She liked numbers. Lake Michigan, she said, had 3,200 miles of coastline, but I thought she meant the lake was 3,200 miles long, and so I put my hand up to tell her that it was actually 307 miles from top to bottom, with a width that varied from 118 miles at its widest to 63 between Frankfort and Kewaunee, which was a regular run for our ferries, but she didn’t care, and anyway it was not the distances but the difficulties, the weather, the harbors, the channels, the passages, the currents, the reefs, the shoals. That was how a sailor knew the lake.
She had her own stories. Once upon a time where we lived had been ocean. That was in the Paleozoic era, the time my teacher called the age of ancient life, six hundred million years before any of us were born, and there were no people then, only corals, mollusks, brachiopods, and trilobites, so many that when they died and sank to the bottom of that sea their own weight smooshed them into limestone. The Petoskey stones I liked to hunt along the shore each summer were not stones at all but prehistoric animals, fragments of fossilized coral polished by the waves until they looked like honeycombs.
And even longer ago than that, before the ancient sea, there were volcanoes. The volcanoes erupted, and then the molten rock cooled and hardened, and plates beneath the surface of the earth collided and pushed up mountains, but by the time she finished her next sentence those mountains had already eroded, they weren’t mountains anymore but a low region of exposed bedrock she called the Canadian Shield. I liked picturing the volcanoes and the mountains and then a big shield like a knight might carry into battle, but the millions and billions of years were impossible to grasp, and so I imagined the land riding up and down like the waves in a steep storm on the sweetwater sea. This shield still bordered the northern shore of Lake Superior, she said, but around the rest of the Great Lakes that bedrock lay buried beneath sediment from the ancient ocean and debris from the glaciers that came later, that she hadn’t told us about yet, because her story was all out of order, like the lakes she called HOMES. In the middle of the shield there was a circular bed of shale that eroded to form river valleys that were surrounded by escarpments of hard limestone made from the skeletons of all those dead sea creatures. Then she told us about how it got very cold, and the glaciers came, pushing down from Hudson Bay in sheets that were hundreds of miles across and a mile high or even higher. I liked thinking about the glaciers, because I felt that I had traveled one the year I went across the lake, though I didn’t see how she could tell me there was no such thing as ghosts when according to her the very ground beneath our feet wasn’t ground at all but a bunch of dead animals and no one really knows what happens after you die, if you keep on thinking, and if you do then I guess you would be a ghost. That’s the problem with ghosts, they’re dead but they can’t stop thinking, and I thought that I would probably be that way too. As for the glaciers, they were so dense the ice was like a bulldozer, a giant tank smashing up slate and other soft rock, pushing it along in front and to the sides until it built up walls that separated the ice into lobes that plowed through the river valleys, making them deeper and deeper, thirteen hundred feet in the basin that became Lake Superior, nine hundred feet in Michigan. When a ship went to the bottom of one of those lakes, it went a long way down.
That was nearly two million years ago, she said, but then it warmed up again, the glaciers went away, the plants and animals came back. The way she told the story it was like a Frankfort winter, longer than anything you could imagine, but then it was summer again, and then winter, everything died, and the glaciers came back, and this happened over and over, and I didn’t see what was to prevent it from happening again, any more than the Soo locks would prevent a snow wasset from swimming from Lake Superior to Grand Traverse Bay, and so all the while she talked about the glaciers I kept looking out the window to make sure the snow and ice weren’t piled any higher than they had been that morning, but it was so cold there was no one out, I couldn’t see if there were any people or if everyone had died and the minute we left the heated brick schoolhouse we would all die too and have to wait a million years and then turn into rocks.
“Pay attention, Fern,” she said.
Finally the weight of the ice made those valleys so deep that when the glaciers melted for the last time—I took another look out the window—they filled with water and turned into our Great Lakes. But even then, she said, sometimes winter ice still blocked the water farther north, so Lake Superior found a narrow valley in the Upper Peninsula and poured into Lake Michigan through the little Whitefish River, and Lake Michigan found the Chicago River and drained into the Mississippi, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, which worried me, because if all the water drained out of the lake what would happen to my father’s ferry? I couldn’t imagine him working in a tailor’s shop or standing behind a counter wrapping meat up in brown paper like other fathers did. But there was more, because a mere seven to ten thousand years ago, she added as if it were yesterday, the St. Mary’s River opened, connecting Lake Superior to Lake Huron, and it became possible to sail all five of the lakes without ever crossing land, and on up the Erie Canal to the Hudson River and Atlantic Ocean.
“And that,” she said, “is the story of our special lakes.”
HOMES, she had us repeat. Because this region and its history were our HOME.
It was an interesting story, but it wouldn’t get you through the Manitou Passage or the Straits, wouldn’t help you navigate Gray’s Reef or the Wobbleshanks (“Waugoshance,” she corrected, though all the sailors I knew called it Wobbleshanks), that graveyard of wrecks between the mainland and Hog and Beaver Islands, wouldn’t teach you never to put your boat broadside to the waves in a storm or how to quarter them in a heavy north or south wind until the ship could turn and run downwind, didn’t tell you that the lead line was useful only in calm waters or that iron and steel throw the magnetic compass off its marks. It didn’t tell you that anything sent overboard should go leeward, which you would think only common sense, but more than one ship has burned because someone flung a bucket of coals into the wind. It didn’t show you how to load a ferry to balance the weight, how to place idlers, empty flat cars, between the cars to be loaded and the locomotive, wouldn’t warn you never to board a ship if the rats were leaving, wouldn’t teach you how to clear the limber holes in the bulkheads and clean the scuppers when they clogged, how to rig and fit a steering tiller to the end of the rudder stock if the pin in the steering quadrant broke or how to steer with the engines if the quadrant came loose, how to back and how to spud, didn’t caution you never to christen a ship with water, change its name or choose one with too many a’s and especially never a name with thirteen letters, didn’t tell you never to start a trip on Friday or use gear salvaged from a wreck or let you know that a starboard list coming out of port forebodes an unlucky trip or that whistling aboard ship will bring on a gale, and it was important to know these things, because for all her knowledge about how the lakes formed, she failed to tell us what all sailors on the Great Lakes know, which is the most important geological feature of all, because when the lakes formed they shaped themselves into a horseshoe, but the horseshoe’s upside down, its prongs at the bottom, where all the luck runs out, and that’s why most ships carry a horseshoe nailed right side up, and the Manitou was no exception. And when you set out on any of the lakes you’d best keep these things in mind, because what you need to know is not about brachiopods and glaciers but that a halo around the sun means rain and so does a red sky at dawn, that most storms take three days to blow in and another three to blow themselves out but there are other storms that come up without warning, and even without looking at the barometer you know a storm is coming by the pressure in your ears and the way your voice seems to echo inside your head, you need to know that in a storm waves come in sevens and the seventh is always higher than the previous six, that when a ship is going down lifeboats aren’t really of much use because they take too long to launch and any storm furious enough to sink a ship is going to break up a lifeboa
t anyway, you need to know how to call for a breeches buoy just before you scuttle a ship to keep it from smashing against the shore, but most of all you need to know when to call Mayday and fly the flag upside down.
She knew a lot, my teacher, but the sailors knew more, because they also knew that no matter how much you know, your ship can still go down. And land is just as dangerous to navigate, I learned, because while you are at sea, back on land your mother can drown.
14
The Annies were stern-loaders, and in the early days of the ferries, after the railroad removed fifty feet of the aft deck to accommodate bigger railcars, captains had to stand atop a boxcar with lines to the port and starboard whistles in each hand as the boats turned around to back up to the dock. One of those captains was my grandfather, and everyone said he was lucky because he died of a heart attack at home in his bed before he could fall off and break his neck, but if my grandfather was anything like my father I’m sure he would have preferred to fall off a boxcar and break his neck. A captain would always rather die on his ship than at home in his bed.
Though the newer ships had been built with an aft pilothouse and more clearance, I thought it would be fun to stand on top of one of the boxcars and pretend to be one of the old captains, so I hoisted myself to the ladder of the nearest car. My mittens were with my coat, back in my locker, and my fingers numbed on the metal rungs. Then, when I swung myself over, there wasn’t enough room to stand up. I wanted to see what the world looked like from up there, but all I could make out was a slice of pewter sky above the seagate.
I lay on my stomach next to the little peak those captains would have had to straddle, but slivers of ice soaked through my dress and sweater, so I rose to a squat, taking the invisible lines in my hands and hollering out orders. “Full speed ahead! Whoa, starboard, no to port, easy does it!” I wasn’t sure what kind of directions a captain would give, but I knew what his crew would say, “Aye aye, sir,” because that was the first rule on a boat, never argue with the captain. The ice rumbled and scraped along the sides of the hull. Wind out of the west had pushed more and more slush ice into the basin, and the narrow passage had closed up overnight because the Ashley was stuck up at Pyramid Point and hadn’t docked yesterday.
When I got tired of playing captain, I climbed down. My sleeve had caught on something, my shoelaces had come undone, my dress was wet, and I knew without looking that I was dirty, so I was glad my mother wasn’t there to scold me, but if she wasn’t sick I wouldn’t be there, so then I was glad she was sick, because otherwise I would be at home with nothing to do but build a snowman and sled down our hill. Here maybe I’d get to play captain some more, maybe up in the pilothouse standing at the wheel and talking on the chadburn, because if I was the captain that was what I would do, I would stand at the wheel and steer the ship instead of letting the wheelsman do it. I would steer the ship and tell everyone else what to do.
When I jumped from the bottom rung I landed so hard my teeth hurt and I lost my balance, gouging my knee against one of the heavy jacks. Something scurried away, and I scrambled to my feet. I squeezed along the arcade of white stanchions that stretched down the middle of the deck, then along the starboard rail, hoping to find a car that was open, even though I’d already looked. The doors had to be shut tight to keep the cargo from spilling out in big seas, and there were metal seals on the doors that the watch checked every shift so the railroad would know if any of the cars were broken into, but I wanted to see what was inside, maybe valuables like the ones passengers stored in the purser’s safe, gold or something like diamonds and rubies, because it was a lot of trouble to take all these cars across the lake on a boat and whatever was inside had to be worth a lot of money. Anyway maybe the watch had missed a door, there was always a chance for the watch to miss something like an open deadlight or broken seal, and if a watch could miss a seal, then I might have missed a door that was cracked. It didn’t occur to me that it would be too dark to make out what was inside. I was fixed on the idea that the cargo would be diamonds or gold and all sparkly.
It was funny how I could hear little things like the rat beneath the explosions of ice, the hiss of the steam, and throb of the engines. Somehow I seemed to hear everything more acutely through the din, as if each sound was a little thought inside the ship’s language, and I was starting to hear it talk like my father said, and even though I didn’t know the words yet, I loved its music, so I listened very hard. Near the end of the row there was a mewing that grew louder as I reached the last car, but before I could check the door, footsteps rang on the companionway below, the one that came up from the engine room, and a shadow moved into the square of light that was the open hatch, so I ducked beneath the car to hide. Even though everything on a ship is kept very clean the deck was wet and gritty, and instead of the mewing now I heard the scrabbling claws again. I thought the footsteps might belong to Dick Butler, come back to smoke another cigarette, which he really shouldn’t do, because what if he set the ship on fire? A fire was one of the worst things that could happen aboard a ship, though a leak could be bad too if it was big enough, and I didn’t want to think about that. There wasn’t any water on the car deck, just some melting ice, but Dick had said the leak was in the coal hold below. I wondered if one of the engineers had sent word up to my father in the pilothouse, maybe on the chadburn. It seemed like something he should know, but already I had learned that the engineers regarded everything below deck as their realm. It wasn’t just the first and second mates who didn’t get along. The engineers resented the captain, and the captain didn’t always trust his engineers, even though they had to work together because everyone had a job to do.
Whoever it was started up the companionway to the weather deck. I popped back out the minute he was gone, but then he was back, starting down the ladder that was bent at the top because at some point in a storm the railcars must have busted loose, and I had to crawl behind the wheel underneath the car again. I was good at hiding. Once when Billy and I were playing hide-and-seek I crawled into the space beneath his back steps, which was the best place because he was afraid of snakes and I never told him there weren’t any.
A beam of light crossed the track.
“Fern? Fern, are you down here?”
It was Alv, so I crawled out and said, “Surprise!”
“You scared me!” He turned his flashlight on me, careful not to shine it in my eyes. I looked down. My dress was torn, one sock had fallen down, my shoes had come untied, my knee was scraped, there were rats, and maybe I had crawled through rat poop, which I had also maybe done underneath Billy Johnson’s back porch, but that was different because I hadn’t thought about it, and now that I had maybe my knee would fester up and I would get gangrene, which was something I had heard about, it was something sailors got when their fingers and toes froze and had to be cut off, but even though I might already have gangrene and my leg would have to be cut off, I hadn’t cried. “Captain called. I went above to check on you and you weren’t there.”
“I wanted to see the train.” We weren’t shouting exactly, but we had to stand close and talk very loud. “Did he call you on the chadburn?”
“You’re not supposed to be down here by yourself. It’s dangerous.”
“Want to play hide-and-seek?”
His silence was full of frowns.
“There isn’t any caboose,” I said sadly. “And the cars are all closed up. I can’t see what’s inside.” His light flickered between the rails. “What’s that?”
“The hatch where they load the coal.”
“Open it.” I wanted to see the leak.
“I can’t. Anyway there’s nothing to see. It’s dark down there.”
“But if the coal’s wet it won’t burn.” I listened for the mewing inside the boxcar. “Do you hear that?”
“It’s probably a rat.”
“There is a rat,” I said. “It ran across my foot.” That wasn’t quite true, but it had come close.
&nbs
p; “Captain would have my hide if he knew you were down here. How come you left your compartment?” He was looking at me sternly now.
“I’m not afraid of rats. I’m not afraid of snakes or spiders either, and if you don’t believe me you can ask Billy Johnson. Boost me up. There’s an animal inside the car.”
“Maybe it’s Manitou.” I couldn’t tell whether he meant for me to laugh, but I didn’t think so.
“Manitou’s above. And anyway bears don’t mew, they growl.”
“Why are you so much trouble?” The elongated first word sounded like a grown-up’s sigh. “Anyway the door is sealed. I couldn’t open it even if I wanted to.”
I put my hands on my hips and pressed my lips together, the way Mrs. Johnson did when she meant business.
“I’d lose my job, and then what’s my father going to say?”
It took a while, but you couldn’t budge, or people wouldn’t do what you wanted. Finally he said, “All right, but right after that you have to go above.”
“There’s nothing to do up there.”
“I’ll get you some paper and a pencil. You can draw a picture.”
“I did that already.”
“There’s paper in the purser’s office. If I unlock it and tell you what the little tubes are for, will you go up?”
I did want to know. “How come you didn’t tell me before?”
“They’re for sending notes when a ship is going down.” And before I could ask what kind of notes or what they said he put his hand on the car, and the moment he did, something dark leapt to the deck and disappeared beneath another car, so close I felt a soft kiss of fur across my leg.
“It’s a squirrel!” I cried, because we had black squirrels in Frankfort.
“It’s a kitten,” he said.
Across the Great Lake Page 7
