A Note to the Reader Last time, Ed and Brenna were anxious for “Stepping the Mast.” They and the gang headed for Lake George to put their new rig through its paces so they could be prepared for their Trip of a Lifetime
Our story continues…
Chapter Seventeen
Deputy Sheriff Royal “Bubba” Buck loved being out on the lake in the department’s Whaler, with the blue strobe and the siren and the big gold star on the side. After years of ticketing out-of-staters and busting pot-smoking punks, he’d finally snagged a cushy job. About time, too. He shifted his Glock so that the butt didn’t dig quite so hard into the soft flesh spilling over his belt. “It don’t get no better ‘n this, do it?” he asked his partner, for maybe the third time that morning.
Deputy Cody Tromblay sat slumped in the bow seat, his half-open eyes on the water ahead. “It sure don’t, Bubba,” he replied, giving the ritual response he knew was expected. “It sure ‘n hell don’t.” Then he closed his eyes. It was only eleven o’clock. Saturday. The Memorial Day weekend stretched ahead, and the air over Long Lake shimmered with humid heat. Rivulets of sweat ran down Deputy Tromblay’s back, slowly soaking the waistband of his Fruit of the Loom boxers. A dark stain spread around the equator of his uniform. He could really use a cold Bud right ’bout now, he thought.
Bubba was thinkin’ about how nice a cold beer would be, too. Eleven o’clock and the lake was already busy. ‘Course that damned canoe race didn’t make life any easier, either, what with them jet-skis and water-ski tow-boats cutting across the buoyed race corridor between the village and Rock Island, four miles to the north. They weren’t supposed to do that, he knew. It was off-limits to anyone but race participants. But Bubba was damned if he was goin’ to ticket some law-abiding, tax-paying citizen who just wanted to use his public waters to pursue a little happiness, like it said in the Constitution. The town board were a bunch of…. Bubba looked around automatically, even though the wife was miles away and he hadn’t said anything out loud. Anyway, the board were soiling their pants thinkin’ about how their insurance premiums would go up ‘less they gave those canoeists someplace safe to have their little race. It wasn’t his problem, though. Nossir. He wasn’t goin’ to stop nobody havin’ fun. Where were those damn canoes, anyway? The sooner they came through, the sooner he could relax. Accidents waitin’ to happen, that’s what them canoes were.
The morning dragged on. Bubba waved to all the folks he knew—families in fast runabouts, girls on jet-skis, old couples on pontoon boats with their grandkids. Sometimes he’d throttle down and chew the fat awhile with some guy from the Lodge. It was getting hotter and stickier by the minute, too. The water was flat calm and the sky was a sickly milk-white. There’d be a thunderstorm by nightfall, Bubba figured. Sure to be. He unzipped his bright-orange PFD and tugged his sodden uniform shirt away from where it stretched taut across his belly. He hoped he might feel a little cooler that way, but he didn’t. He grabbed a foam-shrouded can of Mountain Dew from the little gimballed holder next to the wheel and took a long swig. “God,” he muttered, “I need a beer real bad!”
Deputy Tromblay didn’t hear him. He’d turned the volume up on his boom-box so he could listen better over the roar of the ‘Rude and the shouts of passers-by. He was listening to the “Jerkin’ Jake” Slaughter Show on WFLU, and today Jerkin’ Jake was broadcasting a live remote from his boat, right on Long Lake. Just then he was playin’ Summertime, and the Livin’ is Easy. When it came to an end, there was Jerkin’ Jake hisself coming through loud and clear over the husky burble of a big inboard: “And the livin’ is easy, boys and girls. At least it is on the good ship Floozie out here on Long Lake in the heart of the beautiful Adirondack Mountains! I’m Jerkin’ Jake Slaughter and this is WFLU—and you know, don’t you, boys and girls, that we’re in-fec-tious! Once you catch the Jerkin’ Jake habit, you just can’t shake it. And speakin’ of shakin’ it, here’s I’m Feelin’ Good….”
Cody twisted around with difficulty. Damn department oughta spend a little money for some extra-extra-large PFDs! He caught Bubba’s eye and shouted around the wad of Red Man parked in his cheek. “What you think, Bubba? You think we’ll see Jerkin’ Jake sometime today?”
“Maybe,” Bubba replied. “‘Course it’s a looong lake, ain’t it?” And his voice broke up into an avalanche of guffaws. It was a full thirty seconds before he could speak again. “Still, that Floozie of his, she’s a fast mover. Hacker-built, y’know. What’s she got? 250-275 horsepower, maybe? That Jake, he ain’t a bad guy…for a, whaddayacallit, middle-aged hippy, I mean. My cousin—you know Steve, dontcha, Cody?—he does a lot of work on Floozie for Jerkin’ Jake, and he says Jake’s just a regular guy. You know, jes’ like you ‘n me.”
A Cessna floatplane with a full load of sightseers throttled back and descended right over their heads, the scream of its engine drowning out all other noises. In the momentary silence that followed the splashdown, Jerkin’ Jake’s voice could be heard picking up the patter after the latest track: “And I hope you’re all feelin’ good, ’cause today’s the Third Annual Long Lake Flatwater Canoe Race, sponsored by—you guessed it, boys and girls—WFLU, your Adirondack public radio station. You goin’ to be huffin’ an’ puffin’ all the way from the village up to Rock Island and back, you better be feelin’ good, right? Right! Now I’m goin’ to hand you over to Brad Schmo, who’ll treat you with the ever-lovin’ care that all good boys and girls deserve. And don’t forget that WFLU’s own Ryan Manley, our ace Adirondack reporter, is in this race for real, too. He’s goin’ for the gold in his little Feather Duster, and Brad’ll be talkin’ to him later. Now it’s over to you, Brad. Catch the FLU!”
Jake threw the mike over to Brad and then pushed the throttle all the way in. Floozie growled even louder and started to move out, her bow wave diminishing to nothing as she came up on plane and began zig-zagged across the narrow lake. Fishermen in john-boats fled in panic, seeking the safety of the weedy shallows.
Power! Jake knew you couldn’t have too much of it. A broad grin split his tanned face, and his long, gray-flecked hair streamed out behind him, tossed about by the same sixty-mph gale that made the huge American flag whip back and forth on its transom-mounted jackstaff. He and his Floozie were goin’ places! Sure ’nuff! Down to the head of the lake first, and then back to see how the race was comin’ along.
Riding shotgun beside him, Brad intro’d the next track as best he could, screaming at the top of his lungs in the hopes of making himself heard over Floozie‘s full-throated roar. Meanwhile, Jake’s wife Jill, creative consultant to the Dean of Frontenac Lowlands University and program director at WFLU, clung for dear life to the back of Brad’s leather-upholstered chair. Crowded together with her on the U-shaped bench seat was WFLU station manager Lili Bolero, news director Sara Oyley, and Hap Weiner, O.D., host of WFLU’s call-in health show, Dr. Hap’s Happy Health Hour.
When Jake settled down on a straight course, Lili leaned forward, tapped him on the shoulder, and handed him a fat joint. Shielding it carefully to keep it burning, he sucked the pungent smoke deeply into his lungs, held it down, and then exhaled slowly. A sense of euphoria enveloped him, and the speeding shoreline seemed to slow perceptibly. Jake took another deep drag and gave the joint back to Lili.
Brad, his voice now cracking under the strain, was trying to shout his way through the announcements at the top of the hour. “So stay tuned. The media sponsor of the Third Annual Long Lake Flatwater Canoe Race is your very own WFLU, and our coverage of the race is supported by Dollars and Scents Aromatherapy—’Your good health is our business!’—Peace of the Water Realty—’Hurry up and get your piece of the water now, before it’s all gone!’—and the International Osmosis Fund—’Dedicated men and women working tirelessly to end the scourge of salt-water blister!’”
Reaching the south end of the lake, Jake skidded through a screaming one-eighty and then headed north at full throttle, scattering six aluminum canoes from the Forest Lawn Baptist Youth Camp and scaring all thoughts of sin out of the fifteen boys and three counselors in them. The float-plane that had landed earlier had dropped its cargo of camera-laden tourists and picked up another load. Now it was back in mid-lake, laboring to get airborne. Jake saw that they were on a collision course. He eyeballed the distance between them and eased up a hair on the throttle, but he kept his heading, giggling at the thought of the stories those tourists would soon be telling. Just as he’d figured it, the bright yellow Cessna took off right over Floozie.
Soon the Hacker thundered under the Route 30 bridge. A minute or so later, Jake caught sight of the canoe racers struggling to hold their boats on course in a chaos of conflicting powerboat wakes. Sweeping up alongside Ryan Manley’s Feather Duster, Jake pressed the horn button on the mahogany dash. The resulting BLATT! was loud enough to be heard over the bass grumble of Floozie’s inboard. Ryan jerked his head up, his eyes rolling wildly. His paddle wavered in mid-stroke, and Feather Duster lurched until her starboard gunwale dipped right down to the water-line. Ryan threw himself out on brace for all he was worth, pulling her back upright just before she capsized. He didn’t look too happy, but Jake and the gang all waved to the rapidly-retreating figure, anyway. They were having the time of their lives.
Well to the north of Floozie and Feather Duster, Bubba Buck was still on patrol. He saw six jet-skis coming up the lake toward him in tight formation. They sort of reminded him of the Thunderbirds—a real class act. Then he noticed two canoes and a rowboat in the water between the jet-skis and the Whaler, and he raised his arm to wave them off. The jet-ski jockeys had already seen the other boats, though. They broke formation, split into two pods of three and passed the much slower boats on either side, enveloping them in a cloud of brown exhaust and wetting the canoeists down with their rooster-tails. It was just about the funniest thing Bubba’d every seen. But then one of the canoeists made a gesture with an upraised middle-finger and yelled something nasty, and Bubba started to get angry. Hell, there might be kids listenin’! He squinted into the brown haze. Damn. It was some hippy broad. Not a local. And not wearin’ a life jacket, neither. He flipped on the strobe and the siren and headed for the perp.… Read more…
Hooked? A new chapter in our serial adventure novel, Trip of a Lifetime, will appear every Sunday. If you’ve missed a chapter, or if you’re coming aboard for the first time and want to catch up, just use the hot-linked title to go to the archives.
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A REMINDER This is a work of fiction. All the characters are figments of the imaginations. It’s NOT a paddling guide. If you’re planning a trip on the Albany River—or any other body of water, come to that—consult the most recent edition of a good guidebook and be sure you’re thoroughly familiar with all applicable regulations. While maps of Ontario show some of the waterways mentioned here, the places depicted in our story exist only in our minds—and in yours.
Let’s face facts. The packaged meals that a lot of paddlers rely on aren’t necessarily something you’ll look forward to at the end of a long day on the water. Some are too salty. Others are too greasy. And many are simply boring. Well, I’ve got news for you: Eating in the backcountry doesn’t have to be a dreary exercise in calorie replenishment. You just need to put a secret ingredient in your duffle. You’ll probably have your own favorite, but my not-so-secret “secret ingredient” is garlic. Few foods pack such a big punch in such a small package.
