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Okay, then. How do you get a canoe out of a lake without getting wet? It’s like some twisted riddle. Either I need to get to it, or I need it to come to me. If only I were a cowboy, I could lasso the thing.
I hold on to that thought, silly as it is. Getting a rope out and hooked onto the bars seems like the obvious solution. A lasso, or a grappling hook. I don’t have either, but “hook” isn’t exactly high-tech. All I really need is something heavy. Something that I can toss into the canoe without damaging it, and drag the canoe onto the shore with.
A rock’s too heavy. But a section of a wood plank might work.
I find one that’s a foot long. Large enough to have some heft, small enough to throw easily. Tying the rope to the wood is quick work. I don’t know knots, and I regret it for the fortieth time since getting here, but I work something out that’s firm enough. Then I walk down to the water and throw it.
I was never exactly sporty, and I haven’t miraculously learned to throw since my last embarrassing showing in gym class softball. My first throw lands short. I pull the plank back in, hand over hand, the rope spooling at my feet.
The next throw goes too far left. The next five are too short as well, the sixth hits the side of the canoe and bounces off.
Normally I would be frustrated. I’d be in tears by now. But it’s actually kind of soothing. I try swinging the rope, try throwing the plank like a spear, try hucking it like my old enemy, the softball. And finally, finally, it hits square in the center of the canoe and stays there.
I yell in triumph, throwing both hands in the air. Bo barks excitedly and spins in a circle, but I’m pretty sure he’s mocking me. I shake my head, hooting with joy, and get hold of the rope.
Pulling the canoe in is tricky. Pull too hard, and the plank starts to pull right out. But tug gently and it hooks under the edge of the canoe, first turning the canoe so it’s facing me and then sliding it through the water. Inch by inch, I draw it in. Inch by inch and then it’s two feet away and I lean out, drag it up on the rocks, and that’s it.
There ought to be more drama, I think. A musical crescendo. Confetti. Instead, there’s just more work to do.
Time to load up.
THE DIRT ISstill heaped up over the grave, undisturbed, the crate lying alongside it. The wolf-dog hasn’t been back, or hasn’t bothered to try to dig. I keep myself from staring too long at the mound in the earth. Dad is gone; he isn’t here. His body is buried for good.
No, not for good. When Raph comes back, they’ll dig up the hole. They’ll dig the body up all over again.
I wish I’d had the strength and foresight to move his body, to give him a proper grave somewhere else with a marker, someplace he wouldn’t be disturbed. But I can’t, of course. I can’t even do that for him. Maybe if I live, if I get home, I can do something.
I stare at the crate, and not for the first time I wonder what kind of man my father was, to be mixed up with someone like Raph. He made it all sound like an accident, like none of it was his fault, but can that be true? He did favors for evil men. And he brought me out here knowing it would involve me, too, even if Raph never saw me, never knew I was here.
He put me in danger, and why?
Did he think he was protecting me, taking care of me?
Or was it more selfish than that? Did he just want me back, want me with him, and never mind what was best for me?
I tug at the padlock half-heartedly. If there are any answers about my father, who he was, they’re locked away tight. Any chance of recovering them lies on the other side of the lake, with the tools from the shed.
Maybe it’s guns. Automatic weaponry with ammo galore. I imagine myself going all action-hero on Raph, bullets flying, and I smile faintly. Probably not guns. It doesn’t seem like the right size for that, and it isn’t heavy enough.
Whatever it is, though, it’s something they needed to hide where no one would come looking for it.
I’ve worked up a sweat getting this far, and now that I’m not paddling or hiking I’m getting cold. I took it so slow around the lake, coddling my sore muscles, it’s already sliding past midday. I need to hurry back if I don’t want to be tramping through the woods in the dark.
I drag the crate down to the beach on my own—Bo has declined to assist—and load it into the canoe.
It’s only then that I remember the notebook. If Raph finds that, I’m finished. I hurry up to the cabin, but I hesitate before taking the bundle from its spot. It feels wrong, like I’m betraying the me from days ago who left it there as a final testament—but I can’t risk leaving it.
I put it in the canoe with the crate and most of the other gear. The litter won’t fit—but it will float. I tie it to the back of the canoe and hope it won’t destabilize the whole thing. I can’t afford to take another dunking.
Bo won’t get in. Too wary of what happened last time, I guess, and I can’t blame him. I don’t want to overload the canoe anyway, and he knows his way home, so I launch without him. He watches me from the shore for a few minutes as I make my tentative way out on the water. Then he sets off along the shore at a trot. He knows where I’m going. I’ll see him there.
I take it slow all the way across the lake, and I stick close to the eastern shore until it bends away from my course.
It’s getting dark by the time the canoe fetches up on the shore. No sign of Bo. I pull everything up out of the water, making doubly sure that the canoe is safely on land this time before abandoning it—I’ll get it in the morning. Right now, I need to get back to shelter before I lose the way in the dark.
Bo catches up to me halfway there. “Wouldn’t want to miss dinner, huh?” I ask him.
He’s a pretty good conversationalist, once you learn his language. He’s got three basic phrases:
