Last Exit to Pine Lake Read online

  I came here to Pine Lake three days ago. I stood on the very spot where I first saw Paul Gottsen coming down the portage trail three years ago. He was sweating in the heatness of August and I thought They’d sent him to chase out my thoughts, for They cannot permit free thinkers any more. Everyone must be on city water and/or city food so whatever they put into it can control them.

  He was sent for, to find me, I thought that first time, and I watched for a kind of confession in his looks, along the rifle barrel, the little dot of the front sight covering his ear.

  I talked with him instead, as he lay down his canoe. I shall speak to this walker in my woods. I was polite, and he was polite, and I didn’t know he wasn’t one of Them until our third meeting, on snowshoes the following winter. They were out to get him, too, for They cannot allow free thought or free men or free speech, so he was hiding just like me.

  Forgive me, for I was born in the moment where tigers are ripped from darkness and crows are painted black.

  I am tiger, I am crow. If they feared me enough I’d be back in the zoo. Caw!

  On the rocks by Pine Lake I built a shelter yesterday, a lean-to with a canvas top. It’ll keep the rain off while I build a little winter cabin. The driven snow and I will howl together, scaring the owls. I love to hear my own echoes.

  It was easier when I still had bullets for my little gun.

  ****

  Notes from Kimberley Molley, Student

  Hi, self. Here I am at the edge of Pine Lake. I’ve been to this lake once, but we moved on before dark and camped at Jonas Lake. That was with three canoes. Fred and I in one; Cindy and Paul in the other and some couple named Ian and maybe Collette or something like that. More than a year ago, when life was a bit more of an adventure and I had more options in my future. I remember Cindy and Paul got lost on the portage and we had to go find them. Cripes, I was with Fred for a year. Stupid.

  Easy to get lost in the woods, I suppose, but just as easy on the campus!

  I’ve tried to make as much noise as I could so I didn’t surprise anybody, because who likes to find someone right close to him when he thinks he’s alone. But when I got to the edge of the lake I could see someone out there lying on the open space. There’s not many open spaces on this lake: too many pines I guess too close to the shore.

  It’s got to be Paul Gottsen out there I think. I wish I’d remembered to ask Tam what colour canoe he took, but I didn’t so I’ll just have to assume that’s him.

  I don’t want to do this. I don’t. I don’t. Why did I volunteer for this stupid thing? I’ve got other things to worry about in life. Maybe I can just go up and say hello and give him the bottle of whiskey from Rollie. Then I can go somewhere. There might be a campsite at the other end of the lake by the old snowmobile club shack: I can’t remember. I can’t remember any other places along the shore, but I wasn’t watching then. Seems like a lifetime ago. Maybe it is, but not my lifetime I guess.

  If I just pass by and he kills himself or dies, then what do I tell the police and other people? But if I try to camp there I imagine he’ll be really pissed off. And if he dies while I’m there what do I tell people after when they ask why I didn’t go for help or something?

  Self, I don’t want to do any of this. Fuck it. Dad said a promise is a promise. As long as I don’t have to cremate the bastard like Sam McGee I should survive. Maybe he has a gun? To shoot himself. Cops investigate murder-suicide in back woods. Love pact between college kid and old writer fart or just was she just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Alcohol bottle had her fingerprints on it: did old guy shoot in self defence against drunken student?

  A promise made is a debt unpaid.

  I’ve loaded the canoe as noisily as I could. For a moment I thought I saw someone in the woods near a bunch of cedars but it was probably just an animal. I’m starting to get spooked, so I’d better go before I lose my nerve. Will continue if and when I can.

  ****

  Pine Lake. Fire Day. October 2.

  Mad Tom’s habitation wouldn’t yet meet his needs for the coming winter. It wasn’t even up to the standard of the shelter at Osprey Lake, fifteen miles to the south. He’d built that place without much plan. A large pine had tumbled onto its side, the widespread roots lifting the base into the air. That had left a space almost Tom’s height under the thick end of the tree. He’d made that into the roof beam of his place, clearing out the branches underneath and adding them to the sides. He’d piled branches to make a tent shape, then put rocks and mud as high on the branches as possible. A plastic tarp, stolen from the highway department, capped the works.

  And that’s how he’d passed the last winter. The shelter had been dark, leaky, and cold. and in every thaw water had run into it. Yet it had an advantage, in Tom’s mind; it was pretty well invisible even to a low-flying helicopter.

  But Osprey Lake is surrounded by some barren hills and impassable swamp. Swamps never really freeze in winter – the decay of vegetation warms the water – and people trying to cross it soon find themselves knee-deep in cold ooze, even at the beginning of February. Tom had much to learn in his first winter.

  But, most importantly in Tom’s mind, he’d completely escaped the men who wanted to control his life and edit his mind. No-one had entered that area from the time the duck hunters left in November until the first canoer passed through in late April.

  There had been, of course, the distant rumble of airplanes heading into Toronto or Ottawa, but he kept out of sight when they went over. If a plane was leaving contrails, he was sure it included a nasty chemical spray that made people passive and stupid. That, he felt, was how the CIA controlled the world. For an hour afterwards, he’d breathe only through a filter made of several layers of cloth. If it was warm enough, he’d wash his clothes afterwards, too, then changing into a second set that was kept in a plastic garbage bag.

  But the fact that no one had come near him made him think he could safely move to a place where there would be more game and less swamp. His explorations in the summer had taken him to Pine Lake, where he’d first met Paul, a year before.

  But panic always shared a bed with fear and inertia in Tom, so he waited longer than he should have before committing himself to the move. Selecting a dense tract of pine, he finally began felling trees, with the intent of making a log cabin. It was still unfinished, and he was sleeping under the tarp each night.

  While dragging a log from up the hill – he was careful to take trees only from places where their loss wouldn’t be seen, from the lake or from the air – he saw Paul’s canoe resting on the open space in the lake. Eyes wide, he set the log onto the ground and sat back onto his legs, watching in silence for half an hour or more. Then, slowly, he began to move towards the north end of the lake.

  From the air the little island where Paul Gottsen lay face-up to the sun looked like a peninsula, connected to the west shore by a narrow strip of land. This was deceptive: the connection was bog, unstable and soft enough to sink a person waist deep in back muck. Tom, who didn’t have a canoe, knew better than to try to get to the island that way.

  Tom was almost opposite the island when he saw movement on the portage trail from Sparkler Lake.

  He sat on his heels, becoming another rock or old stump on the landscape as Kimberly made her first portage with the pack and second with the canoe. He watched as she paddled out towards Paul.

  ****

  Bancroft OPP. Fire Day. October 2.

  At four o’clock the fire marshal for the county had a word or two with the officer in charge of the fire investigation.

  “Arson?” asked the constable, sitting at his desk, frowning at some papers.

  “For sure,” said the fire marshal, standing near the window.

  “Burned pretty fast.”

  “Stuffed with flammables. Burned hotter’n hell.”

  The constable shook his head, looked up. “Suicide?”

  A pause. “Don’t know for sure yet, but we didn�
��t find any body parts.”

  “Hot, though.”

  “Not that hot. Never that hot, no matter what the movies say.” He sat down: his feet hurt.

  The constable left, came back with a cup of instant coffee for each of them. “Faked his own death? His car was still there.”

  “Someone might have picked him up on the highway.”

  “Or he might have left by boat.”

  “Boat? There’s nowhere to go. Anyway, his boat was still there.”

  The policeman eyed the coffee like he was going to switch to real stuff someday. “He had a canoe somewhere if I recall. Or he might have stolen one from one of the neighbouring cottages. Most of those people won’t be back till spring.”

  “Gone into the woods?”

  “It happens.”

  “But why burn the cottage?” The fire marshal, old and bald, rubbed his neck.

  “People in those cottages aren’t always normal.”

  “You think?”

  The policeman shook his head. “I know. Always planned to join them when I retired. Become a nut case. Can’t talk the wife into it.”

  “I’ll let you know for sure tomorrow when I check the ashes. Can you get a helicopter if we need one?”

  “Probably. You’ll need someone who knows the area, though.”

  “I guess.”

  ****

  Notes from Kimberley Molley, Student

  Hi, Cindy. Paddling out across Pine Lake. Think Gottsen’s on the island in the lake. `Bye for now.

  ****

  Paul Gottsen. Fire Day. October 2.

  I wish goodbye and good will to everyone. There are a lot of people out in this world, I mean now, when I’m leaving the planet. Ask them to forgive me; I’ve tried to forgive all the angels and clowns and bastards I met.

  There’s only one that I don’t seem able to forgive and he’s staring at the sky with one eye, watching a hawk circling over Pine Lake. He tried to buy forgiveness but always tried to pay with words. When his currency was rejected he became bitter, but all that’s past and I find it doesn’t mean anything.

  Alone, Odysseus rants and raves in his crumbling kitchen, asking the Cyclops to forget the gift of darkness.

  I was young when I did those things. Now I am become the Cyclops and I lie in the warmth of sun and feel the rock with my fingers.

  I have been dishonest too long and honest too late. If I were Superman I’d have found one lost and troubled soul and rescued that one. I’d have built a bridge over someone’s troubled water, but I was too busy at the keyboard trying to find truth where I could not find honesty.

  I close my sore eyes. My head hurts and I’m dizzy. I love the sun up there.

  I wanted my name to live on and gave up too much of my life and now it’s all gone and here I am in the sunlight and it’s all I care about. That and forgiveness and ending this pain.

  All that I have ever done is lost in endless river run ….

  A canoe? Sounded like the thump of paddle. I’ll stay here and talk to myself and the politeness of wilderness canoeists will take themselves on down the lake. Tomorrow they may be looking for me, but not today I think.

  ****

  Island: Pine Lake. Fire Day. October 2.

  There were the sounds of a canoe meeting rock. The granite of the Canadian Shield may look like smooth bones, but close up, the rocks aren’t all that smooth. Any canoe can meet only so many of them in its lifetime, so the more competent and experienced a canoeist is, the gentler the meeting of billion-year-old rock and ten-year-old synthetic.

  The object is to be gentle to the canoe but not to get one’s feet wet. Wet feet are cold feet, in any season.

  “I’m just having a rest!” Paul said, in a loud voice.

  “Doctor Gottsen, I presume?” a female voice asked.

  “I’ll be in Samara tamarra,” Paul said, his eyes still closed, panic in his brain.

  “Tam and Rollie sent me.”

  “Did they send any whiskey?”

  “A very nice bottle of Forty Creek.”

  Paul opened his eyes. The figure in front of him was unclear, but was wearing a brightly coloured cap. “Leave it and be gone.” He waved one hand randomly.

  “Screw you.” Kimberley’s tongue sometimes acted faster than her mind. “I want an interview for a paper I’m writing.” That wasn’t why she was on the island, but it popped out anyway.

  “For Christ’s sake, lady. I’m dying!” He lay his head back onto the rock and closed his eyes. The sunlight made the sky under his eyelids red. He’d written many scenes, but never one this absurd.

  “So I hear. You want the whiskey or not? I can pour it into the lake if you want.” She stood next to him, her hands on her hips.

  “I want you to leave. I’ll die sober then. Just as long as I die alone.”

  “You look like you’ve got a couple of days left in you.” Kimberley stood with her arms on her hips.

  “Go. Go away.”

  “That I can do.” Kimberly didn’t know what to do, but she needed time to think. Somehow she hadn’t expected outright aggression. She started back to her canoe, then stopped. “You want a pillow for your head?”

  He considered this a moment. “Yes.”

  She rolled a spare sweater and said, “Raise your head.” When he did, she put it under him. “I might want this back.”

  “I doubt that I’ll care. You think it’ll be cold tonight?”

  “No, I want to auction it on eBay. Of course it’ll be cold tonight; it’s October and it’s going to be clear.”

  “Get a good price.”

  She waited for more, then noisily slid the canoe off the rock, leaving a streak of red, and paddled towards the west shore. She was perfectly aware that she was doing it all wrong. She’d made a promise and she didn’t feel in her heart that Gottsen should be alone. But she was angry; angry at life and angry at Gottsen, and needed to work off some of that.

  She followed the line of swamp, dodging rotten logs hosting colonies of plant life and plowing through lily-pad beds and pike grass like Godzilla through Tokyo. The odd bass left a swirl in the water as it got out of her way, but the lake was otherwise left to sun and the light autumn wind. One red maple and a couple of yellow birches lit the hills otherwise dark with pine.

  The silence followed her; there were lots of small birds flocking in random groupings but this wasn’t spring and they had little reason to make noise. A couple of skeins of geese flew out of sight along the far hills without their calls reaching her. The small splashes of her paddle and the rasping of water plants against the hull were all the noise in her world.

  At the south end of the lake a thin creek drained the water of the lake, until stopped by a beaver dam a little farther along. She continued following the shore, first east, then north, her anger dissipating.

  Not going far there, she tied the canoe to a small poplar and walked across a tall grass-and-thistle clearing to a two-room building clad in rusting metal. A sign identified it as belonging to the Hastings Snowmobile Club. The door was locked with a padlock, and the space under the eaves was strung with wasp nests and one large hornet globe. A few insects flew aimlessly. She retreated to her canoe and started north again, keeping her eyes on the shore and not on the island that grew close.

  The hills angled down steeply to the lake for the most part, and for a while she could see that there was no good place to put up a tent. Finding one spot flatter than most and sheltered by pines, she pulled in the canoe, and was about to explore when she stepped just out of the canoe, wondering what she was looking at. Then she realized it was a lean-to, a shelter, and, judging from the branches against it, a work still in progress. It blended into the woods.

  She started backing up when she got the feeling someone was watching her. Once on the lake, she looked back. For a second or two she thought she saw a face.

  In less than an hour she had circled the lake and was approaching the island again. She found a dead
tree and filled the canoe with any branches she could break into sections small enough to move. Back at the island, she ran the canoe onto a soft spot and got out, then dragged it well up onto the land. Then she stacked the branches beside the firepit.

  Paul Gottsen made no sound. Kimberley walked over to him. His eyes were closed, but she could see he was still breathing. He was either asleep, playing possum, or unconscious. Clenching her teeth, she sat down on a log then took out her phone to do some texting.

  ****

  Notes from Kimberley Molley, Student

  Hi, Cindy:

  I’m fine. Have a good camp site on Pine Lake. Yes, I’ll be back in a day or two. Nice and peaceful here.

  ---------------------------

  Hi, Me:

  I’m here on the island in Pine Lake and the afternoon’s getting on. Paul Gottsen is lying in the sunlight using my sweater as a pillow. He’s still breathing, but hasn’t opened his eyes. I don’t know whether he’s sleeping or what.

  I don’t know what to do. Should I try to wake him up? I don’t think he’s in any shape to go back over the portage. He doesn’t have any sleeping equipment, not even a jacket and it’s going to be a cold night, I think.

  Worse that that, there’s some creepy guy who’s built a hidden shelter in the woods on the shore of the lake. I’m glad I’m on an island. Maybe the best thing would be to see if I can get back to the car before dark, but I’m not sure that’s going to be possible.

  I suppose I could put my sleeping bag and tent over Paul and leave the food and just take the canoe. Go for help, like. But I’d feel creepy hauling the canoe out with that guy in the woods; you can’t see who’s coming behind you when you’re portaging. Life, death, and decisions, like.

  But I think I’m going to stay. Right here. Till whenever, I don’t know. But at least I can make camp and get the tent up and cook some supper. That much I can do. It’ll keep me busy for now. I can’t go back to Tam and tell her I just left him there. I can’t do that.

  ****

  Peter Finer, Journalist

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

  I spent the night at my sister’s place, contemplating light, and playing my part. It may have been dark on Paul’s island, but the house was filled with light.