Malevolence Ch. 01

Ottertrack Lake, a narrow miles-long cleft in the earth, defined the International border. Flanked by granite bluffs topped with evergreens, Ottertrack was so narrow someone could have easily tossed a stone from the American side to the Canadian. To Travis' discerning eye, the scene was strikingly similar to calm stretches of the Cahulawassee River. He stopped paddling and placed it across his lap. "Lisa, you hear that?"

She stopped paddling and turned to face him. "What?"

"You hear a banjo?"

"Stop it!" She scowled but wasn't terribly pissed at his good-natured teasing. She expected it of him. His sense of humor was one of his personality traits that first attracted her to him. Nevertheless, it was unsettling to think there might be someone the atop the cliff, hiding behind trees, watching them. She looked from one clifftop to the other. She didn't see anyone but couldn't escape the feeling they were being watched. There's no one there, it's just my nerves, she assured herself.

For the remainder of the forenoon, and into the afternoon, they paddled with ultimate leisure, stopping along the way at places that piqued their curiosities. A narrow defile led away from the lake. They beached their canoe, got out and walked forty yards to a small waterfall cascading over the lip of a bluff. In the shallow pool beneath, they dunked themselves. Cold!

A bit farther along the shore, a distinctive rock formation jutted out into the lake. They stopped, got out and began climbing They hadn't brought any of their technical rock climbing gear in order to save on weight, but this formation didn't require ropes, harnesses, carabiners, pitons and so forth. They easily scrambled the 20 vertical feet and stood atop taking in the scenery: Ottertrack Lake stretching east and west as far as the eye could see like an endless eternal river.

Late afternoon, they stopped at a designated campsite on the American side. The small flat site was sandwiched between the lake and the base of the sheer cliff. No way in or out except by water. Travis liked the site because the topography virtually eliminated the possibility of bears entering camp in the dark of night. But that same isolation gave Lisa the willies; she felt hemmed in. "I don't like it here. There's nowhere to run." Travis consulted his topographic map. All of the campsites on Ottertrack were situated in similar topography and scant daylight remained to reach Knife Lake far to the west. It was either camp here or nowhere.

Travis was sensitive to his wife's discomfort. He believed humor might ease her concern. "Lisa, we're safe here. Nobody's gonna make me, or you, squeal like a pig!" Then, in a high-pitched voice he squealed, "Weee! Weeeeeeee!" Lisa laughed out loud. Her mind wasn't entirely eased, but she felt safe with Travis protecting her. For a time they skinny-dipped, splashing and playing like children with no cares in the world. Trekking in the wilderness has that effect on people. All the bullshit of civilization fades away into the background. Afterward, they established camp and made supper, chicken & rice, which they enjoyed seated on a blanket on a smooth rock ledge at water's edge.

Both of them were 'green' in their approach to back country trekking and adhered to the wilderness ethic: take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints. They didn't bring detergent for dish washing nor soap for bathing because of the resultant pollution. Instead, they scrubbed pots and pans with a mixture of baking soda and water and that same mixture worked for bodily cleansing. With soap, chemical action removes oil and dirt. With baking soda, abrasive grit accomplishes cleansing. It takes a bit more time and elbow grease but it's a 100% pollution-free method of bathing.

By this point in their journey they had been in the wilderness for two days and, except for swimming, hadn't bathed. Travis warmed a big pot of water on their camp stove then stirred in a measure of baking soda. On the clean rock ledge at water's edge he placed the pot. There they stood, scooping handfuls of the soda/water slurry from the pot and scrubbing their skin. They had just begun when Travis noticed a flotilla of colorful kayaks in the distance, approaching from the west. "Looks like we got company," he announced. Lisa turned and looked. She finished scrubbing her perky breasts then retrieved her towel and wrapped it around her torso.

Travis continued splashing slurry on himself and surreptitiously fluffing his penis to make it more presentable. Her legs crossed at the knee, Lisa sat on the rock ledge watching the eight kayaks drawing closer and closer, paddled by three men and five women, all of them twentysomethings. Two of the men were shirtless as was one of the women. Her ample breasts were tanned the same color as the rest of her torso.

As the eight kayakers drew closer, heads turned and smiles spread across tanned faces. When the group arrived within hailing distance, the topless woman spoke up. "Bonjour!" "Bonjour," Lisa replied then, in fluent French, asked where they were headed. "Right over there," a shirtless man answered and gestured toward the east, toward the Canadian side.

In addition to being an ardent nudist, Travis was an unrepentant exhibitionist. He relished any opportunity to display his cock (preferably erect) and this encounter was prime: five attractive, sporty young women who, without question, took delight in eyeballing the dripping wet, tall hunky guy. Trying not to be obvious about it, he turned slightly to give them a sidelong perspective of his dangling chub. On canoe trips down Sycamore River, Lisa didn't mind when Travis eagerly exhibited himself. In fact, she loved it. Other womens' positive reactions validated she had chosen a desirable mate. As the group of French Canadians paddled past just 20 feet offshore, Lisa smiled at the five women ogling her man.

As quickly as the group had approached, they receded in the distance. Lisa waited until they had paddled a good ways before she stood up and dropped her towel. By now, Travis had finished bathing so he helped Lisa by scrubbing her back. Also by now he was three-quarters erect. Once Travis had thoroughly scrubbed her back, Lisa turned around, curled her fingers around his burgeoning erection and commenced stroking, slowly.

Lisa knew the answer to the rhetorical question but asked anyway. "Do you like showing your cock to girls?"

"Yeah."

"Does it make you horny?"

"Yeah."

"How horny?"

"So horny I wanna fuck yer face."

"Ooooh! C'mon big boy!"

Such playful dirty talk was a staple of their sex life. Gripping his porky penis tightly, (her hand barely closed around it) Lisa tugged Travis a few paces to a fallen tree trunk on which she sat. He stepped close. She leaned forward, opened wide and inhaled his erection. He sighed and raked his fingers through her short, shaggy chestnut hair, being mindful not to grab her head and pull. She didn't like that. Didn't like to be gagged. Her fist followed her lips up and down his slobbery tumescence. This wasn't slow, tender fellatio, a prelude to intercourse. Rather, it was a let's-get-it-done blowjob. Over the course of their relationship Lisa had learned that whenever Travis became aroused as a result of exposing himself, his excitement compounded by doing exactly this. And his excitement was ramping up quickly. The tangy taste of salty precum confirmed it. Travis looked toward the lake where only moments before the kayakers had been. But in fantasy, they were still there . . .

The five women turn their kayaks and paddle closer. They stop just offshore, mere yards away, their eyes glued on the carnal conjunction. One of them appears to be much younger than the others, 18, 19 tops. Never before has she seen a naked man, much less one receiving oral sex. The young girl watches wide-eyed as the petite woman slithers her lips up and down the man's vein-bulging erection. Her enigmatic smile suggests maturity beyond her years but at the same time, powerful yearning unfulfilled. She licks her lips as if imagining it's her tongue tasting his manly essence. The girl plunges a hand inside her shorts and begins to masturbate, slowly at first, then faster. Her other hand squeezes her ample breasts through the thin fabric of her camisole. Travis stares at the girl who stares back with equal intensity. As the minutes tick past, the exhibitionist and the voyeur swirl in a circle of synergy, each becoming more and more aroused until, at last, Travis loses control . . .

"Mmmm . . . mmmm . . . mmmm . . . " Lisa hummed with each spurt that tickled her tonsils. She continued sucking and swallowing until the pulsing ceased. She pulled his penis out of her mouth and continued licking afterspurtle oozing from his swollen purple glans. Travis' fantasy audience was gone but good vibrations remained.

Lisa looked up. "Holy crap! That was a lot!"

"You have a way of doin' that do me." Half-truth. His wife's intimate touch always moved him deeply. And indulging a public sex fantasy was the other half of the equation that supercharged his physiological response.

After supper, after dark, the newlyweds snuggled beneath a blanket beside a small driftwood campfire. Aromatic evergreen smoke curled skyward like a ghost stealing away into the night. A half-mile to the east on the Canadian side of the lake, a tiny speck of orange firelight flickered the darkness. In the quiet of the wilderness, the French Canadians' singing carried across still waters.

"That's beautiful," said Travis. "Can you make out the lyrics?"

Lisa listened carefully. "Something about mountains and rivers."

"It doesn't matter. It's a beautiful melody." Indeed, sung in three-part harmony.

A moment passed before Lisa spoke. "It's so peaceful here."

Travis nodded. "I told you we'd be safe."

Lisa kissed her husband, a light brush on the lips, then nestled her head in the crook of his arm. They settled back and passed the evening gazing into the dreamy dancing flames and listening to the beautiful singing. So satisfying it was, the warm emotions of harmonious coexistence on their shared border paradise.

* * * *

In the morning after breakfast Lisa took a short walk to the one-holer privy near the base of the cliff. It was like all the other Forest Service wilderness privies in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area: a pit toilet with no door, no roof and no walls. Just a throne. While answering the call of nature, the user enjoyed a splendid view of all that nature.

A loud cracking sound morphed into a titanic THUD as tons of rock broke away from the cliff face and crashed to the ground so hard it felt like an earthquake. Startled by the noise and vibration, Lisa jerked her head around in time to see a car-sized block of granite tumbling straight toward her. She sprang to her feet and leaped away mere seconds before the block crushed the throne. The block tumbled another 10 yards before it became wedged between two big pine trees. Dumbfounded, slack-jawed, Lisa stood there gawking wide-eyed with her shorts and panties still encircling her knees. Rock dust hung in the air like smoke from a smoldering campfire.

Travis felt the ground shake and heard a cacophonous crash coming from the direction of the privy. He sprinted in that direction and, upon spying Lisa, knew she was okay. Slower now, he closed the remaining distance and stood beside her.

Lisa pointed at the crushed throne. "I was sittin' right there, like, ten seconds ago!"

Travis shook his head. "Damn! You must be living right."

"Either that or I'm just plain lucky."

Travis looked up at the cliff face, towering 90 feet tall. Most of the surface was weathered dark except for an expanse of newly exposed light-colored granite near the top where the rock had broken away. "We won't camp under a cliff again."

"Definitely!" Lisa finished the paperwork, tossed it in the pit where the throne once stood, then pulled her panties and shorts back into place.

Those tons of granite had hung on that cliff face for millions of years and by happenstance, surrendered to gravity at a most inopportune time. Had Lisa not managed to leap away, instead of planning a life together Travis would have been planning a funeral. Whenever they ventured into the wilderness they understood the risks. The rockfall dramatically demonstrated the dark side of paradise: unpredictable nature. Lisa was shaken but not deterred. There was no turning back. They would continued their trek into the wild, into the unknown.

Back at their campsite, Travis prepared for the day: he stripped off every stitch. No other boating parties were anywhere in sight so Lisa did the same. After packing everything in the canoe, they pushed it off the pebbly beach, climbed aboard and began paddling westward on Ottertrack Lake. Dip, dip and swing . . .

An hour later they arrived at their next portage. According to the map the trail was 23 rods long. On canoe route maps of the Boundary Waters, portage distances were given in 'rods,' the unit of measure used by French fur trappers who ventured into the region during the 16^th century. (One rod equals 16 ½ feet.)

At any point on the meandering forest trail, the possibility existed of a sudden encounter with other trekkers so Lisa tossed on her big T-shirt that fit her like a short dress. Very short. Wearing their backpacks and carrying their canoe by the handles, fore and aft, they set off along the trail. Whenever needed, they set the canoe on the ground and rested. They encountered no one and before long they arrived on the shore of Knife Lake. They were pleasantly stunned by its grandeur. The far end 10 miles away was barely visible. Averaging a half-mile wide, with numerous coves and side bays, the lake was flanked by granite bluffs a hundred feet tall, capped with boreal forest. Travis surveyed the scene and thought: There's gotta be bear caves in those cliffs. Gotta be.

Lisa doffed her backpack then whipped off the T-shirt. She raked both hands through her short, shaggy chestnut hair to smooth it out. Once everything was loaded aboard the canoe, they pushed off, paddling westbound on Knife Lake.

According to their guidebook, the portage to Amoeber Lake to the south was 21 rods (350 feet) up a slight slope. But going the other way, trekkers could run a stream back to Knife Lake. Lisa turned and looked at Travis. "Wanna run the stream?"

"But we hadn't planned on going to Amoeber."

"So what? Let's portage up and float back just for the hell of it."

"Okay. If you wanna."

"I do." Those words were always music to Travis' ears.

At the portage landing to Amoeber Lake, they unloaded their backpacks to lighten the load. Lisa tossed on her T-shirt before they set off up the trail carrying their canoe. Five minutes later they arrived at Amoeber. Good thing I put my shirt on, Lisa thought. Indeed; a half-dozen trekkers, both genders, were camped just 30 yards down the shore and one, a man, was much closer, fishing from his kayak. Faces turned and eyes focused on the naked man and his dressed female companion. The womens' lingering gaze sent a burst of excitement shimmying up Travis' spine. Even from a distance he relished being exposed in view of women, and more the better. They floated their canoe and climbed aboard. Lisa's effort to conceal her private parts was only partially successful. Climbing aboard required a posture bent forward at the waist which enabled kayak guy to grab a fleeting glimpse of the lower half of her butt.

The stream flowed directly alongside the portage trail. Travis steered the canoe into its mouth and they were swept away by the current. The gradient was gradual and there was one minor riffle similar to those on Sycamore River. As if riding a roller coaster, Lisa held her paddle high overhead and squealed, "Weeeeeee! Weeeeeeee!" Travis had to chuckle. Her sweet high voice was virtually the same pitch as Ned Beatty's during the male rape scene in 'Deliverance.'

At the terminus, the current spit them out into Knife Lake. Not exactly an epic whitewater run down the Cahulawassee, but fun all the same. They paddled back to the portage landing and climbed out to retrieve their backpacks. Lisa whipped off her T-shirt then they loaded their packs, climbed aboard and set off paddling westbound. Dip, dip and swing . . .

Boy Scout traditions are steeped in Native American lore. When Travis was a Scout, he learned much about aboriginal cultures that inhabited North America long before the arrival of Europeans. Woodland tribes had a song they sang to ease boredom on their long canoe voyages and to provide verbal cadence for the paddlers to stay in sync. That song, learned in his youth, stayed with him into adulthood. In his baritone voice he sang the haunting melody:

"Our paddles keen and bright

Flashing like silver

Swift as the wild goose flight

Dip, dip and swing"

Travis had taught the song to Lisa. Oftentimes they sang it on their canoe trips down Sycamore River. Now, her sweet high voice joined his in singing the next verse of the ancient Algonquian song of the water:

"Dip, dip, and swing them back

Flashing like silver

Swift as the wild goose flight

Dip, dip and swing"

All seven verses they sang, each becoming quieter and quieter until finally, they fell silent.

There, deep in the wild, paddling forward in space yet backward in time, they felt the ancient rhythms, the primal pulse of day and night, joy and sorrow, life and death. They could almost hear a drumbeat and it seemed the natives who plied these waters for centuries were present and their spirit voices were drifting on the wind.

Midafternoon, they put ashore. On their agenda was hiking up to Thunder Point which, according to their guidebook, offered a spectacular vista of both the main body of Knife Lake straddling the international border and the south arm of the lake extending far into the American side. At the landing, they pulled their canoe onto the pebbly beach to prevent it from floating away. Travis donned his small day pack loaded with essentials for their side hike: water, energy snacks, pistol, and both cameras. Lisa wasn't going to hike the half-mile naked like her husband; she tossed on her T-shirt.

When they were ready, off they went up the steep rugged trail amid the aromatic evergreen forest. Lisa led the way. Her T-shirt was long enough to cover her butt . . . most of the time. On short steep pitches, Travis' low angle perspective allowed peeks of butt cheek and winks of pink in the airy gap between her toned legs. Travis had seen his wife naked countless times, but the fleeting flashes made him smile.

Fifteen minutes later they arrived at Thunder Point atop a peninsula 150 vertical feet above lake level. Indeed, the view of Knife Lake was spectacular: to the east whence they had come, to the west toward the Isles of Pines, and to the south arm where their planned route would take them. And stretching to the horizon in every direction, green forest and puffy white clouds drifting across the blue summer sky.

No one else was there. Lisa whipped off the T-shirt. She was ready to pose. "How 'bout this?"

"No, a little to the left." Travis switched on the light meter of his SLR. "A little more."

Lisa took two sidesteps to the left. "Here?"

"Perfect."

Travis always liked how Lisa looked wearing nothing but hiking boots and baseball cap. He aimed his camera and composed the scene: Lisa, slightly off-center, facing him with pine boughs on both sides of the frame, and in the background far below, Knife Lake stretching miles to the west, speckled with a multitude of small pine-covered islands so green they defied description. Travis snapped a photo. Hearing the ka-thunk of the camera's viewfinder mirror, Lisa assumed another pose: she turned her back and presented her perfect posterior for his lens. Travis captured it for posterity. Lisa struck more poses, none of them contrived; all were natural postures of someone on vacation in the wilderness: reaching out to touch a birch branch, sniffing a handful of pine cones and kneeling to admire a clump of wildflowers growing beside a granite outcropping. And Travis, smiling, snapped them all. In college, he had majored in business administration with a minor in fine art. He had drawn, painted, sculpted, and photographed nude female models on many occasions, but none could hold a candle to his wife, lover, best friend, and reason for living.