Black Otter Bay

by Vincent Wyckoff

  “Dad?” An image came to mind of a delirious pirate rolling in a treasure chest of doubloons. “Dad! What are you doing?”

  Henry Bengston stared at his son. His mouth opened and closed like the fish around him gasping for breath. His Adam’s apple bobbed with a swallow, and his tongue lolled around, but his eyes remained fixed on Randall, unblinking.

  Kicking at a snarl of rope, netting, and fish, Randall dug his way out from under the bench seat. On hands and knees he slid over the wet, slimy pile to reach his father. “Dad!” he yelled. Grabbing the old man by the shoulders, he shook him hard. “Dad! What’s wrong?”

  Henry Bengston didn’t move. Behind him, the tiller thrashed about in the waves. Water seemed to be everywhere. It blew sideways in the storm, the tops of waves sliced off by the wind and hurled across the deepening swells. The next wave loomed high over the gunwale before throwing Randall against the opposite side hull. “Dad!” he screamed, but the old man lay twitching in a pool of water and fish.

  Pushing and shoving, Randall struggled to maneuver his father back on top of the pile of netting. It was horrible how the old man’s jaw and lips hung slack to the side.

  The boat suddenly pitched dangerously toward the net, knocking Randall off his knees at his father’s side and back into the ice-cold slush on the floor. While using the starboard gunwale to pull himself up, he glimpsed the submerged net dragging them low in the water. Then the next wave washed over him, and panic thrust him back to his feet. “Dad!” he screamed. A thousand images flashed through his mind: the motor running but taking them nowhere, the tiller flailing about in the wind, the toolbox strapped to the hull, and the winch bending under the weight of the full net. Then he was airborne, carried over the portside rail by a fifteen-foot wave.

  He found the real shock to being thrown overboard was how much warmer and quieter it was beneath the surface than exposed to the gale-force winds in the open boat. Then the rope around his torso yanked tight, instantly dragging him sideways through the water. The force of raging currents sucked off his oversized boots. Water was jammed up his nose and down his throat. He grabbed at the rope to pull himself upright, and when he finally broke the surface he was once again assaulted by the noise and mayhem of the storm. The boat dipped sideways into another swell, giving him an opportunity to grasp the gunwale, and when they rode up the face of another wave, he clambered back aboard.

  Lying in the bottom of the boat, coughing and panting for breath, he was horrified to see how much water they’d taken on. The additional weight of the nets and fish caused the boat to ride even lower, where it listed dangerously to the side toward the submerged net. Randall knew immediately what he had to do. Slipping and scrambling, he crawled over the pile of netting and fish to reach the winch. The strap-metal braces securing it to the hull were bent like a child’s erector set. He found the handle jammed against a rib in the hull. The whole mechanism buckled and creaked under the strain of the fish-laden net. Try as he might, he couldn’t budge the handle.

  Desperate now, he made for the toolbox in the stern, forgetting about the rope still lashed around his torso. His feet flew in the air when he was thrown backwards to the floor. Cursing and crying at the same time, he worked at the rope with frozen fingers. Wet and caked in ice, the knot felt like rock against his numb hands. The next wave smashed into them, and once again he crashed into the hull. His father’s body rolled with him, and Randall watched as sloshing water flowed in and out of his slack-jawed mouth.

  Randall crawled over him, fighting his way to the bow, where he unclipped himself. Returning through the swishing quagmire, he pulled his father back up on the pile of nets, and then crawled his way back to the toolbox. His frozen fingers ached opening the latch, but the first item on the top shelf was a heavy hunting knife with a six-inch blade.

  Back to the winch now, he perched precariously on the gunwale at the lowest edge of the boat, hacking and slicing and stabbing at ropes and netting. Everything was wet and frozen, causing the knife to slip off-target time and again. Waves and spray battered him, until he wrapped an arm around the winch to support himself, and with the other hand worked the point of the knife deep into the ropes. Digging and wedging, he finally made a cut, allowing room to insert the knife farther. With renewed hope he used both hands again, forcing the knife with all his might, until the next wave rolled high over the gunwale and threw him across the boat, cracking his head against a hull rib.

  Eyes closed against the searing pain, for a moment he reveled in the concussion-induced silence. As the sound of the storm slowly returned, however, he vaguely wondered what had happened to the knife. It seemed to be his only chance for survival. Fully conscious again, he decided he had to find it, and opened his eyes to once again look face to face into the unblinking stare of his father. The old man had come to rest on top of him. Randall couldn’t move, splayed out on his back with the weight of Henry Bengston’s torso across his chest. He gasped for breath in the swirling slush-pile on the bottom of the boat, his right arm twisted painfully underneath him.

  It can’t possibly end like this, he thought. He hadn’t even wanted to be here. He’d begged his mother, hadn’t he? And now here he was, drowning in this fucking boat, and he couldn’t even move. Tears sprang out on his cheeks. “Goddamn boat!” he yelled, kicking at the only thing his legs could reach: the strap-braces holding the winch in place. Pain in his bootless, frozen feet shot up through his legs, further igniting his anger. He kicked the winch again, his frustration welcoming the pain. “Fucking shit-ass lake!” And then he let loose, kicking and cursing with all his might, while his father’s blank face stared at him. He cursed his parents and his life in Black Otter Bay. He stomped out his hatred for the lake and the fish that swam there. And then he heard a loud crack, a splintering of wood, and just when he thought the boat was breaking into pieces, he saw the winch catapulted over the gunwale by the weight of the net. The boat immediately rose on the waves as the heavy net unraveled back into the sea. Fish and rope and netting went overboard, yanked out from under him. His father was dragged across the boat and dumped in a heap on the spot where the winch had been.

  Randall got his arm out from under him and rose to a knee to look over the rail. No longer anchored low in the water by the submerged net, the boat raced over the surface, propelled in its newly acquired buoyancy by a ceaseless battering of waves. Half stumbling, half crawling, he reached the tiller and steadied himself into the rear seat. He knew how to run the motor. He’d done it many times with his father on quiet, calm days.

  Sitting up now and getting his first good look around them, Randall saw how truly wild the seas were. He felt the wind buffeting him from every direction at once. He couldn’t believe they were still afloat. Maybe his mother had been right when she said the big boat would keep him safe. Then he took an even wider look around them and realized that all he could see was water. In every direction, as far as the horizon, nothing but a black and white fury of waves, whitecaps, and sea spray.

  He twisted the throttle, revved the motor, and the boat shot out at an angle up the side of a wave, nearly flipping over on itself. He backed off the throttle and used the tiller to run them high and dry before the wind. He had no idea which way to go, but following the swells seemed like a good plan. At this point, he figured, one direction was as good as another.

  He looked down at his father gently rocking against the hull, his mouth opening and closing, his throat swallowing, but his eyes maintaining their vacant stare. “We’re going home, Dad,” Randall called out loud, as much to himself as anyone.

  For several minutes they ran fast with the swells, until he surveyed a low-lying band of dense fog out past the point of the bow. To the young man driving the boat, it looked every bit like the very edge of Earth itself. And then, above the fog, looking like a protective angel, appeared the faint outline of a tower. Randall blinked and rubbed his eyes at this miraculous apparition. Just before the little boat disappeared into the f
og, he recognized the familiar steeple over First Lutheran Church.

  He held the tiller steady, letting the motor and the waves carry them swiftly through the blinding fog. Looking back on it, Randall knew the danger he’d run in making that decision. It could easily have resulted in a bone-crushing collision with the rocky shoreline. And it was especially foolish because he’d already spotted the church and knew they were so close to landfall. But it seemed his luck had finally turned. The enormous surf carried them over the first barrier of jagged boulders and ran them safely aground atop the flat bedrock shore. The propeller howled its outrage against the rocks before the motor died. The next wave eased up against them and gently tipped the boat on its side, but they were back on shore. Just before Randall closed his eyes in exhausted relief, he glimpsed Pastor Petersen in his flowing black robes running toward them down the path from the church.

  • • • • •

  In the office of his appropriately named art gallery, The Tempest, Randall sighed and shook his head at the memory. Everything he’d done since that day had been in preparation for leaving. By the time he was in high school, he’d begun hanging out in Duluth, working minimum wage jobs in fast food restaurants and motels. The summer after graduation, he rented a fleabag apartment in the West End. With an eye always open for opportunity, his part-time jobs soon led to various connections and better paying positions. He learned to negotiate the fine line between legal and illegal business transactions. That’s not to say he became a hardened criminal, or even aspired to it. But he paid close attention to money—where it was, who had it, and how best to ensure he had enough of it to keep him as far from Black Otter Bay as possible.

  His father had suffered a severe stroke that November day, and died a few weeks later. No one ever blamed Randall for what happened, but no one ever praised him for getting them back to shore, either. Doc Thompson, however, hinted that if Henry Bengston had gotten medical attention sooner, perhaps they could have done something for him.

  Randall suffered his frostbitten fingers and toes in silence. He accepted the ongoing nightmares as punishment for his ineptitude and lack of skill. But he never went out on the big lake again, and adamantly refused to have anything to do with the bait shop. Never again did he ask his mother for anything. But that little nugget of anger he’d discovered while lying on his back in the bottom of the boat became his best friend. He nurtured it and got to know it well. In his newfound life in the city, it helped him level the playing field when he dealt with richer, more powerful men.

  Over time, the makeshift breakwater down on the shore began falling apart under the constant battering of ice and waves off lake Superior. The boat rails and rail cart were still there, but the boathouse itself was deserted to the whims of Mother Nature. As an historical example of the disappearing Great Lakes commercial fishing industry, the tough old eighteen-foot open boat was hauled into town and put on display for tourists outside the Black Otter Bay Municipal Bar. And a day after Randall’s deliverance from the storm, the 729-foot freighter Edmund Fitzgerald sank in 530 feet of water in thirty-five-foot waves just outside Whitefish Bay.

  • • • • •

  He looked up from his desk when Jackie returned to the office. It was good to see the smile on her face. She must have resolved her disappointment over losing the Oberg. That was good, he thought as he returned her smile, because he had something even tougher to discuss with her now.

  “Guess what?” she asked, all perky and happy. “We sold the Fitzgerald. Got a damn good price, too.” She placed a charge account receipt on the desk in front of him. He picked it up, looked it over, and nodded his approval.

  Randall got to his feet, his usual mousey-looking self on the outside, but comforted by the rising anger within. He took a couple of short paces behind the desk, then turned on Jackie while the smile still lingered on her face. “How’s Ben?” he asked. “Did he call this morning?”

  Jackie’s lighthearted demeanor immediately disappeared. Replacing it was her recent, more familiar countenance of haggard hand-wringing. “Ben’s fine,” she replied, wary. “Why?”

  Randall shrugged. “He’s having a good time, right?”

  From Jackie’s point of view, they were back on treacherous footing where it was best to say little and listen closely. “It sounds like you know more than I do. Why don’t you tell me how he’s doing?”

  Randall said, “Come on, Jackie. He’s having the time of his life. He’s got Disney World right in downtown Chicago.”

  Other than glowering across the desk at him, she didn’t respond.

  “He’s eight years old now, right?”

  She stared at him, wondering where this could be going.

  “Eight years old,” he repeated, chuckling, “and he’s convinced he’s in Florida. Lake Michigan is the Atlantic. You have to admit, Jackie, this is a good one.”

  “Listen to yourself. You’re proud of deceiving an eight-year-old. He’s just a shy kid, Randall. When did you decide to stoop so low?”

  He threw his hands up defensively. “Hey, at least nobody’s getting hurt. It could have been a lot worse. Navy Pier may not be Epcot, but what does an eight-year-old know?”

  She hated that sarcastic smirk of his. He paced behind the desk like a caged badger. Or more like a weasel, she thought. But when he stopped pacing and turned to face her again, she worried at the cold glint of anger in his eyes.

  “People are getting nervous,” he said.

  “So what? We held up our end of the deal.”

  Randall nodded. “Of course we did. But like I said, deals have a way of changing over time.” Now he looked her hard in the eyes. “It’s Abby, honey.”

  “What about her? She hasn’t said anything.”

  “I know, I know. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s good enough. But with every passing day, the chances increase that she’ll say something.”

  Getting nervous now. “No, she won’t.”

  “She might not even mean to. It could be an accident, an offhand comment. Bottom line is, you need to bring her to Duluth.”

  “Why, so you can send her off on some phony trip? She’s nobody’s fool, Randall. Abby will eat you alive.”

  He slammed a fist on the desk. “Do you have any idea who you’re messing with here? These are some of the richest real estate developers in the country. These are the big guys, Jackie, the major leaguers.” He began counting off on his fingers. “They have connections everywhere, from the building trades to casinos and five-star hotels, condos, and restaurants. They select political appointees around the country to back them up. They own a little bit of most everything.” He pointed a finger at her. “And, my dear, they own a pretty good sized piece of you.”

  Jackie felt her anger dissipating. She quit listening to his tirade, thinking instead about her children and wondering how she’d managed to screw things up so bad. Other than a handful of short camping trips, Ben had never even been out of his small town on the North Shore. And now he was a pawn in a financial scheme that she’d helped orchestrate. It was never her intention to bring the children into this; their involvement was all a horrible mistake. But her problem with the casino was certainly to blame for launching this whole mess.

  She turned her attention back to Randall. “Will Ben come home if I bring Abby to Duluth?”

  Randall seemed to lose a bit of his edge. He looked down at the desk and picked up the receipt again before responding. “We just want Abby nearby so we can monitor who she talks to.”

  “But what about Ben? You won’t need him anymore if you have Abby.”

  Randall didn’t respond right away. He carefully placed the receipt on a stack of papers, as if distracted, and then straightened the whole pile.

  “Oh, my God,” Jackie said. “Ben’s not coming home, is he?”

  “Of course he is, when all this is done. For now, you just need to get Abby down here.”

  “She’ll never come of her own free will. And in case you
haven’t noticed, she doesn’t exactly get along with you.”

  “Then talk to Matthew. He’s reasonable.”

  “Matt would never make Abby do something she doesn’t want to do.”

  “Then I guess we’ll get the court order.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Randall. What judge is going to give me custody?”

  Randall’s smirk returned. “You’re her mother. And in terms you’ll appreciate, mothers trump everything.”

  Jackie shook her head. “It’ll never fly.”

  “Of course it will. What do you think all those connections are for?”

  As the meaning of his words came clear, she looked up at him to see an unexpected expression of surprise on his face. His gaze was fixed over her shoulder, at the door behind her. She watched the slow return of his sardonic smile. She turned around, and in unison with Randall, proclaimed, “Abby!”

  ELEVEN

  Red Tollefson

  Red Tollefson pushed his empty lunch plate across the counter. Rubbing his well-fed, portly stomach, he said, “Tracks as big as pie tins, eh?”

  Owen Porter said, “Yep, up off the Moose Lake Road. You can see them yourself if you know where to look.”

  Red reached for his coffee cup. “No, I believe you. And I’m sure it’s an impressive animal. But I’ve seen bigger.”

  With Marcy taking a few days off from her job in the Black Otter Bay Café, Anna Eskild, the owner of a plant nursery and greenhouse up over the ridge behind town, had arranged to cover for her. Anna had been the café’s full-time waitress for several years, only cutting back on her hours after getting married and starting a family. But she still knew her way around the café, and before Red’s cup was half empty, she appeared before him at the counter with a fresh pot.

  “What I’d like to know, though,” Red said, winking in confidence at Anna, “is what kind of pie tins we’re talking about here.” Holding his hands out wide in front of him, he said, “Now, do you mean the homemade Thanksgiving dinner type of pie? Or some mass-produced little thing like you’d get at a McRonald’s?”