the slack.
Either way, if Sommer hadn’t paddled to the max they would have dumped in the middle of the lake, not ten yards from the point. Their bodies would be stiff white logs rolling among the rocks on the leeward shore of Fraser Lake. He’d gone on a canoe trip in only fair physical condition and his strength had faltered when the chips were down.
These were ponderous thoughts to keep afloat in an ocean of fatigue, especially after the narcotic hot shower, and the bed beckoned, but so did the image of Sommer lying less than a mile away with his eyes closed, his heart beating, and his lungs sucking oxygen.
And his head full of static.
Broker lurched to his feet and grabbed his parka. Iker’s wife was right. He needed a drink.
The snow had grayed the early afternoon enough to switch on the streetlights and it was a bad day for a drive, but Broker took one, anyway. He pushed the Ranger through the small business district and followed the flashing blue light of a county snowplow out Sheridan Street to the outskirts of town, where the plow stopped, defeated by drifts on Highway 169. Broker turned around in front of the International Wolf Center and retraced his route.
Ely was end of the road, a departure point for tourists paddling into the wilds. Things were different when Broker was a kid and spent part of his summers here. Then, the iron ore they dug up from the veins that literally ran under the town was so pure it could be welded directly on to steel.
The iron fields were so potent they interfered with radio signals, and the rattle of boxcars full of ore had competed with the buzz of seaplanes flying fishermen into the paradise of northern lakes.
The mines came to grief on the global marketplace. Miners who had landed on Iwo and Saipan were thrown out of work when the steel could be shipped in cheaper from Japan. In the late ’70’s the government annexed the lake country along the Canadian border as a wilderness preserve and banished the gasoline motor to keep the woods and water pristine. The bitter land-use controversy still flared.
Broker switched on the radio, scanned the dial until he hit WELY. “Sally, your brother wants you to stay put. He’s safe, he’s made it to town and won’t get back until this blow is over.”
WELY was one of two American radio stations licensed to transmit personal messages. The other was in the Alaskan bush. He turned off the radio and stared into the storm.
Now the school district was shrinking. Income from vacationers didn’t translate into the kind of jobs that supported families. Like his home ground on the Superior shore, another piece of his geography was being changed by ’90’s Über wealth.
Take it in stride, he told himself, keep moving, don’t look back.
Mike and Irene Broker had raised their boy to be a stoic. They had been inoculated against sentimentality by bumping up hard against the Depression and Hitler, and they’d passed the antibodies to their son. Broker understood the cultural message of his time. He’d been raised to fight Communists, and he had. He’d come home from his war refitted with a forty-gallon adrenaline tank.
So he’d joked that he’d worn a badge to feed his action jones. But the fact was, if somebody had to remain vigilant in the night so others could sleep in peaceful beds, it probably should be somebody like him.
A shape jerked at the corner of his eye and he almost wrenched the wheel— seeing things —an artifact of shock and fatigue, and he was back to taking deep breaths through his nose to steady down his jumpy thoughts. And he almost had to laugh—Christ, he’d come up here to get away and . . .
He just had to maintain control and forward motion and balance. He used to be good at keeping things separate and filed into their own compartments. But it wasn’t that easy to take this one in stride. He’d sprung a leak. Stuff was getting in. Stuff was getting out.
His mom—well, Mom had always worried that
Either way, if Sommer hadn’t paddled to the max they would have dumped in the middle of the lake, not ten yards from the point. Their bodies would be stiff white logs rolling among the rocks on the leeward shore of Fraser Lake. He’d gone on a canoe trip in only fair physical condition and his strength had faltered when the chips were down.
These were ponderous thoughts to keep afloat in an ocean of fatigue, especially after the narcotic hot shower, and the bed beckoned, but so did the image of Sommer lying less than a mile away with his eyes closed, his heart beating, and his lungs sucking oxygen.
And his head full of static.
Broker lurched to his feet and grabbed his parka. Iker’s wife was right. He needed a drink.
The snow had grayed the early afternoon enough to switch on the streetlights and it was a bad day for a drive, but Broker took one, anyway. He pushed the Ranger through the small business district and followed the flashing blue light of a county snowplow out Sheridan Street to the outskirts of town, where the plow stopped, defeated by drifts on Highway 169. Broker turned around in front of the International Wolf Center and retraced his route.
Ely was end of the road, a departure point for tourists paddling into the wilds. Things were different when Broker was a kid and spent part of his summers here. Then, the iron ore they dug up from the veins that literally ran under the town was so pure it could be welded directly on to steel.
The iron fields were so potent they interfered with radio signals, and the rattle of boxcars full of ore had competed with the buzz of seaplanes flying fishermen into the paradise of northern lakes.
The mines came to grief on the global marketplace. Miners who had landed on Iwo and Saipan were thrown out of work when the steel could be shipped in cheaper from Japan. In the late ’70’s the government annexed the lake country along the Canadian border as a wilderness preserve and banished the gasoline motor to keep the woods and water pristine. The bitter land-use controversy still flared.
Broker switched on the radio, scanned the dial until he hit WELY. “Sally, your brother wants you to stay put. He’s safe, he’s made it to town and won’t get back until this blow is over.”
WELY was one of two American radio stations licensed to transmit personal messages. The other was in the Alaskan bush. He turned off the radio and stared into the storm.
Now the school district was shrinking. Income from vacationers didn’t translate into the kind of jobs that supported families. Like his home ground on the Superior shore, another piece of his geography was being changed by ’90’s Über wealth.
Take it in stride, he told himself, keep moving, don’t look back.
Mike and Irene Broker had raised their boy to be a stoic. They had been inoculated against sentimentality by bumping up hard against the Depression and Hitler, and they’d passed the antibodies to their son. Broker understood the cultural message of his time. He’d been raised to fight Communists, and he had. He’d come home from his war refitted with a forty-gallon adrenaline tank.
So he’d joked that he’d worn a badge to feed his action jones. But the fact was, if somebody had to remain vigilant in the night so others could sleep in peaceful beds, it probably should be somebody like him.
A shape jerked at the corner of his eye and he almost wrenched the wheel— seeing things —an artifact of shock and fatigue, and he was back to taking deep breaths through his nose to steady down his jumpy thoughts. And he almost had to laugh—Christ, he’d come up here to get away and . . .
He just had to maintain control and forward motion and balance. He used to be good at keeping things separate and filed into their own compartments. But it wasn’t that easy to take this one in stride. He’d sprung a leak. Stuff was getting in. Stuff was getting out.
His mom—well, Mom had always worried that
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