“When he got back I wanted to punish him. I always intended to go back to him. Just couldn’t bring myself to act like nothing happened. So I froze him out for about six months. By the time I tried to make up, he was way weird. Dancin’ with himself. No room for a partner.”
“As a general rule, vets don’t need any more punishment than they already got.”
“I know that now. I shouldn’t have done it. Lee and a family was all I ever wanted.”
“So what’d you do finally?”
“Tried seeing him for a few months. Mostly couldn’t find him or we’d go out and he would immediately get drunk. Couldn’t get a fix on him. Last time I talked with him he was nowhere to be found. Started dating a little.”
“What was that like?”
“Like meeting strangers with problems they wanted to make mine.” She shook her head. “Why on earth did he reenlist? Why didn’t he get out when you did?”
“Don’t know. Never figured it out. Might have got hooked on war-think — it’s like a drug. Or might have believed in it. They’re not the same things. Some guys couldn’t care less about the mission, they just crave the action.”
“What are you going to do if you find him?”
“Try talking sense to him. Of course, he might be short on sense. Way I see it, he doesn’t have any real options. Can’t play Master of Negwegon forever. He must know that. If that doesn’t work, I’ll just have to wing it.” He thought about some of the vets he had counseled. Good days, bad days. Catch them on a good day, everything’s cool. Catch them on a bad day — way, way past common sense.
Red looked like she was tearing up. A small sob slipped out, but she kept striding straight ahead. No Jody had warmed her bed while Lee was away or since he came home. She loved Lee, always had. She gripped Hank’s arm hard. “You know he’d never hurt you.”
“Right,” Hank said. “I wonder if that’s what the kid on the Yamaha thought.”
When they reached Pewabic, Hank gave Red a hug and said he’d call a couple of times a day. He lugged the kayak the remaining mile to South Point, crossing a little bog with planks for steps and his favorite cedar-lined meadow. Alone on Potawatomi Trail a feeling was creeping up that was not much different from the ice in his gut when he was driving a Humvee down a dirty street in Fallujah.
Hank was tired and didn’t bother organizing his little camp. He tossed his mummylike sleeping bag on top of the picnic table, curled up in it, and was out.
He awakened in the cool predawn mist and put his hunch into action. He carried his weathered Necky across the marshy fringe of South Point, a rocky finger that jutted out into Thunder Bay. When the marsh gave way to calf-deep water and tall green reeds, he slipped into the boat, using the light, double-bladed graphite paddle to push himself along. He positioned himself at the end of the point but remained a few yards back in the marsh to conceal the boat. From this vantage point he could use his binoculars to scan the entire sandy beach of the horseshoe bay, almost two miles point-to-point.
The sixteen-foot sea kayak was essentially a light, hollow fiberglass and Kevlar tube with a centered cockpit. Hank’s weight was spread out over such a long, light surface that water displacement was minimal, allowing the craft to float and maneuver in extremely shallow water.
Hank knew Lee could be sitting in an open, breezy birch grove or hiding out in the low, huddling cedar swamps. He could be lying on his back in a meadow. But it was August. He wasn’t hiding out in Negwegon for the muggy forest. He was hiding out in Negwegon for the open water.
If Hank was right, Lee would show up on this beach. Seeing that it was deserted, he’d come out of the woods for a swim. He’d come out to bask in the sun. He’d come out to walk along the fresh, bracing shoreline. He wouldn’t linger — too exposed — but he’d have to get his big-lake fix. And when he did and after he left, Hank would paddle quickly across the bay and pick up his trail. At that point Hank would be minutes away from catching up to him and Lee would be ignorant of his pursuit. Surprise would be on his side.
The antithesis of the desert is not the ocean. You can die of thirst in either place. The antithesis of a vast, arid desert is the magnificence of a great sweet-water lake. Hank and Lee had both swallowed the gritty sand of the high desert and the rocky dust of the low desert. Their skin had been dried out by desert winds, like dried plants in a florist’s window. Immediately after his discharge, Hank had camped on the beach at Negwegon for several weeks. He couldn’t get enough of the big lake. The craving was deep and abiding. You didn’t shake it. He was betting Lee felt the same way. Hank’s impulsive swim upon arrival had not been entirely within his control.
Hank took a quick look at tiny Scarecrow Island to the east. His glasses went by a couple of black ducks as he returned to study the beach. He scoped the beach carefully, then let the binoculars hang from his neck as he folded his arms and leaned back. His lower body was stretched out comfortably inside the boat. He sat perfectly still. He was “still hunting,” just as if he were waiting for a nice eight-point to walk into his line of sight. The dawn had broken clear and calm. It would be straight, fast, flat-water kayaking this morning — if he did any paddling at all.
He smiled to himself. If Lee didn’t show, this might turn out to be the best stakeout he’d ever had. Damn near a vacation. Kayak as prowler, marsh as darkened street, the tree line a doorway from which Lee could emerge at any moment. He should have brought a fishing pole, try to pull a big tasty smallmouth out of the reeds. He dozed a little, rousing himself just enough to scan the beach with the binos.
For a change of scenery he occasionally looked at Scarecrow Island and was doing that when he realized he’d been suffering from what the shrinks call “inattentional blindness,” where you see what you expect to see rather than what’s really there. The black ducks he’d been passing over weren’t black ducks. Now, brought into better focus because they were closer, he saw a swimmer with a partially submerged stowfloat bag behind him on a dragline.
Hank’s binos froze on the swimmer. There was no doubt. He couldn’t believe his luck. Instinctively he reached down to the waterproof bag nestled by his seat and took out his little “get off me”.38 Smith backup and stuck it in the waistband of his cargo shorts. Then he called Red.
“Cecil.”
“Red, the best thing that could have happened has happened. He’s swimming toward the beach from Scarecrow Island. Must have been holed up there. I’m hidden in my kayak at the tip of South Point watching him. Come to the edge of the woods about one hundred yards south of the point. If I’m not in yet, stay out of sight. Don’t come out on the beach until I bring him in. Seeing you might set him off. I don’t want any distractions until he’s cuffed.”
“Roger that... Try not to hurt him, Hank.”
“Christ, he’s in the water, Red. Never had a better drop on anybody. It’s going to be all right.”
Hank sat for a few minutes waiting for Lee to swim deeper into the bay and past his hideout at the point. He wanted to paddle up behind him, remaining unnoticed as long as possible.
He watched Lee swim through the dark blue water with strong, rhythmic strokes and it was as if he were swimming back through time. Hank was struck by a powerful sense of déjà vu. The moment itself was singular and beautiful and like so many shared before. Lee’s bronze face bearded and hard but still somehow boyish. Sky and lake and beach from years ago, but this time no scholarship waiting, no bright future. What was waiting was a cage somewhere, a cage that was going to be his home for a long, long time. His pulse quickened as he slid the paddle into the water and pushed the boat out of the reeds.