The Lower Lights: A Lake Superior Tale

PROLOGUE

Buster knew something was wrong.

The dog strained against the confines of its leash, digging its front paws into the soft sand and staring intently at Lake Superior.

Bradford Huggins, what gray hair he had left blowing across his face in the growing storm, stood near the dog, frowning.

What is it, boy? Huh? Bradford asked, alternating his gaze from the dog to the lake. What’s out there?

And from what Bradford could see, the only thing that WAS out there was Lake Superior.

The dog’s tail flapped for only a moment at the attention, but it was so interested and too concerned with the lake to keep it up.

The waves rolled and crested beneath a low hanging gray sky and the clouds overhead, a sinister mixture of slate and silk, mingled together like a nest of snakes. Up and down the deserted beach the waves slammed onto the shore in a white hiss, rolling their fingers up onto the sand and then retreating to build for another run.

Late May near the small village of Grand Marais, Michigan still found the region caught in a tug-of-war between winter’s icy grip and the welcomed reprieve of summer. Bradford zipped his jacket up to his neck, still holding the dog’s leash and staring at the unwelcome sky. Springs this far north could see the warmth of the sun overpowered in minutes by one of Lake Superior’s storms, and winter would reclaim the day.

Let’s go, Buster! He said with a tug. We don’t want to be caught out here when those clouds open up.

And Bradford cursed himself for not paying more attention to the ominous sky before leaving the house.

He owned a real estate office in the village, although lately he had slipped into a comfortable part time routine, which suited him just fine because it left him the afternoon to take Buster for walks along the beach. And why would someone move up here if walks on the beach weren’t going to be part of the bargain?

Today he was in a particularly good mood, completing the sale of two hundred acres of Lake Superior shoreline to a man from the Detroit area who exuded the same distaste for city life that Bradford had come to feel. It had been the largest parcel of property Bradford had ever dealt with. The village had owned the land, entrusted him with the sale, and he had succeeded in finding what he thought was the ideal candidate: Someone with a lot of money and seemingly no desire to simply resell the land for a profit, or chop it up and develop it.

Of course Bradford could be wrong.

But he didn’t think he was.

And in a few minutes it wouldn’t matter anyway.

He and Buster were halfway between the village to the west, and his home to the east.

In the warmer summer months, the beach might be dotted with other walkers or lawn chairs spread across the sand. Fishing poles might be secured in buckets with lines far off into the lake. Bonfires might be crackling and blowing in the wind. The sound of children laughing at a kite far overhead might drift lazily up to Bradford’s ears.

Now the beach was empty.

The open expanse had at one time been a second harbor to the village of Grand Marais, a brother to the one closer to town. But whereas the one in town was protected by a pier and seawall, the pier that had once protected this harbor had lost it’s battle with Lake Superior.

The shifting waters and ice flow had pulverized the concrete foundation, causing the pier to collapse in on itself. Now it was a jagged collection of chunks of masonry and steel, like an automobile placed momentarily in a compactor, with water rolling over low areas and splashing hard against others.

Bradford pulled again on the dog’s leash, causing the little terrier to yelp.

Behind them was a half mile of sand leading to a tributary that broke south out of the big lake. In no direction was easy shelter, and the wind began to pick up.

Buster growled at the water for another moment as Bradford continued west towards the village.

We’ll scoot into town, maybe grab a coke, and ride this out, he told his dog.

But as he started moving, his white tennis shoes shifting and digging into the sand, Bradford’s optimism began to wane.

He knew the history of the two hundred acres he had sold to that man from Detroit. He knew what had originally stood on the property, and the history of the man who had lived there. He knew of the spirit of the man, and the mission.

But all of that was nonsense, wasn’t it?

Bradford continued to tug at the dog, feeling a light sweat break out across his forehead. He quickened his pace.

To his right the lake continued to boil. The wind shot inland with a renewed ferocity, pushing Bradford back from the waters edge.

He could hear the waves crashing loudly onto the crumpled concrete frame of the old pier.

And then Buster wasn’t growling.

The dog’s angry stance changed quickly.

Rather than resisting Bradford, staring and growling at the water, the dog had turned tail. With a high pitched whine it had turned and started inland, toward the woods behind the harbor, kicking up little clouds of sand with it’s small feet. Bradford almost laughed, holding tight to the leash, being pulled by the dog and shoved by the wind all at once.

He started to say something, to yell at the dog maybe, when he looked back out at the lake.

Rolling inland, sticking out amongst the smaller whitecaps that crested and crashed on shore, was a wave. And that’s what Bradford’s eyes registered as he saw it: One big wave.

It was separate from the others, and yet it wasn’t. It was fed by the smaller waves, gaining strength from Superior, and rolling higher and higher. Impossibly higher.

Bradford watched it, feeling Buster pulling at him, eyes wide.

This couldn’t be happening. Or could it?

There had to be a storm brewing out on Lake Superior, a big storm. This wind and chill was only a prelude to what was obviously coming. Didn’t some storms in the ocean produce rogue waves, tidal waves, that annihilated anything in their paths? Was that what this was?

But why didn’t it crest?

Bradford turned, taking his eyes off the water and watching the sand beneath his feet give way as he let Buster take the lead. They wouldn’t make shelter in the village, but they could get close enough to the woods to be safe.

Behind him he heard the roar of the surf, and the growing tempest of the wave as it grew to almost obscene proportions. And it kept coming, swelling to eight feet, then ten.

He could feel it looming over him, drawing closer, until the tip of the wave turned and it crested.

And then it was on him.

The force of the wave pushed him forward, causing him to cry out until his mouth and throat was filled with ice cold water. He stumbled, lost his footing, lifted by the water and pitched forward until his knees and arms came down hard on the sand.

The leash was still around his wrist, but he had lost sight of Buster. He had lost sight of anything, in fact, except for the gray and blue tinge of the water. The cold, cold water. He heard himself call out in surprise, but the sound seemed to radiate perhaps from his own mind.

His ears were filled with the sound of the wave roaring ashore, and then pulling back out. He fought to catch a breath, but each time his mouth opened water filled it.

When the wave pulled back out, Bradford was on his back, having been yanked over by the tide as it returned to Superior. His heart was racing in his chest, his lungs gasping for air. The leash was severed at the end and Buster was gone.

Bradford moved forward on his hands and knees, coughing and spitting out lakewater and sand, feeling it sting his eyes.

Oh my goodness … He heard himself say, and his fear was evident in his voice.

He started to get up, legs wobbly and weak beneath him, when he stole a glance back at Lake Superior, and saw the second wave coming.

‘It’s reloading,’ was all that crossed his mind.

He stumbled forward, trying to push himself to his feet, panic gripping him.

He thought of his late wife Rosa, and the way she looked on the day she died of cancer. He thought of the funeral, of his old home in Detroit, and of how far it was to the village. He thought of the windows on his house: had he remembered to shut them before leaving?

Where had Buster gotten off to now?

He thought of all these things at once.

And then the second wave hit him, and he thought of nothing else.

CHAPTER 1

The question came from Gwen Reichards lips at precisely the same moment a passing freighter sounded its horn. And for a moment Jimmy Parker thought the horn might have saved him from answering.

He should have known better.

Gwen’s eyes were locked onto him, despite the thousand foot ore carrier slowly rumbling by on the Detroit River and the scattered dive bombing of sea gulls.

The vessel, the Canadian Trader, was black and white in color with the flags atop the wheelhouse flapping briskly in the late spring breeze. The ship was downbound from Lake St. Claire, heading west on the Detroit River and the steady rumbling of its turbine engines made the pavement beneath the park bench vibrate.

The bench was on the edge of the river, on Belle Isle near downtown Detroit, and the water that surged past looked cold and powerful. It slapped against the rocky waterline as if trying to reach up and snag them. And with the storm gathering to the west, slowly gaining strength as it prepared to assault the city, the water would only get rougher.

Across the river, on the opposite shoreline, lay Canada and the city of Windsor. And to their right, closer to the heart of downtown Detroit, cars would already be clogging the Ambassador Bridge and the underwater tunnel en route to the foreign city. There was the Windsor Casino, tapping into the gambling habits of hundreds of thousands of Metro Detroiters who never made it to Las Vegas or Atlantic City. At night there would be the call of completely nude dancers at various Windsor nightclubs affectionately referred to as the Windsor Ballet.

Jimmy? Gwen asked again.

He feigned surprise, as if he hadn’t heard her, and turned to meet her stare. The wind blew her hair in strands across her face, partially shielding her green eyes, but that didn’t seem to matter. Despite the sun to the east and the gathering storm to the west, neither the elements nor the freighter could redirect her focus.

Sorry, he said feebly. I was just daydreaming. What did you say?

With a look that said ‘nice try,’ Gwen followed his eyes out into the water.

When were you going to tell me? she repeated.

Despite his knowledge of what she was talking about, Jimmy couldn’t resist the temptation to say: Tell you what?

Her exasperated sigh was almost as loud as the sounding of the ships horn.

I talked to your Realtor this afternoon, she said. She was looking straight out into the water, joining him as he watched the ship rumble downriver. He was pretty excited for you …’Tell him congratulations for me! Two hundred acres of lakefront property on Lake Superior is a wonderful investment.’ She shifted her gaze from the river to her feet and then to the sea gulls overhead. I was just curious why you never told me about it.

He thought about that for a moment.

Why HADN’T he told her about it? As his roommate and best friend she was certainly going to be effected by the decision. And despite her working full time during the day it was ludicrous to think he could keep it from her forever.

That’s why I brought us down here, he said. I wanted to tell you about it. I thought this would make a nice place to break the news.

And perhaps at that moment, with the wind picking up as the storm moved closer, the true nature of their relationship began to take hold. Because if Gwen were just another friend, just a buddy that he had invited to live with him, then the news could have been broken over pizza and a movie. But that hadn’t happened …

Instead he had kept silent, forcing himself to contain his excitement over his purchase until he could get her down to the riverfront to the spot where they’d shared so many lunches on hot summer afternoons.

She wasn’t his wife, she wasn’t his sister and she wasn’t his attorney. At times, however, she seemed a combination of all three.

And the list of names to call with the news of his purchase was tragically short.

His brother Bobby ran a radio station in Northern California with a silver BMW parked in the driveway and a swimwear-model girlfriend sunbathing in the backyard. All of which combined to dampen Bobby’s passion for the Great Lakes. And although Jimmy certainly had the money to at least obtain the BMW and the model, he figured his own passion for the Lakes would never fade.

Besides, knowing Bobby’s business-like attitude towards life he would probably consider the move an ill-fated and spur-of-the-moment blunder destined to end up in a fire sale.

Of course he couldn’t call his ex-wife Brittany. And how odd that her name would pop into his head. He hadn’t spoken to her in months and yet now, with news to convey, she still found a way to invade his thoughts. She was living in an apartment somewhere in Chicago with one of his old friends, probably concocting an evil plan to worm her way in on some of Jimmy’s money.

And Jimmy had a lot of money.

Four years into his marriage with Brittany and at a Christmas party at her parents home in the Detroit suburbs, Jimmy walked into a bedroom and caught her sporting under the sheets with one of his college friends. It was a drunken escapade fueled by an earlier argument and more than likely a one-in-a-million thing. But it had happened. And it had been the grand finale in a year full of fights and arguments. Jimmy had beaten his now ex-friend with a folding chair before walking off in a blizzard with tears freezing solidly to his cheeks.

Sometime during the next month a DC-10 carrying his parents to California had crashed over Nevada. In the spring of the following year his grandfather had disappeared while fishing in Lake Superior.

When the dust had settled and the pieces of the world finally came together like a pattern in a kaleidoscope, Jim and Bob Parker split their grandfather’s inheritance of just over six million dollars. At that point Jimmy added the words well off to his already existing profile of intellectual, reticent and predictable …And how ironic that money, the primary source of many of his arguments with his wife, was no longer going to be a concern for him.

Bobby had used the money to enhance his already fast paced lifestyle on the West Coast. He never considered dropping out of the workforce. Jimmy, on the other hand, dissolved happily into an existence consisting of putzing around the house and taking trips up north. He had found the idea of going out and pursuing a career, probably one made up of sales, incredibly nauseating. Now he didn’t have to worry about it.

The sky overhead darkened as the eastbound storm swept up the river and blanketed the park. The gray water of the river churned faster and with more energy. The swells that slapped the rocky shore sprayed higher in the air.

We probably ought to get inside somewhere when this hits, Jimmy said.

Gwen nodded, and they walked together towards his Ford Expedition parked in the lot amongst a thousand seagulls busily scampering about the pavement looking for food.

As they backed out of the parking lot, the rain started.

It hit the truck in sheets from the west, striking with a wind so powerful that it shook the truck and pressed ominously against the windows. The quick rapping of the windshield wipers did little to quell the onslaught and Jimmy sat with the motor idling.

I know buying this land was something you’ve always wanted to do, Gwen said without looking at him. You’ve said for years that you would eventually do it …I’m just surprised you bought so much and that you never even mentioned it. As a friend you certainly don’t owe me an explanation but as your roommate … She hesitated. I’m just a little scared here. If you decide to build a place up there and move, I’ll need to start making some arrangements. She sighed. Is it up near where your parents cabin used to be?

He nodded. Just west of Grand Marais.

He had known Gwen long enough, when he was married and during their time as roommates, to know she was biting her lip and holding back her true feelings. And he hadn’t told her yet that he hadn’t laid eyes on the property.

I need to use the restroom, she said. Pull up and I’ll run into the museum.

* * *

The Dossin Great Lakes Museum overlooked the river adjacent to the park they were just at.

He pulled the truck as close as he could get to the front door and watched as Gwen threw the door open to the wind and ran inside. When the door had shut behind her, he stared out over the grounds to the river and the clouds that loomed out there thick and gray. The fast-moving current churned in the quickening wind and waves eagerly lapped at the stone and concrete walkway in front of the building. The Detroit River split where it met Belle Isle and then joined again when it had passed the island. Off to Jimmy’s right, west of the museum, he could see the shadowy outline of downtown Detroit. The Renaissance Center, with its mirrored glass a symbol of the city’s attempt at a new image, stood out amongst the older and more archaic building designs. The tips of each building seemed to vanish in the thick, dark clouds and fog that hovered above.

On weekends the museum was a place of heightened activity. Senior citizen’s groups, churches and schools brought busloads of kids or visitors to walk amid the ship models and Great Lakes archives on display. But now, on a Thursday afternoon, the place was practically deserted.

Jimmy sat inside the truck, listening to the rain pelt the hood and roof, and waited for Gwen to reappear. When she didn’t, he decided to go inside.

* * *

The lobby itself seemed an extension of the gloomy weather. The walls, floors and ceilings of dark polished wood and even the glass display cases lining the walls with ship models inside were dimly lit and swallowed by shadows. The florescent light overhead did what it could but failed to eliminate the pervasive darkness.

The building was silent. No one greeted him at the front door and no other customers moved inside. He didn’t see Gwen anywhere.

As he stepped deeper into the building, a thin, gray haired man with dark glasses and a name tag that read Phillip emerged from a back room and smiled at him.

The smile seemed as cold and sinister as the storm outside and if Jimmy were a paranoid person, he could convince himself the museum was a house of horrors and that Gwen had somehow been devoured by it.

My friend came in here a minute ago to use the restroom, Jimmy said. Long, curly hair …Very pretty.

The sinister smile disappeared and was replaced by one more gentle and welcoming. Or perhaps it had been there all along.

She’s in the video room, the man said. We have some new paintings in there.

Feeling a little sheepish that he had tabbed the man sinister, Jimmy smiled weakly and stepped deeper into the museum.

He passed more models of Great Lakes ships and plaques beneath each one, depicting the history of the ship and what happened during the course of it’s lifetime. There was a display table with a working model of the Soo Locks as well as ship’s bells, life jackets and flags from freighters from years past.

No one else seemed to be inside the museum.

He came to a large room overlooking the water, and outside the rain seemed to be coming down harder.

The video room, as the psychopath had called it, was used for guest speakers and monthly meetings of the museum’s board. Cafeteria style tables and chairs were empty in the middle of the room, and the walls were lined with more paintings. In front of the window looking out into the river, in a plastic case twelve feet long, was a replica of the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald, which had sunk in a Lake Superior storm in 1975.

The model was Jimmy’s favorite.

In the back of the room Gwen was leafing through a box of prints wrapped in plastic. She glanced up quickly when he entered.

I was a little worried about you, he said. Thought maybe you might have slipped out the back door or something.

I just stopped by the front desk to look at their paintings and the man said these new ones were back here, she said. She lifted one from the others and stared at it a moment in the light. It was of a girl and her father, sitting together on a hill overlooking a channel. The dad was pointing at a tug boat chugging towards them. The girl’s mouth hung open in wonderment.

I was thinking, she said. She slid the painting down with the others and kept paging through them. You haven’t been up north since last fall. When did you get the chance to even look at this property?

He couldn’t help but smile. She had formed an idea in her head, but hadn’t confronted him directly with it yet. There was nothing he could do now but confirm her fears.

I read about the property in a classified ad in Lake Superior Magazine, he said. I haven’t laid eyes on the place yet.

She turned around slowly to face him, as if searching for her own response.

Sight unseen? She asked.

No sight at all, he said. Not in person. I did have a couple of Polaroid’s, though. He smiled weakly.

Gwen pursed her lips together.

I know you love the Great Lakes, Jim, she said. I’ve lived in this area all my life and I’ve never seen anyone as passionate for them as you are. You’ve always had this whole John Denver-Rocky-Mountain-High-love-affair with them. But don’t you think it would have been a good idea to look the property over before buying it? Haven’t you heard of the term ‘buyer beware’? When she turned to look at him he could see the caution and uncertainty on her face. What if the whole ad was a scam? What if you bought one hundred acres of swampland?

I wanted to look at it first, he said. There wasn’t any time. A Japanese company wanted it pretty badly for mining and lumbering work. They were prepared to act quickly. He shrugged. I didn’t want to risk losing it.

Outside a seagull perched onto a wooden dock post in front of the museum, bent its frail body to fight against the rain, then lifted again and shot out over the water.

She sighed and turned to face him.

A Japanese company wanted it for mining and lumbering work? She frowned. And you believed that little real estate ploy?

He shrugged.

All right, so what’s next? She asked. After all, it’s already done and I’m not your wife so …

And she WASN’T his wife, although he sometimes let himself wonder what that would be like. She was his roommate and his best friend, albeit a possessive one, and suddenly he felt a little guilty that he’d made such a big move without talking to her first. He’d been so excited about the deal he’d just gone ahead and done it without any thought as to how it might effect Gwen. Although they weren’t married or sleeping together she was the closest thing to family that he had around anymore and he felt badly that he hadn’t talked with her about it first.

I’m driving up tomorrow to check it out, he said. I was kind of hoping you’d come with me.

Not really giving me much time to prepare, are you? She asked. I still work for a living, you know.

But she nodded as she stood there, happy at least that he had included her in taking possession of the new property.

I really hope you’re not wrong about this, she said.

I’m not wrong about it, he told her. In fact, I’m more certain of this than I have been anything in a long time.

But Jimmy could tell that Gwen didn’t feel it. In fact, the skepticism on her face was so evident it almost put a chunk in his enthusiasm. Almost.

She lifted the picture of the father and daughter watching