12

CFS Lodge, Ford Lake, Minnesota

Still Friday, 14 September

In the registration cabin, though, there are just four Asian guys, and the two who are standing—tracksuits, sunglasses, coming up on their toes when they see me—are obviously bodyguards.

The other two, on opposite couches, are harder to figure. One is punk-chic, with chunky-cool glasses and a sleek suit over an expensive-looking western shirt. Early forties, hair dyed brown, reading a guidebook. The other is about the same age but fat and sprawling, with the wet lips, coarse features, and bad shave of the mentally disabled or whatever they’re being called these days. Jeans and a T-shirt that says “NOW IS COLA ONLY.” He’s playing a video game on a cell phone.

The stylish one stands when he sees us, causing his bodyguards to move closer to his sides.

Reggie introduces us. His name is Wayne Teng. The slob’s his brother, Stuart. The bodyguards are allegedly both named Lee.

“Sorry,” Teng says. “My brother and our associates do not speak English.”

“But you do,” Violet says.

“Very poorly.”

“It doesn’t seem like it.”

“Thank you. You are medical doctors?”

“He is. I’m a paleontologist.”

“Like in Jurassic Park?”

“More or less.”

Teng translates for his brother and bodyguards. I recognize the words Jurassic Park. Even the brother looks up.

I follow Reggie over to the registration desk. “Is this it? The whole group?” Assuming Teng’s bringing his bodyguards, it puts us at six.

Reggie pulls out some forms. “Not really sure. We’ve got five more RSVPs in the affirmative.”

“Won’t that be too many?”

“The only real limit is what you guys are willing to accept. But I’ll worry about that when it happens. I’m sure someone will come to their senses.”

“Why? Is the monster fake?”

He winks at me. “Shit, I hope not.” Puts two keys on the desk. “Cabin Ten.”

“Both of us?”

“What do you mean?”

“We were supposed to be in separate cabins.”

“You were? Shit. Let me think.” He chews a nail. “Problem is, we got a lot of people coming in with the referee.”

“Who’s the referee?”

“I’m not allowed to say till he or she physically gets here.”

“Which is when?”

“Few hours. Let’s see: Del’s already bunking with Miguel…. ” He looks up at me, half his face wincing. “The room you’re in now, you can separate the beds, if that helps.”

“It’s fine,” Violet says, coming up behind me. “For one night, I think Dr. Azimuth can handle it.”

★★★

Cabin Ten is nice enough, but the air’s a bit moldy and filled with sexual tension, so Violet and I decide to go to Omen Lake, where the rock paintings are.

Davey, the kid with the clipboard, sets us up with a canoe. Green Kevlar, looking like canvas that’s been shellacked. Light as shit: it’s got a yoke like a toilet seat across its middle bench that you’re supposed to put your head through so you carry the canoe upside down on your shoulders, but if you don’t want to do that—because you can’t really see anything that way, or because anybody who wants to can break your neck—you can just carry it above your head with your hands.

Violet teaches me some strokes, and after you get your mind out of the gutter we make our first portage halfway up the west side of Ford Lake. Cross a couple more lakes and we’re there.

Omen Lake: not that ominous. It’s dumbbell shaped, with orange-red cliffs facing each other across the narrow part, where the pictograms are. The water’s so clear you can see boulders on the bottom, and the leaves on the trees are already turning colors that, relative to green, absorb less infrared light.^[37] We’re the only ones there.

Violet takes us right to the base of the cliff. Then stands in the boat and grabs hold of the rock.

“Push out from the left to keep us steady,” she says.

“What are you doing?”

She swings out onto the cliff face before I can get my oar in place. The canoe spins away from the wall. By the time I get it under control, she’s ten feet off the water.

“You can rock climb,” I say.

“All paleontologists can rock climb. And this is a nice rock. It’s probably four billion years old.”

I lie back to watch her do it. It’s not the worst view in the world.

So when the lake does suddenly turn ominous, it feels like a trap’s been sprung. One minute: sun, and Violet from behind and below. The next: water that smells like salty rot and pumps malice off its surface like sound from the face of a speaker. The previously minor splashes and drumming against the membrane of the canoe now feeling like the exploratory peckings of hungry underwater animals.

I search for something that’s changed: a cloud across the sun or a new vein of cold water that I can feel through the Kevlar. But there’s nothing. Just invisible darkness, and the fact that I’m sweating all over, and gone.

What I tell my patients with PTSD—of whom, in the desperate world of cruise ship labor, I have many—is that the panic attacks are currently thought to be of physical rather than psychological origin. The reminder of whatever shitty thing happened to you communicates directly with the most primitive centers of your nervous system, which from their own strange memories cue the physiological changes before you even know you’re afraid. The panic comes in reaction to the sweating palms and the shortness of breath, not the other way around.

Knowing this is supposed to make people feel better, or at least less responsible for their craziness. It may even be true. But out on Omen Lake, with my vision dimming and my sides wet with sweat, terrified of a freshwater lake that’s been photographed and visited a million times, it doesn’t do me much good. The only thing I can focus on besides fear is raw anger.

Eleven years?

All this because of some ugly things I saw in a shark tank eleven years ago?

Magdalena died the next day. Most of me died with her. But guess what? Freaking out all the time doesn’t seem to be bringing her back.

Was signing up for a twelve-day canoe trip a particularly good idea? Survey says no.

How bout working on a cruise ship?

Still: For fuck’s sake. Get over it.

“Lionel!”

The spookiness evaporates like it doesn’t want to be seen with me. Violet’s come back down the rock face. The canoe has drifted ten feet away. I use something called a J-stroke to get it back to the rock.

Once she’s seated, Violet stays twisted around, looking at me. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“You don’t look okay. What happened?”

“Nothing. I’m fine. How were the paintings?”

“About what we expected.”

We didn’t expect much. Books describing the paintings in English go back at least to 1768, and both carbon dating and the Ojibwe say the paintings are twice that age. Which doesn’t entirely rule out a hoax—the Ojibwe could have painted them in 1767, using two-hundred-year-old fish oil—but does make Reggie Trager unlikely to have been involved.

Violet’s still staring at me. “Are you sure there isn’t something you want to tell me?”

“No,” I say, pushing off the wall with the end of my oar to get us going.

Which at least is true.

★★★

Back at the lodge, there are a couple of nice pieces of distraction. First, Del—the guy who works with or for Reggie or whatever—meets us at the dock to tell us Reggie wants us to join the rest of the group in the registration cabin for an announcement. Second, when we get to the registration cabin, in addition to Wayne Teng’s party and what looks like every employee of the lodge, there are five new guests. One of whom, Tyson Grody, is famous.

Grody has to be in his mid-twenties by now. He’s a singer-dancer thing who came out of a boy band. Pop songs you hear in a cab en route to some expat bar and think are sung by an actual middle-aged black man. Women on cruise ships always have him on their fuck mixes.

In person Grody’s tiny, bug-eyed, smiling, and twitchy, but at least he’s got a pair of actual black men with him. They’re enormous. When they first see the Teng brothers’ bodyguards, there’s a four-way sunglass stare-off that makes you hope for some Super Street Fighter IV action later on.

The two other new guests are a grim-faced couple in their late fifties. His and hers Rolexes, hair and skin the color of their safari outfits. Same pushed-out lower lips.

“People, I’ve got some bad news,” Reggie says from the front.

When everyone’s quiet, he says “The ref’s not here, and won’t be until tomorrow afternoon. So we won’t be leaving tomorrow morning. We could leave as soon as the ref gets here, but there wouldn’t be much point, since we’d still get to White Lake a full day late. We’d only end up spending an extra night in the field. So I’m going to delay the start of the trip by a whole day and leave Sunday morning instead.

“If that’s a problem, and any of the guests can’t stay, I understand. If any of the guests do choose to stay, we can go into the field for one day less than we were planning and still get back here on schedule. Or we can stay in the field for the full length of time and get back a day later. Whichever you decide. Obviously, your extra night at the lodge will be free of charge, along with any activities we can interest you in while we’re here. Fishing, canoeing—whatever you want. And whether you come with us or not, I hope you’ll join me and Del and Miguel and some of the guides for dinner.” He looks at a clock on the wall. “Which should be right after this.”

“Can you at least tell us who the referee is?” Violet says.

Reggie shakes his head. “You know, I just asked that question and was told it has to remain secret, even with the delay. Legally and personally, I have to respect that. Again, I apologize.”

He looks tired, and maybe disappointed, but not particularly anxious. I wonder if there ever was a specific referee. Someone Reggie thought he could rely on but then got fucked by. Or whether all along it’s been a gamble, with offers out to anyone even possibly sucker enough, or greedy enough, to accept whatever Reggie’s offering. Which, after all, is for a single corrupt act in the privacy of the woods.

If it’s a gamble, I can see where Reggie might want to let it ride for one last night.

“We’re still interested in the trip,” Wayne Teng says.

Tyson Grody says “We’re cool to wait too.”

“We’ll consider it,” the grim safari guy says.

Reggie looks at Violet and me. “We’ll have to check with our boss,” Violet says.

“Thank you,” Reggie says. “Thank you all.” He looks genuinely touched, though it could just be that his frozen-open eye has a tendency to run.