Saving Elmer

 

Saving Elmer
by Dave Wright

“Phil, was that the portage we were looking for?” shouted Jenny from the front of our canoe.

I looked over my shoulder. We drifted past a narrow clearing in the woods with a pebbled beach. “Damn. That could have been it,” I said, and looked at the map between my legs. “There is supposed to be a small river next to the portage. You’d think they’d have a sign.”

“It’s the wilderness,” said Jenny. “Maybe it’s still up ahead.”

I took another couple of strokes from my seat in the back of the canoe. I admired Jenny’s muscular shoulders and trim physique. We had met at the gym about a year ago. The workouts had been far more effective for Jenny than they had been for me. My rear end fills the entire seat of the canoe while hers has space to spare.

I looked beyond Jenny’s spandex-clad figure and felt the current pick up speed. Both banks narrowed to a gap between the trees. “That’s the river,” I shouted.

“Paddle hard backward!” she yelled. “We need to turn around.”

I started sweeping backward trying to try to reverse course. The canoe turned sideways as I struggled to pull the rear end of the canoe around so we could paddle upstream. “I can’t get us to turn,” I gasped between strokes.

This was the second day of our hastily planned canoe trip. Neither of us knew how to paddle a canoe, so we took a crash course in canoeing from our outfitter. The first day we wandered back and forth across the lake, unable to make the little craft go in a straight line. We must have seen every piece of driftwood on the entire shoreline. All we wanted to do was cross the lake and set up camp.

Jennifer’s taut shoulders pulled hard against the current. “I knew I should have taken the back seat,” she shouted. “The outfitter told us that the person in the back steers. The one in the front just makes us go faster.”

“I know. I know,” I yelled. “You can have the back next time.” I looked downstream and saw the river flow between two boulders like a gigantic funnel. “The current is too strong!”

“We’ll just have to run the rapids!” Jenny cried. “Straighten us out.”

I used the paddle as a rudder. The canoe headed for the opening between the boulders. White foam spouted on both sides like geysers. “We’ll never make it!” I shouted.

“No way, Phil. We’ll make it.” she yelled. “I’ll push us off from the rocks. You keep us moving downstream.”

Jenny knelt on her knees in front of her seat. We slipped between the two boulders. I heard the scrape of aluminum on rock. Good thing it’s a rental, I thought, and not Elmer’s. He would kill me if I scratched his precious canoe.

Jenny extended her paddle, ready for the next obstacle. She fended off one rock and then another. The canoe slowed for a few seconds before a field of whitewater appeared directly in our path. I attempted to guide us through the maze. Jenny pushed one way and I the other. Suddenly, we were caught sideways in the current again. I felt the keel of the canoe catch on a rock. The next thing I knew we had capsized in the rushing water. The packs, paddles, and maps sailed downstream.

I was underwater, flailing my arms trying to right myself. I searched for a foothold on the slippery rocks. I found a flat rock and regained my balance in numbing, thigh-deep water. Jenny bobbed to the surface a few yards ahead of me still holding onto the canoe. I reached for a nearby boulder to steady myself. “My favorite Twins cap!” I shouted. I let go of my end of the canoe and reached for my hat that was just about out of reach.

“Forget the hat,” hollered Jenny. “Grab the canoe!”

I slapped the baseball cap over my balding head and lunged for the canoe. My life jacket bumped against a rock as I rushed downstream with the current. I found another foothold and grabbed the canoe that had suddenly stopped moving.

“Are you okay?” I called to Jenny.

“Yes. I’m fine,” said Jenny. She was standing in water up to her knees holding the front of the canoe. She smiled back at me. “Wasn’t that exciting?”

“You’re kidding,” I shouted. “That was terrifying.”

“We’ll be fine,” she chided. “We just need to pull the canoe to shore, dump it out and get our packs. No problem.”

“No problem!” I sputtered when I caught my breath. “Do you hear that? It sounds like a waterfall.”

The sound of rushing water had been replaced with the unmistakable sound of crashing water. I hung on to my end of the capsized canoe. Full of water, it seemed desperate to escape my grip. Jenny maneuvered our craft out of the main current and eased it toward shore. I stumbled along keeping my balance by holding on to the side of the canoe.

We managed to pull it into a shallow pool. We flipped the canoe upside down to empty the water and beached it next to an uprooted tree. “What about the packs?” I muttered in disgust as I plopped down on a rock.

“Get up,” she said, her smile replaced with a look of determination. “Let’s hope we get to them before they get to the falls.”

We waded downstream along the rugged shore. One of our packs was lodged against a rock in the middle of the stream. Jenny stepped gingerly into the river using a stick for balance. She grabbed the pack and pulled it to shore. I retrieved a second pack that was beached a few yards beyond it in the shallows. There was no sign of our third pack or our paddles.

We dragged the sodden packs back to the canoe. “I see why the outfitter insisted on packing everything in plastic,” said Jenny, taking a closer look at the pack. “It looks like this one has our personal gear. I hope our sleeping bags aren’t wet.”

“I’m more concerned about the food,” I said wearily, “but I think this is the food pack.” I looked at the river and then at Jenny. “I’m sorry I got you into this.”

"Don’t be silly. I’m actually kind of enjoying it,” she replied with a snicker.

“Enjoying this?” I muttered. “Not me.”

She looked at me with her hands on her hips. “The weather is nice for September. We didn’t get hurt, and we think we know where we are. Let’s find the portage and maybe the river will have delivered our bags for us.” 

“I don’t know if the old man is worth it,” I grumbled.

“I’ve got a hunch we’ll find him on this lake,” said Jenny brightly. “Let’s go.”

We hauled the canoe through a scrabble of brush and found the path about ten yards above the riverbank. “This is where we should have been all along,” I groaned.

“Quit your griping and hand me that pack,” said Jenny. She hoisted a pack to her back. “I’ll go ahead to find the end of the portage.”

I dragged the food pack up the incline, left the canoe for a return trip and hoisted the pack to my back. The outfitter assured us that each pack weighed forty pounds or less. “I’ll bet it weighs sixty now that it’s wet,” I muttered to myself.

As I trudged along the portage, I thought of Mother who passed away two years ago and Candi, my ex-wife who left me about the same time.

Candi and I had been married five years. From the moment we met, Candi complained that I spent more time talking to Mother than I did talking to her. “You’re on the phone with her every day,” she whined. “You tell her more about your day than you tell me.”

“She needs me,” I said. “Ever since she remarried, Mother has spent her life taking care of Elmer. She cooked every meal. She made him take his pills. She even packed his lunch for his hunting trips. And what does she get in return? Neglect.”

“That’s nonsense,” said Candi. “Your mother and stepfather get along fine. They just don’t have the same interests. Elmer loves to hunt and hike in the woods. Your mother loves to quilt and go to concerts.”

“I suppose you’re right,” I admitted, “but she seems lonesome to me.”

My relationship with Mother was only one of our problems. Candi had wanted a house with four bedrooms, a deck, and a pool; I gave her a cramped two-bedroom rambler. Candi wanted a vibrant night life; I gave her hours of television, video games, and chips. Mainly though, Candi wanted children. We tried all the conventional home remedies—sex on demand (Check the thermometer, dear. I’m ovulating! Now!), a diet of bee pollen, Royal jelly, and vegetables (I lost ten pounds for a short time.), post-coital acrobatics (Lie with your hips on a pillow and keep your legs in the air for ten minutes. Let gravity do the trick.). We even tried daily sex for two weeks. The process quickly became more clinical than passionate. By day three I felt like it was chore time. By day seven I was exhausted. By day fourteen I’d had enough. I reluctantly agreed to see a doctor to find out if I was the problem.

After an embarrassing encounter with a nurse who tapped her foot outside the door while she waited for me to produce a sample, the doctor called me into his office. He had one of those old-fashioned Kodak slide projectors. “Have a seat,” he said. Then he flipped off the lights and turned on the projector. A rectangle of bright light filled the wall.

“Phil, this is a picture of your sperm count,” said the doctor somberly.

“There’s nothing there,” I replied.

“That’s right,” he said. “The picture on the wall tells it all. I’m sorry Phil, but it looks like you are sterile.”

I paused, considering how to present my guilty plea to Candi. “Is there anything we can do?”

“You can always contact a sperm bank,” the doctor said as he ushered me out of the office.

I returned home and told Candi, “The doctor said we should look for a sperm donor.”

She paused for a moment and replied, “I think that’s a good idea.”

Divorce papers landed on my desk within a week.

After moping around for a year feeling sorry for myself, I decided to embark on a course of self-improvement. I joined the local health club and immediately began feeling better. I worked out by sitting in the hot tub for an hour. I left the club relaxed and energized, but when I noticed that I still ran out of breath from flossing my teeth, it was time to move on to the heavy equipment—the weight machines, the high-speed walkers, and the stationary bikes. That’s how I met Jenny. She claimed to take me on as “her project.”

I continued to plod along the wooded path thinking what a disappointment I must have been. The heavy pack scraped my lower back like a piece of coarse sandpaper. I was just about to drop the pack and take a rest when the lake shimmered into view. “Thank god,” I said as I took the last few steps to the shore.

A waterfall spilled into the lake to the left of the portage. Jenny was wading into a pool at its base. “Both of our paddles made it down the river,” she shouted excitedly. She held up her find with a look of triumph. “See? Everything will be fine.”

“Everything is not fine,” I said. “Any sign of the other pack? The one with the cook kit and stove?”

“Not yet,” said Jenny who remained aggravatingly cheerful. “We might spot it when we go back to get the canoe.”

My feet squished in my boots. “I feel a blister forming on my heel,” I said to Jenny as we hiked up the path.

She ignored my latest complaint, stared at the river below as she walked, and said nothing until we reached the canoe. “No sign of the lost pack,” she said. “I guess we’ll have to get along without it.”

“Damn! What are we going to do? It’s getting late. I’m cold and I’m hungry.”

“Oh, quit your whining,” said Jenny as she swept her dripping blond hair from her eyes. “You’ll just have to eat your dehydrated food rare.”

She poked at my protruding belly and teased, “Or you could skip dinner all together.” She winked and said, “You know you could afford to miss a meal or two. Besides, we can always turn back tomorrow if we don’t find him on this lake. Now that we know how to paddle, we could be back to the outfitter in half a day.”

“You’re right, but it’s going to be a cold, miserable night. That pack had our tent too.” I began to shiver. “Elmer better be on this lake,” I said between chattering teeth. “We’ve come a long way to save him from himself.”

A chilling breeze came off the lake. “Let’s try to find some dry clothes,” said Jenny.

I opened the personal pack and found the bag with our clothes. I tossed it to Jenny.

She pulled out a pair of blue jeans. “It looks like the bag didn’t get sealed properly.” She looked at me with a frown. “Everything is damp.”

“Sorry,” I said looking at my wet feet.

“Then we better take the first campsite that is open and start a fire,” said Jenny, exasperated.

Jenny sat down in the stern and I stepped into the bow as we shoved off from the portage. We paddled about twenty minutes following the shore on our left. “Do you remember seeing any campsites on the map?” I asked.

“You had the map,” she said, “but is that a campsite up ahead?” A site with a fire grate appeared on our left. “I think we’re in luck, Phil.”

She steadied the canoe for me to step out when I saw a patch of orange fabric tucked into the trees. “Is that a tent?” I asked.

“Oh dear. It looks like it’s taken,” said Jenny. “I guess we’ve got to keep going.”

We continued to follow the shoreline for another half hour. A small clearing appeared on our left. A scrabble of jagged rocks that passed for a beach extended into the lake. “I hope that’s a campsite,” I said. “Pull in there.

The canoe scraped against the rocks as Jenny carefully stepped ashore. The waves lapped against the side of the canoe as she steadied it for me to get out. My back ached and my legs were cramped from sitting so long. We hoisted the packs out of the canoe and dragged it onto the rocks.

The sun had set behind a bank of clouds and the warm fall afternoon had given way to a brisk evening. Leaves from a scattered grove of quaking aspens fell to the ground like snowflakes.

“I’m starting to get chilled,” said Jenny. “I felt fine while I was paddling.”

“Me too. It feels like winter is coming,” I said as I opened the food pack, “but I’m more hungry than cold right now.” I dug around until I found what I was after. “Ahh. Look at this,” I said as I held up my prize—a crumpled bag of Frito corn chips!

“You’ve got to be kidding. Corn chips?” exclaimed Jenny. “I’m sure the outfitter didn’t pack them.”

“Nope. But I’ll bet you are you as hungry as I am.” I tore the bag open, pulled out a handful for myself, and passed the bag to Jenny.

“You’re incorrigible,” said Jenny. She grudgingly put her hand into the bag.

“That’s not all,” I said as I returned to my foraging. I threw several bags of dehydrated dinners on the ground and reached to the bottom of the pack. “Elixir of life!” I cried. I displayed a sixteen-ounce plastic bottle of Mountain Dew.

“I believe you’re addicted,” exclaimed Jenny. “No wonder that pack was so heavy.”  

She shook her head. “I remember when we were working out at the club. You told me you were going to get a drink of water. I watched you sneak a swig of something from your duffel bag instead.” She smiled as she munched on a handful of chips. “You can’t fool me.”

“I needed a lift,” I said defensively. “Here. Have some.” I offered her the soda.

“No thanks,” she said. “I’d rather get a lift from a sip of Jack Daniels. Did you happen to pack any of that?”

“No,” I said in disgust. “My old man drinks Jack Daniels. And that’s only one of his vices. He’s overweight. He wears the same flannel shirt and the same pair of corduroys that are held up by the same pair of red suspenders every day. He smokes a smelly old pipe and coughs up a gob of phlegm every five minutes. You’d think he was trying to kill himself.”

“Well, that’s why we’re here,” she reminded me.

Jenny was familiar with my family situation. Dad died when I was three. Mother married Elmer several years later. Ever since my mother died, I have been responsible for watching over Elmer. At seventy-five, my stepfather has been a perfect example of stubbornness and poor health. He rarely goes to the doctor, and when he does, he argues with him about his recommendations. And he still insists on driving—even after his insurance company has warned him that if he has one more fender-bender, they won’t cover him anymore.

I may be frustrated with my stepfather’s bad habits, but I am angry with him for abandoning Mother. Granted, she had been dead for six months when he told me that he had started searching the internet for singles over sixty. I was surprised that he had left his grief behind so quickly. I told him, “You may want to narrow your search to include over-the-hill at seventy.”

I don’t know that he’s ever found a match—but that’s not surprising. What does he think? That he’s going to find romance at his age?

I had to be away over the Labor Day weekend and reminded Elmer not to drive anywhere. I told him that I would check in on Tuesday when I returned. He nodded his head in something as close to agreement as I ever received.

When I returned to his one-bedroom apartment—the one I had moved him into against his wishes after Mother passed away, he wasn’t at home. I knocked at his neighbors’ doors and checked with the building manager. No one had seen him for several days. They thought he was with me. When I rummaged through his belongings, I found an empty envelope from Mercy Medical Center and an entry permit for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.

What was he up to now? He always told me that he would never move into a nursing home, and that if he ever were diagnosed with a terminal illness, he would just wander into the wilderness to die. Is that what had happened?

After my visit to Elmer’s apartment, I met Jenny at the health club. The room smelled of sweat and liniment. Weights clinked in the background. We were riding side-by-side on stationary bikes. She had already put on five miles geared to an uphill incline with no sign of fatigue. I was huffing and puffing after a half-mile of flat terrain. “I think Elmer is wandering off into the wilderness to die,” I said as I let up on the pedals to catch my breath. “What do you think I should do?”

“Do you know where he is up there?” Jenny asked without missing a stride.

“I know the lake where he put in, but that’s it. Maybe an outfitter in the area can tell us more. He has spent a lot of time in the Boundary Waters, so he knows his way around—at least before he started to lose his memory.”

I resumed my slow trip to nowhere on the bike and reminisced. “Elmer used to take one week of vacation every year to go up there on his own. He invited Mom and me to go along, but I hated going. He took me on a trip when I was ten. All I remember from the trip was mosquitos and rain. He tried to teach me how to fish, but all I caught were trees and snags. I remember him smoking his pipe saying, ‘Just wait. You will remember this as a trip of a lifetime in a few years. Look at the character you’re building.’ I remember it as a trip of a lifetime all right—the last trip in my lifetime.”

Jenny picked up the pace on her bicycle and said, “I don’t think you have a choice, Phil. You have to go after him.” She finally began to take a few deep breaths. “He could be wandering around up there all alone. He could run out of food. He could be attacked by a bear.”

“I think that’s what he wants,” I said. “Just paddle off into the sunset and leave it to me to manage the fallout. Do you suppose I could get sued for neglect if I left him up there?”

“I don’t know about that, but I don’t think you’d sleep very well if you did.” Jenny stopped pedaling and stepped off the bike. She hung a towel around her neck. “I could go with you if you like.”

“You’d be willing to do that?” I asked, astounded. “Have you ever been in a canoe?”

“No, but it can’t be that hard.”

I thought for a moment. “It sure would be nice if I could find out what that medical report said, but he won’t let me talk to his doctor.” I wiped my brow with the back of my hand. “I’ll bet they told him he has lung cancer—or maybe throat cancer.” I stepped off the bike and headed toward my duffel bag. “Stubborn old goat. I’ll bet he’s up there lost.”

I stepped off my bike and said, “It’s not my idea of fun, but I suppose I’d better track down an outfitter.”

Two days later we drove up the Gunflint Trail to begin our search for Elmer.

I took a sip of Mountain Dew and looked around the cramped campsite. It looked to me like it had been ignored by all but the most desperate campers. There was only one small clearing for a tent—and that was on a slope so steep that we would have fallen out of the bottom of the tent by morning anyway. A scrubby cluster of cedar trees that appeared to have been mauled by the wind closed in on the camp from all sides. A handful of half-naked aspens struggled to get a foothold between the cedars. A forlorn fire grate contained a couple of half-burned logs that appeared to have once been used as seats around the fire.

The only redeeming quality to the site was an open pit toilet with a wooden throne that overlooked the lake. I tried it out. The clouds that had obscured the setting sun were now dark and threatening. The mournful cry of a loon echoed off a distant cliff. The sound made me shudder more than the chill in the air. I finished my business and returned to the camp by a narrow path where Jenny was exploring the contents of our packs.

“Is there a tarp in one of those other packs?” I asked. “I don’t like the look of those clouds.”

“I sure hope so,” said Jenny. “I saw the clouds too. It looks like it will rain tonight.” She rummaged through our personal pack. The stuff sacks with our clothes were soaked but our sleeping bags appeared to be dry. In the bottom of the pack she found a small eight-by-ten tarp. “I think this was supposed to be used to cover our packs, but I think it will serve as our tent tonight.”

I found a length of rope that was tucked next to my six-pack of Dew. “This was supposed to be used to hoist our food pack in the air so bears can’t get at it.”

“We’ll have to risk leaving the food on the ground,” said Jenny. “We need the rope to hold up our tarp.”

Fat droplets of rain began to splatter on the ground. “Quick!” said Jenny. “Put the packs under that tree by the lake.”

We discovered a narrow swale that was etched into a bed of granite about ten yards from our packs. It was covered with lichen and moss, and looked as inviting as any other place to spend the night.

“Tie this end of the rope to that tree,” commanded Jenny as she handed me one end of the rope. “I’ll tie the other end over here.”

We dropped the tarp over the rope and held down the corners with four rocks. We rolled out our sleeping bags under the make-shift tent, one on each side of the swale. A crack of thunder announced the downpour.

“We can’t sleep in these wet clothes,” said Jenny. “They’ll get our sleeping bags wet too.” I huddled next to Jenny as we shivered in the cramped quarters. We stripped to our underwear and crawled into our sleeping bags. I noticed a trickle of water as it ran between us in the swale.

“It’s going to be a long night,” I said as I tried to find a position where a rock or root didn’t jab me in my back.

Jenny looked at her watch. “It’s only ten hours until morning. We can make it.”

Jenny curled up in her bag and was asleep in minutes.

The rain let up about midnight, but a steady drip, drip, drip on the tarp woke me. That and cold feet. My sleeping bag extended beyond the end of the tarp and soaked up the trickle that had become a steady flow between us. I laid on my back with my knees bent, trying to make myself smaller. My damp jacket served as my pillow. I stared into the dark. That’s when I heard a noise coming from the direction of our packs.

“Wake up Jenny!” I said as a shook her shoulder. “I think there’s a bear in camp!”

“Can’t be,” said Jenny as she sat up in her bag. “We can’t be that unlucky.”

“No? Listen to that.” We both sat quietly listening to the darkness. A thrum that we later found out to be from a ruffed grouse made us huddle closer together. The rustle of a plastic bag. “Is that your Fritos?” Jenny whispered angrily.

“Could be. But it was empty,” I whispered back meekly. “All that’s left is the crumbs. Why would a bear bother with that?”

“That’s what I’m worried about. It’ll be coming for us next!”

We stared into the inky blackness, straining to see what might be causing the noise. “Where is the flashlight?” asked Jenny.

“It’s in the pack over there.”

“Well, go get it.”

“I’m not leaving this sleeping bag,” I hissed. “You can get it if you want it so bad.”

We waited anxiously for a half hour, listening to the contents of our food pack being pillaged and strewn over the camp site. “We could bang on pots, like the outfitter suggested,” I said.

“If we had a cook kit,” countered Jenny.

A flash of lightning from the passing storm clouds briefly lit up the camp. Three small rodents scurried out of sight, one dragging a partially opened bag of dehydrated breakfast, the other two disappearing into the underbrush empty handed.

“What are they?” I asked, now more curious than frightened.

“Certainly not a bear,” said Jenny. “I’ve heard that mink inhabit these woods.”

“Whatever,” I said as I crawled back in my sleeping bag. “We can ask The Google when we get home—if we get home.”

Jenny resumed her position in the bottom of her sleeping bag and was soon snoring. Before I pulled my damp covers over my shoulder, I saw the cusp of a full moon beginning to rise over the tree-lined silhouette of the far shore of the lake. It’s actually quite pretty, I thought as I closed my eyes.

A moment later—or what felt like a moment later—I heard a canoe bump against the rocks. “What the hell is that?” I muttered to Jenny, who also heard the noise.

“I don’t know,” said Jenny. “We don’t usually have visitors at this time of night, even in the city.”

The moon had risen high in the sky and illuminated the entire campsite with an eerie glow. I heard him, and then I smelled him before I saw him. The unmistakable throat-clearing; the discharge of phlegm; the scent of Captain Black pipe smoke.

“Phil! Is that you up there?” came the familiar voice from the waterfront. Elmer lumbered up the bank clutching his pipe in his right hand.

 “What the hell? Elmer, is that you?” I called out as I pulled on my damp trousers. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”

A companion followed closely behind his flannel shirt and red suspenders. A rugged looking woman with braids on either side of her face clutched an unlit cigar between her teeth. She wore a floppy leather hat and an open-collar shirt that could have passed for forest service issue.

“And who is that?” I stammered as I struggled out from beneath our tarp.

“It’s me, all right,” laughed Elmer. “And this here is Joyce, my girlfriend and paddling partner.” He presented her as if she were his bride.

Joyce extended a calloused hand and shook mine vigorously—not at all like a bride. “How ya’ doin’? I been hearin’ a lot about ya’ the last few days.”

“I’ll bet,” I said, “but I haven’t heard a thing about you.”

“Now don’t be rude, Phil,” interrupted Elmer. “You better introduce me to this young gal.” Jenny had followed me from under the tarp.

“Oh, sorry. This is Jenny—my girlfriend and paddling partner.”

Elmer extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, young lady.”

“Thank you,” said Jenny. “How in the world did you know we were here?”

“I recognized your voice,” said Elmer, looking my way. “Sound carries long distances over the water, and I told Joyce, ‘That sounds a lot like my son, Phil. I wonder what he’s doin’ out here. He hates the wilderness.’ I’ll bet he could use a hand.” He looked around the disheveled camp. “Looks like I was right.”

“Didn’t you think about waiting until morning?” I asked. “What possessed you to paddle over here in the middle of the night?”

“Maybe I can help answer that,” said Joyce stepping forward. She took her cigar from her mouth and held it between her index finger and her thumb while she spoke. “Ya’ see, Elmer here ain’t always thinkin’ clearly these days. He calls me up a couple weeks ago and he says to me, ‘I just came from the doctor, Joyce, and he tells me I failed the dementia test. He says he’s gonna recommend that I move into assisted living.’ Then he tells me about his plan to take one last canoe trip. I says to him, ‘I love canoeing. If you got dementia, you probly could use a guide. How’s about I come along?’ Elmer agrees, and here I am.” Joyce smiled kindly at Elmer.

Elmer stood beside her with a sheepish grin and shook his head in agreement.

“Turns out Elmer don’t really need a guide up here,” continued Joyce. “He’s a savant in the Boundary Waters. He ain’t missed a portage yet.” Joyce laughed coarsely and put an arm around Elmer’s shoulder. “Ya’ know, Elmer stewed around all night worryn’ about you over here in the rain.” She pointed to me with her cigar. “Then the rain quit, and the moon started to rise, and Elmer says, ‘It’s morning. Let’s go.’ I says, ‘That ain’t the sun, Elmer. That’s the moon.’ Well, once Elmer makes up his mind about somethin’ it ain’t easily changed.”

“That’s for sure,” I said quietly. “You must know him pretty well.”

“I met her on that old person’s dating site,” said Elmer turning to her with a look of admiration. “We talk every day on the phone.”

“How long has this been going on?” I asked.

“’Bout a year and a half,” said Joyce. “He sent me a picture of hisself. Reminded me of a cuddly lumberjack—harmless enough, I thought—and more interestin’ than these northern Minnesota hicks I’m used to hangin’ out with.”

I looked at the cigar that she was still holding and pointed to it. “I see that you have a lot in common.”

“Yep. I don’t mind men with a few rough edges. Say,” she said looking at Jenny, “you both look cold and hungry. How ‘bout you paddle over to our camp. I’ll cook you up a hearty breakfast.”

I turned to Jenny who was standing next to me with her sleeping bag draped over her shoulders. She looked around at our bags of partially opened dehydrated food scattered over the campsite and said, “I think that would be fine. We’ll pack up what’s left of our things and be over soon. Are you sure you have enough food to spare?”

“You bet,” said Joyce. “We got plenty to spare don’t we Elmer?”

Elmer shook his head with a sudden look of confusion. “Do we, Joyce?”

“Sure. Don’t you remember, Elmer? You were only goin’ to take food for a week. When I heard that, I said to you, ‘Elmer, I don’t like to be hungry. I’ll pack the food.” She turned to me and said, “I packed enough food for three weeks. C’mon over.” She took Elmer by the elbow and started to walk him back to their canoe.

“You’re planning to stay out here for another two weeks?” I asked to her back.

She looked over her shoulder and said, “That’s what Elmer wants. We don’t eat much, and we travel slow.”

“What are your plans after that?”

“Don’t ya’ worry ‘bout a thing,” said Joyce who concentrated again on guiding Elmer to the canoe. “I’ll take good care of Elmer, here.”

“Where’s my paddle, Joyce?” asked Elmer as he shuffled arm-in-arm toward his canoe.

“Right there in the stern, Elmer—just where you left it.”

The sun started to rise as we watched them paddle across the lake. “Just like I predicted, Phil,” said Jenny. “I had a feeling we were going to find him on this lake.”

“I guess you were right—as usual. Do we dare leave him here with her?”

“What choice do we have?” replied Jenny. “Are you going to force him into our canoe? Anyway, I don’t think I’d want to cross paths with Joyce. She is a force to be reckoned with.”

“That’s for sure. It looks like Elmer likes the care hes’s getting. And it’s probably better than what I can do for him.”

Breakfast with Elmer and Joyce was the last meal I shared with my stepfather. Jenny and I retraced the route we had taken, returned our gear, paid for the equipment that was buried somewhere in the bottom of the river, and returned home.

A couple of weeks later the two of us were at the health club pedaling on our stationary bikes. “Any word from Elmer?” Jenny asked.

“No word from either of them, but I stopped by his apartment to pick up his mail.”

“Anything interesting?”

“I guess you could say that,” I said as I pedaled harder. “There were several bank statements.” I paused and took a deep breath. “Every one of them had a zero balance.”

Jenny stopped pedaling in mid-stride. “You’re shitting me. Do you suppose Joyce took it all?”

“I don’t know,” I said with too much joy in my voice, “but he’s not my problem anymore. I called the bank this morning. They said they weren’t at liberty to tell me much, but it sounds like Elmer emptied all of his accounts the week before he left town.”

“What about his estate? Aren’t you angry?”

“Elmer didn’t have much of an estate. He left me his house when I moved him into the apartment. You see, the deal was that I’d pay his rent in return for him putting the house in my name. He said Mother would have wanted me to have it anyway, so he agreed.”

I called the forest service that afternoon to report that Elmer and Joyce had not returned from their canoe trip. They called me a week later to tell me they found his canoe beached near a trail on the Canadian side of the border.

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