Fly by Night (50 page)

Amelia scanned the white surface through binoculars, searching for markers.

“They're hard to see,” Peter said. “Sometimes the tips get iced over but I've got the coordinates marked.”

*   *   *

The trip had taken the better part of the day. It was late afternoon and they'd retrieved twelve samples, some more deeply embedded into the ice than others. Peter's plan had been to locate six more, gather samples, and then make the last of the thirty-mile trip to Outer Island before calling it quits for the night. They'd camp and then make it back the next day through more channels to retrieve the rest.

But before they could do so, the sky had begun to change. Something didn't feel right. Amelia stood looking around.

They'd paused at one of the flags as Peter turned up the VHF radio.

“They're saying weather's clear,” he reported. “Some evidence of ice degradation to the west by Bark Point,” he said. “But I'm sure the last few nights of frigid temps took care of that.” Once the ice broke up, the samples would be lost.

“Damn,” Peter had said after they were farther into the islands near Manitou. He'd pulled out several sea lampreys from the nets. They were a devastatingly invasive species, eel-like with mouths like suction cups with sharp teeth that would clamp on and kill everything in their wake. “I hadn't expected to find these up this far.”

As Peter pulled them from the net, they fought and twisted until Amelia helped coil them into the plastic bucket labeled
INVASIVE
. The density of the lamprey range would be monitored up to Outer Island. He recorded the number at each stop. Whitefish, which thrived in the icy cold waters, were doing fine, but walleye density was low in certain spots.

He winced as he rubbed his left shoulder. “Think I pulled something getting them out. Old rotator cuff injury.”

“I'll get the next one,” Amelia offered.

This was the farthest she'd been out on Superior. She was curious about the sharp wind shifts in the channels between islands. Some were more of a friendly breeze; other gusts burst with such force as to shove her snowmobile off course making it impossible to steer and she skid long after pressing her foot on the brake. The farther they ventured, the stronger winds picked up, screaming through their gear and making all sorts of high-pitched noises.

The sky had changed. Darkening clouds moved in like smoke from a forest fire.

“Wind's shifting,” Peter called over the sound of the engines. Amelia turned her face and felt it. They hit a pocket of icy air that made her eyes tear.

Peter gave the hand gesture to stop.

“Just wanna check.” He paused to monitor the VHF radio for weather advisories. The Coast Guard continually monitored it for distress calls. He tossed her the satellite phone. “Mind calling the office? Get the weather from them too?”

Amelia dialed the number on the front of the phone to get updates.

“Front's moving in,” Peter said. He pointed with his one hand, still gloved in an expedition mitten, to the sky.

“Your office says it's passing south.”

Yet there was a dark cloud shelf creeping over the tree line of Otter Island, moving toward them. From memory after briefly looking at Peter's map, Amelia began calculating how far to the nearest island.

“Weather moves fast here,” he said, rubbing his shoulder.

“I'll pull up the next sample,” Amelia said.

He smiled. “Thanks. Sucks getting older.”

“How far's the closest island?” she asked. Something didn't feel right. The color of the sky, strange wind patterns that blew then suddenly died.

“About fifteen miles as the crow flies,” he said. “We're okay. It's going south.”

His assurance didn't sit well. She'd been out on waters that changed in moments. The thing she loved about the sea is that it would kill you and not care. Never personal, though at times it felt like it was after you.

And while they'd taken enough provisions for a few nights just in case, from land Amelia had witnessed Superior's storms come in a fury only to disperse like it was nothing. There was no way of knowing how this one would go. She lacked experience in this part of the world and deferred to Peter's expertise.

*   *   *

They were near Manitou Island, halfway through pulling samples, when the ice quaked. It was a deep rumble. She felt her 550-pound snowmobile shudder. Felt the vibration echo through the channel like a type of sonar. The wind was dead calm.

Peter looked at Amelia and then up at the sky.

Amelia said, “I don't like this.” She was uneasy.

“Wind's picking up,” he said. “Mostly to the west. Ice is beginning to shift. No biggie. Just lake thunder, Amelia, nothing to worry about.”

His voice was calm though he didn't look it. She didn't like the mixed messages.

“I've always believed it's easier to stay out of trouble than to get out of it,” she offered.

“Heavy ice plates just west of here. Thirty-two inches thick, some of ‘em, that's all, Amelia.” He sounded more somber than nonchalant. “Compressing northeast.”

“How about I radio in on channel sixteen, ask to update conditions,” she suggested, not wanting to buck his authority yet not wanting to be endangered either.

“Already checked. We're good.”

Something still felt off.

“Think we should make for South Twin?” she suggested. “Get out of this until things settle?”

Peter looked toward the west. The sky was already dark, moving directly toward them, cutting off any chance of making a run through the channel to shelter on Stockton.

“Might have to,” Peter said. “If the wind picks up any more, might degrade the ice.”

Amelia monitored the Coast Guard's channel 16 on the VHF as he talked.

“Think we'd better shoot more northeast, say for Outer,” he said and climbed back onto his snowmobile. “It's farther but it'll get us out of whatever's gaining. I'll radio once we make it that far.”

They wove in and out of the smaller islands, dodging them like a pinball machine, at times going against the wind, at times having it at their backs, all to avoid the unprotected ice that often sports straight-line winds powerful enough to blow everything away like toys.

Another deep rumble beneath the ice made her slow and turn to Peter. It seemed to quake throughout the channel.

“Told ya,” he said to reassure. “Just lake thunder.”

She noticed small cracks and then heaves along the seams, lifting up into four-inch ridges.

“Nothing to—” Peter stopped talking midsentence. His face tensed. He looked at her.

Amelia's stomach lurched. “What?” she asked.

“That sound.”

“What sound?”

“Like seismic ice plates. One large chunk is pushing up from underneath, pushing east. Gales from the west are causing the shift.”

They were eight miles north of Cat Island. Peter cut his engine to listen. He then turned his ear. You could hear the winds whooshing, over the tops of the islands, invading the protected areas as they rushed the channels, blowing in strange circling patterns from every direction.

“What does this mean?” She imagined the map of the Apostles in her mind and could only guess they were in trouble.

He powered up his snowmobile. “Either we try to make it to Outer or risk being on open ice pack with no protection,” he called over the engine and the roar of the wind.

Amelia wasn't familiar with the ways of ice.

“Whichever you think is best,” she said.

He paused. She didn't like the pause.

He looked up at her, his eyes round with worry.

“Not sure.”

Her stomach shrank.

“Let's try for Outer,” he said. “If we can't make it, we'll call it in.”

“Why not call it in now if you're worried?”

“I'm not worried.”

He grabbed his left shoulder again to massage it and then revved his snowmobile, heading northeast toward Outer.

They'd nearly made it a half mile when the sky dipped down to touch the surface, obscuring everything.

Clouds were a dark navy blue. With one gust, the wind blew both their snowmobiles, making it impossible to steer.

The bungee on Amelia's rubber sled snapped. Gear blew from where it had been cinched, knocking off the white plastic specimen pails as they rolled, strewing out the contents of live fish wriggling and flopping on the ice.

Peter slowed to a stop.

“Peter,” she called to him through the howling wind. “Peter,” she yelled.

He was slumped over the front of the snowmobile. She wondered if a piece of gear had hit him in the head, knocking him out.

Amelia set the brake on her snowmobile, and took off running. She heard the zipping sound of wind blowing her snowmobile across the ice.

“Peter.” She reached him. “Are you okay?” She touched his head and then propped him up, cradling him. He opened his eyes and looked up with sad, frightened eyes. “My arm's cramped. I think I'm having…”

“Where's the radio?”

“Back of…” His voice trailed off. He winced. “… my sled.”

Amelia helped him off the snowmobile and laid him flat on the ice. She scooted the rubber sled around and dragged him onto it, covering him as best she could with a sleeping bag. His hat blew off.

For a moment a tinkling sound like ice cubes in a tumbler began hitting the surface as she realized it was freezing rain. Amelia slipped and fell. She tried to gain a foothold but couldn't. The wind was blowing sideways, stinging her face. She then lay flat, using her hands to pull herself toward Peter.

She managed to grab the rubber sled and pull it toward her.

“It's gonna be okay, you're gonna be okay,” she kept saying as she lay down beside him, digging through the gear, feeling for the VHF radio.

Just as she located the radio and pulled it out to call the Coast Guard, an eighty-mile-an-hour gust knocked it out of her hand and then blew her out of the sled, both sliding on the ice, the radio sliding faster until something resembling a hockey puck slid past and both disappeared.

There were flares in the sleds. A few had blown past her, scattering across the ice. She trapped one with her foot but then lost it as it blew off with the rest.

“Fuck,” she yelled and tried to get back to Peter, to find more flares, but the wind was blowing her farther away.

Then everything stopped.

“Peter,” she called, using her fingernails to claw toward the sled, wriggling like an earthworm, using the fabric of her clothes for traction to reach to him.

Just before the storm picked up again, she reached him and crawled onto the rubber sled.

His face was gray. His eyes were open and looking up into the rain.

“Tell. Cherise.” His voice was weak. “Kids.”

“No, you're gonna tell them,” she insisted, trying to find a pulse on his neck. Then his eyes stopped seeing. He didn't blink as the freezing rain commenced. She turned him over, covered him, and began sobbing. “Oh my God, oh my God.”

Then she stopped. She looked around. Everything in her knew she was about to die. A strange coherence settled as all extraneous emotion evaporated except for thoughts of how to steady and not get blown away.

Gale-force winds picked up again, screaming so loud it hurt her ears. She reached for Peter's snowmobile and grabbed on to part of the engine. She held on as it slid across the ice with no resistance until it smashed against a pressure ridge. The abruptness almost threw her but she gripped tighter. The ice shifted, she felt another crack. It groaned as it widened like continents being pushed by terrestrial urges. Half the machine dipped sideways into the crevasse. Amelia could feel it crunching as the ice plates moved.

Everything in her was telling her to let go, let the wind take her but she was so terrified until suddenly she didn't care. Nothing mattered. She closed her eyes and let go like it was nothing, sliding and spinning with nothing to stop her, like the ocean undertow. She shielded her face, covered her eyes.

Then the wind stopped. She looked around, amazed she was alive.

Then the sound of marbles hitting ice came from every direction. She curled up into a ball, being blown sideways, all their provisions scattered and blowing across the ice, pelting her like demonic toys to punish her. A thermos flew and hit her in the back, the augers slid past like they were weightless, Peter's log books blew by and bashed her cheek. Everything was out of context on the ice and in the air, sliding without direction, without meaning as debris kept scattering about in the dictates of the wind.

Then it died again.

So still she could hear the ringing of her own ears.

But she didn't trust it. In the quiet a deep, low-frequency rumble echoed through the depths, spreading for miles.

“Dad?” she called, looking around.

As the wind let up on one of the pressure ridges she noticed a blinking red light, an incoming call. It was the satellite phone.

“Oh thank you.” She tried to get up, bashed her knee, and slid, clawing her way to grab it. Just within reach, the wind blew, sending her sliding farther away until she no longer saw the light.

“Fuck,” she yelled. The wind stopped. She moved in earthworm posture toward the phone. She reached to grab it. Her fingers were so frozen she hit the redial with her nose.

“Hello, we need help,” she yelled over the wind into the phone before anyone answered. “Please.”

“Amelia?”

“Oh, Bryce. Oh, God, Peter's had a heart attack, the wind is gale force, and the ice is breaking up. Call the Coast Guard, Bryce.”

“Copy,” Bryce said. “I'll stay on the phone—”

But as soon as he said it a gust blew the transmitter out of her hands, tumbling along, smashing it into pieces against the rocklike pressure ridges.

She screamed and tucked into a ball as the wind blew her, crashing headfirst into a ridge of ice and was immediately knocked out.