Purgatory Ridge

  Whenever he stayed in the cabin overnight, LePere slept in the room he’d shared with Billy. There was a collection of agates on a small bookcase, the prizes they’d found along the lake shore and had chosen not to sell to the souvenir shops. On Billy’s bunk was a first baseman’s mitt, a gift LePere had sent from Cleveland his first voyage on the Teasdale. Over the years, LePere had kept the mitt well oiled. On the wall, in a wood-burned frame he’d made himself, Billy had hung a photograph of his big brother standing on the deck of the huge ore carrier, the forecastle rising in the background. The future had looked hopeful in those days, and LePere had a big grin slapped across his young face.

  Twice a month, he changed all the linen, dusted all the surfaces, shook out the rugs, and swept the floors. Every fall before winter set in, he drained the pipes. Every spring, he took note of what needed painting or repair and he saw to it. He’d had good offers and could have sold the place easily, but he had no intention of selling. To John LePere, the cabin and the cove on which it stood in the shadow of Purgatory Ridge were beyond value.

  He’d made concessions over the years. The cabin now had a microwave oven, a coffeemaker, and a cordless telephone. He kept the refrigerator and food shelves modestly stocked. That morning, he started coffee dripping and went out to the fish house to fill his diving tanks from the compressor and to load his boat. He knew Bridger was right. Diving alone was risky. No, it was more than that. It was stupidly dangerous. But what he’d seen and filmed the day before had fired him up. He had to retrieve the camera. He couldn’t wait for Bridger. With an eye to safety, he stowed backup of all his equipment, including an extra dry suit, in a locker below deck. He returned to the cabin to fill his thermos with hot coffee, then locked the door and went down to the Anne Marie. He cast off the lines and backed the boat out into the cove. At last, he headed through the passage between the rocks and into the open water of the lake. As soon as he left the protection of the rocks, the wind and waves hit the boat. He turned the bow of the Anne Marie south by southeast and headed toward the Apostles, where the truth lay more than twenty fathoms deep.

  There were times, LePere knew, when Bridger believed him to be a little crazy. LePere might have believed so, too, if he hadn’t been through the ordeal of the sinking. An experience like that changed a man. No one who hadn’t been there would understand. And no one who had been there was alive except John Sailor LePere.

  That night, more than a decade before, after the stern had sailed off into the storm and the bow had sunk beneath the waves, LePere curled himself into a ball on the raft. His back was against Pete Swanson, who lay still, those three words—“I blew it”—spilling from his lips. Skip Jurgenson, the third man on the raft, dug into the storage compartment, pulled out a hand flare, and lit it.

  “John.” He nudged LePere. “Warm up whatever you can. Come on, John.”

  LePere rolled over and sat up.

  “Hold this.” Jurgenson handed him the flare. “Don’t let it drip on you. It’ll burn like hell.”

  Jurgenson reached back into the storage compartment and brought out a flare gun and a flashlight. He shot off one of the flares.

  “You wasted it,” LePere told him, although he didn’t much care. “In this weather, who could see it?”

  Jurgenson hunkered back down. “Think anybody aft made it off?”

  LePere didn’t answer.

  “Think anybody knows we’re here?”

  LePere thought about Orin Grange trying to send a message on a dead radio. He stared at the flare burning in his hands and decided there was no reason to tell Jurgenson what he’d seen. He felt numb, and it wasn’t just the wet and the cold. Inside he was empty. Inside, he was dead. When the flare burned out, LePere lay back down, curled into a ball again, and refused to move. Finally, Jurgenson lay down, too.

  The waves continued to build and to wash over the sides of the raft. Icy water, followed by a chill, bitter wind, hit LePere. He could hear Jurgenson screaming, cursing the cold. LePere wore only a pair of boxer shorts under his peacoat. Jurgenson was clothed only in pajamas and a hooded sweatshirt.

  Near dawn, the storm abated. The wind died. The water calmed and the raft rode smoothly. The sun rose pale and without warmth. LePere tried to lift himself, but he’d been frozen in a tight ball all night and his joints and muscles seemed riveted in place by pain. After great effort, he managed to sit up. He took a look at Swanson. The man’s face was sheathed with ice, and his eyes were frozen open. LePere knew he was dead. Jurgenson was not moving. LePere nudged him with his foot.

  “I’m alive,” Jurgenson rasped. He coughed long and hard, then slowly uncurled. He pulled himself up using the side of the raft. His face was gray. Ice covered his life vest. He looked at LePere through eyelids barely open. “How long?”

  LePere wasn’t sure what he meant. How long had they been on the raft? How long until they were rescued? How long before they would be dead from exposure?

  “Let’s light another flare,” LePere suggested. “Warm up some if we can.”

  But neither man had the strength to move. Jurgenson fell into a coughing fit that obviously gave him a lot of pain. He slid back down onto the deck of the raft, folded his arms across his chest, and drew his legs up. “Tired,” he said. It was the last word he ever spoke.

  The sun crossed the sky. LePere drifted in and out of consciousness. Time was an impossible measure. As dark crept over the lake, LePere gathered what little strength he had and lifted himself to peer over the gunwale of the pontoon raft. Under the evening sky, the lake was as calm as he’d ever seen it, flat and smooth and shiny. A few stars glimmered in the east. Beneath them, LePere made out a small constellation of stars, better defined and moving. A vessel. He kicked at Jurgenson. The man didn’t move. He tried to find the flare gun Jurgenson had dug out of the storage compartment, but it was not at hand and he had no strength for a search, no strength even to cry out above a hoarse whisper. He watched the lights sail off into the windless night and disappear. He lay back down, completely alone now. He was thirsty. His mouth was so dry he could barely swallow. But he didn’t have the strength to pull himself over the side and scoop water from the lake. Instead, he picked at ice that had formed on his peacoat and put it in his mouth to suck on.

  And that was when his father came to him.

  LePere didn’t recognize him at first. He was just a man sitting on the gunwale. His face glowed as if lit by a light just under his skin.

  “Don’t eat the ice, Johnny,” he said.

  LePere asked, “Who are you?”

  “We’ve been waiting for you, and for Billy,” he said. “But it’s still not your time, Johnny.”

  “Billy? Is he okay?”

  “You’re the last one. The only one left. You’ve got to make it. You’ve got to set things right, son.”

  “Dad? Is it you? I thought you were… Is Billy all right?”

  “Don’t eat the ice, Johnny. It will lower your body temperature. It will kill you.”

  “I was so scared for Billy.”

  “Billy is with us. I’ve got to go. They’re waiting.”

  “Don’t go. Please don’t go.”

  “I’ll see you later. We’ll all be together again, Johnny. I promise. Remember. Don’t eat the ice.”

  He faded, the outline of him lingering for a few moments, then he was gone, altogether and forever.

  Although he wanted to more than he ever had, LePere could not cry. He didn’t have the water for tears.

  It was another ten hours before a Coast Guard helicopter spotted him and he was plucked from the life raft that was drifting midway between the Apostle Islands and the Michigan shoreline. He was flown to a hospital in Ashland, Wisconsin. LePere had little memory of the rescue and of the hours that followed. Later, the doctors told him his body temperature was only ninety-four degrees when the Coast Guard brought him in. They were surprised he hadn’t died with the others on the raft. When he was able to respond, the Coast Guard ques
tioned him. He told them about everything except the visit from his father. That was something he’d never told anyone. For a while, the doctors thought they might have to amputate some toes that suffered frostbite, but in the end, LePere’s body emerged whole from the ordeal. Everyone was encouraging. Everyone was amazed. You’re alive, they all told him brightly. You’re alive.

  John Sailor LePere knew they were liars.

  LePere didn’t stop at the buoy that marked where the wreck of the Teasdale lay. That morning, he continued down the shoreline of Outer Island, looking for the white launch. He didn’t know how the Fitzgerald Shipping Company had found out about the dives, but it seemed clear to him now that they were worried. In the rough water east of the island, there were no boats, but in the small bay near the lighthouse, LePere spotted a number of pleasure craft. None appeared to be the white launch. When he was satisfied, he headed out to the wreck. Alone and with the water so rough, he had a difficult time tying up to the buoy once he’d reached it. He suited up and spent a final moment checking the lake. Except for the Apostle Islands, the horizon was empty. He could see waves sending up spray as they crashed against Outer Island’s rocky shore, but the white launch was nowhere in sight. LePere figured they probably thought no one in his right mind would dive on a day like that.

  He went over the side and followed the buoy line that was drawn taut by the pull of the boat above. Under the surface, the water was calm and everything was quiet. LePere descended, switching on his Ikelite as the sunlight diminished. He listened to his own breathing and to the steady spill of his bubbles. At seventy feet, an eelpout swam through the light, winding its body in the direction of the Apostles.

  In ten minutes, he’d reached the stern of the Teasdale, where he followed the hull down to the broken midsection. He dipped over the edge and headed into the darkness at the bottom. His Ikelite illuminated a river of coal that spilled from the open cargo hold, but nowhere on that river did he see the camera. His light swept over the rocky bottom the coal didn’t cover; the camera was not there either. LePere searched the hold thoroughly and came up empty-handed. There were no strong currents that deep, nothing naturally occurring he could think of that could have moved the camera. The only thing that made sense was that someone had been there before him.

  Shit. He’d have screamed it but for the mouthpiece feeding him air. He checked his regulator. He’d been down long enough. There was nothing more to see anyway. He turned and headed back to the buoy cable.

  What greeted him when he reached the end of the stern was a sight more chilling than any cold the water could have pressed upon him. The buoy cable was rapidly snaking down from the surface. He realized that a hundred feet above him, the Anne Marie had either been stolen or set adrift.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, he inflated the vest that was his weight compensator, and he shot toward the surface. At sixty feet, the yellow marker for decompression dropped past him and then the severed end of the cable. He knew that when he neared the surface, he’d have to rely on his depth gauge and on his own judgment to hold at ten feet and then force himself to be patient as his body decompressed. It would do him no good if he saved the Anne Marie only to succumb to the bends. The darkness gave way to light. At thirty feet, he saw the surface and that there was no silhouette of his boat above or any sign of the marker buoy. He punctured his vest with his knife to slow his ascent. When the needle on his depth gauge hit ten feet and when his own sensibility confirmed it, he held.

  John LePere had gone through the torture of more sleepless nights than he could remember, watching the seconds tick off a clock so slowly he seemed in another time dimension. Nothing he’d experienced before was like the hell of the minutes he spent with the empty surface just out of his reach. He tried to think what he’d do if the boat were gone for good. What if she were drifting too far and too fast to catch? Or what if she had been set adrift with a hole punched in her hull to scuttle her?

  Not yet, he told himself at six minutes when it had already felt like hours.

  He calculated the wind direction and tried to envision where the boat would hit if it drifted toward Outer Island. The shoreline was nothing but tall trees, hard rock, and wild surf. He could think of no safe landing.

  He gave himself nine minutes. Probably not enough to be completely safe, but the hell with it. He broke the surface and caught a wave that lifted him high. He spotted the Anne Marie adrift a quarter mile northwest. Not far beyond it, the breakers slammed against the rocks of Outer Island. Fitted for diving, he was unfit to swim. He shed his gear, abandoning tank, weights, vest. Although it was cumbersome, he left his dry suit on, his only protection against the numbing cold of the lake water. LePere began to swim.

  He used strong, even strokes, trying to pace himself, relying on what his body could do as a result of all those mornings he’d cut through the water of Iron Lake for miles. But Iron Lake was small and calm. The angry waves of Superior crashed over him, choked his throat with icy water, lifted his body, and threw it down. For a long time, he couldn’t tell if he was gaining on the boat at all. He focused all his effort on trying to reach the Anne Marie before she hit the rocks, which kept him from worrying about what he’d do if he reached her only to discover the engine had been sabotaged or the rudder cable cut.

  Twenty minutes of a harder crawl than he’d ever done brought him to within reach of the bowline that was still dragging the buoy. He grabbed hold and hauled himself in, hand over hand, until he could reach the diving ladder. Breathing in gasps, he climbed aboard. He could hear the roar of the breakers less than two hundred yards distant now. Quickly, he went to the helm station inside the deckhouse. The key was gone. He ran down the companionway to the forward cabin and grabbed the extra key he kept on a nail under one of the bunks. Back at the helm station, he jammed the key into the ignition. The engine coughed and didn’t catch. LePere glanced toward Outer Island. He was still more than a hundred yards out, but he saw in the trough between the waves, less than fifty feet to starboard and directly in the path the wind and waves were pushing the Anne Marie, the glint of light off the sleek, jagged rocks of a shoal.

  He hit the ignition again. “Come on, baby,” he whispered.

  The engine caught this time. He swung the wheel hard to starboard and eased the throttle forward, narrowly missing an arm of dark rock just beneath the surface. He came about fully, nosed the Anne Marie into the wind, and put a safe distance between himself and the island. He idled the engine and checked the boat. Nothing had been damaged. The extra diving gear stowed below hadn’t been touched. He hauled in the buoy and checked the cable. The line had been cut.

  He hadn’t seen the white launch, but maybe everything was different now. Maybe they would always use a different boat so he’d never know when they were watching, waiting to have another go at him.

  They’d taken his camera. They’d tried to destroy his boat. They were clearly afraid.

  Good, he thought, and he found himself smiling. That meant they had something to hide.

  He headed the boat home with the wind at his back. It would be a while before he returned. Bridger’s luck had been bad lately and he was low on money. On a janitor’s salary, LePere would have to save carefully for months to put together the cost of a new camera and housing, but he would do it. He would do whatever he had to. They hadn’t stopped him; they’d only delayed the inevitable. Next time he came, he’d be ready to take them down for good.

  He reached Purgatory Cove in the early afternoon, eased the Anne Marie up to the dock, and cut the engine. He secured the lines and headed toward shore. When he saw that the door to the fish house was wide open, he made for it quickly, then stood staring at the chaos inside. It looked as if someone had used a sledgehammer and had a field day. The compressor lay in pieces. His diving gear and the equipment and supplies for the Anne Marie had all been damaged or destroyed. Turning toward the small house, he saw that the door there stood open, as well. He hit the porch at a run. Insi
de, he found the rooms torn apart. The cupboards had been cleared. Drinking glasses and blue crockery plates lay shattered on the floor. In his mother’s room, the bottles had been swept off the top of the bureau and smashed.

  They were after nothing. They’d already got the camera and the tape it held. LePere knew this was an attack on him. They’d come to destroy the memories the cabin held for him. His mother’s careful needlepoint had been torn from the walls. The framed wedding photograph of his parents was thrown to the floor where a callous heel had ground the broken glass, shredding the picture that had been the most solid evidence LePere possessed that once, long ago, life had been good and full of promise. In the room he’d shared with Billy, the agate collection had been scattered. Billy’s first baseman’s mitt was gone altogether.

  For years, John LePere had lived with loss. He’d endured nightmares that, with each visitation, brought fresh grief. He’d learned to walk among other men as if he were a whole man, too, although he felt hollow inside. As he knelt amid the wreckage of all that had once remained to him of happiness, he let out a howl like an animal in terrible pain. What filled that hollow inside him now was a raging sensibility that felt more beast than human.

  He picked the telephone up from the floor. There was still a dial tone. He punched in a number. The phone at the other end rang five times, then the voice message machine kicked in.

  “Yeah, this is Bridger. Leave me a message. And make it short, God damn it.”

  The line beeped.

  “This is LePere. That crazy-ass idea of yours—you still want to do it, I’m in.”

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