Heart of the Woods Read online

  In the end, like so many before him, Levi caved to her stubborn nature. He took care of a long list of repairs on the cabin, and he purchased a new, lighter-weight better-handling canoe for the trips into town. When the time arrived to return for his third year of college, he said no.

  At first, Grandma Daley said, “Your education is important. I’m an old woman. Don’t let me stand in the way of the rest of your life.”

  She ultimately lost the battle, and Levi believed it left them neatly balanced with a score of 1 to 1. He escaped the need to explain himself to anyone, and Grandma Daley escaped a forced move to town. He knew that his parents thought they were both as crazy as the loons that filled the summer with their distinctive calls, but there was little they could do short of bringing in government officials.

  Levi stopped chewing in mid-bite when Grandma Daley stumbled slightly carrying her plate to the sink. He pushed himself away from the table, but she waved her hand. “I’m okay. It’s that old uneven spot in the floorboards again. Ivan warned me about it when we built the cabin, but I said, ‘No, you’re not tearing this up for one small flaw in the floor. Flaws are what makes the world a beautiful, fascinating place.’ Sit down. Finish your breakfast.”

  He tried to breathe deep, but the air caught in his throat as he inhaled. He had been considering purchasing a cell phone. He knew that he couldn’t use it around the cabin. Grandma would find a way to sink it to the bottom of the lake if she found it and there was a dead reception area that stretched 50 yards from the cabin in every direction. Still, Levi thought he could keep it well-hidden in his room. He was increasingly worried by the fact that they had no way to contact emergency assistance if Grandma suddenly grew ill or had an accidental fall. Levi decided he would purchase two things for himself on his trip into town.

  3

  Brandon

  Brandon heard Gabe’s voice rattling in his head as he lay back and stared up at the clear night sky full of stars. “Overnight on your own, too? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “People canoe solo all the time. I know what I’m doing.”

  “And people disappear all the time, too. The bears are going to love a nice Brandon snack. You might as well go drown yourself in the middle of a lake.”

  Despite the well-meant concerns of his best friend, Brandon left late Friday afternoon to get a head start on his weekend trip. By the time he pulled his canoe out of the water and set up a camp, Brandon estimated, by starting at dawn the next morning, that he could paddle out onto the serene waters of Lone Cedar Lake by 8:00 a.m. It would give him the full day to explore. Experience taught him it was impossible to prepare too much for taking clients on a new route.

  It was a stunning night. After cooking a dinner of skillet cornbread and a fried walleye filet, Brandon washed his cooking implements in the nearby creek and put them away. He sat near the fire and poked at it marveling as always at the power of even a small fire to consume anything nearby and turn it to ash. A light breeze filtered through the trees, and it was cool enough to make wrapping up tight in the sleeping bag a pleasure. The haunting call of loons drifted across the open water. Spring nights in the BWCA were perfection.

  Before it was time to sleep, Brandon spread his sleeping bag out on the open ground near his tent and stared up at the sky picking out the constellations he learned about in Mr. Benton’s fourth-grade classroom. It felt like almost no time passed before the campfire was burning low, and Brandon felt himself losing the struggle to stay awake.

  After carefully putting the fire out and packing all of his food items inside two layers of plastic, Brandon crawled into his tent. He hung the food in a tree to keep it away from bears and pulled the sleeping bag into the tent. Just before drifting off into dreamland, Brandon pulled out his cell phone and traced the morning route traversing another lake and portaging with the canoe almost half a mile before reaching his destination. Brandon laughed about Gabe’s fears of the Wendigo and rolled onto his side closing his eyes.

  The sky was still mostly dark, and Brandon’s phone read 4:45 a.m. when he awoke the next morning. The earliest of the birds were up and sending out their announcements about the upcoming day. Brandon’s skin prickled at the idea of making new discoveries. He wondered how long it’d been since somebody paddled out onto the waters of Lone Cedar Lake.

  The tragic, unexplained death of Walter Daley, almost ten years ago, cast a gloomy reputation over the area. The few paddlers Brandon knew who made the trip brought back tales of unexplained sounds and even visions of a lone canoe. Over time, many saw the lake as a haunted corner of northern Minnesota. He didn’t believe the stories, and he was eager to prove them false.

  In a few short years, Brandon built his business Arrowhead Adventurers into one of the most trusted wilderness guide operations in the area. TV notoriety for the region caused his bottom line to surge, but the show’s cancellation cut Brandon’s clientele in half in one year’s time.

  The haunted stories would be a big attraction for some visitors. Ghostly journeys into a forgotten corner of the Boundary Waters could be just the ticket to a new round of surging receipts. Brandon imagined leading a small group of veteran paddlers looking for something new. He could bring Elle along to tell blood-chilling tales of the Wendigo possessing the souls of the unsuspecting. She could explain how the monster would turn the victims into crazed cannibals feeding on tourists lost in the wilderness.

  Brandon looked down at the goosebumps forming on his forearms. No one every fully explained Walter Daley’s death. He was a writer, a chronicler of the old stories passed down through generations of Northwoods residents. He lived in the woods with his wife, and one day she found his body floating in the placid waters of Lone Cedar Lake. The official cause of death was drowning, but his demise was never adequately explained. A complicating factor in the official explanation of his death was the fact that he knew the waters like the back of his hand.

  Breakfast was simple. Brandon downed two protein bars and quickly finished the packing he’d mostly completed the night before. Midway through the final portage to his objective, a gut sensation threatened to turn Brandon’s steps around. He couldn’t pinpoint a specific thought, but his feet didn’t want to complete the journey. Brandon hauled the canoe off to the side and seated himself on a log to catch his breath. He told himself that he didn’t need to rush.

  The woods were silent except for the sounds of the birds. Brandon heard a hawk screech overhead while he stretched his legs out and retrieved another protein bar from his pack. The unexpected break slowed him down slightly, but he quickly decided against obeying the instinct to turn around. He’d come too far. He wanted to see the hidden jewel in the forest that was Lone Cedar Lake.

  Ten minutes later, Brandon lifted the canoe once again and set out to complete the portage. He passed a small, rippling spring to his right, and a short distance later the lake filled his vision. In most ways, it was like thousands of other lakes that crisscrossed the border between the United States and Canada, but Brandon thought the color of the water was a deeper blue than most. That would indicate extraordinary depth that might contain unexplored mysteries.

  Brandon smiled when he saw a stone shelf sliding into the edge of the lake. It provided a perfect natural launch point for canoes. The sound of paddles hitting the water joined the birds as a new voice filling out the orchestra of the Northwoods. It was always music to Brandon’s ears.

  As the canoe drifted close to the shore, Brandon remembered the first time he paddled in a canoe. He was in fifth grade, and he traveled north from his home in St. Paul with the family of his best friend from elementary school. Brandon rode in the boat with Andy and his parents. He remembered how his chest swelled with pride when Andy’s father offered him one of the paddles.

  Brandon was hooked from that moment onward. Gliding across the surface of lakes felt more like home than anything else in his life. If he thought it was practical, he would follow Gabe’s suggestion and live in
his canoe.

  Brandon paddled slowly along the south edge of the lake. He watched the ripples turn into a gentle wake behind the canoe. Perhaps a hundred yards from his launch point, Brandon spotted a small dock jutting out of the woods along the shore.

  As he drew closer, it looked like the dock fell into disuse years earlier. The last two boards at the end of the pier were loose. One of them hung by one nail in a precarious balance. The end of the board broke the surface of the water.

  Brandon pulled his canoe up alongside the dock and saw how a cluster of lichen grew near the end of the loose board. The rest of the wood was once painted, but only flecks of the whitewash remained. The rest of the dock behind the first two boards looked sturdy, but the looks of rotted wood could be deceiving.

  Checking first by leaning some of his weight onto his paddle and placing the opposite end against the center of the dock, Brandon discovered that it was still strong enough to hold his weight. He tied his canoe up to one of the dock’s posts and slowly climbed out onto the weathered wood.

  The shore end of the dock disappeared into an overgrown patch of wildflowers and weeds. Ancient pines towered a few short yards away. Brandon remembered the death of Walter Daley and shivered slightly. He wondered if there was a fight on the dock that resulted in the drowning. As he stared toward the west end of the lake where he’d not yet explored, he saw a stone cliff jutting into the water. He estimated that it was at least thirty feet high at the edge. The reflection of the outcropping wobbled slightly in the nearly still water at the foot of the drop. Perhaps a fall or a push from that edge was the catalyst for Daley’s demise.

  Brandon carefully lowered himself to a sitting position on the edge of the dock beside the canoe. He pulled off his sneakers and dangled his feet into the water. A shiver raced through his body. The water was colder than most of the area lakes in June. It was another clear indication of the depth of the water.

  Raking his fingers through the wavy mop of blonde hair on his head, Brandon scanned the opposite shore of Lone Cedar Lake. It was impressive. Occasional outcrops of stone jutted into the water. The far west cliff was one of two massive rock features along the shore. The other was a low flat expanse of stone that broke the surface of the lake and rose less than five feet out of the water. It was long and flat. If the leading edge was sheer, it would be a perfect platform for diving into the cool water.

  Brandon loved diving into lakes, but careful testing was necessary to prevent unfortunate accidents. It was too easy to break a back or crush a skull against barely concealed stone under the surface of a lake.

  Lone Cedar Lake held tremendous potential for adventurous visitors. The area near Brandon’s point of entry could be cleared of the light underbrush and support a small, primitive campsite.

  As he climbed back into the canoe to continue his exploration, Brandon spotted another vessel along the opposite shore. I’m not alone. He blinked his eyes three times to confirm that he wasn’t seeing things. The canoe held a single paddler, and it was moving very slowly hugging the shoreline like Brandon.

  One of the most valued attributes of a trip to the Boundary Waters alone in a canoe was solitude, and Brandon respected it. He suppressed any desire to draw attention to himself and instead, he dug into his pack for a small pair of binoculars occasionally used for bird and wildlife watching.

  The occupant of the canoe was young, and he paddled without a shirt on exposing his slim, muscular body to the sun. Brandon tried to focus the lenses closer, but he failed to make out much detail on the young man’s face. The canoe carried a relatively heavy load of packs, and the paddler stared straight ahead. Brandon suspected that he’d not yet been noticed.

  As he settled back into the canoe, Brandon pulled the cell phone from his pack to check his GPS map. He discovered that the Internet and GPS signals were non-existent. There were plenty of spots in the Boundary Waters that were difficult to navigate by satellite connection, but the entire region near Arrowhead Falls was a reliable area for electronic navigation.

  Brandon tapped the phone. Nothing changed. He tried restarting the phone to no avail. He stuffed the device back into his pack thinking that perhaps it was only a temporary issue that would clear itself up within a few hours.

  Dipping his paddle back into the lake, Brandon fixed his gaze on the opposite shore. As the canoe glided away from a stone outcropping, he saw the occupant of the other boat suddenly turn in his direction. Brandon was spotted. The stranger stopped paddling in mid-stroke.

  After some fifteen minutes of watching, the other canoe failed to move. Brandon pulled his binoculars out again and focused them across the lake. The young man stared straight at him. He was shirtless, and the muscles in his arms flexed when he pushed a paddle into the water. A shiver raced up Brandon’s spine when the other canoe turned and began to move in a direct path across the lake.

  Gabe’s warnings raced back into Brandon’s mind along with all of the speculation about Walter Daley’s death. He debated whether to paddle as fast as he could back to the early morning launch site and leave the lake behind. In the years of the existence of Arrowhead Adventurers, Brandon thought about the stories of a ghost canoe on Lone Cedar Lake, but this boat looked solid, and the paddler was young, not an older man like Walter Daley. Still, the only verifiable story he’d heard about the lake was the tragic story of the mysterious death. Surely, a paddler who looked nearly as young as Brandon himself wasn’t part of that history.

  4

  Levi

  It had been nearly two years since Levi saw anyone else paddling on the lake. The last time it was two canoes filled with a lost tourist family from California. They stumbled upon Grandpa Daley’s dead transmission spot on the shore and thought they had no way to reach outside help when their son broke his arm in a freak accident tumbling against a rock. They were terrified by the time Levi found them.

  He helped them portage down to the next lake and begin making their way toward Arrowhead Falls. They thanked him profusely and continued on their way. Levi never saw them again.

  For shopping and delivering Grandma Daley’s paintings on the first steps of their long journey toward New York City, Levi always took the long route around Lost Cedar Lake. That meant a portage of nearly a mile out the far west end near the stone bluff.

  The portage was never easy, but Levi grew used to it. It was the primary reason why he couldn’t transport large paintings. He traversed two more lakes before arriving at Iron Crossing. The destination was little more than a contemporary mining camp, but there was a post office, a bar, and a small store with basic groceries. Occasionally, they stocked gourmet foods like caviar if word drifted in that wealthy tourists were in the area.

  Two older couples lived in the woods on the outskirts of Iron Crossing, and they were old friends of Grandma and Grandpa Daley. They didn’t live off the grid. They had electricity and most of the conveniences of modern life. The couples escaped south during January and February making their way back to Iron Crossing as soon as the roads were passable after the winter snows.

  The Wagners and the Colliers could be counted on to assist if Levi needed any help. They were equally adept at staying mum about Grandma’s cabin and studio. When anyone else in Iron Crossing asked about where he lived, Levi played coy and said he lived on a lake about ten miles away. No one questioned the desire for some privacy.

  There was something about the new visitor to the lake that was different from lost tourists in the BWCA. In fact, Levi was confident it wasn’t a tourist. He didn’t know who it could be, but his muscles tensed on full alert.

  When he spotted the canoe on the opposite shore, Levi stopped paddling. The shortest route to Iron Crossing was along the south shore, but the long route he always took circled around the east end to paddle close along the north bank as he headed west. It provided a safe distance in case anyone did make their way up from Arrowhead Falls. With a booming population of 5,000 year-round souls, outfitters, and two wilderness res
orts, “the Falls” was the commercial center of the area.

  Levi stared across the lake at the unexpected vessel. It was sleek and new, not likely to be a canoe rented from an outfitter. Those were always banged up and scuffed reflecting a life of hard use by tourists unschooled in wilderness exploration. The presence of another skilled paddler felt suspect, even dangerous. Levi gripped his paddles tight as he waited for the other canoe to move.

  When the stranger pulled binoculars up to his face, Levi considered that an invasive act. He swung his canoe around round to head directly across the center of the lake and intercept the trespasser. Whether any formal legal rights were involved or not, Lone Cedar Lake belonged to the Daleys, and Levi was ready to defend the property. They were the only residents on the property for more than a decade. Levi wasn’t ready to allow an invasion by an outsider.

  As he entered the deepest water in the center of the lake, Levi’s boat began to glide faster. Drawing closer, he saw that the paddler on the opposite shore appeared to be a young man, perhaps close to Levi’s age. The stranger began to swing his canoe around in the direction of the dock, and he paddled fiercely.

  Levi grinned realizing that he’d spooked the interloper. He saw the physical size of the stranger and was confident that he could win a fair fight. The only thing Levi had left to fear was the presence of hidden weapons. He paddled faster in hot pursuit and stopped less than fifty yards away.

  The stranger climbed out of his canoe onto the dock with athletic grace. As he rose to his full standing height, Levi saw that he was striking, even handsome. He had wavy blonde hair, and he raised his arms into the air like he was surrendering to authorities.