Another Moth Drawn In

By Robert W Ingwalson

While on a Northern Minnesota Boundary Water’s canoe trip, a father and son found something that was left by Sgt. Carl Larsson eight months earlier. Why was it there? Under what circumstance was it left? The answers to those mysteries take the reader back fourteen months to the time of Carl Larsson’s and Anna ‘Loakie’s’ wedding and honeymoon. From that point forward, Carl’s life is a roller-coaster ride that includes love, rescue, death, sorrow, friendships, good fortune, and a promise that can’t be broken.
During this time, Carl was wanted by unscrupulous characters from St. Paul that were out to kill him and steal what was his. He must also deal with his own inner demons and make a choice of life or death. His journey took him from Duluth to Minneapolis and back with friendships, malice, and lawyers. Through his perseverance, he found his destiny deep in the Minnesota North Country after his struggle for survival in freezing cold, wind, and snow. The conditions inflicted an unbearable toll on his body while he battled wolves, pondered a mysterious presence, and discussed his way forward with God as Carl fulfilled his promise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9798889824916

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

About the Author

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Another Moth Drawn In

Robert W Ingwalson Jr.

Copyright © 2024 Robert W Ingwalson Jr.

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2024

ISBN 979-8-88982-490-9 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88982-491-6 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Chapter 1

A Trip to Remember

Christian, a brown-haired, lanky sixteen-year-old stopped paddling from his front spot in the canoe and allowed his paddle to remain in the water angled sideways, allowing the canoe to glide over the deep, blackened water of Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area. His gaze was transfixed approximately one hundred yards in front of him into the weeds growing about seventy-five feet from the pine-lined shore. There, among the weeds, was a large cow moose and her yearling calf feeding on the aquatic plants beneath the water's surface.

Mike, Christian's father, paddling from the rear of the canoe stopped paddling as well.

Christian, that there is one very rare sight, one that your friends back in Florida will probably never see. By the way, do you know a full-grown moose like that eats over forty pounds of vegetation each day?

But before Christian could answer the question posed by his father, the moose raised their heads high, turned toward the deeper water, and started a quick decent into the lake, swimming what seemed like straight at them.

Dad! What's going on? Are they coming for us?

Mike pointed toward the pines. No, look up there!

There on shore were three wolves pacing back and forth like they were trying to decide whether to follow their prey into the water or not, assuredly wanting that young calf.

I guess the moose had too far of a head start into the lake for the wolves to follow or they sensed us. Let's paddle a little closer to watch those moose swim by. But not too close.

They got to about twenty-five yards of the moose heads, the calf head following its mother, which was about all they could see of them, with the exception of their shallow wake left behind as the moose swam straight toward a small island on the far side of lake, about three hundred yards in front of them.

Wow! Christian exclaimed in a deep undertone voice as he turned back toward his dad trying not to disrupt the moment. Can you believe that? he said in and excited whisper.

Wow is right. That was something I've never experienced in my four times into these boundary waters. Let's find a place to camp for the night. The map shows an elevated campsite just around the bend only about three quarters of a mile from our first portage.

The wind was picking up, and the water became somewhat choppy as they grounded their canoe next to a downed cedar that the shore water was slapping up against. It was 3:10 pm with a blue sky, and it was a gorgeous sixty-seven-degree August day. They hit shore just down the hill from what the map called campsite no. 956 and the site for their first night stay of five in the Boundary Water Canoe Area, also known as the BWCA or just plain Boundary Waters by most Minnesotans.

Campsite no. 956 was the last campsite on the northwest side of Brule Lake, and it was close enough to their next day's portage to make an easy morning paddle. It seemed like the perfect spot. Tomorrow's portage would be difficult and one that is seldom used, but it will lead them into a multitude of small lakes by canoeing through Cam and Gasket Lakes, an area known to be a good, secluded fishing area.

With his feet partially in the water, Mike, a 6'2 forty-six-year-old muscular outdoorsman with a shaved head and full beard, grabbed the hand grip on the back of the canoe and provided some fatherly direction. Let's pull it on shore before we unpack it. We can make a couple of trips up those rocks to the campsite."

Without any further discussion, the canoe was on shore, and the gear was at the campsite.

What a beautiful spot, son. It provides a great vantage point to see a good section of lake.

Yeah, and there's plenty of wildlife around. Already saw some moose and wolves.

The gear was in three backpacking bags, one very large bag and two medium-sized bags. The bags held everything except the canoe and fishing rods, and everything was as lightweight and minimized as they could make it. Most of their food was instant or dehydrated with the exception of a quart of oil to cook fish in. They planned to strain and reuse it, and they were counting on eating a lot of fish along the way. Their fishing tackle included only a few selected items.

With a few lucky exceptions, there's no cell signal in the BWCA; however, they brought an old phone and a sun-powered charger just in case and also so they could use it to take pictures along the way and document their trip.

They each carried sheathed knives on their belts. Mike's knife was a seven-inch Beyond Blade fillet knife with a razor-sharp German stainless-steel blade and nonslip grip. Christian had a stamped bicentennial six-inch Buck knife that was given to him by his grandfather for his fifteenth birthday.

From the vantage point of the campsite, they had a good view of the shoreline below. Between some shrubs down by the shore, there was a large flat-topped rock that jetted into the water on one side.

Mike pointed to the rock. The water on the other side of the rock looks deep. Might be able to catch some walleye or a northern for dinner.

Christian grabbed his fishing rod and started down the hill.

Hold on there, son. We first need to put up the tent and bear proof the camp by hanging some ropes for our food bags. Help me with the tent and then get some firewood while I use that tree with the big branch over there as a place to hang the food bag.

The branch Mike was pointing at was about seventy-five feet from the camp and about twelve feet above the ground. Mike in his dad teaching tone said, It will be too high for a bear to grab, and we can hang it far enough from the tree trunk to keep a bear from climbing up and grabbing it. I'll tie the other end off on that other tree. That should also keep the coons from getting into our stuff.

Before putting up the tent, they laid a ground tarp over a level spot from which they had cleared away all the stones and twigs so they wouldn't get poked in the butt during the night. The tent was a pop-up with its fiberglass poles connected end to end with bungee cords ready to slip together. The poles were also sown into the tent's nylon fabric so the right poles were always in the right position during assembly. They erected the tent and laid out their sleeping bags with their extra clothing stuffed into T-shirts to be used for pillows. And voilà, their wilderness palace awaited them.

Christian gathered some firewood while Mike grabbed some rope. Mike tied a carabineer to one end and then wrapped it around the tree not too far from the hanging branch. He then tied a stick on the other end and threw it up over the branch to later connect the food bag to.

I think it's ready for the food bag. We'll hang the bag after dinner. If you're done getting firewood, let's catch some fish.

As soon as Christian made his first cast with a silver blue Rapala diver on the end of his eight-pound braided line and started reeling, he had a strike!

Wew hoo! Dad, I've got a good one. His lightweight rod was bent over in a hard fight.

Give him some drag, son. He looks strong. I'll get the net.

By the time Mike got the net down to the rocks, Christian already had a nice three-and-a-half pound walleye up on the rock.

Well, that will make for a great supper, along with some instant mash potatoes and rehydrated green beans. Let's clean it on the rock so we don't have fish guts in camp. I'll clean this one, but you clean tomorrow's catch, okay?

Okay.

Christian, you know that the first cast into an area many times catches a fish if there are any in the area. Just something to remember. If you take a lot of casts without catching any fish, it's time to find a different fishing spot. I live by the 80–20 rule.

What's the 80–20 rule?

Eighty percent of the fish are in twenty percent of the water. Thus, don't waste a lot of time fishing in water that isn't producing fish.

Got it, Dad.

Mike pulled his razor-sharp Beyond Blade fillet knife from its sheath and skillfully cut a ring around the neck of the walleye just south of its gill plate. Then from the cut, he ran the thin flexible blade down one side of the fish between its flesh and backbone, cutting right through the rib cage. Skillfully, he flipped the meat over toward the tail without cutting all the way off the tail. Next, he angled the knife into the exposed tail meat and cut in the opposite direction between the skin and meat to remove the skin. After that, it was a quick belly bone removal, and one nice fillet was ready for the frying pan.

He then turned the fish over and did the same thing to the other side. Having two fillets displayed on the rock for dinner, he slit open the stomach from the gut pile to see what the fish had been eating before he threw all of its guts, head, and carcass off the end of the rock.

Turtles should have a good meal tonight. Looks like he had been eating minnows and crawdads, Christian. That silver minnow Rapala you were using was a good choice.

Evidently.

Yea, evidently.

Mike used an existing ring of rocks for their firepit about twelve feet in front of their tent. He positioned the rocks so a frying pan could be set over a section of the fire but not in it. He also stuck a pair of two-foot Y-shaped sticks into the ground, one on each side of the firepit. When cooking, he connected them at the Y with a cleaned three-fourth-inch diameter limb cut from a live tree so it wouldn't burn easily. They would use it to hang their coffee pot and cook pot from by their built-in wire hangers.

After the firepit was ready, Mike started the fire using some dried birch bark and small twigs on the bottom and larger sticks on the top. They only had one pot and one frying pan, so they cooked both the beans and potatoes together in the pot. Then after coating the walleye filets with some fish batter, they fried them in about a quarter of inch of oil.

Supper went pretty much as planned with some almost golden fried fish. A little burnt on one side, but they were really good when mixed on the plate with the potatoes and green beans. They also mixed some orange-flavored Tang with purified lake water in their tin cups.

Dad, this fish is really good. But I wish we had some butter for the potatoes.

That would have been nice. But if we brought everything that would have been nice, we'd end up having to make three trips at every portage, and neither of us would want that. We'll have to make do with salt and pepper.

Got it.

They had pulled two fallen logs close to the fire, one on each side to sit on to cook, eat, and just relax around the fire. While eating, they sat with their backs to the fire so they could look out over the lake. They both sat there eating in a bit of wonderment over the beauty of nature painted in front of them.

Then all of a sudden from the left side of the lake came a loon dancing across the water. In hot pursuit of that loon was another loon half running on water with its wings a flapping while singing the loon song that resonated throughout the wild.

Without turning his head, Mike said, smiling in a bit of a snickering voice, Well, would you look at that. My guess is that it's a male chasing a female wanting to make babies.

He said that for Christian's amusement because he knew it was just one dominant male chasing another male away from his spot. As the loons rounded the edge of an island about two hundred yards from shore and out of their sight, they heard a lot of looner commotion and then silence.

Christian looked at his dad. Do you think he caught up with her?

Well, let's just say I wouldn't be surprised if that male came back around the island smoking a cigarette. That brought a good laugh from both of them.

Mike stood up from the log. We have about an hour before dark, so let's clean up the camp and hang the food bag from the tree. We don't want any freeloaders coming into camp tonight looking for a meal. Let's also set up a twine alarm system around camp using our utensils and pans after we clean them. You go down to the rocks and clean the dishes while I circle the camp with the twine.

Okay Dad.

As Christian got down to the fishing rock with the dishes, he heard a snort from the end of the rock. He jumped back a few steps and then slowly walked forward to where the snort was coming from. There, just as his dad predicted, was a very large snapping turtle with its head partially out of the water snorting and spraying water out its nose to protect his meal from him.

Hey Dad, you should see the size of this snapper down here. It's as big as a house!

Don't scare him away, I want to see him. Mike hurried down to the rock. Holy crap! That is a huge turtle. But as big as a house?

Well, that's just an expression.

Okay, let's take its picture to document this.

Christian got the phone and took some pictures, along with a few others of the lake and a selfie of him and his dad. Then they both looked off the rock at the turtle; still there, it snorted at them and wasn't about to back off its dinner.

I think I'll do the dishes over on the other side.

Good idea. This also settles the thought of me taking a swim here tomorrow morning. No way José. That gave them another good laugh.

After packing away all the food stuff into the food pack and pulling it up on the branch, a good nine feet off the ground, Mike tied the other end to the tree not too far away and tightened it with the carabineer.

Christian tied up the pots and the utensils close together along the twine parameter. Anything that hit the twine would make a clanking sound.

Darkness had now set in, and the only light to see by was a partial moon, the stars, and the fire.

As Mike stared up at the sky, he spoke to Christian. This is sure different than life in Sarasota, isn't it?

Yeah, it's great coming out here and experiencing nature and all, but I wouldn't give up my life at home to live here. I'd have to give up all my modern conveniences like TV, my phone, and the toilet. Not to mention butter.

They both laughed.

That's true, son, just think of the early explorers and the Native Americans. They made do and probably thought they had it pretty well. Toilet paper would have been a real luxury for them.

They both agreed with that.

Mike followed that up with, But it's great to spend time out here in nature just as well. If nothing else, it reminds us of what we have and what we've given up.

Without talking about it, Mike was especially happy for the time he was spending with his only son. He thought about how his coworkers at the post office only complained about their kids and how fortunate he was to have such a good relationship with Christian. Both Mike and Christian enjoyed their time together; they were Christians, went to church, went to sporting events together, and didn't argue much, with the exception of some heated debates about what team was better than another.

Mike also thought about his wife who was back home all alone while he and Christian were on this canoe trip.

I wonder what your mother's doing right now.

Oh, I bet she's all cuddled up in a blanket on the couch, binge-watching some sappy tearjerker series on Netflix.

You're probably right. I hope she's okay. If she isn't, we won't know about it until we call her from the car on our way home Wednesday. I do miss her already and wish she was here with us.

Dad, she hates camping.

I know, but if she was sitting here with us looking up at this sky, she might change her mind. Look at that quarter moon just over the horizon reflecting on the lake and the star's spread out and so visible over our heads. I think the only cloud in the sky is that puff just to the left of the moon, reflecting its light. As far as nights go in the woods, it doesn't get any better than this.

He held his cup of Tang up. Cheers to you, son.

Christian held his cup up too. Cheers to you, Dad.

Actually, Dad, it's not the moon's light being reflected by the cloud, it's the sun's light that's being reflected off the moon and onto the cloud. But it sure is pretty.

Okay, smarty-pants. So tell me this, how long does it take that light to reach us?

Well, I'm not sure, but light travels superfast, faster than anything, so isn't it like instantaneous?

No, it's not instantaneous, but it gets here pretty fast considering the distance. It takes approximately eight minutes and twenty seconds for the sun's light to reach us. We see the reflection from the moon in just a little more than a second. I guess from those times, you can understand how close the moon is to us in respect to the sun.

Christian looked at his dad. And you called me smarty-pants.

Well, I've always been fascinated by the universe and how large it is and how small we are. Something so grand as the universe could have only been created by God.

I've read that the universe was created by a big bang.

True, and it might have very well happened with a big bang, but there must have been something to begin the big bang. I believe that was God.

You know, Dad, I've thought about that very thing many times, and I'm still confused. If we needed something to start the big bang and that was God, wouldn't there also have been a need for something to start God?

Well, Christian, that's a good question, and I can tell from it that you're a thinker. I believe in the saying that God had no beginning and has no end. The difference in my mind is that the big bang alone would have needed some form of matter even if it was infinitesimally small. I don't believe that matter just materialized from nothing. You know, I do wonder at times what God is, but I think that answer is too great for our limited minds to comprehend. At least it's too complicated for my mind.

Mike continued, But two things I do know for sure, one is that there is a universe, Mike pointed to the stars and then opened his arms slightly in front of him, and two is that we are here right now sitting on this log contemplating these things.

Well, I guess I can agree with that. You know, the answers to everything are probably right in front of us, and we don't even know it. Mike looked at Christian and just nodded.

They both sat in silence for a while as they stared out at the sky and into the fire in a bit of wonderment. They sipped their drinks while mesmerized by the fire as its flames flickered and danced to the beat of the night. Lower in the pit, the logs glowed on and off with an orange brilliance under the flame.

Then a pan rattled! And everything changed.

Mike picked up the air horn and put some more wood on the fire.

Christian looked at his dad. What was that?

I think it's either a bear or a coon or a wolf.

But then there was no doubt what it was when the bear started a low grunting sound.

Stay seated for now and I'll sound the air horn as soon as I see it. Grab that long tree branch from the fire and do as I do.

They could hear the scraping of the tree bark by the claws of the bear while it tried to shimmy the tree to the food bag. They also heard the bear fall off the branch while trying to get to the bag. The bear must have been awfully large to make such a thump that was actually felt by both Mike and Christian. The fall must have also hurt the bear, and it was now angry and made a loud growl, letting the world know it as it started up the hill toward the fire where Mike and Christian sat in fear.

Mike saw the large shadow of the bear walking up the slope from the lake, and he grabbed a log from the wood pile and sounded the air horn. You could see the big black silhouetted by the moonlit lake as it stood up trying to figure out what was going on. Immediately while sounding the horn, Mike stood up on top of the log they were sitting on and threw the log from his hand hard into the fire. Hot embers, smoke, and ash filled the air. He then started waving his hands over his head and saying Go, go, go in a loud deep voice.

Christian did the same with the fire stick in his hands, slapping it into the fire. The bear looked for a second and then dropped down and hightailed it out of there as fast as he could, breaking the twine on his way out.

Wow, Dad. That was so scary! My legs are shaking.

"Yea, it was a bit, but I don't think that bear will be back. I think we scared him more or at least as much as he scared us. He's out there shivering his big fat heinie off right now. By the way, you did really good. Most bears will run off like that, but if ever a bear, a wolf, or a