Six Crooked Highways

Dead of night, the boat came up the lake from the south, at first no louder than a mosquito, that signature outboard whine, then closer, louder, until with an insistent grinding the boat went by the lodge docks and out onto the bay, passing us, to my relief -- but there, instead of going farther north, through the buoys and up the channel, instead of going on to Barney's Ball Lake, or to the Northwest Outfitters, or Halbert's to bother someone else, now, whoever it was made a hard, sharp turn, that outboard chuttering and whining at it, coming at us. In bed I lay on my back, staring into the dark, willing myself to stay put. It's nothing, I told myself. They would keep going, they were just getting their bearings. Still, I had reason to be awake in the middle of the night waiting. I reached for the clock on the nightstand; the arms glowed bright green in the dark. Four ten. A visit this time of night could be nothing but trouble, I thought, though maybe these were just a couple overzealous fishermen playing early bird, or lost. But even as I was thinking it, there was a distinct watery splash, which I knew could be nothing but someone going overboard. I very nearly laughed at it, relieved. I looked at my wife, Gwen, beside me, hair blue black on the white pillowcase, beautiful. I didn't want to wake her, or our daughter, Claire, just two and in her crib in the other room, so I hesitated. Propped on my elbow, I thought, Why get up? They'll be gone by the time I'm out of bed. The boat went into a third wide circle of the bay, and I thought, happily, kids. That's what it was. Kids, wilding. Making a nuisance of themselves. It had to be that. But it wasn't even near Hump Night, when the resort help got crazy before heading down to White Earth and logging. It wouldn't be that time for another two months. I was waiting for a second splash -- the motorman taking a dive, too. But that didn't come. That was the old trick: steal a boat, run it around the lake, bang it to hell on things, and when dawn was on your tail, dump the boat. I swung my legs around to put my feet on the floor. The boat made a fourth, then fifth circle right offshore of the island. Gwen turned on her side toward me. She opened her eyes, trying to wake herself. "What are they doing out there?" she asked. I touched the side of her face, kissed her hair, smelled lilac. "Nothing," I said. "It's just kids." Still, that did it. I shook myself, yanked on pants, shirt, cinched my belt -- thought, shit! the belt was onto that third hole, shore lunch fat -- scuffed on my shoes. I bolted out of the cabin ran to the bluff overlooking our docks; beyond them, in the bay, the moon was reflected in the blue-black water, a wavering silver coin, the boat cutting around it in a wide hydroplaning arc, a perfect circle. And no one behind the wheel. I ran up along the bluff, closer to the water, the path to the boathouse and dock to my right, scanning the lake, and that's when I saw it. A line of ripple leading to the north, not from the boat, but from the swimmer who'd jumped from it. He'd left a veritable wake behind him, slapping at the water. The moon caught on him, a shadowy figure going up and into the trees on Snowbank Island, opposite us. And just like that, like pakwene, smoke -- he was gone, the boat out on the bay turning yet another perfect circle. Later that morning in the kitchen, I was hunched over the phone talking to Charlie Groten, Pine Point's finest, our constabulary in blue, my now on-again off-again pal and splinter in my foot. It seemed we were always arguing over something. Now it was the boat. I wanted Charlie to pick it up so I could get on with my day, but he was telling me he needed to look into a floater some guide had found offshore of the Angle. A fJohnson, Wayne is the author of 'Six Crooked Highways' with ISBN 9780609604595 and ISBN 0609604597.