Convergence at Two Harbors

by Dennis Herschbach

  After a second cup of coffee, David Craine could not take too much more of being cooped up in his stark, one-room apartment. It was light enough for him to see the ore docks materializing from the fog that was lifting from the harbor. He checked his watch—five-thirty.

  David pulled on a heavy sweater to buffer him from the early morning chill and headed down the stairs to street level. He needed to move, to walk off his tension and pent-up energy, so he headed for the breakwater. There was an ore boat between docks two and three, and he wondered which one of the fleet it was. The sun was just beginning to break over the horizon, and everything at the docks was illuminated with a warm glow.

  Turning right from his building, David walked briskly until he came to South Avenue, then turned left and continued for another two blocks. As he passed the Lake County Historical Society’s museum, he noticed one of the sheriff’s deputies sitting in his white SUV. He walked over to it.

  “Well, hello, Jeff,” he greeted the familiar deputy. “Looks like you’ve drawn the night shift again. Any excitement happen here last night.”

  “Hey, hi, David. How’s it going?” Jeff answered with a genuine smile. He’d known David for several years, as had most people in Two Harbors, and the two made small talk for a few minutes.

  Finally, David stepped back from the vehicle and waved his hand. “I’ve got to be moving. Like to put in a couple of miles this morning before the sun gets too high.”

  “Well, take care, David. I’ve got to get back to the office and file my report for the night. It’s been a long one, and I need to get home and grab some sleep.”

  With that Jeff drove away, and David picked up the pace so he could get to the breakwater before the sun’s rays lost their sunrise color.

  He swung right on the street past the water treatment plant and strode across the parking lot of the DNR boat landing. That put him at the beginning of the breakwater, a quarter mile of concrete barrier that not only served to shield the docks from the waves, but also was a favorite walking surface for locals and tourists alike. He walked half way out and paused to lean on the safety cable that bordered the dock side of the wall. David leaned on it as he watched the steel chutes of the dock being lowered into the holds of the ship, and he read the boat’s name, Edgar Speer.

  Totally lost in thought, David was surprised to hear a voice behind him.

  “Good morning, Mr. Craine.” David cocked his head around and saw Ben VanGotten standing near him.

  “Ben, how many times do I have to tell you, I’m not Mr. anymore, just plain Dave, or David if you prefer.”

  Ben looked David straight in the eye. “Mr. Craine, I’ve tried that, but it just doesn’t work. To most of us who had you for a teacher, you’ll always be Mr. Craine. No offense, but I think that’s the way it is.”

  David laughed at this comment. “I was that tough, huh? Well, anyway Ben, it’s nice to see you this morning. What are you doing down here so early?”

  Ben leaned on the cable next to Mr. Craine. “I make a swing down here most mornings. The sun makes these old docks almost light up. Besides, it feels good on my shoulders when I catch the direct rays. How about you? How come you’re up so early? I thought you retired people slept in every morning.”

  David turned and faced Ben. “I couldn’t sleep this morning. Too much on my mind I guess. Enjoy the sunrise, Ben. I’m going to walk out to the end of the breakwater, and then go home. It’d be nice to get out on my boat today, but starting about noon, there are small craft warnings up.”

  As he walked away, Ben hollered after him, “Mr. Craine, take care of yourself.”

  David waved a hand, but he wondered to himself, Seems everyone wants me to take care of myself. What else would I do?

  He walked briskly out to the signal light at the end of the pier, turned around, and almost jogged back to his apartment. Nothing had changed.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The five men lying on the banks of the Cloquet River revived quickly, and soon they were talking among themselves, discussing the planned destruction of the abandoned railroad trestle while they enjoyed the tranquility of the site.

  “Time to begin,” Zaim said, looking at his watch. “We have four hours to set the charges. We can make the final preparations and eat lunch afterward. Then we’ll wait for three-thirty.”

  The men stood up, and they made their way down the river bank, where they shouldered their packs. Then they waded in thigh-deep water to the first steel upright.

  “You’ve been through this in your training, but I want to make sure you haven’t forgotten any of the details.”

  Zaim removed a block of material from his Duluth pack.

  “Each charge must be molded to the I-beam like this,” and Zaim shaped the formable material to fit in the channel of the beam. Then he picked up a handful of dirt and smeared it over the explosive. It almost blended perfectly with the rusted steel. “Plant the detonator carefully,” and he made a hole in the charge with a sharpened stick, inserted a pencil sized rod with a wire hanging from one end.

  He stepped back to admire his work.

  “Good, it is almost invisible from a few feet away. In the shadow of darkness, no one would spot it.”

  He motioned to the others, “There are exactly enough charges for each of the upright girders. Make sure each has one stuck to it.”

  The five men worked in silence, each concentrating on the block they molded into place. To get from one piling to the other they waded in the clear water of the river. It was not an unpleasant experience. Each charge was fitted with a signal receiver that would be activated from a remote Zaim had carried in his pocket. Before they left the shack, he had removed its batteries to ensure the explosives couldn’t be accidentally detonated. He had seen such accidents before from less experienced men, and he didn’t want to lose even one member of his specially trained team.

  Zaim looked at his watch. “It’s ten to three,” he announced as the last charge was set. “Let’s go up on that ridge we crossed coming in. It has a clear line of sight to the bridge, and it’s far enough away so we won’t be injured.

  “Those pine trees will give us shade, and the fallen needles are easy to lie on.”

  When they had climbed to the spot he had pointed out, he sprawled on the ground and rested his head back. After only a minute or so, a curious squirrel poked its head around a tree, then in jerky hops approached Zaim’s motionless body. Zaim opened one eye, barely, and smiled at the little animal that was fearfully alert but at the same time attracted to this new thing in its woods.

  Zaim made a chirping sound through his pursed lips and then smiled again as the squirrel sat upright, its ears perked to the sound. It tried to figure out if this thing on the ground was friend, foe, or just there. Zaim played his game with the little red-furred animal, for the moment forgetting his pain, his pent-up hatred, his desire for revenge. Then he realized time was passing.

  He raised his arm to look at his watch. At that slight movement, the squirrel decided “enemy,” scurried up a tree, and angrily scolded those below who had invaded his sanctuary.

  To Zaim’s amazement, almost a half hour had passed. He abruptly sat up.

  “It’s 3:25. Almost time,” he announced to the others in a matter-of-fact voice.

  The five waited for what seemed an hour, Zaim staring at the second hand of his watch, his other hand on the transmitter button. At exactly 3:30, he pushed the switch.

  The forest sounds were instantly drowned out by the blast as each charge simultaneously detonated with the others. The trestle lifted ten feet in the air and hung as though suspended for just an instant. Then gravity did its job, and the entire structure crashed into the river, a tangle of twisted girders and steel rails. Water and smaller pieces of debris rained from the sky for a few seconds, and then there was silence. Not the kind of silence experienced on a calm day in the forest but a deathly silence known only as a total absence of sound.

  To the five men
, the blast in the mine pit near Aurora was so overpowered by their own explosion, they didn’t hear it at all, and Zaim thought, “Good news. The two blasts must have coincided perfectly.”

  Several miles to the south, Eino Karinen was sitting at the bar at Big Jimbo’s Tavern when the explosion occurred. He had been there most of the afternoon, and his glazed eyes belied the number of beers he had downed in those hours.

  The country residents were so used to the customary 3:30 blast at the mine, the only thing that registered was when it did not happen, and that seldom occurred. Most folks, if only in their subconscious, felt something was different this time, but not all that different.

  Eino looked up from his beer when the sound wave passed. “That was a big one,” he slurred. “Must have been one of those hang-fires where half the charges go off and lifts the bed rock, then the other half explodes in the air. I remember one time they threw room-size chunks of rock onto Main Street of the town.”

  The other patrons ignored him as they usually did. A couple shrugged, but all of them kept talking and drinking.

  Zaim and the four others worked their way down to the wreckage. It was so complete that only a few of the bridge supports, now reduced to ragged stubs of steel, protruded from the river’s surface. In an eddy by the river bank three or four trout thrashed belly up in the water, and the odor of spent explosives hung in the air. Zaim looked at the destruction with a smile of satisfaction on his face.

  “If we can set our charges like that on the docks, this is what they will look like. If we time it right, we can catch an ore boat loading. There will be a locomotive and its string of gondola cars on the docks, and we’ll bring the whole thing down together.” He relished the image.

  Chapter Thirty

  Sometimes the lake didn’t cooperate the way David would have liked. For five days the wind had blown steadily from the northeast, and it had pushed the water higher on the western end of the lake. That, coupled with the relentless push of the wind on the waves, created seven-to ten-foot crests that rolled over the breakwater of the harbor where the ore boats loaded. There had been small-craft warnings posted every day, and David had grown increasingly more restless as each day passed.

  But late yesterday the weather front had finally passed, and by this morning the waves had subsided to long swells. The six o’clock weather report included the words he had been waiting for, the small craft warning had been lifted, and today he could take his boat out of the harbor. He thought he would head down the lake to Knife River, and then cut across the eighteen miles of open water to Cornucopia, a small town on the Wisconsin shore.

  By six-fifteen, David was in his well-used Subaru. He headed out of town, up Highway 61. Ten miles from town, he crossed the bridge at Gooseberry Falls and glanced down the gorge carved through solid rock at the river spilling some one hundred feet below. Then he continued past the falls and on his way to the Silver Bay Marina and Crusader, Too.

  His trip was not going to be a long journey, about thirty-five miles down to Knife River and then another eighteen across the lake, so he didn’t have to provision his boat for days on the water. He planned to visit a friend in Cornucopia, stay a day or two, and then return to the North Shore.

  When he turned onto the marina road, he was surprised when he looked in his rear-view mirror and spotted a sheriff deputy’s car close behind. Reflexively, his eyes turned downward to his speedometer, but he was well below the twenty-mile-per-hour posted speed limit. He swung into a parking space reserved for overnight stays. The deputy took the slot next to him, and they exited their vehicles at the same time.

  “Hey, Ben, how’s it going?” David asked, recognizing his former student.

  “Great, Mr. Craine. Looks like the lake has settled down a little. You going out today?”

  David answered, “I’ve been in my apartment for five days, and it’s almost driven me nuts. Time to get on the water and clean out the injectors on Crusader, Too’s engines. I’m heading to Cornucopia. If you weren’t on duty, I’d ask you to ride along.”

  Ben put his hand on David’s shoulder. “Some other time would be great. Be careful now, and don’t take any dumb chances.”

  “There it is again,” David thinks. “What do they know that I don’t?” He answered, “Sure won’t. Have a good day, Ben. I’ll be back day after tomorrow at the latest.”

  With that David gave a wave over his shoulder and hurried down to his boat. After topping off her tanks with gas, he started Crusader, Too’s two Chevy engines and slowly left the marina, careful to not create a wake that could damage other boats. Once in open water, he headed southwest, and opened both throttles. The boat sprang forward like a race horse that had just felt the quirt, and the wind riffled through David’s thinning hair.

  The sky was chicory blue, the waves had all but subsided, and David felt carefree as he hadn’t for days. He turned slightly southwest around the point of land protruding out into the lake at Castle Danger and softly hummed a mindless tune.

  Suddenly Crusader, Too lurched as though she had been torpedoed. Her bow leaped from the water, and David heard a sickening grinding sound followed by a metallic clang, then silence. The impact threw David forward, and he was bruised when his shoulder and chest slammed into the bulwark of his craft. It took a few seconds for his head to clear and for the realization of what had happened to sink into his conscious.

  At that instant, David realized he had made the same disastrous mistake so many other captains had made. He had come too close to the shoals after which this community was named, Castle Danger. Crusader, Too sat half out of the water, listing to her port side.

  David rushed below deck to check if water was gushing in through a hole, but after only a minute or two he decided the hull must be intact. By now the boat would be filled with water if there were a hole in its shell. It wasn’t. That was some good news, anyway.

  He sent out a call over his radio and made contact with the Coast Guard.

  “This is David Craine, captain of the cruiser Crusader, Too out of Silver Bay. I’ve run aground on the shoals off Castle Danger and am in immediate need of assistance.”

  After a few seconds, the dispatcher’s voice on the other end answered. “We read you, Captain Craine. What’s the size of your craft?

  “I’m on a thirty-four-foot cruiser powered by twin 454 Chevy engines. I scraped the rock shelf roughly three-quarters of a mile off Castle Danger, and I’m grounded. I’m pretty sure I’ve taken out my props and possibly the drive shafts. The engines are running, but there’s no response from the props. The engines sound like they aren’t running under a load and are freewheeling.”

  Again the dispatcher came on the line. “Do you have any passengers with you, and are there any injuries?”

  “Negative on both counts,” David replied, amazed at how calm his voice sounded in his own ears.

  “I think our best response is to alert the Lake County Search and Rescue Team. They can make it up to you in about twenty minutes. We’d have to come from Duluth. Keep your radio open, and their dispatcher will be with you in seconds. Good luck, Captain.”

  David heard a click as the Coast Guard dispatcher switched him over. He was reassured to hear the familiar voice of a lady who had been a seventh-grade student in his class during the first year he had taught in Two Harbors.

  “Hi, David. The call has already gone out, and the crew is on their way to you. They’ve got their Zodiac in tow and will land it at the DNR site. It shouldn’t take long. How are you doing, taking any water?”

  “No, everything’s sound—but for the drive train.”

  “Well, take care, David. I’ve got to keep this line clear.”

  Search and Rescue arrived a half-hour later, and David was surprised to see Ben standing in the bow, a hawser in his hand.

  “Hey, Mr. Craine, need a hand?” he hollered over the motor’s growl, and he threw the rope to David.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  David tied th
e line off on the stern of Crusader, Too and the Search and Rescue craft slowly backed away. The line became taut, and the grounded boat began to slowly move backward off the reef. The scraping and metallic screeching resounded through the craft’s hull and sent shivers up David’s spine. He imagined the bottom-side of his boat being left on the rough basalt rocks that lay only a foot or two under the water.

  Then there was silence, and Crusader, Too rocked in the gentle waves that lapped against her side. David rushed below deck, afraid he would find water gushing through a man-sized hole in her hull. To his immense relief, all was well. No water filled his craft, no fumes vaporized from the gas tank, and the craft gently rocked back and forth. He returned to the deck.

  “Everything all right?” Ben bellowed across the water.

  “No apparent leaks,” David shouted back. “But I don’t know if I have any power.”

  He reached for the starter switch, and the two Chevy engines fired up. To David’s ears they seemed to be making their familiar deep throated purr, the exhaust coughing now and then when a wave splashed into the exhaust port.

  “Can you shift it into gear,” Ben wanted to know.

  It would be good if he could limp back to the Knife River Marina rather than them having to tow him all the way.

  David shifted the boat into reverse. The engines continued their quiet beat with no indication of an added work load. The boat didn’t move other than its drift before the light breeze. Nothing.

  David shifted into neutral, then to forward. Again, no change in the tempo of the engines’ strokes, and again the boat showed no sign of response.

  “I think I knocked the props off or broke the drive shafts. It sounds and feels like both engines are just freewheeling. I’m afraid I need a tow into Knife River. Theirs is the only marina nearby equipped for this size boat.”