Isle Royale (3 page)

Clarence scoffed as he stowed the bagpipe in a cabinet drawer. “That crazy Viking wouldn’t know good music if it leapt out of the sea and bit him.” Clarence shut the cabinet and turned, a frown still on his face. “Get yer nose back in that book,” he said. “Don’t get me in trouble with yer mother, now.” He sat in a chair on the other side of the stove, his joints creaking as he eased himself down.

Ian glanced back at his schoolbook, but knew he would learn nothing more this night. His mother, who was also his teacher when the family was on the island, would be upset he hadn’t finished his assignments. But, with the storm rolling in, there was just too much excitement tonight.

Ian let his eyes wander over the desk. Next to the Oliver, a logbook sat open, the night’s entry still blank. His father’s gold watch ticked away next to the log. On the other side of the room, the Victrola continued playing Scott Joplin. Luckily, his father hadn’t noticed the change in music.

Ian reached out and picked up a small, framed photograph. He sat back and pondered the image. It showed a much younger Clarence, together with his mother and another man, frolicking on a beach somewhere. The stranger had his arm around Clarence’s shoulder. His mother knelt between them. They each smiled happily at the camera, as if they hadn’t a care in the world. Ian had once asked his father who the other man was, but got nothing but silence in return.

Ian set the picture down and gazed at his father. Clarence had taken a dog-eared letter from his vest pocket and was busy reading it, his brow wrinkled in worry. The lightkeeper looked up and noticed Ian’s stare.

“Schoolwork done?”

“Time to wind the gears, Dad.” Every two hours, the gears to the lens assembly had to be hand cranked. This sent a large counterweight to the top of the tower shaft. As the weight slowly dropped, it turned the pedestal upon which the lamp rotated.

Clarence reached across the desk and picked up his gold watch. It was his prized family heirloom, which his father had passed down to him in Scotland shortly before putting him on a boat for America. The lightkeeper opened the engraved face and glanced at the time. He nodded his head as he snapped the watch shut, then slipped it in his coat pocket. “That’s a good lad. Come on, then.”

As Clarence rose, he snatched up the photo on the desk. Ian waited as his father stood there a moment, contemplating the image, his lips pursed.

“Everything alright, Dad?”

Clarence snapped out of his trance. “Hmmm?”

At that moment, a bolt of lightning flashed directly overhead, followed almost immediately by a crack of thunder. Ian jumped out of his chair as the tower shook. The Victrola rocked on its pedestal, sending the needle skidding off the record.

“Cripes!” Ian shouted, his eyes wide.

Clarence slipped the photo into his coat pocket and then glanced out the window, which now rattled with the sound of pelting rain. “Bad storm,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “Worse to come.”

Just then, three loud knocks exploded off the front door. Ian jumped again, and this time Clarence was startled as well. “Ach!” he said, his Scottish brogue thickening, “Who in God’s name is that?”

Clarence strode to the door. Ian followed close behind, wondering who on Earth would be crazy enough to be out in such foul weather. He watched as his father gripped the brass handle and then swung the heavy oak door open wide.

A dark figure stood in the rain just outside the threshold, his head down, covered by a broad-brimmed hat. Water dripped off a black mackintosh, splattering on the entryway. As lightning crackled above, the figure raised his head, revealing a scowling face peering out from under the rain gear.

Ian gasped as the man took a step into the light spilling from the open doorway. It was the same man in the photograph, older but unmistakable.

The stranger took another step forward, but Clarence stood his ground, blocking the doorway. “I got your letter, LeBeck,” he said, his voice as cold as a Minnesota blizzard.

The man in black stopped, momentarily confused. It seemed to Ian that, just for a moment, the man looked… hurt. Then his face went rigid, and he stepped back into the rain.

“Clarence, old friend,” the stranger said evenly, his deep voice laced with a heavy French-Canadian accent. “So many years.” He paused, his eyes boring into the lightkeeper’s. Then they shifted to Ian. The teenager shuddered involuntarily as he stared into the stranger’s eyes. It was like gazing into a deep, black pit. “Your boy,” the man said, reaching out his hand. Ian instinctively stepped well back behind his father.

The man called LeBeck withdrew again. He stood there in the rain like a granite slab, impassive. Ian gasped again as LeBeck reached up to scratch his stubbly chin with a hook in place of a left hand. The hook gleamed menacingly in the pale yellow light.

“Back from Europe, finally,” said Clarence, not budging from the doorway. “Took you long enough.”

LeBeck winced, but the pained expression on his face washed away in an instant. “I’ll be back in Paris soon enough,” he said. “Have you been to France, MacDougal? No, I suppose not.” LeBeck let his gaze wander around the rustic sitting room. A faint sneer crept onto his lips.

“Ye’re early,” said Clarence. His grip tightened on the door handle. “You said you’d come next week.”

“Things change, old friend.”

“Impossible,” snapped Clarence. “What you’re askin’ is impossible, LeBeck.”

The dark man shrugged his shoulders, then said sweetly, “But what’s the harm, Clarence? My men come by with cargo. Customers find their way to the lighthouse, no trouble in any weather.” LeBeck grinned, flashing a perfect set of pearly white teeth. “You see,” he said, pointing to the sky, “I found my way here even tonight.”

“Ye’re a damn fool for crossing over,” said Clarence.

LeBeck dropped his smile and narrowed his fathomless eyes. “You’ll get paid every week, nice and regular. Everybody wins, Clarence.”

“This is a lighthouse, LeBeck, not your personal hideout.” Clarence clenched his jaw, then stepped closer to LeBeck. “You’ve come in this storm for nothin’. Go back to Quebec. Or your precious France. But leave me alone.”

LeBeck pursed his lips. The wind came up, tugging at him. He hissed out an answer so quietly Ian had to strain to hear. “Listen, MacDougal, I didn’t choose you and your damn lighthouse because I need you. I’m doing it for
her
. For Collene.”

Ian felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle. He looked up at his father and saw him start to speak, then falter.

LeBeck cut in. “Look at yourselves,” he said contemptuously. “Look at your boy. You wear rags, for God’s sake.” Ian felt his face flush red. “When was the last time the government paid you on time? Or even got proper supplies to you on this wretched rock?”

“I get by.”

LeBeck broke into laughter, a kind of barking noise that nearly drowned out the thunder. “I don’t give a damn about
you
, MacDougal.” LeBeck leaned forward and whispered, “But you’re a cheap bastard to turn me down and make her live like this.”

The two men were at a standoff, one on either side of the threshold, staring at each other, the silence seeming to go on forever until Ian could bear it no longer. “Dad, what’s mom got to do with…”

“Shut up, boy,” Clarence snapped.

Lightning crashed again. Ian stepped back, startled. His father was gruff, but had never told Ian to
shut up
before.

LeBeck, grinning now like a wolf about to snap its jaws shut on a lamb, pulled a bundle of cash from under his raincoat. He tossed the money at Clarence, who nearly dropped it in surprise.

Clarence held the bundle lightly, like it was a coiled snake. “I can’t…”

“Don’t you dare say no,” LeBeck shot back.

As the lightkeeper stared at the money, Ian could almost see the thoughts flashing through his father’s mind. Taking regular payment from LeBeck was out of the question, but if he took it just this once, it might get rid of the man, at least for now. Come on, Dad, thought Ian. Stand up to him. Outside, the storm lashed the island with increasing fury. Ian glanced past the open doorway and saw dark clouds boiling overhead.

LeBeck spoke again, his voice tightening the noose around Clarence’s neck. “That’s for the first week, in advance. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

“First week? But I never…”

Suddenly, a lightning bolt shot out of the clouds and struck the top of the lighthouse. For an awful split second, the bolt of electricity played on the tower, dancing across its surface like a mad artist splashing bright paint on canvas. A chunk of brick and mortar exploded off the face of the lighthouse.

Inside the sitting room, Ian felt the floor rock under his feet. A lightning ball appeared in mid-air and raced around the room. Ian watched, stunned, as an entire wall seemed to catch fire. Blue and orange flame shot out of the water tap from the sink. The typewriter danced crazily on the desk, keys clacking away under the force of some unseen electric ghost.

Ian heard the sound of glass shattering. His eyes darted toward the window and watched with horror as the lighthouse lamp first flickered, then was snuffed out.

“Ian!” he heard his father cry out. “The lamp!”

The pair scrambled out of the room and launched themselves up the long spiral staircase to the lamp room, leaving their strange guest to stand grinning in the rain.

LeBeck opened his mouth. A laugh burst from his throat, the demonic noise echoing up the tower and ringing in Ian’s ears as he ran to catch up to his father. The lightkeeper’s shoes clanged on the metal stairs as he ran up two at a time.

“The lamp!” cried Clarence again. “The lamp!”

Chapter Three

“D
amn this weather.” Captain Niels Jensen stood on the bridge of his ship, scanning the dark inland sea with binoculars pressed against worried eyes. Jensen was the skipper of the giant ore carrier
Crescent City
, a 406-footer that had been plying the Great Lakes since her maiden voyage in 1897. Typical of “lakers,” her wheelhouse was situated at the bow, with a single funnel mounted at the stern. She sported a reddish hull, with white cabins and bulwarks. A powerful 1,800-horsepower, triple-expansion steam engine propelled her through the water at nine knots, even when fully laden with 8,000 tons of iron ore, as she was on this bleak night.

The copper boom of 1855 opened the Great Lakes to large boats, but it was iron ore that forged America into an industrial giant. The raw ore, called hematite, was scooped out of huge open-pit mines on Minnesota’s Masabi Range, making the state one of the country’s biggest ore producers. At one time, U.S. Steel had the largest fleet of ships sailing under the American flag, and the harbor at Duluth-Superior saw more tonnage of ore pass through than either New York or London, despite a shortened eight-month shipping season.

“Captain,” called First Mate Douglas Jorenby. The sailor stood hunched over his station on the bridge, eying with some suspicion the ship’s compass. A frown wrinkled his brow. “I think we got a good reading now. Don’t know why the blasted thing drifted before. Must be a magnetic disturbance around here somewhere.” Jorenby reached out a hand to steady himself as the ship rolled violently in the heavy seas.

The
Crescent City
had left Duluth-Superior Harbor early that morning, heading for the locks at Michigan’s Sault Ste. Marie, her belly full of ore. There had been no hint of the fast-moving weather cell that would soon come roaring in from the southwest. When the tempest struck, just after sunset, the ship was blown across the lake at breakneck speed. Captain Jensen ordered ten feet of water let into the cargo hold for extra ballast, but it wasn’t enough to keep the ship from drifting. Six times they tried turning into the wind, but on each attempt, when they maneuvered sideways into the trough of the seas, huge breaking waves tumbled in from the south, nearly capsizing the
Crescent City
.

The captain was a weathered old salt, with three decades of experience piloting ships. He’d grown up in Port Arthur, Ontario, and spent his entire life on the Great Lakes. He’d seen his share of storms, some fierce enough to curl the whiskers of even the most jaded sailor. But he’d never seen a storm like this.

On their last attempt at turning into the wind, with enormous waves smashing sideways against the hull, the captain was astonished that his ship hadn’t capsized completely. He’d never before reckoned that such a massive vessel could roll so far without going over. But the
Crescent City
righted herself, and somehow, by the grace of God, managed to get perpendicular to the waves once again.

From then on Jensen decided to point downwind and pray for the best. He knew he could ride out the storm if he could just keep far enough away from shore. But the wind had blown the ship so fast and far across the lake that he was no longer certain of his time and log. There was no telling where they were on the chart, unless he could find a beacon, a lighthouse perhaps, to reestablish their bearing.

Black sheets of water crashed against the hull, and the vessel lurched with a sickening motion. The storm obliterated the horizon, presenting nothing but a solid wall of darkness ahead.

As Captain Jensen scanned the waves with his binoculars, he suddenly had a horrifying suspicion that he knew exactly where the
Crescent City
had drifted. He stepped over to the compass, his eyes narrowing. He frowned as he reached down and superstitiously rapped lightly on the glass with his knuckle. Jensen frowned again. The needle seemed normal enough, considering the rocking motions of the boat.

But then, quite suddenly, the needle jerked a few degrees to the northeast, before slowly drifting back. Jensen winced.

“Dammit!” exclaimed Jorenby, looking over the captain’s shoulder at the errant compass. “I didn’t think there was anything in this area to make it do that.”

“It’s the iron ore off the cliffs,” the captain declared grimly. “Isle Royale.”

The first mate’s face went sheet white. “But that
can’t
be! Where’s the lighthouse at Wolf Point?” He hunched over a table set against the back wall. A single green-shaded overhead light cast a dim glow over that corner of the bridge. The mate’s eyes flitted over a large chart as his finger lightly traced what he believed to be the ship’s apparent course, based on the captain’s disturbing pronouncement. Contour lines representing lake depths jammed closer and closer. Fifty fathoms. Then, quite suddenly, twenty fathoms. Then five. His finger stopped when it ran over a shaded section denoting a land mass. Dark markings showed something big rising up out of the water—the cliffs of Wolf Point. “God help us if we’re that close,” the mate muttered.