Superior Storm (Lake Superior Mysteries)

by Tom Hilpert

  I felt weak. I knew I had to get out of the water soon, or my muscles would seize up and I would freeze to death in less than an hour. I heaved again, letting loose of the rope with my right hand, swinging my body up over the dinghy with everything I had.

  It wasn’t enough. My left arm slipped, and my left leg didn’t make it over the edge. I slid helplessly along the smooth side of the little boat, my left arm slipping further and further out along the pontoon. Inexorably, the force of the water on my body pulled my arm up until my hand was on top of the pontoon, barely held there with all the pressure I could muster. Then, with a twitch of a wave, it came off.

  With a gasp, I flailed wildly. My left hand connected with something solid, and graspable, and I realized I was holding on to the transom – the board that made up the stern of the pontoon boat. I wheeled my right arm high and forward like I was throwing a discus, and then I had two hands grasping firmly. With a groan and a heave of desperation, I snaked my legs and contorted my body and jerked my arms and finally I was lying in eight inches of water in the bottom of the dinghy.

  CHAPTER 40

  The eight inches of water quickly grew to twelve. I realized that my weight was pushing the bow upwards, and all the water was collecting around my body in the back of the boat. I pushed myself up to my knees and fumbled around until I found a bailer, tied to one of the benches. I scooped water out for several minutes until I no longer felt like I was sitting in a frozen kiddie-pool.

  There was a bench across the boat immediately in front of me. Behind, me, fixed to the transom, was a small outboard motor, and to my left, next to me, a small gas tank. The weight of the motor and of the water was probably the only thing that had kept it from overturning in the tumultuous seas.

  The movement of the waves was greater on the smaller vessel. I stayed on my knees and slid over the bench. Three feet ahead of me was a second bench, but unlike the first, it was enclosed all the way to floor. It was, in fact, some kind of storage bin, or locker, which is exactly what I had remembered.

  The seat-locker opened up from my side. I found the lever and spread my arms to prevent anything from flying out in the wild weather. I pushed the lid up. It slammed down again immediately in the wind. Patience is a virtue. Virtuously, I pushed the lid up again, and held it there with my left hand. With my right hand, I rummaged around inside.

  There were two life-jackets, which unhelpfully got in the way. Still virtuous, I explored the area carefully with my hand. I pulled up a hard plastic object and found I was holding a flare gun. I put it back. I found a flashlight next. Light would help me find what I was looking for, but it could also betray me. If, in the wild movement of the waves, the flashlight were to shine ahead to the Tiny Dancer and hit one of the windows of the companionway doors or of the cabin, I could find myself in serious trouble with Angela and company. I left it off. After that, I found the flare gun again, and then a package of three flares.

  I felt a smooth flat surface, like a fish finder. My hopes began to rise. I pulled it out of the bench and shut the cover, and knelt over it. My hands were quite numb, but I pushed and prodded it until I hit some kind of a power button. As the backlight came on, I felt a bitter taste in the back of my mouth. It was another portable GPS unit, not the radio I had staked all of my hopes on finding.

  I began to despair. There was no real reason to carry a portable marine radio in a runabout. It was just the only thing I could think of that might save our lives. I opened the lid, replacing the GPS unit, and almost immediately felt something long and thick and flat, like a big walkie-talkie. I pulled it out, and crouching behind the seat-locker, I flicked on the flashlight. It was a radio. We were saved.

  CHAPTER 4 1

  Only we weren’t saved.

  The radio didn’t work. I twisted knobs and pushed buttons and slapped and banged, but I could not get that radio to do anything more than a doorstop would do. I risked the flashlight again, and examined it carefully, and tried all the right buttons, according to their labels, but it wouldn’t turn on. I tried all the buttons in other combinations, but still nothing happened.

  I snapped the light off and sat back on my haunches. Almost immediately, I fell backwards against rear seat, as a wave tossed the little boat around. Pushing myself back up, I wondered what I could do now. It had to be the batteries. Most likely, someone had left it there and not bothered to check batteries at the end of the season. I could bring the radio back to the boat, store it in the cockpit, and try and sneak some batteries from the cabin back up to the radio. Except that I would have to submerge the radio to get back to the boat, and though it was probably water resistant, I doubt it was made to actually go under water.

  For a few moments, I felt no cold, no wind, not wet, nothing except blank despair. There was simply no way out. I held on to the bench beside me and stared out at the lights, wondering what I could possibly do.

  I stared out at the lights. With ridiculous slowness it dawned on me that I was looking at lights in the middle of Lake Superior. There was a ship! Far off to starboard were the clearly visible fog-lights of a vessel, probably a large one. Immediately, I thought of the flare gun. But almost as quickly, I dismissed it. The bright flare would almost certainly shine through even the small windows of Tiny Dancer’s cabin on this dark night. Angela would come up to the cockpit and find me gone. Once she realized I was in the dinghy, she would cut the rope and leave me to drift while Tiny Dancer escaped into the night. I could probably use the two remaining flares to make sure the ship picked me up, but Leyla and Stone would be out of luck.

  From somewhere in the back of my numbed mind, a voice was screaming at me. Dully, I tried to pay attention to the buried thoughts. When I finally realized the idea that was clamoring for attention, I was horrified. But now that I had opened my conscious mind to it, the thought wouldn’t go away. I didn’t have much time.

  Quickly, I located the GPS and turned it on. Desperately holding on to figures in my head, I punched in a destination. Then, with trembling hands, I loosened the knot of my right shoe, and slipped Stone’s knife into my hand. I slid my upper body across the port-side pontoon near the bow and grasped the rope that formed the left side of the towing harness. Before I could think of any more reasons not to, I cut the rope.

  Immediately, the dinghy jerked to starboard, as all the weight was transferred to the rope on that side. The force of our movement through the water pulled the starboard bow down, dragging the dinghy underwater. Gallons of icy liquid began pouring over the pontoon. I leaped for the rope, but before I got there, I felt a sudden jerk, and we were sliding backwards down a wave. The rope had snapped, and my decision was irreversible. Far more quickly than I anticipated, the ghostly form of the Tiny Dancer faded into the nothingness of the wild, black night.

  CHAPTER 4 2

  Immediately, I located the bailer and scooped a great deal of Lake Superior out of the dinghy. Then I turned to the outboard. One cannot live in northern Minnesota without coming into regular contact with outboard motors. They are a fact of life whether you like it or not, kind of like mosquitoes and people claiming to enjoy lutefisk.

  The gas tank had a rubber hose running to the motor, which looked to be about ten horsepower. I opened the valve on the motor, pumped the bulb on the gas-line and then fumbled for the pull-start rope. I found it, braced myself and pulled. Unsurprisingly, the motor did not start. The little boat was riding up the sides of the giant waves, but often, just before we reached the top, part of a wave would break over us. I bailed for a few more minutes, and then fiddled around in the dark on the outboard until I found what I hoped was the choke. I put it on and then pulled again. Nothing. So far, I was not discouraged. This was how it went with outboard motors, chain-saws and weed-eaters. I pulled again, and then again, with no results. I began jerking the rope like a mad-man, putting all my strength into it, over and over again. Nothing, except that for the first time in what felt like my entire life, I began to feel a little bit warm. No
w I began to get worried.

  We slipped up another wave, only this one was bit steeper, and I felt us starting to roll. Flinging myself on the up-wave side, my face inches from the wall of water, I prayed my weight would hold us. The edge of the boat climbed to more than forty-five degrees, and then I quickly slid back into the middle, to prevent us flipping the other way as we rushed down the back side of the wave.

  After about ten minutes, splitting the time equally between bailing and pulling on the starter cord, and occasionally abandoning both to keep the boat from flipping, I gave up. I looked to starboard. The lights of the big vessel were nearer. The wind and the waves were pushing me toward the ship. But before long it would cross my path, and then I would be behind it. It was now or never, and I prayed that the Tiny Dancer was far enough away so that they wouldn’t see the flares. After a moment’s thought, I prayed that the ship was close enough.

  Fumbling around in the seat-locker, I found the flares and the gun. I pulled out the flashlight again too, and carefully loaded the gun. Then, pointing it at an angle that I hoped would get the attention of the ship, I fired.

  The bang of the gun was much louder than I expected. A barely visible trail of smoke streaked into the sky, and then a red light flamed high in the air. It slowly descended, burning for about seven seconds, and then it was swallowed in sudden darkness.

  The ship continued on its course, apparently unaware of me. I loaded a second flare, and fired that one as well. Then I loaded the third and waited.

  The ship continued on. Now it was close enough for me to see that it was a big freighter, probably carrying a load of iron ore from the North Shore back east, or perhaps carrying western coal from Duluth to New York. I could hear the throb of its giant engines. It was maybe half a mile away. I fired the third and final flare like I was trying to hit the bridge. It arced into the air toward the ship, but because of the shallow angle, it quickly descended and hit the water a few hundred yards short.

  My mind leaping at all the survival tips I’d ever heard, I pulled out the flashlight and flashed it at the freighter. Three short flashes, then three long, then three short again. I hoped that was right. I kept it up. I intended to keep on until the battery died.

  At last, I heard a change in the rumble of the great engines. The ship heaved a little to its port, toward me. It slowed more noticeably and turned a little more too. Then, out of the darkness, a blinding light pierced the storm, stabbing into the wild waves in front of me and to my left. The light jumped around erratically, and I continued flashing my light, to help them find me.

  The searchlight passed over me quickly, and I yelled in frustration. But it immediately returned, carving a small circle around me until suddenly I was in the middle of the light, blinded as St. Paul, by my salvation.

  CHAPTER 4 3

  The ship seemed to continue on past me, but the searchlight stayed on me, though with occasional jerks and jumps, caused, no doubt, by the waves. I assumed one didn’t stop a six-hundred foot freighter on a dime. Dimly, I heard bells clanging. It seemed like I waited there forever in the blinding white light. I couldn’t see much outside of my shining circle. The great shadow of the freighter seemed to loom closer, and the rumble of the engine grew. Twice more, I had to fling myself to the side of the boat to keep from capsizing. Just to keep busy, I bailed constantly. For a moment, I paused my bailing and slipped the portable GPS unit into the zippered pocket of my jacket.

  At last, over the thin howl of the wind and the deep rumble of the ship, I thought I heard the high growl of an outboard motor. After a few seconds, I was sure of it. Finally, a large open boat roared up and stopped about twenty feet away.

  “Ho there!” said someone whom I could not see through the blinding glare of the spotlight. It seemed like a stupid thing to say, in the circumstances, so I parroted it back. “Ho there!”

  “We’re throwing you a rope!” shouted the voice, more business-like now.

  “OK,” I shouted back. So I didn’t have the best lines for the moment either.

  I slid down the side of a wave, and the other boat disappeared for a moment. A second later, they were high above me, while I was in the valley. Something big and circular came flying out of the light, and I ducked instinctively. Almost in the same moment, I cursed myself and looked up again just as a round life-preserver smacked against the outside of the dinghy. I dove forward, grasping for it, but it had already floated out of reach.

  I waited. “Again,” I heard dimly through the storm. This time I didn’t duck. The ring smacked into the water next the boat, but I was ready now. I scooped it up. There was a strong-looking rope securely fastened to it. Someone shouted something, but I couldn’t hear it. With some difficulty, I slid the ring under the back seat and around the bench twice. Then I gave the thumbs-up. I heard more shouting. Then the rope tightened. I held on to the life-ring, just in case the bench pulled loose or something.

  Carefully, they pulled my dinghy close to the lifeboat. When we were about ten feet apart, a man shouted. “We’re going to grab you, OK?”

  “OK,” I shouted back.

  The waves threw us at each other. The little dinghy slammed into the side of the freighter’s life boat, and then several hands were grasping my life-vest and I was hauled like a big pike into their vessel. Someone cut the rope to the dinghy, then the outboard roared and we swept up the side of a wave toward the ship. The vessel was enormous. We motored around to the lee side. The waves were maybe a little smaller here, and the wind was broken by the vast bulk of the ship. The long, flat hull of the freighter had a superstructure – something that looked almost like a small three or four story building – at the very bow of the ship, and another, slightly smaller one at the stern. The helmsman brought us in close to the stern superstructure. Lights glowed everywhere, like some giant Christmas-decorated mansion. The waves lifted us to within five or eight feet of the railings on the ship, and then dropped us into troughs twenty feet or more below them. If my rescuers didn’t know their business, we would be thrown against the steel hull, capsized and rubbed out of existence.

  “I need to use a radio, right away. Lives are at stake,” I shouted over the storm and the rumble of the outboard.

  The helmsman never took his eyes off the ship. “Is there someone else out there?”

  “They are being held hostage.”

  He shook his head, like he was clearing it of fog. “We’ll be on board in a minute. Sit tight.”

  The three men in the rescue craft called out to several men who were at the rail above us. The helmsman idled the motor of the lifeboat, occasionally goosing it to keep us in position. Above us, cables were descending from large steel davits that loomed like a pair of overturned hooks. The other men in our boat stationed themselves at bow and stern. First, the bow cable was snagged and clipped into position. The men above allowed plenty of slack. The stern cable was trickier, but they managed it.

  “Hold on,” said the man at the outboard. “We have to do this quick.”

  I nodded. He gave a signal to the men above and killed the motor. Great winches took up the slack in the cables; careful to keep them evenly balanced, and then jerked us suddenly out of the water into the air, where we hung for a moment like four babies in a giant cradle. We rose higher, swaying with the motion of the ship. The rail slowly came to our eye level, and then we were above it. With a few minutes of shouting and grinding machinery, we were swung inboard. Hands reached for me, and then I was standing on the solid steel deck of the Great Lakes freighter, Superior Rose.

  I had not often been so aware of my dependence upon the kindness and strength of others. I slumped a little against the wall of the structure beside me. I looked at the small circle of men around me. “It doesn’t seem adequate, not at all. But thanks. Thank you.”

  “Can you walk?” asked the man who had handled the motor of the lifeboat. I could see now that he was tall and thin, with brown skin and tight curly hair cropped short. He looked about thirt
y, and carried his back and neck tight and straight.

  “Sure,” I said. “I need to get to a radio right away.”

  “OK, sir, I heard you,” he said. “This way.”

  We took a few steps and then went through a rectangular door with rounded corners and a twelve-inch lip. Inside, it was bright and warm and very loud. The black man was waiting for me. I stuck out my hand. “Jonah Borden,” I said. “Thank you again.”

  He smiled kindly and took my hand. “No problem. Greg Iverson.”

  Iverson led the way under an overhang that opened out into a vast, deep bay or hold. He seemed to limp a little bit. The bay was like a giant square hole in the ship that rose two stories above us, and two below. There were railings and walkways all the way around on every level, enclosing the big space. Pipes and dials and gauges seemed to sprout everywhere. From the bottom of the open hold, the engine rumbled and roared. Using my vast education, I deduced that we were in some kind of engine-room. Iverson skirted the aft edge of the hold to another doorway. We went through and shut the door behind us. The noise and temperature dropped considerably. We were in a long narrow room. Benches lined the walls on either side, with foul-weather gear hanging on pegs above them. There was a telephone on the wall just inside the door. Iverson reached for it.

  “I need the Coast Guard,” I said. “I came from a sailing yacht where two people are being held hostage at gunpoint. One of them has already been shot. The kidnappers are also bank robbers.”

  Iverson replaced the phone and swiveled around to stare at me. “Say that again,” he said in a calm voice. I repeated it. “You don’t look crazy,” he muttered.

  I pulled off my life vest, then my jacket, and showed him the bullet holes. “Bullet holes” I explained helpfully.