Steve Hamilton: North of Nowhere

That summer it was all about secrets.

It was the summer I turned forty-nine years old, which made me start thinking about fifty and what that would feel like. Fifty years with not a lot to show for them. One marriage that was so far in the past, it was like something you’d dig up out of the ground. My baseball career-four years of minor league ball and not a single day in the majors. And my career as a Detroit police officer, which ended one night with me on my back, watching my partner die next to me. That’s what I saw when I looked back on my life.

On the plus side, I was getting a lot of reading done that summer. And, though I didn’t know it yet, I was about to meet some interesting new people. I wouldn’t get to see any fireworks on the Fourth of July, because I’d spend most of that evening lying facedown on a stranger’s floor, a gun held to the side of my head. I would wait for one final blast, maybe one final blur of color. And then nothing.

I already had one bullet inside me. I knew I didn’t have room for another one.

More than anything else, it was the summer in which I had to make a big decision. Was I going to rejoin the human race or was I going to keep drifting until I was too far away to ever come back? That’s what the summer was really all about. That and the secrets.

Jonathan Connery, AKA Jackie, owner of the Glasgow Inn in Paradise, Michigan, raised in Scotland, alleged second-cousin to Sean Connery, and in his opinion anyway, just as good-looking-this is the man who took me to that house on that Fourth of July evening. The Glasgow Inn is just down the road from my cabins. I live in the first cabin, the one I helped my old man build back in the sixties and seventies. The other five I rent out. My customers are mostly hunters in the fall, snowmobilers in the winter. In the summer, they’re families who want to do something a little different. They come up here from the Lower Peninsula to Paradise because it’s the most out-of-the-way place you can go to without leaving the state-hell, without leaving the country. After driving forever on I-75, they think they’re almost there when they cross the Mackinac Bridge. But it’s another hour through the emptiest land they’ve ever seen until they finally get close to Lake Superior. Even then they still have to circle around Whitefish Bay, driving deep into the heart of the Hiawatha National Forest. By then, they’re wondering to themselves how anyone could actually live up here, so far away from everything else in the world. When they finally hit the town, the sign says, “Welcome to Paradise! We’re glad you made it!” They go through the one blinking light in the middle of town, keep going north along the shore a couple of miles, past Jackie’s Glasgow Inn, until they get to my cabins. When I see their faces as they get out of the car, I know how it’s going to be. If they look around like they just landed on the moon, they’re in for a long week. There’s not much to do up here, after you go to the Shipwreck Museum one day and then to the Taquemmenon Falls State Park the next. If they get out of the car, close their eyes, take a deep breath, and smile, I know they’ll like it here. They’ll probably come the year after, too. And the year after that.

Which is why I have mostly repeat customers now-people with standing reservations who come up here the same week, every year. In the summertime I don’t have to do much for them. They don’t use much firewood, maybe just a little when the winds off of the lake cool things down at night. They sure as hell don’t need me to tell them what to do or where to go. They’re just as happy to never see me.

I was spending a lot of time alone that summer. It’s what I had to do. There was a time when a certain lawyer had talked me into becoming a private investigator. I tried it and got my ass kicked. Then I met a young Ojibwa woman and tried to help her out of a jam, and got my ass kicked even worse. I got my ass kicked in ways that nobody’s ass has ever been kicked before. Then an old friend from my baseball days came back, thirty years after I had last seen him, and asked me to help him find somebody. I agreed to help him. You’d think I would have known what was about to happen. Although this time I got my head kicked along with my ass.

Enough of this, I said to myself. This I do not need. Ever again.

When the summer began, I was finding excuses not to go to Jackie’s for lunch. Or for my afternoon beer, even though I knew he’d have a Canadian on ice for me. Or dinner. When I did stop in, he’d ask me where I’d been. I’d tell him I’d been busy, cleaning out the cabins, fixing things. He’d give his famous look, like he could see right through me.

By the end of June, I was spending most evenings in my cabin, reading the paper, and as many books as I could get my hands on. I had never read so many books in my life. Whatever the tiny Paradise library had, or the couple of gift shops that sold paperbacks-thrillers, mysteries, some of the classics even-that’s what I read. The books I craved the most were true crime. You’d think that would’ve been the last thing I wanted to read, with eight years as a cop and a year or so of trying very hard not to be a private investigator, and with everything that had happened to me. But for some reason, true crime books were comforting to me. Maybe because I was reading about all these people getting their asses kicked and for once it wasn’t me.

By the time the Fourth of July rolled around, I don’t think I had even seen Jackie’s face for a solid week. He knocked on the door. I opened it and saw him standing there. It would have been a surprise no matter what the circumstances, because he never came to my place. The Glasgow Inn had the television and the food and the Canadian beer. So there wasn’t much reason for him to come my way.

“Jackie,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“Alex,” he said. He stepped past me and looked around the place. I think Jackie was sixty-five that summer. Over the years, his face had felt a lot of cold wind off the lake. He had a certain sparkle in his eyes, though, that told you he could take whatever the lake gave him. When the snow melted, he’d be there smiling.

“Is everything okay?” I said.

“Everything’s fine,” he said. “Just dandy.” He picked up the book on my kitchen table and turned it over to read the back.

I stood there watching him. I wasn’t sure what to say.

“Okay,” he said, putting the book down. “Here’s the deal. I brought a tent with me. It’s practically brand new, one of those space-age nylon things. Doesn’t weigh more than thirty pounds, but it’s plenty big and it keeps the wind and the rain out. It’s beautiful. Along with that, I’ve got a good portable propane stove. A sleeping bag that’ll keep you warm to forty below. A backpack. You know, the kind with the frame that keeps the weight on your hips instead of your shoulders. A lot of other little stuff. Water purification kit, first aid kit, some mosquito netting. Oh, and I almost forgot, a couple of great fishing rods. I mean the best.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I said. “Where are you going?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “You are.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ll need a good rifle,” he said, “You’ll have to get that yourself.”

“Jackie…”

“I’ll draw you a map of this place. It’s up in the Yukon Territory. If you drive, it’ll take you a hell of a long time to get up there. I hope your truck is up for it.”

“Jackie…”

“If I were you, I’d sell the truck and fly up there. Tell you what, since I’m giving you all this equipment, just leave the truck with me. It’s what, about twelve years old?”