Last Exit to Pine Lake Read online

  Last week, I started a new shelter here at Pine Lake. I haven’t seen Paul in months. I raise a glass to him. I think I’ll kill him. Won’t he be surprised!

  So many gone and leaving me alone. Winter is coming. The stars are further away and cold as Old Eyes.

  I’ll be able to fish through the ice, I hope. I can kill Paul. He was friend but I was alone and now he is enemy. I can wait for him. Now I wish I had a boat.

  Maybe I’ll eat him! I can join his past and my future in a roasted leg.

  Maybe Paul doesn’t come here any more.

  I’ve pounded on the gates of Paradise when I was young. Not even echoes. And I wanted so little.

  That’s not His voice in the wind. In the water. That’s just the emptiness of His not being.

  Paul will understand why he must die for all the sins of his youth, my youth, God’s youth. I can offend the Old Fart when I kill my only friend Paul.

  ****

  Clothing and Appearance

  There have been a few quests for more descriptions of the characters in this narrative.

  Paul Gottsen

  Paul’s 62, slightly shorter than average, with a shock of gray hair and a small bald patch at the back. He keeps his hair reasonably short. His skin, once ruddy, is now pale. He has a bit of a hook nose, blue eyes, and small eyebrows. He moves with a slight limp and a marked hesitation. He hasn’t shaved for a couple of weeks so he has the start of a gray-black beard.

  Throughout the story he wears dark green work pants, a shirt with side vertical stripes of blue and brown with a white undershirt peeking at the top of the shirt. He wears a dark blue nylon coat, a brown Tilley hat, and brown leather boots that he got at a yard sale (he liked the idea of them having served in earlier campaigns).

  Peter Finer

  Peter shows up at the Naylor’s place wearing blue jeans and a flannel shirt thinly-striped in red and white. He has a good but somewhat worn pair of Nike hiking shoes and red socks. He has a deep voice.

  He’s taller than average, with a slightly knobbly look, and a tendency for his body to settle into odd angles when he’s not moving. He has black hair and brown eyes, and tends to look unshaven after half a day.

  Rollie lends him a warm and waterproof nylon jacket, dark blue with bright orange markings and a flexible yellow lifejacket to wear over it. As well, Rollie provides him a Blue Jays hat and some orange plastic gloves.

  Kimberley Molley

  She's 21, currently a slightly overweight redhead with rather short hair and a bit tall. She wears jeans and light brown shirt with a tan sweater over it. She has blue, cotton-lined plastic gloves and an orange baseball cap with the university logo on it. She wears leather boots and red wool socks. She’s taken a lightweight green camouflage-coloured raincoat. She wears contact lenses, coloured to change her blue eyes into something with a violet tinge.

  Her coat is insulated nylon, with a hood built in, in yellow with blue markings. She uses an orange lifejacket.

  Mad Tom

  Tom’s a big man in his late forties. He lives in a home-built shelter near Pine Lake. He wears a coat that’s dark brown with darker stains. His jeans are worn, and his black army boots have a rip along one edge. He often wears a blue, nylon, wool-lined head covering that can be unfolded to cover his ears.

  Tam Naylor

  Tam’s in her mid-forties. She has brown hair with a couple of blonde highlights. She’s more overweight than Kimberley. When we first meet her, she’s wearing a blue hand-knitted sweater over a cream-coloured blouse, pale blue slacks, and white shoes with black socks.

  The next day, when Peter shows up, she’s wearing blue jeans, a red sweater (also hand-knitted) over a black sweatshirt.

  Rollie Naylor

  Rollie’s a tall, thin, bald man, with a strong, well-shaved chin, large brown eyes, and a small nose. Whenever you meet him at the cottage, he’ll be wearing his deer-patterned (and hand knitted) cardigan over a plaid shirt. In this narrative, he’s got on the cardigan, a blue plaid shirt, green cords, brown socks, and Velcro-fastened running shoes.

  ****

  CHAPTER TWO

  ****

  Notes from Kimberley Molley, Student

  Thanks, Cindy! I’m glad you vouched for me when they phoned. I figured they’d ask where I went, but I guess they won’t do that until they figure out Paul Gottsen didn’t die in the fire. That’s right! The neighbour thinks he set fire to his own cottage and left in a canoe. I don’t know if he’s right or not but he might be, so who knows, we might be out in the woods together. Or maybe the neighbour was wrong.

  In any case I hope they don’t come barging into the woods too fast. I’d like a night or two out on my own. It’ll be strange, but I don’t think the local sasquatch will get me. Or maybe I’ll hook up with him and we’ll raise hairy kids underneath the spruce trees!

  It’ll be nice to be alone out here. It’s been a long time since I’ve been out here alone. There won’t be anybody else out here I think, since this is off the main canoe routes. If I don’t get in touch by the weekend, I’m probably lost or married to the sasquatch.

  Later. I got a portage to do. The first one is a short but steep sucker, over to Sparkler Lake – 125m. Then 700m to Pine Lake. It’s not as hilly, but there’s a swampy part in the middle. It’s been a dry fall, so maybe it won’t be so bad. Glad there’s no bugs, but I gotta hoof it since it gets dark pretty early now. Gotta camp while I can still see a place to put the tent!

  *****

  Hi, Self:

  Welcome back.

  Took the canoe and the pack at the same time! Went over the hill and down to Sparkler Lake. Got to get in better condition. Damn near killed me.

  Sparkler’s a little shallow lake and I can’t imagine anybody would like it. I don’t know why; maybe it’s too shallow for any mysteries. I’m taking a short break before crossing Sparkler and going into the woods on the other side. It seems a bit strange being out in the woods without Fred or anybody else, but I get to do a bit of thinking if I want to. Night comes early this time of year, so I could have four or five hours alone in front of a campfire before going to sleep. Maybe I can have a couple of long conversations with myself.

  It seems even stranger following the trail of a dying man.

  Self? Are you listening? Will I ever read this?

  How would Paul Gottsen have put the whole thing into one of his novels? As a person with a bad dream?

  Once, at a campsite by Gold Lake, Fred had shown her the difference between red oak leaves and white oak leaves. He’d had her feel the texture of each tree’s bark and had told her about Tom Dooley hanging from a white oak tree. White oaks like hard, rocky country.

  That white oak afternoon she and Fred talked about things. She liked islands, she told him, trying to explain about seabirds and waves and sunsets, but he laughed and said that was a bit slow for his style. He was good with his cars and motors, she had to admit. She talked about her twin nephews, age two, how they were always falling into water or running after squirrels, but he wrinkled his nose and rubbed the back of his head and they talked about Sandi and Kyle’s break-up instead.

  That night Tom Dooley looked down on their little tent from up on the white oak tree, and the next day they paddled back at the end of summer and lots of other things to Fred’s shiny car.

  That was then, she thought suddenly. This is now. Better get going; it’s a long portage to Pine Lake.

  ****

  News Release: Bancroft Police Service

  Fire at Cottage on Long Lake

  October 2

  For More Information contact Constable Bruce Knight, Bancroft Police Service 705-211-1508

  Shortly after 6:15 this morning, Bancroft Police attended a fire on Long Lake, Fire Road 41. When they arrived a cottage was fully engulfed in fire. The Bancroft Fire Department arrived shortly thereafter. Neighbours say they called in the fire before dawn and tried to enter the building to see if the owner, a lone male, was
inside.

  Police, however, were unable to enter the building because of the intensity of the fire. The Fire Department was unable to save the building, which was reduced to ashes.

  The cottage is owned by one Paul Gottsen, who lived there year round. Police are asking for public assistance in locating Mr. Gottsen.

  The Fire Marshal from Peterborough County is assisting in the investigation.

  ****

  Portage To Pine Lake. Fire Day. October 2.

  Kimberly crossed Sparkler Lake, pulling the canoe through the rushes on the far side where it was shallow and muddy. For the first time she could see that someone had been that way not long before, and suspected Rollie might just be right after all. Then again, people still go to all the lakes, if only to explore or hunt ducks.

  It’s a six hundred metre portage from Sparkler Lake to Pine Lake, up a gentle slope, then abruptly down near the end. The trail wasn’t officially marked nor well-traveled, but there are signs if you watch for them. Trees and branches have ribbons or strings tied to them, most often by duck hunters, or there may be notches cut into trees. Where there’s open spaces and granite floor open to the sun, there will be little piles of stones to guide you. These, a map, and a compass, and you’ll likely find your way.

  Kimberly wasn’t strong enough to carry everything at the same time over this longer portage. She took the packsack, paddles, and lifejacket first, memorizing the path tree by tree. About a third of the way she set the gear down and went back for the canoe. Learning the route helped, because with a canoe on your head, you can’t see as well.

  So she did the trip in stages, finally getting it all down to the shore of Pine Lake among a tangle of berry bushes.

  The lake area north of Peterborough is a mix of lakes, woods, and stretches of open granite-floored spaces. Lakes which have a lot of open rock along the shores seem sunnier, even happier than those that don’t. Pine Lake was lined with pines, giving it a gloomy aspect, and a sense of many mysteries. Not far out, however, a peninsula – really an island with a swampy link to the west shore – was more open. Drawn up on the rock of the island was a blue canoe. A man lay beside the canoe, face to the sky.

  “Well, then,” she said. Her heart pounded. She clenched her hands together, then straightened her hair with one hand. She would have asked her mother had she the chance, and her mother would have said she made a promise to Tam, if not to Rollie. She pushed the canoe into Pine Lake.

  In the deepest parts of the lake swam a large burbot, tasting the water and waiting for darkness: Burbot like darkness and cold. Looking like a cross between a catfish and an eel, a burbot is in fact a type of freshwater cod. Separated by only a short distance, he lived in a different world than Kimberley, and barely flicked his tail at the noise that travelled to him.

  ****

  Paul Gottsen. Fire Day. October 2. Notes into an MP3 Recorder

  Christ, I thought that portage would kill me. Still no luck that way, though. Fell down enough times, but it doesn’t look like I’m going to get help doing this. Still got that little bottle in my coat pocket, so there’s still a plan in place, even if it’s only mine.

  Coughing blood, but the pills have kept the pain down somewhat. One eye’s gone bad, and the other’s a bit fuzzy. If that Grim Reaper comes in a canoe, he’ll have to speak up: I can’t tell anything by sight.

  I’m on a rocky island on Pine Lake. The day’s still warm, but it must be getting past mid-afternoon. Going to cool down pretty soon.

  I’ve camped here before and had picnic lunches here in summers past. Jennifer, of the pink hair, and Amy with the granola, for sure. Stephanie, the preacher’s daughter and her strange prayers, and Kelly who wouldn’t let me catch fish. And others. And lunch with Mad Tom once, right here in the firepit, with a rabbit and some squirrels he’d brought. I miss them all: I don’t want any of them here. I wish them sunshine and lilacs in the spring.

  Can’t decide whether to make a last campfire or not. Or how long to wait. I’m enjoying this, actually. I like the sound of water on the rocks and the wind in the dying leaves of the trees. The birds are quiet at this time of year, except for geese heading one direction or another. They seem to fly everywhere but south at this time of year.

  The bass don’t rise for insects in the fall. A splashing in the cattails behind me is probably a beaver or muskrat. The bass swim slowly now, in the waters getting cold. Somewhere deeper maybe a pike stirs, pleased by the lower temperatures.

  The day is pleasant. The time bomb in me continues ticking. I wish I had brought and could ride a unicycle around this patch of flat rocks.

  ****

  Peter Finer, Journalist

  From his book, Dark Waters: A Life of Paul Gottsen.

  There was no mark on the shoreline where Paul Gottsen pulled his canoe from the water in the pre-dawn. Determination made him strong enough to get it out of sight behind the spruce that lined the water’s edge.

  Like a thousand times before, he rolled the canoe onto his head and started along the almost-invisible path that followed the steep, short rise from Long Lake up the portage trail. He knew he had to pass to the left of the old leaning oak and then just to the right of a storm-blasted pine. In a few minutes he walked onto pink and gray granite, mottled like a Holstein’s hide with patches of soft green moss.

  A portage is a bridge, no matter how difficult or easy it is.

  Pretend it’s nothing: just a walk with a canoe. That’s never true, no matter how often you might say it. A portage is a transition from the world of people to the world of wild. Suddenly you wonder if the wind in the aspen tops has meaning, or if it’s only wind; if those are only leaves. If the crows have things to say.

  There are silences that seem to have meaning in the woods. There is motion without life, floating in the sky, and you wonder if it will rain, or if there’s anything you can do about it by wishing or talking. There is so much the map cannot tell you.

  And you say to the silences of the woods and to the noises of the woods, “It is nothing. I know that.” But the doubts ride your shoulders like canoe, like packsacks. From your primeval brain, you watch the shadows carefully.

  The mysteries of the rising hill before you are very deep on your first portage. They are as deep on your last portage. Gottsen felt the mysteries of the forest that he’d brushed aside for years. Now he knew he would never solve them while he was alive.

  The hill was steeper than he remembered; the crest further away. There were darknesses he didn’t remember, but he struggled on, upwards suddenly doubting the wisdom of what he was about to do.

  The canoe weighed on his shoulders, heavier than it had ever been; its weight less relevant. Did the ground shift under his feet; did the world seem to move a bit for him this time as his disease reached for his consciousness? Was there fear or laughter at the finalness of it all?

  Over that portage, across small Sparkler Lake and onto the long portage to the final place, Pine Lake.

  There’s a difference between being away from your world in the woods, and finding your place in the woods. There’s a promise out there that cannot be denied. A glimpse, as you come along the trail, of a lake lined with aspens, and suddenly you’re not lost: you’re found. Then the portage is no longer an endless trail but a bridge from civil ground to the light, the lost Eden in front of you.

  At the top of the crest between Sparkler Lake and Pine Lake he came out of the woods onto an open area of pink granite and moss, with small pines and little twisted oaks scattered rather decoratively around. Small mounds of stones marked directions for hunters. Wherever there was a low place deep, soft, damp moss filled it in. His legs gave out at one point, and he fell again, and though his knees banged themselves on rock and old wood, his face fell into the moss. After a moment, he rolled the canoe off his shoulders and got onto his knees. He looked at his face’s imprint in the moss and muttered, “Toro, toro, toro. I am the Veronica of the bullring, and continue on.” Five mi
nutes later, he managed to get the canoe back onto his shoulders and started down the hill to the water.

  And so he came to Pine Lake in the middle of the day at the end of his life, light dancing on the waters. He paddled to a place where he’d probably camped many times before, a stretch of flat rock where he’d lit fires, watched the stars come out, or engaged in the fluid thump and groan, huff and chuckle of intercourse on a squeaky air mattress with whatever blonde, brunette, or redhead had shared his weekend.

  Ten hours behind him Kimberley Molley, a student at Lakefield University, began the portage from Long Lake to Sparkler Lake, unaware that she was following the same route. It’s unlikely Gottsen left any mark on his last passage, even if he fell several times with his canoe.

  At this time I was still drinking beer and playing cribbage with my brother-in-law. I hadn’t heard about the burning of the cottage, even if it was on the news. My in-laws weren’t big on news, not when a hockey game was on.

  When my sister asked what I was staying another day at the cottage for, I just shrugged and said I was going to explore some of the back roads. It was easier than trying to explain who Paul Gottsen was and why I wanted to interview him.

  I drank beer and ate popcorn till supper was served, then resumed the card games. The sun drew out the shadows on the lake as I lost most of the games, Kimberley Molley set up camp on Sparkler Lake and Mad Tom, unseen by either of them, erected a tarp on the shore to sleep under.

  It would be a long night for all of us.

  ****

  Mad Tom’s Diary

  Paul will understand why he must die for all the sins of his youth, my youth, God’s youth. I can offend the Old Fart when I kill my only friend Paul.

  I have been angry too long and the lack of wind chides me for it. I must be calmer, to see through the lies but they interrupt my thoughts like the birches and beeches interrupt my vision.

  I am worthy to baptize Paul in Pine Lake. Five minutes under water to cleanse him; maybe ten to make sure he can’t breathe like a fish.

  Forgive me, world; I am I.

  I am bounded in a nut shell and would be king of this infinite forest were it not that I have bad dreams. Methinks this Elsinore needs some leaves swept from the courtyard.