It was still dark when Vinnie knocked on the door. I let him in and poured him a cup of coffee while I finished dressing. He sat there and drank it without saying anything.
“You know where we’re going?” I said when I was ready.
“I think so.”
“We’ll take my truck.”
“We can take mine.”
“If we take yours,” I said, “we’ll never make it back. I saw the tread on those tires.”
“They have paved roads in Canada, Alex.”
“We’ll take my truck.”
A few minutes later, we were on our way. The trip started on Lakeshore Drive again, bending around Whitefish Bay, just as we had done the day before. But this time we didn’t stop on the reservation. At this hour the only signs of life came from the two casinos. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to gamble before dawn on a cold October morning, but there were enough cars in the parking lots to prove me wrong.
When we left the reservation, it was a straight shot down Three Mile Road into Sault Ste. Marie-or the “Soo,” as the natives call it. We got onto I-75 and headed over the International Bridge, passing over the Soo Locks, and then over the Algoma Steel Foundry Works. With the sun just starting to come up, and the fires burning in the sintering furnaces, the whole scene was like one of the outer rings of hell.
“Get your license ready,” I said as we came up to the Canadian Customs booth.
“Little problem,” Vinnie said.
I looked over at him. “What is it?”
“Tom’s got my license.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“We decided he might need it, just in case. He looks enough like me-”
“This is beautiful,” I said. I pulled up to the waiting line. There was one car in front of us. Going through customs can be a breeze, or it can be a pain in the ass, depending on who you’ve got in the booth and how they happen to be feeling that day. With the amount of time this guy was spending with the driver ahead of me, it didn’t look good.
“You got another ID, right?”
“No, Alex.”
“A credit card?”
He just looked at me.
“You gave Tom your credit cards?”
“Yes.”
“You got anything?”
“I gave him my wallet, Alex. The whole thing.”
The car in front of me finally pulled away.
“Pretend you’re sleeping,” I said.
“What?”
“You heard me. Go to sleep. Right now.”
“I’m not doing that.”
I started to pull forward. “We’re going in, Vinnie. For God’s sake, do your dead man act or we’ll be stuck here all day.”
He said a few unkind words and then did what he was told, dropping his head against the far side of the car and closing his eyes. As I pulled in front of the booth, the man looked at me, then at Vinnie, and then back at me. The man had razor burns all over his neck, and he was not happy. If I’d been sitting in his booth with a scraped-up neck on a cold morning, I don’t imagine I would have been happy, either.
“Identification, sir?”
I pulled out my license. He gave it a quick glance.
“And your friend?”
“He’s down for good,” I said.
The man narrowed his eyes. “Your business in Canada this morning, sir?”
“Just taking him home,” I said.
“He’s Canadian?”
“I’m afraid so. He’s one of yours.”
“Think you could slip his wallet out from underneath him, sir?”
“His wallet’s long gone,” I said. “Lost it. Or had it stolen. He’s had kind of a rough night. When I closed the bar, I thought maybe I’d do the right thing, make sure he got back where he belonged.”
“You own a bar, sir?”
“Don’t I wish,” I said. “I just work there a few nights a week.”
“Which bar would that be, sir?”
“Glasgow Inn. You ever been there?”
“No, sir. Don’t believe so. Apparently, this is part of the service, eh?”
The man was loosening up a little bit. He was even starting to sound like a Canadian.
“Like I said, just trying to do the right thing.”
“Any alcohol or firearms in your vehicle?”
“No,” I said. It felt good to say one thing to the man that wasn’t a lie.
“Have a good morning,” he said.
Vinnie waited until we were a hundred yards past the booth. “That was real cute,” he finally said. “You had fun with that one.”
“Matter of fact.”
I could tell he was about to say something else. He stopped himself and just shook his head. He didn’t say a word as we made our way through the quiet streets of Soo Canada. It’s a large city by Canadian standards, about four times bigger than Soo Michigan. But there’s something about the place, something I could never put my finger on. It always seemed a little forlorn to me. This cold, gray morning seemed like a permanent part of the city itself.
“You need a donut?” I said.
He shook his head.
“You gonna be this way all the way up there?”
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat. “You know how it is with us Indians,” he said. “One bad night and we’re down for the count.”
We took 17 north, out of the city and up the Lake Superior coastline. The fog was still heavy on the water as we rounded Batchawana Bay. An hour later, we passed through a small town called Montreal River, and then it was another hour to make our way through the Lake Superior Provincial Park. There was nothing but trees and an occasional glimpse of the lake, stretching out beyond the fog.
“Anytime you want to speak up,” I said. “Telling me where we’re going, for instance.”
Vinnie opened his eyes. “Go to White River,” he said. “Then take a right.”
“White River’s another two hours away.”
“What time is it?” he said.
“Little after nine.”
He picked up my cell phone. “We still get a signal up here?”
“I imagine,” I said. “On this road, anyway. Try it.”
He turned it on and dialed a number. “I’m gonna try Albright’s number again.” He listened for a short while, then he hung up.
“No dice?”
“He’s not picking up.”
“You said you left a message last time?”
“Yeah, I asked him to call my mother’s number. I said I was a member of Vinnie’s family, and was wondering why he hadn’t come back home yet.”
“You don’t think this has gotten to the point where you should come clean?”
“Does it really matter who they think he is? Either way, they should have brought him back three days ago.”
“I just don’t see how this lie is gonna help.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Tell me again. You don’t know anything else about this Albright guy? Where he works?”
“No, I really don’t. Tom didn’t tell me, anyway.”
“What’s his first name?”
“Red.”
“Sounds more like a nickname.”
“I know. Tom said his name was Red Albright, and he had four other guys, all experienced hunters, that they were heading for this lodge on Lake Peetwaniquot, and that they’d pick him up on the way.”
“Where, at his house?”
“They met him at the duty-free shop by the bridge. They said they’d be driving a black Chevy Suburban. I drove him over there.”
“But you didn’t see them. I mean, you weren’t there at the duty-free, hiding behind the cigarettes or anything.”
“No, Alex. I was not hiding behind the cigarettes.”
“You don’t know anything else about these men, other than the fact that they were going to pay your brother three thousand dollars?”
“Every one of my cousins has asked me that,” he said. “Every one of my uncles, two of my aunts, and, of course, my mother has asked me that maybe seven times on her own. The answer is no, I don’t know anything else. And I’ll give you the answer to your next question before you even ask it. Yes. Yes, I’m an idiot.”
“That one I didn’t need to ask,” I said. “So try the lodge again. Maybe their phone works today.”
“Maybe it does,” he said, punching in the number. After a moment, he hit the End button. “It still doesn’t go through.”
We rode on another few minutes, through more trees, then over a small bridge. I could see a large bird, maybe a hawk, circling over the road ahead.
“So when do you call the police?” I said. “I mean, I’m just wondering.”
He looked out the window. “I want to find him and bring him back home. Without getting him in big trouble.”
“If you can.”
“Yeah, if I can.”
“And if you can’t?”
“Then I call the police.”
“Okay,” I said.
“We take one shot at it,” he said. “That’s all I want to do.”
“Fair enough.”
We kept going. Four hours had passed. As we left the park, we saw signs for Wawa, the closest thing to a real town we’d see for the rest of the day, if you didn’t mind the name.
“You getting hungry yet?” he said.
“You read my mind. We’ll stop in Wawa, get some gas. See if they have a decent place to eat.”
The first thing we saw was a goose. It was a good twenty feet tall, and it was standing on a pedestal that had to be another ten feet. A giant goose head thirty feet in the air, looking down at you-that’s apparently how you know you’re in Wawa. There was another goose, this one only five feet tall, in front of the first store we saw, then another goose about the same size in front of the motel.
“They seem to have a thing about geese in this town,” I said.
“Where do you think the name comes from?”
I thought about it. “Wawa means goose?”
“In Ojibwa, yes.”
“Now I know.” I drove by a couple of fast-food places and pulled up in front of a place that didn’t seem to have a name. “You don’t mind stopping at a bar, do you?”
I knew Vinnie didn’t drink, but I’d be damned if I came all this way up into Canada without having a Molson. We got out of the truck and stretched, looking and sounding like two men who’d been driving since well before the sun came up. There were only two other vehicles in the parking lot-one truck that looked about as old as mine, and an Impala that may have been white one day, a long, long time ago. Apparently, this place didn’t draw much of a lunch crowd.
When we stepped inside, we saw a bar and six empty stools. The man behind the stick looked up at us and put down his magazine. Besides him, there were two men on the other side of the room, playing one of those barroom bowling games where you slide the metal puck down the wooden chute. There was a pool table in the middle of the room with two cues crossed in a large X on the green felt, and a jukebox that, thankfully, wasn’t making a sound.
Everywhere else, there were photographs. On every wall, on every available surface on which you could hang a picture, there was nothing but men standing next to dead animals, mostly deer, all of them strung up by the back legs and hanging upside down, tongues falling out of open mouths. Suddenly I didn’t feel so hungry.
“Come on in, gentlemen,” the man at the bar said. He was a big one. He had passed three hundred pounds a long time ago, and wasn’t heading back anytime soon. “What can I get ya, eh?”
“You serve food in here?”
“Damn right we do. You in the mood for some nice venison stew?”
Vinnie and I both sneaked another look at the pictures on the wall. “You don’t actually hunt deer around here, do you?” I said.
The man looked at us for a moment and then started laughing. “I thought you were serious.”
“How about a couple of cheeseburgers,” I said. “One Molson and one 7-Up.”
The two men playing the little bowling game had stopped to watch us come in. “Where are you boys from?” one of them said, the one with the Maple Leafs jersey. His nose was taped up, and there were purple bruises running under both eyes. His friend was wearing his orange hunting jacket, with the license still pinned to the back.
“Michigan,” I said.
“You up here hunting?”
“Nope, other business.”
“Other business,” the one with the taped-up face said to the one in the hunting jacket. “What the hell does that mean?”
The bartender brought our drinks over. We sat there and watched him grill up the cheeseburgers. The two men went back to their bowling game. The pins were attached to the machine from above, and you had to slide the puck over little sensors to make them flip up. They apparently thought you needed to slide the puck as hard as you possibly could, and that you needed to swear at it very loudly.
“You gotta excuse those boys,” the bartender said. “They had a little run-in yesterday and they’re still buzzing.”
“I noticed the broken nose,” I said.
“A couple strangers came in here. One of them had a real nose on him so these two clowns start making jokes. You know, like ‘Tell us another lie, Pinocchio,’ real intelligent stuff like that. These guys take it for about two minutes before the guy with the nose stands up and hits Stan right in the face. Says ‘Here, let’s see what your nose looks like tomorrow.’ And the other guy, hell, he’s about twice as big, so Brian wasn’t gonna step in.”
“Yeah, I’m so lucky having somebody to watch my back,” the man with the broken nose said. “He’s a real friend.”
The other man just stood there with a bottle of beer in his hand. He still hadn’t said a word.
“And this game is a piece of shit, too.”
“Will you two knock it off?” the bartender said without turning around. “I swear, I’m gonna throw that machine out on the road.”
“We need more sawdust,” Broken Nose said. “This thing ain’t sliding.”
“Open up your brain and dump some out.”
“Haw haw, that’s funny.”
“They got nothing better to do, eh?” the bartender said, apparently to us. “They gotta torment me every day of the week. Get in fights with the customers.”
“We don’t got ‘other business’ to do like these fellas,” the man said. “We’re not ‘other business’ kind of guys, you know what I mean?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” the bartender said, finally turning around.
“Ask the Lone Ranger and Tonto here,” the man said.
I turned on my stool and looked at him. He and his buddy went back to their game. Vinnie sat next to me as cool as an ice sculpture. I knew he had a fuse about seven miles long, and that no matter what they said, it would get to me a hell of a lot sooner than it would get to him.
“Don’t mind those morons,” the bartender said as he served up the cheeseburgers. “They’re the only two in town, believe me.”
“Just our luck,” I said. We ate our burgers. I drank my beer and had another one. Two cold Canadian beers were the easiest part of the day so far.
I could feel their eyes on our backs. When we were done, I turned around again and watched them slide their stupid little puck down the board. “Who’s winning?” I said.
“Machine’s broken,” the man said. “It don’t keep score anymore.”
“Why don’t you keep score yourself?”
They looked at me like I was from Mars.
“You know,” I said, “when we came in, I was wondering why you guys weren’t playing pool. Now I understand. Pool’s too complicated.”
“You wanna try me, old man?” he said. He looked like he meant it, even with an already broken nose. His partner was obviously not so sure.
Before I could say another word, I felt Vinnie’s hand on my shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “We’re leaving.”
“That’s right,” the man said. “Go do your ‘other business’ with your Indian boyfriend.”
I would have taken him apart right there, but Vinnie had other ideas. “You wanna spend the rest of the day in the Wawa jail? Come on, it ain’t worth it.”
He steered me out of there and into the truck. “I didn’t pay,” I said.
“I left some money on the bar,” he said. “Put the key in and drive away.”
I did as he said, sending a spray of gravel behind us. We had to double back through town to get back to 17, so the giant goose was there once again to say goodbye to us.
“Vinnie,” I said, a couple of miles later, “doesn’t it even bother you when people say stuff like that?”
“Who says it doesn’t? I just don’t get in fights over it.”
“I was sticking up for you, you know.”
“How’s that?”
“You’re the one they were insulting. That Lone Ranger and Tonto business.”
“That was for both of us,” he said.
“No, the Lone Ranger was a hero.”
“So was Tonto.”
“He was the trusty sidekick,” I said. “Believe me, this is one thing I know about. That was my favorite show when I was a kid.”
“Of course,” Vinnie said. “The Lone Ranger. That explains a lot.”
An hour and a half after we left Wawa, we came to a little town called White River. The Canadian Pacific Railroad crossed the road here. We sat and watched the freight cars go by for ten minutes.
Route 17 turned west in this town, heading back to the upper shores of Lake Superior. We took a right turn on 631. We had to keep going north, as far as the roads would take us, deep into the heart of Ontario.
“I’m gonna try home again,” Vinnie said. “See if he showed up.”
“Wouldn’t that be something,” I said. “We’re way the hell up here and he walks through the front door back on the rez.”
“Right now I’ll take it.”
He punched the numbers and waited for the answer. “It’s Vinnie,” he said. “Just checking in.”
He listened for a while. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll be there in a couple more hours. I’ll call you back.”
He hung up and sat there looking at the phone.
“No sign of him,” I said.
He shook his head.
“Everybody okay back home?”
“They want to call the police.”
I didn’t say anything. I kept driving.
Another hour and a half passed. We went through more trees, and then the trees would open up to a wide meadow, or a marsh thick with tall grass and the cold remnants of cattails. We’d see another vehicle maybe once every thirty minutes. My eyes were getting tired.
Vinnie tried calling Albright’s number again. No answer. He left a message this time, letting him know that we were in Canada. He left my cell phone number and told him to call the second he got in.
“I hope that went through,” he said as he hung up. “The signal’s getting pretty weak up here.”
We finally came to a small town called Hornepayne, where another railroad crossed, this time the Canadian National. The train had just passed as we came to the crossing. As we bumped over the tracks, we could see the last car disappearing into the west.
“This line goes all the way to Vancouver, doesn’t it?” I said.
“I believe it does.”
“Hell of a long trip.”
He let out a breath. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“For dragging you all the way up here.”
“You’re not. I always wanted to visit Hornepayne, Ontario.”
He laughed. “I think that was it already.”
He was right. The road was empty again. It was another hour north, past a lonely lake called Nagagamisis, until we finally reached the end of the line, which in this case was the Trans-Canada Highway. We could turn left and head west to Longlac and then Geraldton, or we could turn right and head east to Hearst and then Kapuskasing. After eight hours of driving, we had gone as far north as we could go. From here it was nothing but wilderness, all the way up past the Albany River, then the Attawapiskat, then the Ekwan, through the Polar Bear Provincial Park, to the shores of Hudson Bay. There were small outposts here and there, but from this point on they were accessible only by plane.
“Which way?” I said.
“I think left.”
“You think?”
“I know it’s not too far,” he said. “Either way. That much I remember. And I’m pretty sure Tom said west.”
“So how were you supposed to find this place?” I said. “I mean, if you were with these guys-”
“If I was with them, they’d know exactly where to go. I’m sure Albright had the exact directions.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “I get it. Let’s give it a shot.”
I took the left and drove west down the Trans-Canada. There were lots more trees. This was officially the most goddamned trees I’d ever seen in one day. About twenty minutes later, we saw a gravel road heading off to the right.
“Think that’s it?” I said.
“There’s no sign,” he said. “Don’t you think there’d be a sign?”
“I can keep going.”
“Go a little while more. If we don’t see something soon, we’ll come back.”
We drove ten more minutes. There was nothing but a sign telling us that Longlac was a hundred miles away. I stopped in the empty road, did a three-point turn, and headed back the other way.
“Let’s try it this time,” he said when we came back to the road. “If it’s not this one, then it must have been east instead of west.”
I took the gravel road, and held on tight as it twisted its way through the forest. It was one blind turn after another as I fishtailed the truck on the loose gravel.
“Take it easy, Alex.”
“Who are we gonna hit?” I said, turning the wheel hard.
“Look out!”
I slammed on the brakes, and felt the truck start to slide.
“Son of a bitch!”
We came to rest with all four wheels in half-frozen mud. The moose stood there in the middle of the road, all gangly legs and long nose, looking at us with mild interest.
“That would have been great,” I said, as I put the truck in reverse. “We come all the way up here and get killed by a moose.”
“Can you get out of this?”
I gave it some gas. The wheels spun. I tried putting it back in drive, to see if I could rock our way out. The wheels spun again. I turned the key, and we sat there for a while, listening to the engine cool off.
“Now what?” he finally said.
“Try the phone.”
He turned it on. “It’s not getting a signal now.”
“I was afraid of that. We’re too far north.”
“We’ll have to walk,” he said. “Maybe the lodge is right up this road.”
“I’m sure it is,” I said as I opened my door. “The Lone Ranger never got lost when Tonto was around.”