Jack whistled, a searing ballpark jeer, and they both started waving their arms, motioning the paddlers to their side of the river. The flycatchers quit calling. And as the boys squinted they saw that it wasn’t paddlers, not two—two with twice the power to move the boat—it was one. A man, hatless. They could barely see the figure, and the flash of the paddle in the patchy sunlight. A few strokes, then rest, heedless in the center of the relentless current.
They waved and whistled, both now. And they saw the paddle stop. And stop for more than a beat, two. It stopped as if frozen, stopped altogether in some surprised consideration.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Jack murmured, almost with scorn, “reconsider your line. Think about not committing suicide.” He whistled again and Wynn’s left forearm came up to protect his nearside ear. “Hey,” Jack said. “Fuckin’ A, that’s just one dude.”
Jack was going to loose another whistle and wave when they saw the paddle start to move again. It glinted sunlight and the sunlight passed, buried in cloud, and they felt the chill. Whoever it was began to dig. And then in a sign of an experienced canoeist he made a broad turn of the boat upstream and angled the bow toward the right shore and began to ferry across. Good. But what the fuck? That’s what Jack thought. There should be two paddlers, a man and a woman.
Wynn was just glad to see that the man in the canoe had some sense and at least some basic skills, because it looked like he, too, was committing himself to run the river.
* * *
The man let the bow fall off and aimed for shore. He took a few hard strokes for speed and made a smooth swing across the eddy line. He ruddered on the left side so as not to turn straight upstream and he held his angle across the pool and let the bow grind up onto gravel. Good. They were both holding their rods, but they stepped forward in unison without a word and grabbed the man’s bow, and together they pulled him up onto the beach so that only his stern stayed in water. Their eyes swept over the boat. It was a green Old Town Penobscot, heavy but tough. Well scratched and gouged. The man kneeled center thwart in solo paddler position, and they counted four dry bags, two forward, two aft. Just ahead of him on top of a bag, under a strap but in no case, was a plated Winchester Marine 12-gauge—a short-barreled shotgun. Jack knew what it was because he had one at home. The boys took it all in. They were more interested in the man’s face. He was young, maybe midthirties. Mussed dark curly hair, a few days of beard, red-rimmed blue eyes, a stunned look, maybe panic or shock. The man did not thank them for the help in landing the boat. He did not speak. He looked from one to the other.
“Maia,” he said. It was a croak. “Mai—” Like it was hooked in. The word. Hooked in like a half-swallowed fly.
Wynn said to the man gently, “Hold on. Why don’t you come up? You can stand. You’re on the beach.”
The man didn’t seem to understand. Jack murmured, “Maybe he’s French or something. Or a Swede. The Europeans are crazy for these rivers.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“I’m not a Swede,” the man croaked. It was a half bark. And then his face crumpled. He began to cry. The boys stared. “My wife,” he said finally. “She’s missing. Gone.”
* * *
They set their rods inside their own canoe and helped the man out of the boat. He wore a green plaid wool shirt, and knee-high gum boots as they did, and he staggered when he tried to stand on the stones. Jack caught him. “Hey, hey,” Jack said. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong with your leg?”
Wynn looked down. The man’s pants, the right thigh, were ripped and stained with blood. “Nothing,” the man said. “I stumbled in the fog, it’s nothing.”
“That doesn’t look like nothing. What’d you do, get speared by a deadfall?”
“It’s a scratch.” The man was almost vehement.
Jack let it go. “Whyn’t you come up here and sit for a sec?”
The man looked at them as if for the first time. It was a feral look, almost wild with grief or fear. He turned back to the canoe and slid his shotgun out from under the strap and slung it over his shoulder. Jack glanced at Wynn and then led the limping man to a ledge of bedrock back of the beach. The granite made a high bench and Jack leaned him against it. Wynn had brought his filter water bottle up with him and he handed it to the man, who drank greedily.
“What do you mean, she’s gone?” Jack said.
The man blinked. “Gone,” he said. “The night the fog came in. When it cleared I saw another canoe. Far off.” Jack noticed the man’s right hand feeling shakily for the strap of the gun. “We—we’ve gotta get down. Get down and tell someone.”
Wynn, even stooped, hands in pockets, towered over the man. It was the posture he took when he was concerned and didn’t know what to do. Like he was trying to provide proximity and shade. When Jack saw him like that he always called him La Tree. Now La Tree looked dismayed. He didn’t understand. Jack took the water bottle from the man’s hand and gave it to his friend. “Refill this, will ya?” Wynn took it without a word and turned up to the creek. The water was clearer there and wouldn’t clog the filter with sediment.
“Take a deep breath, dude,” Jack said. “That’s it, breathe. Whoa, don’t cry. We’ll figure this out.” The man pressed his face into his sleeve. Jack put his hand on his shoulder. He said, “I need you to focus.” It was a command.
The man’s head came up. For a split second his blurry eyes were clear. And then they fogged over again. “Huh?” he said.
“I need you to focus,” Jack said. “Something’s not right. Now tell me what happened.”
The man studied Jack. It was an assessment, a measuring. Jack also smelled fear. He shook his own head as if to clear it. Why did he feel so confused? The man didn’t think that they had carried off his wife, did he? He was clearly in shock—something very bad had just happened.
Wynn returned and handed the man the full bottle and resumed the stooping tree pose. Jack said, “He’s about to tell us.”
Wynn said, “Maybe we should ask his name. What’s your name?”
“Pierre.”
“See? French,” Jack murmured.
“Not French,” said the man.
Wynn stared at his buddy. The man needed aid and succor—why was he being a hardass?
“Tell us,” Jack said.
The man seemed to draw back. He was looking at them as if they had just asked for his wallet. In unison, out of some unspoken courtesy, they both took a step backward. Pierre kept his hand on the strap of the gun and blew out a long breath. “We were camped,” he said. “On the east shore. Not sure—a few miles down the lake. It got cold. And then late the fog came in. We’d never seen that. Before all the wind.” He began talking fast, in some kind of panic. “She said she had to go, you know—”
“We know,” Jack said, and Wynn glanced at him, puzzled. He was never this impatient.
The man sucked at the water bottle. He wiped his eyes with his forearm. “She unzipped the tent and went out into the fog and I never saw her again.”
Wynn started forward. “What?” he said.
“I never saw her again. There was a berm behind the camp. I figured she went behind it. She took a flashlight. I found the light but I never saw her. I looked for hours, calling and calling, but it was useless in the dark.” His words ran fast, then jumbled into each other.
“And?” Jack said.
“I searched all day today and nothing.” His head hung and he looked at his feet and his mouth began to quiver.
“Jesus,” Wynn said. “Were there any tracks? Any sign?”
The man hung his head and shook it.
“No sign of a bear? There are plenty of black bear.”
The man shook his head. “There was another canoe,” he said. “Two men. We kept seeing them at a distance. I don’t know…”
“Yeah, we met them,” Wynn said. “The two drunks. They were kind of creepy.”
Jack was watching the man. He pushed his cap back and rubbed his forehead. He was trying to make sense of it. He said, “The night the fog came in. You mean the night before the morning of the fog or the night after?”
The man’s head came up. Tears streamed on his sunburned cheeks and dripped off his lightly bearded chin. They fell to the dark stones and blackened them with drops like rain.