"Hey, fella, what's your name anyway?"

"Er...Jack...Jack Spratt."

Ems burst out laughing "You'd better think up a better English name than that!"

Hans shook his head "No, really, it is my name."

Ems smiled her charming grin again and replied "Jack Sprat is it? With a German accent, a birchbark canoe or what's left of it and POW letters on your coveralls where you tried to hide it with..." she reached around and wiped her finger on Hans' upper back "... I'd say a mix of grease and charcoal?"

Hans had to grin. "Ok then, its Hans Hamler" and he held out his slightly shaking hand.

Ems shook it then exclaimed "My god, man, you're freezing. Let's get that coffee and fire going."

Ems moved to get the rope and life jacket. Hans started towards the trail, then stopped.

"Wait, my canoe...is it...?"

Ems shook his head. "Goners, I'm afraid." Ems pointed to a piece of birchbark circling in the pool. "The rocks got it for sure. You were better off being out of it, that's for sure."

Hans reached down and picked up Wilhelm's axe handle and stumbled after Ems up the trail.

A couple of minutes later and Hans was holding a steaming mug while wrapped up in Ems' heavy jacket.

"Miss Ems, this is very good coffee, twice the strength of the stuff at the camp."

"Call me just Ems. Miss Ems has too many emsin it. The coffee...well, my mother has a special trick. She puts in a herb called chicory. It grows wild and it's free. No ration there. It adds a good kick, doesn't it?"

She stood up and started gathering up twigs. "Now you need a fire going."

"No. No, thank you. I have no time for that. I must...well...continue my journey."

"How? You gonna walk to Germany?"

Hans felt a twinge of resentment, like he was being mocked back at the camp. "No. Actually, I am afraid I must commandeer...is that the word?...er...your canoe. When I am done with it, I assure you I will leave a note on it with your name and Brent, Algonquin Park so it could possibly be returned to you."

Ems stood exactly like her mother did, hands on hips, full eyebrows up. "And, what if I decide, Mr POW, that I'm not gonna let you goddamn well commandeer my canoe? What the hell do you say to that?"

"Well...I..." Hans looked at Wilhelm's axe handle leaning on the tree where he had set it. He knew Wilhelm would be very angry, very disgusted with him if he even dared just raise it up to threaten the girl.

Ems, however, saw where his eyes went and became even angrier. "What! You're gonna hit me with that. A poor defenceless French Canadian Scottish girl alone in the bush? The same girl, I might add, Mr POW, that saved your goddamn neck from the bloody river behind you!"

"No. No. Please. I mean you no harm but I need that canoe, Miss...er...well, I have to escape."

"Why? Was the food that bad?"

Hans got testy. He didn't mind angry but he didn't like her mocking him again. He stood up.

"No. It is because...well...it is the duty of every German soldier to attempt to escape."

Ems shot back "So Hitler's ten thousand miles away but he's ordering you directly to steal my canoe?"

Hans didn't reply. Just stood there.

Ems could see that somehow she had hurt his feelings, his dignity. She didn't know why it bothered her but it did.

She had never minded hurting the feelings (if they had any feelings) of any of the local boys who tried courting her. They'd talk sweet and charming at first but when Ems would talk of wanting a different life, adventure, something out of the ordinary...well, then the boys would get all 'well I'm the man talkin' here and then Ems would send them running for damn cover pretty quick.

She guessed maybe she kinda liked this boy, this Hans fella. 'Not romantically, of course, God, he's a kraut' she thought to herself 'but...well, he's different. Sensitive. Kind. She could tell. Like her papa on the inside when no one was with them. Just Papa and her out lake trout fishing. He'd talk a lot more then. About life. And ask Ems about stuff too. And he would listen with a real respect and interest in what she had to say.

She shook her head, realizing that for a few moments her and Hans had just been standing there looking at each other. Like they were sizing each other up.

She bent her will a little. Just a little. For his dignity. 'Cause she knew in a real fight she could easily throw her little German catch back into the Petawawa.

"Tell you what. You take, I mean, you borrow little Numees Nuttah, my canoe, that is, but with one condition."

"Which is?" replied Hans.

"That you take me with you. As a hostage."

"What! I cant do that, I..."

Ems held up her hand to interrupt "Listen, I'm going for two reasons. I'm not going back to that village without my canoe and face all that ridicule and kidding about some German kid, no offense, stealing my canoe. And, second, I'm not depending on someone's good will in bringing Numees Nuttah back to me. I'll go too and bring it back."

Hans shrugged then smiled. "Well, I understand the ridicule part. But why do you call your canoe Numees Nuttah?"

"It's Algonquin Indian. It means 'Sister of My Heart "

She took out the paddle and as she bent down to pick up the canoe and hoist it onto her shoulders she said "And that, my dear POW, is why I am going with her."

She started off briskly down the trail, adding, "Bring the rest of the stuff, will ya!"

The canoe loaded, they had a quick bite to eat, then Ems (with a great reluctance but hid it well) got in the bow seat and allowed Hans to guide the canoe.

Just as they started downstream, Hans thought he heard the plane again but wasn't sure. He mentioned it to Ems, trying to be casual.

"Oh yeah, no, I think that might be the big saw starting up at the sawmill at Brent." She turned and looked at Hans "By the way, that was quite a show at the Lake back there. They got real close to you a couple of times."

"You saw that? Them bombing me?"

"Oh, those weren't bombs. That was the Olsen twins, Kevin and Neil. They got a little plane and they were flying building supplies to a wealthy guy with a leased cottage on Cauchon Lake. The 'bombs' they dropped on ya, those were bricks. If it's any conciliation they probably weren't trying to kill you, just put a hole in your canoe. And having a laugh while they're at it."

"Well, I'm glad they ran out of bricks."

Ems shook her head "They probably didn't run out. Those bricks are pretty expensive when you fly them in."

They moved along the river a bit then Hans asked "Well, how did they know it was me anyway?"

Ems shrugged "Well, one hopes they knew it was you."

There was a quiet spell and then Ems spoke up this time as she sipped a cup of coffee. She was certainly enjoying the leisurely ride, even refraining from criticizing Hans' paddle technique. "Hans?"

"Yes?"

"You actually handled yourself pretty well then. You know the plane thing. Paddling like hell. Then ducking down. Then paddling again. Looked pretty brave."

Hans tried to say "Thank you" but his embarrassment resulted in a cough so he just enjoyed his first ever compliment from a girl quietly. He didn't spoil it by trying to open his mouth again.

The next portage was short, the rapids small. In fact Ems usually ran it but she didn't mention that to Hans.

In the river, paddling again, this time Hans sat in the front holding Wilhelm's axe handle across his legs. Ems did the paddling, she said it would be best if they alternated paddling and resting till the Ottawa. Hans watched Ems paddle, she certainly was good at it.

It made Hans wonder why such an outspoken, opinionated girl hadn't criticized him for his lack of skills.

They moved along the Petawawa, snacking a bit more and exchanging stories of their childhoods.

Despite the great differences in geography, it was surprising how similar their upbringing was. Loving family, quiet natural settings, a good wholesome pace to live. Course, Ems was a tomboy through and through; sports, canoeing, camping, fishing, Hans felt almost intimidated by all that.

Still, Ems loved Hans' stories of going to the old German cities with his grandfather. The enormous churches and buildings, centuries old architecture. Sometimes they would stay over night and enjoy the old cafes and small restaurants, Hans as a young fellow gawking at so many different sights and people.

They were coming up to a railroad bridge overhead of the river. Hans heard the roar of rapids even louder than the one he had nearly drown in.

On the right, he could now see a portage sign. He waited for Ems to paddle towards it but she didn't turn.

He turned around to tell Ems to head for shore. She was softly crying.

"What are you doing?" Hans yelled.

Ems didn't reply to him at first. Then she wiped at her nose with her sleeve and said "I'm sorry, Hans. I cant let you do it. Take her. Take her and use her for your escape. I never intended to. I'm sorry I tricked you. You have your orders as a German. Well, I'm a Canadian and I have mine."

She threw the paddle out into the faster moving water. Then with a long gentle caress across Numees Nuttah's thwart, she tipped the canoe over.

Hans was weaker from his first struggle in the cold water but this time he felt a good tug on his collar and heard a voice behind him " Kick damn it, will ya! I've got the life jacket with us too but I'll be damned if I'm going to drag your Prussian butt out of this river again all by myself."

Even in the shock of the cold, Hans wondered where she got the strength to both swim and yak at him at the same time.

Once on shore, dripping wet, Ems stood and looked for Numees Nuttah. She searched the shoreline with her eyes but she knew it was long since gone down the cascading rapids into the falls. It would not survive. No canoe ever did there.

She turned away and helped Hans get up. Together they climbed up the rocky embankment to get to the rail line.

North to Brent. South to Ottawa.

Hans stood there, not knowing what to do, what to say. He still, somehow, had Wilhelm's axe handle in his hand.

Ems pointed down the track, south, across the bridge.

"Mexico. It's that way."

Hans nodded. Started to go.

"So you're still gonna try. Do you really know how far it is, Mr Hans Hamler? To walk? Without food? In POW clothing?"

"Well, I believe Montreal is about three hundred kilometers. Then the United States. That I believe is maybe four hundred kilometers wide to get to Mexico."

Ems shook her head "Jesus H...No wonder they call you guys blockheads. Hans, the States is about two thousand miles long. I mean between Canada and Mexico. That's like four thousand kilometers, isn't it?"

Hans went a little pale but he shrugged "It does not matter. I must at least try. Until I am captured again."

"Or shot, you fool."

Hans raised himself up straighter and with a dignified look said to Ems "I do not think name calling is necessary. As you said when we were on the river, we both have our orders." He added, more gently " and ...well...I am sorry for the loss of your Numees Nuttah."

Ems eyes softened as well "Well, we both lost a canoe today." She stuck out her hand "No hard feelings, then?"

Hans shook her hand "None. Thank you again for saving my life. Twice."

"Well, the second time was kinda of an obligation...you know...for ruining your escape plans."

"Nonetheless, you could have just let me drown."

"Naw, isn't there a Geneva convention or something about that?"

They both grinned.

"Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

Hans turned and began to walk across the bridge. Ems just stood there watching him go.

Hans stopped.

Then he raised up Wilhelm's axe handle and pointed towards the other end of the bridge.

"What the hell is that?" he asked in a low voice without taking his eyes of the object of his inquiry.

Ems moved closer, looked down the bridge till she saw what Hans was pointing at.

"That, Mr Hamler, is a Canadian Black Bear. Kinda scraggly in spring but I would say that's a fairly large male one."

"I see. Do they bite?"

"Only when they are hungry?"

"And when are they hungry?"

"Pretty well all the time in the spring."

"What's it doing?"

Ems squinted for a better look. "Eating leaves. Till something better comes along, I guess."

"Do they eat meat?"

"Yup."

Hans continued to just stand there, staring at the bear.

A couple of moments went by and Ems gently put her hand to Hans' arm. "Have you ever played baseball, Hans?"

"Well, no, what is it?" asked Hans, still watching the bear.

"Well, to be brief, you try to hit a ballthat someone tosses at you with a stick called a bat. If you miss it's called a strike. Three strikes and you're out. So let's say you now have three strikes, Hans. Let's just say you're out, ok?"

"I don't understand."

"Well, the plane was technically a foul ball as it nicked you or you nicked it, whatever, doesn't matter.

At the first falls you lost a canoe. One strike.

Second falls, second canoe, second strike.

Now this bear. Third strike. You're out of the game, Mister. Time to pack up and go home."

Hans replied "I would not wish you to think I am afraid."

"I sure as hell would be afraid."

"Really?"

"Really."

Hans looked down at his axe handle.

"You can't defeat a Canadian bear with that, Hans."

"No. I mean, I know. It wasn't that. It was something else. This axe handle. It...well... it belonged to a friend. At the camp. I was just thinking of him. I know he would not want me to even try to hit that bear with it. Like you. I mean that's why I didn't threaten you with...it was his...all that he..."

Hans started to cry. He didn't feel ashamed in front of Ems, in fact he desperately wanted her to hold him, to cry with him, to somehow, together, start cleaning up the world again with tears...it didn't make sense...but, at least, it didn't destroy either...

He stopped. Looked at Ems. She had tears too. For him. For Numees Nuttah. For all those local boys who had left full of live for England but she knew most would never return alive to Canada. She still had her hand on his arm.

"I think your war is over, Mr. Hans Hamler. I think you can home now. You've done what you can. Your duty. Leave it alone now.

Besides, if you walk near that bear; if it attacks you, then I will have to run up and help and if the bear wins and kills us, then others will come and attack the bear and kill it and why? Because one man didn't finally say 'Enough.'

I know it's just a stupid French Canadian Scottish girl theory but..."

Hans interrupted "It is not stupid, Ems. It will never be stupid."

Hans turned so he could take a long look back up the Petawawa River. Listening to the falls. Feeling the wind at his face. Sensing Ems beside him looking the same way, feeling the same alive. He remembered what Wilhelm had said about tea and a fire and wood sap.

"Ems?"

"Yeah?"

"You and Wilhelm are right. It's enough. For me. This is enough."

They turned and started walking towards Brent.

Ems spoke first with Hans quietly walking beside her, Wilhelm's axe handle over his shoulder.

"The train comes along probably in a half hour. If we hide when it goes by, it will be too late to have you shipped back to the POW camp tonite. The road's too long, usually the train takes any soldiers part way first.

My father is the main Ranger for this area so you'll probably be under house arrest at our house. Do you like apple pie, Hans? If my mother has enough apples left, I can probably get her to bake you one. And maybe a ham? And baked beans? and fresh bread?"

"Stop it, Ems. You're making me so hungry, I'll be eating leaves like that bear back there! Still, it sounds great, I will be very honoured...and delighted...to turn myself in to your father."

"Great. After supper, if you promise on your honour as a soldier and a gentleman not to try to escape, I'll talk Papa into letting me take you lake trout fishing!"

"Fishing? On the lake? In a canoe?"

Ems laughed at her new friend. "No, I've had enough of dragging you out of the water all day. We'll go out in Papa's boat and motor! And no tipping, I promise!"

They walked a little more.

"Ems?"

"Yeah?"

" I promise before I return to Germany, I will help you build another Numees Nuttah."

"That's a deal, buddy." She held out her hand "Shake on it?"

They shook.

********

Hans did not return to Germany when the war ended. Though he did visit later from time to time.

Due to manpower shortages, Hans was allowed to stay in Canada and work as a carpenter for Algonquin parks.

Ems and Hans were married in September 1946.

They had six children together and were very very busy with a family and with Han's carpentry work and business and Ems work as a camp councilor and family camping guide.

Amazingly enough, they did find time for a few special hours here and there to fish for lake trout together in the evening.

They preferred to use Numees Nuttah the Second for those special times.

A beautiful well made canoe built very lovingly with four hands back in the summer of 1946.

It was also a very distinctive canoe because it had one feature unlike any other canoe in Algonquin Park.

One of its thwarts was an axe handle.

THE END

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To this book I would also like to add an extradedication in memory to Auntie M (Marjorie Amey Giles August 1915 to June 2012), Brenda's aunt and friend and inspiration...one of the most vibrant and dynamic persons I've everknown... 'It is only the terrible world of men which makes the women in it seem weak.....Should we men finally and inevitably decline in our gender phobic grip of power, a stronger and yet gentler humanity will emerge. Strangely, when all women arise to all they truly are, even men will be better for it'

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