Just Intuition (20 page)

"Look up ahead," Erin whispered and Allie
's ponytail bobbed to attention.

"A moose!" she said, a little too loudly, causing Fiona to let out a tiny yip. The wary moose raised its head and, with unusual grace for such a large ungainly creature, stepped up over the riverbank. It disappeared silently into the trees. The only evidence of its passing was a narrow divide in the cattails where it had crossed the river.

As they passed the spot, Erin pointed to the separation in floating lilypads and the trail of bent grasses. "That is what we are looking for. A canoe recently passing will make a path like that if it heads to shore. If we see any others, we need to investigate what caused them."

"What else are we looking for?" Allie was an eager partner.

"Campfire smoke, disturbed wildlife, anything that might have been discarded—"

"A note carved into a tree by Lily that says exactly where they
've gone?" Allie quipped, finishing her sentence.

"With a map." Erin loved that girl.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"You have food!" Minion says. I slowly slide the plastic package from my beef jerky over the edge of the canoe and into the water. I manage a grimace in response. It's not my fault Minion was too stupid to bring anything.

Minion stops paddling altogether and gawks at me.
Let's go. Paddle.
I can't tell if that look is angry or sad. Minion's stare is still frozen on me, paddle not moving. The canoe turns sideways in the river and we drift. We are headed for a tangle of branches from a fallen poplar and will be stuck there in a minute.
Fine.
I dig in my bag and throw the package of cookies over. Minion fumbles and has to scrabble around to grab them before they are soaked in the mucky soup at the bottom of the canoe. I hide my smile.
Now keep paddling.

The sky is dark as mud and the air is cooler, enough to make me shiver, by the time I spot the dead tree ahead. Birch bark peels like sheets of white paper off the trunk and one naked branch signals me to the little creek I
've been looking for. I point it out to The Minion who gives me a dumbass look and shrugs like a moron. I have been here before, many times, and what usually takes me twenty minutes in the motorboat, took friggin' forever to paddle.

My arms are welted with mosquito bites and I splash a little water onto them but it doesn
't take the itch. The one thing I forgot was the thing I could use most right now. Everyone knows you don't go into the woods without your bug dope. We hop out at the shore and Minion helps me tug the canoe over a fallen tree blocking our way. We drag the boat through the guck and the fiberglass hull screeches against a rock, startling a flock of sparrows. The commotion in the trees makes me jump.

"Sheisse!" I yell and duck my head, just in case. "I hate birds." The Minion stares at me again.
Would you stop eyeballing me?

We leave the worst of the mosquitoes behind at the river and haul the canoe to the top of the bank, turning it upside down in the brush. The faded green hull blends into the ground and won
't be noticed. I take the knife from my pocket and snap it open, sinking the blade into the bark of the tree above the canoe. It sticks out like a brown handled warning to anyone who might come this way. Caution, danger ahead. Stay out.

In the trees, the pesky mosquitoes of the river are replaced by swarms of blackflies and a dark cloud of
insects hums above me, homing in. Always most hungry before a storm, they bite through the tender skin behind my ears and I swat uselessly. I pull the front of my shirt over my mouth and nose so I can breathe, but they still feast wherever they can. It's enough to make you insane. I see blood drizzling down Minion's neck and I hope his tastes sweeter than mine to the blackflies.

There is a narrow animal trail along the creek and I lead the way deeper into the bush, my panther feet coming back to me on dry land. The branches whipping by break up the bugs so I move fast to take advantage. Minion follows right behind me and I cinch up my backpack straps to keep it close. A five-minute walk from the main river, where the creek disappears underground, is my secret hideout. It
's a one room wooden shack that I found two years ago and it's mine. The metal roof's rusty but it doesn't leak, far as I know. The old door's half busted but it still keeps out the critters. There is plastic covering the single window beside the door and I replace it from time to time with new stuff. I kind of hate letting Minion in on my secret place but today it can't be helped. I twist the latch on the door and we get inside, trying not to take too many flying vampires with us.

Minion examines the three legged stool, wiggles the little table and kicks at the frame of the wooden bed like a friggin
' army inspector. Finally Minion sits. I shake the leaves from the chimney pipe and kneel to light a fire in the stove. It's nothing special, only a square metal box someone hauled out here long before the place was mine. It has a couple of hinges on the grated door in front and a pipe that goes back out the wall under the roof overhang. It works great and I've even come out here on a cool fall afternoon to get away.

I
've barely got the fire going when the rain comes, gentle at first like whispering leaves, then harder, crashing on the metal roof. And the thunder, like all the bastards in hell are shouting at once. I sit on the dirt floor in front of the stove and watch the flames lick up every last bit of wood I stuff in. Just seeing the bright little fingers surround and devour the sticks of wood gives me a tickle in the base of my stomach. Fire is my friend. I could sit here all night but the heat is getting too intense. Sweat beads my forehead and I remember that I am not alone. The invader is here. I close the grated door and back away.

Minion wants to talk. Talk about our day. Talk about our future. Talk about the fire. Talk about the old man. I can
't even hear with the godawful racket of the rain, so I curl up like a big dangerous cat on the other side of the bed and try to keep myself to myself until morning.

* * *

"I see something!" Allie scooted forward in her seat to point into the weeds and the canoe teetered dangerously. Fiona whined and Erin calmed her after she stabilized the boat with her own weight.

"Baby! Don
't flip us!" Now Erin spotted it too and dug in her paddle to turn the small craft. Hung up in the lilypads out of the main current was a bright red and orange plastic bag. Allie peered down at it in the water when Erin steered them past. "We missed the junk food party!" The bag had not had a chance to make it further into the weeds, or to be submerged by the current, and had likely been tossed earlier in the day.

"Cheetos!" Erin plucked it out of the water and examined it, crushing it in one angry fist. Fiona sniffed the air with interest and she tucked the empty package under her pack on the floor. "I know Striker and Z-man did not have Cheetos. Derek, the lunch thief, must be the junk food litterbug." She clenched her jaw and put more energy into each paddle stroke. If they hurried, they might be able to catch up. Sensing her urgency, Allie matched her stroke for stroke and the canoe skimmed across the water
's surface, a sharp V rippling in its wake.

A half hour later, Allie called out again, this time remaining steadfastly glued to her seat. She balanced her paddle on thighs and pointed a gracefully long finger into the trees. "We need to look there."

"Do you see something?" Erin squinted. Allie did have better eyesight. She tilted her paddle and steered them toward a flat rock on a sandy stretch of riverbank. As they approached, Erin noted a sharp indentation from a canoe's scraping keel that she had totally missed. There were two sets of footprints in the sand, disappearing into the grass and then returning. In addition to her surprisingly strong paddling, Allie proved to be an observant scout. Like she had been born in a canoe, she vaulted over the bow and pulled the boat onto shore by the painter line. She lifted the relieved dog out over the side and Fiona daintily stepped to dry land, lapping water on her way.

The women followed Fiona
's nose on a quick excursion ashore. The dog led them to a couple of plastic granola bar wrappers and a circle of footprints digging into the sand by the canoe's landing spot. Someone had been waiting here. Were they waiting for something or was this only a resting place? With no questions to their answers, they launched the canoe back onto the river.

Erin was glad she had taken a moment to zip into her rain gear while they were onshore and she was sure Allie felt the same when the first couple of soft raindrops pattered onto their hoods. It was still a long ways to the Ranger Station at Blue Water campground and, judging from the darkening storm clouds, they could waste no more time here.

Scarcely back into their paddling rhythm, they spotted a smear of red around the next bend. This time Erin saw it too and was alarmed when they came upon her dad's aluminum fishing boat. Abandoned in the weeds at the river's edge, the motor's propellor was pivoted up on its mount revealing severely twisted blades. She immediately knew what had happened. She had seen damage like this before, and it signaled the kiss of death for the motor.

"This looks like your dad
's boat," Allie said. She pointed to the double set of footprints exiting up the muddy bank. "Why did they leave it here?"

Erin nodded at the misshapen propeller. "They must have hit a dead head."

"A dead head?" She lifted her paddle abruptly from the water.

"It
's what they call a partially submerged log that is hard to see. You want to be careful not to hit it with your motor prop, or this happens. You are dead in the water." Erin thrust her paddle into the river bottom to hold their position steady in the current, and leaned over the stern. She retrieved a piece of paper weighted onto the seat by a sizable rock. At least eight inches of river water sloshed in the bottom from a cracked hull. Zimmerman must have been bailing water like a madman before Striker was able to maneuver the boat safely to shore. She grinned when she read the note, obviously intended for her, and handed it up to Allie.

Z DID IT.

This was crossed out and underneath was scribbled in pen.

NO IT WAS THE MUPPET.

Allie looked at her quizzically, so Erin explained. "The guy driving the boat is supposed to be careful not to hit anything. The guy in the front is supposed to be keeping lookout and yell when he spots something. If the guy driving is going too fast, or if the guy in front is not watching carefully, bad things can happen."

"Okay. I get why they are blaming each other, but who is Muppet?"

Erin laughed. "You haven't met Striker yet but, if you've ever watched Sesame Street, you'll get it."

"Sounds like they are both behaving like juveniles with your dad
's boat."

"Believe me, my dad will probably be ecstatic to hear that they not only destroyed the motor, but the boat too. He
's been trying to convince my mom that he needs a new one for ages. She always says, Oh Tom, yer boat's bin workin' just fine now. You don't need ta waste yer money on a new boughten one. Now come here once and help me peel dem pah-day-duhs while I go checksie the roast in the oven."

"Your mom does not sound like that!" Allie stifled her laugh.

"Dern-tootin, she does when she's had too much blueberry wine, don't ya know that then?" Erin was having fun with this. "My pappy does too!"

"Maybe your dad does, a little." Allie had to admit that she had heard a few unusual colloquialisms here and there.

"Ya, fer sure. You betcha he does. Pret'near every time the inners come over!"

"Well, I wouldn
't want to be the one to tell your dad, in any language, that I broke his boat!"

"Oh-fer-geez, right now Z-man and The Muppet are paying their dues. They are feeding the skeeters out in the swamp and they
'll be lucky if they make it to the forestry road 'fore dark. Then they have to pray someone comes along to give them a ride." There was a sudden chill in the air and Erin zipped her rain jacket right to the top. When the thunderheads arrived, the mosquitoes would be intolerable here on the river too.

"I wish you would stop calling him Muppet. When I finally do meet Striker, I am afraid I will slip and insult him! Aren
't you worried about them?"

"
They're big boys. They have food, they have rain gear, and they have their guilt. They'll be fine." Erin had her doubts about Zimmerman, whose woodsman skills were questionable, but Striker should be able to find the road. "Those storm clouds are getting closer. We'd better hurry." She pushed her paddle in deep and leaned on it until the canoe was back out into the current.

Allie peered into the rippling river water. "What if we hit a dead head?" She kept her paddle balanced on both thighs and explored the bottom of her pack.

"Don't worry, babe. This sneaky little canoe doesn't ride as low and we will skin right over it with a little bump. Besides, your eagle eyes will spot it long before we get close."

"Are you trying to say I might be helpful?" Allie produced a bottle of insect repellant and applied it liberally. She pretended to put it back into her pack and then neatly tossed it
back to Erin, who caught it mid-air.

"Best girlfriend ever," Erin said. "What other goodies do you have in there?"

"All kinds of junk I threw in." Allie shrugged. "I don't really remember." She opened the bag wide. "Apparently I have a hatchet and some rope and treats for Fuzzy Fiona, best dog ever." She cooed, flipping a Milk Bone into Fiona's waiting mouth. The dog chomped her biscuit loudly.

Stomach suddenly rumbling, Erin took the cue and unzipped her mom
's truck driver lunch. She let the canoe drift downstream, occasionally correcting their trajectory with a well angled paddle stroke. There was a surprising variety of food in the cooler bag, enough to last two people a couple of days. Apparently, her mom was still intent on feeding the entire neighborhood. Fiona nosed her knee and Erin covertly snuck a piece of ham into her drooling mouth. They quickly munched on sandwiches, yogurt and strawberries before digging in their paddles once again in a much more satisfied state.