more likely that the man needed helpers, not adversaries.
There had been the falls, but the river didn’t truly drop off the Canadian Shield—the vast plateau of ancient bedrock that covered much of northern Canada—for another fifty miles or so, and when it did it would pick up speed and maybe narrow before it widened again on its way to the bay. Here they could stay thirty yards from either bank. Maybe enough, maybe not.
They paddled. They leaned into the work. They would get their best sprint on their knees, but they knew they had a long haul and so stayed in the seats for comfort and reached for the long stroke. They each used an alder and basswood paddle made by the master Mitchell in New Hampshire and the blades bent from the shaft to keep the stroke farther forward, where it was strongest. The most efficient stroke was all in front of the paddler, the blade lifting out of the water when it reached the hip.
Jack set a hard pace and they paddled in perfect sync. On the lakes above they’d had all the time in the world and so had paddled expedition-style, with the sternman finishing his stroke with a slight twist of the shaft and the paddle’s power face arcing outward, the J-stroke. It kept the canoe straight. It was invented long ago because physics dictated that a stroke in the stern had much more steering power than a stroke in the bow, so if the sternman paddled, say, on the right side, starboard, the boat would always be turning left, to port. And so the little bit of twist and outward pressure at the end of the stern stroke acted like a rudder and checked the tendency to veer away. But the J-stroke took time. And that seemed long ago, that feeling of leisure, of taking their time. Of making the crossings at their own pace. Of drifting half the afternoon along the shadow of some ledge and casting for lake trout. That was before they climbed the hill on the island and saw the glow. Before they heard the couple arguing in the fog. That was another life.
Now they had to make tracks, so they paddled marathon-style. Every eighth stroke or so, Wynn uttered “Hut!” and they switched sides. It meant they zigged and zagged slightly as they progressed, but the stroke rate was much higher. They moved much faster. And it took a lot more concentration. Still, Jack kept his eyes scanning ahead as far as he could see, all along the banks on either side. He was a hunter, and he’d trained himself most of his life to pick out movement and anomalous shapes. He didn’t have to think about it. He could spot a buck browsing in the shadows on some northern New England river long before Wynn, even with patient directions. (“Whoa, look at that sucker. Must be a six-by-six. See, under the beech.” “No.” “Two o’clock, see?” “No.” “He just stepped, there, in the shadow just to the right of the big silver tree.” “Uh—I know what a beech is!” “Are you fucking blind?” “I think I see him.” “No you don’t. Three o’clock!”…Like that.) Jack had the honed sight of a hunter, but Wynn had a lot more whitewater experience and he could see lines through rapids and holes where Jack just saw mayhem, so Wynn figured they were even. Jack looked now for Pierre.
He was getting hot paddling and the muscles of his back and arms had the burn he knew he could sustain all day, and his breath came with the steady chuff of a train, and Jack made himself look. For the man or his green canoe. He let his eyes run up and down the banks, the shores of the wider bays. Why couldn’t the boat have been red, or bright yellow? He thought they made the Old Towns in those colors. Nope, it had to be green, the color of the woods, as if the man had been planning on stealth.
The river widened. The occasional eskers that made the long ridged hills got farther and farther apart, the country flatter. That ten miles could make such a difference. Maybe it was a local thing, the topography. What he didn’t want was high banks, a constriction, where the man could reach them with a fusillade from good cover, and now the river was obliging by spreading itself into reaches of water that