forecastle rising in the background. The future had looked hopeful in those days, and LePere had a big grin slapped across his young face.
Twice a month, he changed all the linen, dusted all the surfaces, shook out the rugs, and swept the floors. Every fall before winter set in, he drained the pipes. Every spring, he took note of what needed painting or repair and he saw to it. He’d had good offers and could have sold the place easily, but he had no intention of selling. To John LePere, the cabin and the cove on which it stood in the shadow of Purgatory Ridge were beyond value.
He’d made concessions over the years. The cabin now had a microwave oven, a coffeemaker, and a cordless telephone. He kept the refrigerator and food shelves modestly stocked. That morning, he started coffee dripping and went out to the fish house to fill his diving tanks from the compressor and to load his boat. He knew Bridger was right. Diving alone was risky. No, it was more than that. It was stupidly dangerous. But what he’d seen and filmed the day before had fired him up. He had to retrieve the camera. He couldn’t wait for Bridger. With an eye to safety, he stowed backup of all his equipment, including an extra dry suit, in a locker below deck. He returned to the cabin to fill his thermos with hot coffee, then locked the door and went down to the Anne Marie. He cast off the lines and backed the boat out into the cove. At last, he headed through the passage between the rocks and into the open water of the lake. As soon as he left the protection of the rocks, the wind and waves hit the boat. He turned the bow of the Anne Marie south by southeast and headed toward the Apostles, where the truth lay more than twenty fathoms deep.
There were times, LePere knew, when Bridger believed him to be a little crazy. LePere might have believed so, too, if he hadn’t been through the ordeal of the sinking. An experience like that changed a man. No one who hadn’t been there would understand. And no one who had been there was alive except John Sailor LePere.
That night, more than a decade before, after the stern had sailed off into the storm and the bow had sunk beneath the waves, LePere curled himself into a ball on the raft. His back was against Pete Swanson, who lay still, those three words-“I blew it”-spilling from his lips. Skip Jurgenson, the third man on the raft, dug into the storage compartment, pulled out a hand flare, and lit it.
“John.” He nudged LePere. “Warm up whatever you can. Come on, John.”
LePere rolled over and sat up.
“Hold this.” Jurgenson handed him the flare. “Don’t let it drip on you. It’ll burn like hell.”
Jurgenson reached back into the storage compartment and brought out a flare gun and a flashlight. He shot off one of the flares.
“You wasted it,” LePere told him, although he didn’t much care. “In this weather, who could see it?”
Jurgenson hunkered back down. “Think anybody aft made it off?”
LePere didn’t answer.
“Think anybody knows we’re here?”
LePere thought about Orin Grange trying to send a message on a dead radio. He stared at the flare burning in his hands and decided there was no reason to tell Jurgenson what he’d seen. He felt numb, and it wasn’t just the wet and the cold. Inside he was empty. Inside, he was dead. When the flare burned out, LePere lay back down, curled into a ball again, and refused to move. Finally, Jurgenson lay down, too.
The waves continued to build and to wash over the sides of the raft. Icy water, followed by a chill, bitter wind, hit LePere. He could hear Jurgenson screaming, cursing the cold. LePere wore only a pair of boxer shorts under his peacoat. Jurgenson was clothed only in pajamas and a hooded sweatshirt.
Near dawn, the storm abated. The wind died. The water calmed and the raft rode smoothly. The sun rose pale and without warmth. LePere tried to lift himself, but he’d been frozen in a tight ball all night and his joints and muscles seemed riveted in place by pain. After great effort, he managed to sit up. He took a look at Swanson. The man’s face was sheathed with ice, and his eyes were frozen open. LePere knew he was dead. Jurgenson was not moving. LePere nudged him with his foot.
“I’m alive,” Jurgenson rasped. He coughed long and hard, then slowly uncurled. He pulled himself up using the side of the raft. His face was gray. Ice covered his life vest. He looked at LePere through eyelids barely open. “How long?”
LePere wasn’t sure what he meant. How long had they been on the raft? How long until they were rescued? How long before they would be dead from exposure?
“Let’s light another flare,” LePere suggested. “Warm up some if we can.”
But neither man had the strength to move. Jurgenson fell into a coughing fit that obviously gave him a lot of pain. He slid back down onto the deck of the raft, folded his arms across his chest, and drew his legs up. “Tired,” he said. It was the last word he ever spoke.
The sun crossed the sky. LePere drifted in and out of consciousness. Time was an impossible measure. As dark crept over the lake, LePere gathered what little strength he had and lifted himself to peer over the gunwale of the pontoon raft. Under the evening sky, the lake was as calm as he’d ever seen it, flat and smooth and shiny. A few stars glimmered in the east. Beneath them, LePere made out a small constellation of stars, better defined and moving. A vessel. He kicked at Jurgenson. The man didn’t move. He tried to find the flare gun Jurgenson had dug out of the storage compartment, but it was not at hand and he had no strength for a search, no strength even to cry out above a hoarse whisper. He watched the lights sail off into the windless night and disappear. He lay back down, completely alone now. He was thirsty. His mouth was so dry he could barely swallow. But he didn’t have the strength to pull himself over the side and scoop water from the lake. Instead, he picked at ice that had formed on his peacoat and put it in his mouth to suck on.
And that was when his father came to him.
LePere didn’t recognize him at first. He was just a man sitting on the gunwale. His face glowed as if lit by a light just under his skin.
“Don’t eat the ice, Johnny,” he said.
LePere asked, “Who are you?”
“We’ve been waiting for you, and for Billy,” he said. “But it’s still not your time, Johnny.”
“Billy? Is he okay?”
“You’re the last one. The only one left. You’ve got to make it. You’ve got to set things right, son.”
“Dad? Is it you? I thought you were… Is Billy all right?”
“Don’t eat the ice, Johnny. It will lower your body temperature. It will kill you.”
“I was so scared for Billy.”
“Billy is with us. I’ve got to go. They’re waiting.”
“Don’t go. Please don’t go.”
“I’ll see you later. We’ll all be together again, Johnny. I promise. Remember. Don’t eat the ice.”
He faded, the outline of him lingering for a few moments, then he was gone, altogether and forever.
Although he wanted to more than he ever had, LePere could not cry. He didn’t have the water for tears.
It was another ten hours before a Coast Guard helicopter spotted him and he was plucked from the life raft that was drifting midway between the Apostle Islands and the Michigan shoreline. He was flown to a hospital in Ashland, Wisconsin. LePere had little memory of the rescue and of the hours that followed. Later, the doctors told him his body temperature was only ninety-four degrees when the Coast Guard brought him in. They were surprised he hadn’t died with the others on the raft. When he was able to respond, the Coast Guard questioned him. He told them about everything except the visit from his father. That was something he’d never told anyone. For a while, the doctors thought they might have to amputate some toes that suffered frostbite, but in the end, LePere’s body emerged whole from the ordeal. Everyone was encouraging. Everyone was amazed. You’re alive, they all told him brightly. You’re alive.
John Sailor LePere knew they were liars.
LePere didn’t stop at the buoy that marked where the wreck of the Teasdale lay. That morning, he continued down the shoreline of Outer Island, looking for the white launch. He didn’t know how the Fitzgerald Shipping Company had found out about the dives, but it seemed clear to him now that they were worried. In the rough water east of the island, there were no boats, but in the small bay near the lighthouse, LePere spotted a number of pleasure craft. None appeared to be the white launch. When he was satisfied, he headed out to the wreck. Alone and with the water so rough, he had a difficult time tying up to the buoy once he’d reached it. He suited up and spent a final moment checking the lake. Except for the Apostle Islands, the horizon was empty. He could see waves sending up spray as they crashed against Outer Island’s rocky shore, but the white launch was nowhere in sight. LePere figured they probably thought no one in his right mind would dive on a day like that.
