Purgatory Ridge

49

JOHN LEPERE WAS ALMOST HOME. He stood at the stern of the foundering Anne Marie and stared down into the black water of a lake he’d known his whole life, whose vast existence suffused every aspect of his being but whose true spirit had eluded all his attempts at understanding. LePere finally let go of trying to understand and accepted the only thing he knew for sure. Below the raging surface, along the rocky bottom hundreds of feet down, the water was still and silent, and he would soon lie there, where he’d always been meant to come to rest.

After the yellow raft was swallowed by the night and the storm, LePere turned back and appraised the situation. Bridger lay dead in the deckhouse. In the forward cabin below, Lindstrom was dead-or dying. These things were as they should be. But there was one element that had no place in this final drama. Cork O’Connor should never have been a part of it. The man had done nothing to deserve the end that awaited him.

LePere slogged across the cockpit that was swamped with icy water. He sat next to O’Connor and helped brace him against the pitch of the boat. He offered the only bit of comfort he could. “They got away.”

O’Connor lifted his head. “They’ll make it?”

“They’ll make it.” LePere didn’t just say this. He believed it, believed it because he’d seen firsthand what the two women and their boys were capable of. “They’re strong, O’Connor. In all the important ways.”

O’Connor had lowered his head again. John LePere didn’t know if he’d heard, if it made any difference.

“Here.” LePere took the life vest in both hands. “I’m going to put this on you.”

O’Connor looked up and shook his head. LePere moved closer to hear his words. “You wear it. Wasted on me.”

“I promised your wife,” LePere told him. “It’s a promise I’m going to keep.”

O’Connor cried out in pain as LePere maneuvered him into the vest, but he didn’t fight it. LePere didn’t know if the man understood the true reason for his wife’s request. Did it matter?

“There. That’ll keep your head above water. Now if I could just keep you dry, you’d be fine until the Coast Guard comes.”

He kept his words light, but when O’Connor raised his tired eyes, John LePere could see that he understood perfectly the truth of his predicament.

“I’m sorry,” LePere said, because he felt responsible.

O’Connor shook his head slightly. Was it a pardon? John LePere wondered.

The two men sat together as the waves washed over the gunwales, filling the cockpit. LePere could feel the Anne Marie growing heavy and sluggish as she took on water. There was nothing now but to wait for the end. Lightning made the lake stand out in moments of stark black and white. LePere closed his eyes and remembered things that were alive with color. The blue of the summer sky over Superior and the deep aching blue of the lake below. The charcoal cliffs of Purgatory Ridge and the green tufts of grass that grew out of even the most solid rock. His father’s eyes, golden as the sun when he looked down from the height of the ridge, pointing where the fish would run. His mother’s cheeks, flushed with happiness as she stood beside her husband. And Billy. Billy most of all. Tanned from the summer sun, strong from swimming in a lake cold as ice, a tawny baseball mitt on his right hand, his eyes an earthy green-brown and shining.

Far out of place among all that memory, a thought came to John LePere-the dry suit he kept stowed in the compartment in the cabin of the Anne Marie.

His eyes snapped open. “Jesus,” he said. “Of course.”

He leaped up and fought his way through the deckhouse. The Anne Marie was listing severely, her stern ready to disappear beneath the swells. As he reached the companionway down to the forward cabin, the lights flickered, but they didn’t die. Lindstrom no longer lay on the floor. He’d managed to crawl partway up the steps to the deckhouse. He looked dead and LePere simply stepped over him. In the forward cabin, LePere threw open the storage compartment door. The diving suit lay folded on a shelf, wet from the deep water in the cabin. As LePere made his way back to the companionway, he saw that Lindstrom wasn’t, in fact, dead. The man was watching him.

“They got away,” LePere said with satisfaction. “Your wife and boy and O’Connor’s family. They all got away. All this for nothing.”

“A man’s reach should exceed his grasp,” Lindstrom mumbled. He looked at the dry suit.

“For O’Connor,” LePere explained. “I think he’s got a chance.”

“No chance.”

“We’ll see.”

LePere didn’t waste any more time on Lindstrom. Up top, O’Connor had flopped over with the tilt of the boat. He was struggling to keep his head above water. LePere grasped him under his arms and began to pull him toward the bow, as far as possible from where the lake spilled over the stern.

“Listen to me, O’Connor,” LePere shouted. “You have a chance. I’m going to put this dry suit on you. It will keep the lake off you. The Coast Guard will come, I promise. This will probably hurt. I’m sorry.”

O’Connor stared at him and LePere didn’t know if he understood at all. He undid the life vest and removed it. He took off O’Connor’s shoes. Then he began the arduous task of pulling the tight vulcanized rubber over Cork O’Connor’s body and zipping it in place. He could feel the bow rising, the boat slipping deeper as he worked. He tugged the hood over O’Connor’s head, then began to work the life vest back on. At first, O’Connor had moaned in pain, but by the time the dry suit and vest were in place, he was limp and silent.

Christ, LePere thought, I’ve killed him.

At that same moment, the lights of the Anne Marie died.

In a flash of lightning, LePere saw O’Connor’s eyes spring open, and he felt a hard tug on O’Connor’s body, as if an invisible power were trying to pull him under the water that had followed them up the deck. LePere was confused. The water should have lifted O’Connor’s life vest and O’Connor with it. Instead, he was being dragged down. In the unfathomable black of the stormy night, LePere felt along the man’s body, down his legs, searching for what had snagged him. His hand touched a cold hand, touched icy fingers gripped hard around O’Connor’s ankle. In the next explosion of lightning, he saw Karl Lindstrom climbing from the lake, using Cork O’Connor to save himself.

“No you don’t, you son of a bitch,” LePere cried. He pried loose the fingers, and he grasped Lindstrom in his own strong arms. He worked his way to the port side of the bow well away from O’Connor, then undid his belt and buckled himself to the brass railing of the Anne Marie. “When she goes,” he shouted to Lindstrom, “you and me go with her.” Lindstrom struggled weakly, but LePere held him fast.

In little more than a minute, the boat went under and began its own long journey to the bottom of the lake. LePere held his breath as he was dragged deep into the black water. Lindstrom fought briefly, then was still. LePere maintained his grip on the man’s body a while longer, just to be certain, then let go.

Alone, John Sailor LePere continued down. As the boat swiftly descended, he felt his chest tighten, as if he were now in the grip of something enormous and overpowering, something that had always been waiting to embrace him. His lungs seemed ready to explode, and he became afraid, suddenly desperate not to release his hold on life. He reached down, fumbled with the buckle on his belt, but it was much too late. As the water pressure crushed his ribs, he opened his mouth to cry out. In that instant, Kitchigami filled him and took him into itself.

Cork was inside something thick, something that dulled his thinking, something he could not crawl out of. Even so, he knew what John LePere had done. He understood the sacrifice.

And he understood that now he was alone.

He felt the boat slip from under him. For a moment, the suck of it as it went under tried to pull him down, but the vest lifted him. His hands and his feet were cold. His face was cold. Sometimes when he tried to breathe, he swallowed water and coughed. The coughing hurt. He kept his eyes closed against the surge of the waves. That was easy. He had no strength to open them.

He sank into darkness often, and for long periods he was aware of nothing. Then he was suddenly staring up at a sky full of stars and a moon. The lake didn’t feel angry anymore. He was tired. It was night. He wanted to sleep.

He dreamed. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he went someplace where he could always have gone if he’d known the way; then he came back.

He opened his eyes and stared into the brightest light he’d ever seen, so bright it blinded him, yet he could not look away. Somewhere in the thick of his thinking, he remembered death came as a bright light, and he wondered, Am I dead?

A dark shape eclipsed the light. Cork saw that it was Jo’s face. She was so beautiful with the light behind her like a halo. He wanted to tell her how much he loved her, but he could not speak. So he smiled. The smallest of smiles. All he could muster before he felt himself begin to yield to darkness, to the sweet pull of oblivion, thinking his wife’s face was a good last vision, a good final gift to take with him into forever.