They paddled through the portage bay and then through a spectacular narrows. Annette put Pender in the lead, followed by the campers and Emily and Joe. She and Gus brought up the rear, watching the paddlers in front of them for signs of faltering.
Massive Emerald Island greeted the band at the end of the narrows. Its shores rose like green walls, its towering forests now a tangle of broken and fallen trees on the windward side, but mostly intact on the leeward side.
Pender led the group east, across the south end of Emerald Island, took them slowly through the reef connecting Emerald to another island a hundred yards off its coast. He was tempted to continue due east into one of Pickerel’s sprawling archipelagos. They could save a kilometer or so by going through the mass of islands, reefs, and jagged points, but it was easy to become disoriented in the archipelagos, and they would lose more time than they gained if that happened.
Also, the wind was picking up and blowing constantly east-northeast. The long route would get them in the jet stream faster. With the wind at their backs, they would gain a lot of hull speed. Even an additional one or two miles per hour in a canoe made a huge difference—the difference between pulling into French Lake in the late afternoon or in the dark.
Pender took the group due north into the lee of Emerald Island. He wanted to stay in sheltered waters until they could run with the wind. There was already a choppy surf, and the advancing clouds warned that the wind and surf could get worse.
A half kilometer from the island’s north end, Pender pivoted his canoe to get a look back at the little flotilla, mainly to see if Annette wanted him to wait. He could see some whitecaps beyond the protection of Emerald Island, and he knew that this could be a fast ride home or a disaster. He wasn’t sure if Annette would want them to bunch up for the run or stay spread out.
There was no signal from Annette or Gus. Pender took a long pull of water, checked his map and compass to set his course, and began paddling east-northeast to his first landmark, Lookout Island. When he got to Lookout Island, he’d sight the next visual cue, a low island lying another four kilometers east-northeast, and keep leapfrogging landmarks until they got to French Lake. Another twelve miles, give or take, Pender thought, as he entered the full wind and rough water zone just beyond the shadow of Emerald Island.
Annette watched Pender with growing respect. He was a strong paddler, revived from the ardors of portaging. He made good decisions. She was surprised when he headed north along Emerald Island. Most tired paddlers would have taken their chances with the archipelago. She would have taken Pender’s course, especially with the wind building. Running with the wind might actually be faster than trying to quarter it coming out of the archipelago, and it was surely safer for their tired crew.
It was strange, she thought, that he was so reckless and violent in some ways and yet patient and considerate in others. Taking all that crap from the khaki woman so Annette wouldn’t get any blowback—this from a guy who punched out his boss and took on Gus. Bonding with that crazy dog. Buddying up with Gus. It was very hard to put those pieces into the same picture.
The base campers were tired but game. Every few minutes, a paddle hitting a gunnel sounded a notice that they were getting heavy-armed, but they stayed with it. Emily and Joe paddled like a well-oiled machine, slow, perfect paddle strokes, perfectly synchronized, their power balanced so the canoe required almost no course correction. Their efficiency let them keep pace with the flotilla without seeming to try. She worried that they might not have the strength to deal with rough weather. They looked so frail.
When Pender paused before going east, she thought about signaling him to wait so she could give everyone a short rest and maybe set towlines. But she didn’t want to coddle the group. It could make them dependent and vulnerable if things got bad. Plus, if she were tethered to another boat, she would be very limited in her ability to help anyone else. Better to run for Lookout Island, take a break there, see how everyone was doing, see how the weather was.
When Pender reached Lookout Island, the wind was blowing steady and strong. Pickerel Lake was a waterscape of swelling waves with deep troughs, serious but not yet perilous. This was the kind of water that kept canoeists sober and focused, Pender thought. It was fairly easy to stay aligned with the waves and to float down the deep swells, like a surfer. But the threat was there. Lose your concentration for a few seconds, and you’re swimming.
Pender shivered at the thought. You’d be in the middle of a cold, bottomless lake in stiff winds, your gear sinking to the depths, you trying to self-rescue in water you couldn’t handle before your boat filled up with water. Good luck. And even if you somehow got upright, what do you do? It’s windy and cold and you’re trying to make shore in a boat half filled with water. Maybe the others would rescue you, but that’s no panacea either. One more person would overload any of the boats, and so would Chaos.
At the southern end of the island, Pender neatly slid along the waves into the lee waters of its east shore, then turned his canoe west so he could see how the others were coming.
They were fanned out over a few hundred meters, Gus keeping his tandem just behind Emily and Joe, who were paddling calmly in the big water as if they had done it all their lives. Annette was a few yards behind the base campers, who were thrashing a bit but keeping their boat on the right line. Pender decided to wait for them to gather in the lee water.
He waved his paddle in a wide, overhead arc to signal Annette and the others to watch him, and then slipped back into the lee of Lookout Island to wait for them. He took a long drink of water, let Chaos lean over the gunnel and drink from the lake, and then lifted his legs above the gunnels so he could lie back on the pack behind him. It was uncomfortable, but it let him stretch his back for a minute, relieving taut muscles and aching vertebrae.
As the other boats drew near, the drone of an airplane engine came over the north horizon. Pender positioned his boat so he could scan the sky. Out in the big water, Annette was screaming at the base campers to keep paddling.
The floatplane came over the ridges behind them, riding low and slow. They could hear that it was close. They could hear it coming toward them, even though they couldn’t see it until it got in front of them.
Pender saw the plane come over the ridgeline. The pilot spotted them and did a slow turn, coming east, a loud, lumbering beast floating on the air currents. The bow paddler in Gus’s boat waved his paddle madly at the aircraft as it passed overhead. Pender waved his arms widely as the plane approached his position. It flew a few kilometers farther east, then made a wide, slow circle and came back into the wind to land.
Annette stifled a cheer when the plane dropped softly onto the churning surface of Pickerel Lake. She urged the group to keep paddling hard. There was still plenty of opportunity to capsize. But her sense of relief was like a giddy high. Her injured people would be taken to a hospital. The rest of them could make the run to French Lake in, what, three hours? Maybe less in this wind. Home free!
The pilot stood on one pontoon and opened the door to the seats and storage area as they approached. The aircraft was a de Havilland Beaver, nearly as old as Pender but the Mercedes-Benz of bush planes in canoe country. As the canoes converged on the plane, the wind and surf picked up more intensity. The seaplane pitched and rocked. Sprays of water droplets erupted into the air like monsoon rains. The base campers arrived first, their canoe banging hard against a pontoon, then rubbing and screeching as the plane and canoe rose and fell in the waves. The pilot held the canoe while the base campers helped their injured comrade into the plane. The pilot was yelling to the campers and they were yelling back, but Annette couldn’t hear them in the din of the waves and the wind.
The pilot gestured to Gus to raft up, then Annette. She could barely hear him in the wind even though he was shouting.
“. . . bad weather . . . wind . . .” She could only catch pieces of what he was saying. She cupped a hand to her ear. He stepped into the first canoe, kneeling, cupped his hands over his mouth like a megaphone.
“This is my last trip. Bad wind, low cloud cover. I can take eight people. No gear. No dogs.”
Annette waved Pender to the plane. He had been treading water downwind from the plane. She yelled for the base campers to get on the plane with their comrade.
“Gus, get Bill on board, then help us steady these boats while we get everyone else on board.”
“Okay,” yelled Gus, “But I’m going to paddle out of here with the li’l fella.”
“No!” yelled Annette. “You look after Bill and make sure they send someone to French Lake to pick us up.”
“How about you and I paddle out?”
“No. Pender and I are on a date, remember?” She was thinking, this is the roller-coaster part.
Gus nodded, disappointment etched in his face.
As Gus loaded the others onto the plane, Annette, Chaos, and Pender moved into Gus’s canoe and tethered the two solo canoes behind it. They threw all the gear in the three canoes and turned the others loose to float in the wind and surf. There would be plenty of time to go searching for the abandoned boats in the days to come.
Annette stationed Pender in the bow and Chaos on a pack in front of her. The waves banged the tethered boats into them and one careened onto the other side of the plane’s pontoon, fouling its line. Gus signaled them to sit tight as he freed the line. The pilot finished seating the other passengers and then crouched by Gus on the pontoon, the two of them holding Annette and Pender’s canoe steady.
“Run for shore,” the pilot yelled. “This is going to get worse!”
Annette and Pender locked eyes. Her raised eyebrows asked him what he wanted to do. He pointed south, toward French Lake. “Why hide when you can fly?” he shouted into the wind. She couldn’t hear him, but she knew what he was saying. She felt the same way.
Gus reached out a meaty hand to shake hands with Annette, then moved to the bow and shook hands with Pender. “You’re a mean old bastard,” he yelled. “I want to be just like you when I grow up.” He punched Pender softly in the shoulder and then boarded the plane. The pilot pushed them off and waited for the line of canoes to pass behind the aircraft. Seconds later, the Beaver’s engine fired to life, and the pilot slowly moved into the wind and took off.
As the Beaver droned into the ether, Pender was left with the same eerie feeling he had felt the first time a floatplane dropped him in the wilderness. It was a sense of dread mixed with a sense of excitement. The difference was, before he had also felt alone. This time he was with Annette and Chaos, and he felt a bond with both of them.
He hoped he wasn’t getting them killed.
Annette was feeling guilty. A good guide would have insisted on paddling for safety, sitting this one out, rolling in tomorrow morning. But the thrill ride into French was too much to resist. How often did you get the chance to run like a bat out of hell in high winds and big surf? This was it. She was sixty years old and life had given her another chance to act like a kid. She just hoped she didn’t get Pender and Chaos killed with her exuberance.