Wild Thing: A Novel (14 page)

“You got the wrong guy.”

“Although I
would
like to know why somebody as unstupid-seeming as Sheriff Albin thinks it’s possible.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Exactly.”

CFS Outfitters and Lodge isn’t just
on
the highway exit that’s one past greater (so to speak) Ford—it
is
the highway exit. You curve under a giant CFS billboard into the parking lot of the store, which is a three-story A-frame with posters for shit like North Face all over its glass front and back. From there you follow the signs to a road that runs from the far corner of the lot down to the lodge.

The start of the road’s blocked off by traffic cones, but a tall, thin, early-twenties kid in a bush hat but sunburned anyway comes over to your car with a clipboard. “Ki help you folks?” he says, after Violet rolls down the window.

“We’re here for the tour Reggie Trager is running.”

“Get your names, please?”

“Violet Hurst and Lionel Azimuth.”

The kid checks for us on his clipboard, which seems strange for someone expecting only six or eight people. Then again, maybe clipboards are like guns, and people who carry them start wanting to use them.

“Doctor. Doctor,” the kid says. “I’m Davey Sugar. I’ll be one of the guides on your trip. Welcome to CFS.”

He looks so earnest, and so unlike someone involved in a sordid fake-monster tour, that I feel compelled to make sure we’re all talking about the same thing. I lean over Violet to say “What do you think? Is the White Lake Monster real?”

The kid smiles broadly as he backs up to move the cones. “I’d have to say I’m agnostic about it. Be pretty great, though, wouldn’t it?”

The road crests the hill, and suddenly we can see all of Ford Lake below, light flashing off it like a chain-link fence made of sun. Even the brick hulk of the old Ford Mine—with, presumably, Dr. McQuillen’s house hidden in the bend beyond it—looks good.

The lodge itself is idyllic: a dozen lakeside cabins painted the yellow of Smurfette’s hair, on turf that looks as lush as moss. Beside it an inlet with an “E” shape of floating docks, tarp-covered boats parallel-parked along the docks’ edges.

In the rutted and tree-shaded dirt parking area next to the marina are three pickup trucks, including one with a contractor’s cage over its bed, a couple of injured-looking compact cars, and one big, black, perfectly shiny SUV with Minnesota license plates.

We leave our shit in the car in case we have to flee.

Two guys in polo shirts and painter’s pants are coming around the registration cabin when we reach it. We know it’s the registration cabin because it’s got a line of sunflowers along its back wall and a wooden sign above them that says “CAMP FAWN SEE—
Registration
” in log font, or whatever you call it when the letters are burned into wood. One of the two guys is white and in his sixties, with white hair and rimless glasses. The other one’s Hispanic, in his thirties, with a mustache.

“Evening,” the white guy says.

“Are either of you Reggie Trager?” Violet says.

“Hell no.” He turns and yells “Reggie! Customers!” Then he and the other guy head toward the pickup truck with the contractor’s frame.

Violet and I continue to the front of the cabin, which faces
the lake. On the lawn there’s a man talking on what used to be called a cordless phone, and also drinking a beer and steering his crotch away from a large black Labrador that’s jumping at it.

He holds up a hand to acknowledge us while he says “No, listen, Trish, I gotta run. I know. I’m sorry. You too. You too. Okay. I’ll call you later.” He’s got a slight southern accent: Arkansas or Alabama, or some other state I can’t actually recognize the accent from.

The man’s boyish, with muscular legs and dark hair in a thick buzz cut, but he’s wearing corduroy shorts smaller than anyone under sixty would be caught dead in. They show off a long, rubbery burn scar down the outside of his left leg. He smiles at us lopsidedly as he turns off the phone. “Sorry. My mother.”

The dog, seeming to notice us for the first time, springs at us. Throws itself sideways against Violet’s legs, then against mine, where it stops and leans on me, thumping its heavy tail.

“Bark,” the man says to it. It doesn’t bark. To us he says “Dr. Hurst and Dr. Azimuth?”

“Right,” Violet says.

“I’m Reggie Trager.”

“Nice to meet you,” Violet says. “Can we pet your dog?”

Interesting opener. Not that the dog isn’t cute.

“She’s not mine, but go ahead,” Reggie says. “Take her home with you. Her name’s Bark Simpson.”

“Oh:
Bark
,” Violet says, causing the dog to hurl itself off my legs and back onto hers.

Just as well. Reggie’s coming in for the handshake.

Up close, he’s not quite the same person. The left side of his face is a fishnet of scars. Not burns, like on his leg, but fine lacerations, like from shrapnel or spraying glass. The reason his
smile is lopsided is that the left side of his face is paralyzed. His left eye stares wider than his right, almost fully round.

The weird thing, though, is that it’s not a bad effect. The paralysis gives his face a slight cartoonishness that goes well with how young he looks. It kind of works.

“You met Del and Miguel?” he says.

At their names, the dog abruptly stands and looks bereft. Turns around a couple times, then gallops off toward the parking lot.

Reggie shakes his head. “She just realized that Del left. Bark! Don’t go on the highway!”

“They the two guys who got in the truck?” I say.

“Yeah.”

“We didn’t actually meet them. Who are they?”

“We all work together. They’re sort of the Tattoos to my Mr. Roarke, if that means anything to people your age.” He winks at me with his nonstaring eye. “Come on in. I’ll introduce you to some of your fellow guests.”

CFS Lodge, Ford Lake, Minnesota

Still Friday, 14 September

In the registration cabin, though, there are just four Asian guys, and the two who are standing—tracksuits, sunglasses, coming up on their toes when they see me—are obviously bodyguards.

The other two, on opposite couches, are harder to figure. One is punk-chic, with chunky-cool glasses and a sleek suit over an expensive-looking western shirt. Early forties, hair dyed brown, reading a guidebook. The other is about the same age but fat and sprawling, with the wet lips, coarse features, and bad shave of the mentally disabled or whatever they’re being called
these days. Jeans and a T-shirt that says “NOW IS COLA ONLY.” He’s playing a video game on a cell phone.

The stylish one stands when he sees us, causing his bodyguards to move closer to his sides.

Reggie introduces us. His name is Wayne Teng. The slob’s his brother, Stuart. The bodyguards are allegedly both named Lee.

“Sorry,” Teng says. “My brother and our associates do not speak English.”

“But you do,” Violet says.

“Very poorly.”

“It doesn’t seem like it.”

“Thank you. You are medical doctors?”

“He is. I’m a paleontologist.”

“Like in
Jurassic Park
?”

“More or less.”

Teng translates for his brother and bodyguards. I recognize the words
Jurassic Park
. Even the brother looks up.

I follow Reggie over to the registration desk. “Is this it? The whole group?” Assuming Teng’s bringing his bodyguards, it puts us at six.

Reggie pulls out some forms. “Not really sure. We’ve got five more RSVPs in the affirmative.”

“Won’t that be too many?”

“The only real limit is what you guys are willing to accept. But I’ll worry about that when it happens. I’m sure
someone
will come to their senses.”

“Why? Is the monster fake?”

He winks at me. “Shit, I hope not.” Puts two keys on the desk. “Cabin Ten.”

“Both of us?”

“What do you mean?”

“We were supposed to be in separate cabins.”

“You were? Shit. Let me think.” He chews a nail. “Problem is, we got a lot of people coming in with the referee.”

“Who’s the referee?”

“I’m not allowed to say till he or she physically gets here.”

“Which is when?”

“Few hours. Let’s see: Del’s already bunking with Miguel…. ” He looks up at me, half his face wincing. “The room you’re in now, you can separate the beds, if that helps.”

“It’s fine,” Violet says, coming up behind me. “For one night, I think Dr. Azimuth can handle it.”

Cabin Ten is nice enough, but the air’s a bit moldy and filled with sexual tension, so Violet and I decide to go to Omen Lake, where the rock paintings are.

Davey, the kid with the clipboard, sets us up with a canoe. Green Kevlar, looking like canvas that’s been shellacked. Light as shit: it’s got a yoke like a toilet seat across its middle bench that you’re supposed to put your head through so you carry the canoe upside down on your shoulders, but if you don’t want to do that—because you can’t really see anything that way, or because anybody who wants to can break your neck—you can just carry it above your head with your hands.

Violet teaches me some strokes, and after you get your mind out of the gutter we make our first portage halfway up the west side of Ford Lake. Cross a couple more lakes and we’re there.