She resisted the urge to dash kitty-corner across the street and join in the fun. Bigger kids were throwing rocks. She was good at throwing rocks and she was anxious to show the big kids how good she was. She swung her lunchbox back and forth impatiently, the light finally turned green. She sprinted across the street and then remembered about speeding cars. Everyone stopped for her and she ran. The next light seemed even slower and she was afraid the school bell would ring before she could join the big group of kids.
Finally, she was on school grounds and raced over to see the excitement. Kids were dashing around finding rocks, and she scooped one up on her way. She pushed her way through the bigger kids, she couldn’t wait to show what a good shooter she was and then she saw the black-and-white cat cowering against the brick wall of the school as one of the older kids flung a stone, finding its mark. She dropped her lunchbox and the rock and hovered over the cat.
“Hey! Are you crazy?” a fourth grader shouted at her and tried to pull her away. He couldn’t budge her.
“Get out of here. We’re gonna hit you instead if you don’t move.”
“Yeah! Move!” another big kid said and his rock stung her on the base of her head right by her neck. She didn’t even flinch.
“No!” she shouted, loud and clear. “You’re not hurting this cat anymore.”
“It’s not your cat. Get away from it. It’s a mangy stray.”
She didn’t obey. She blocked out their shouting and the pelting rocks. More rocks and stones hit her, but the bell rang.
“Oh, let’s go,” the older ones said.
“The bell rang. Haw! You’re going to be late protecting some dumb ass cat!” they called to her.
She didn’t move until every last one was in the school. Then she scooped up the cat and took it home. She told her mom everything. Her mom walked back with her to the school and talked with the teacher. Tessa never got in trouble. And Bandi became her cat.
Bandi loved her. She followed her everywhere. She lay on Tessa at night and purred. Tessa felt Bandi’s purr go straight into her heart. It was the most delicious feeling in the world.
She began hating school. She was the child with her nose pressed up against the window, wanting to be outside. She was the child who only breathed fully when she was outdoors, running, playing, climbing.
She recreated movies and worlds and played funny games, getting others to join her in her play acting at recess.
One time they crossed an invisible line, where all the boys played. The older boys picked her up and threw her back over the invisible line. They had all the soccer balls. And basketballs. They wouldn’t share. The older girls laughed at her and asked, “Why do you want to get all dirty anyway?”
The younger boys in her grade saw what had happened and decide to form a “we don’t stop for nobody line” on the girls’ side. Even Eli joined this line.
Tessa gathered five or six other little girls and formed a V, like the geese did in the fall. They ran straight for the line of eight or ten boys, with Tessa at the front. Once she got to the line, where the boys had locked arms, she kicked Eli’s ankle and slammed a fist in his best friend’s ear. The boys howled and ran back to the boy’s side. All the older girls and boys were laughing at the young boys.
“Don’t make it worse!” a big boy shouted at the crying boys. “Leave them alone. Don’t you know women are like hornets and they won’t stop?”
Tessa high fived with the other little girls and everyone left them alone from then on. The older boy even threw them a soccer ball every recess, out of respect or to keep them calm, Tessa wasn’t really sure and didn’t care.
Eli would sleep till ten or eleven, but Tessa had lived half a day by then. She became Gabe’s little pet and followed him around everywhere. She stayed up late, reluctant to let Morpheus take her to sleep. In winter, even in the worst of storms, she’d want to be outside, but her mom coaxed her in with hot cocoa made the Anishinaabe way Grandma made it, a lot of cream, a little maple syrup, and a hint of cinnamon. She watched the different flakes swirl and marry each other and watched the brave birds all puffed up against the wind, their feathers blown around as a gust hit them while they ate thistle and suet and seed.
“Mom, if we’re so poor why do you feed the birds?”
“I don’t know, Tessa. I just do. We have bird birthmarks. We’re meant to take care of the birds.”
“And they take care of us?”
“Yes, and they take care of us.”
Eli was always shorter, always chubbier, a little slower until they became teenagers, and then he sprouted.
Their dad had an accident. He fell out of his tree stand while hunting. His moods became a little darker and when T insisted on wearing pink and staying indoors closer to her mother, their dad rebelled.
Their mom and dad fought a lot. They visited the grandparents, the day of the bear on the footpath. After that, their parents lived separately. It was when their mom moved them to 531 Broadway. Once a month, Eli and Tessa dutifully visited their father up north.
They usually helped him with outdoor things, gathering firewood, setting traps. Their father belittled Eli because he was chunkier, and slower. Tessa matched Eli, so they went the same pace. But her father knew.
All her young life, T defended Eli, but when they turned sixteen, everything changed. Everything changed that one horrible day in the woods.
Chapter 5
JOSH WAITS LIKE a rock. Not a muscle moves. It is six a.m. in Fishtown in mid-May and the charter boys have left. It’s unlike Tessa to be late. Josh stays in a crouch, watching various morning delivery folks come and go, and then he sees her familiar pink Adidas jogging down the side street, a graceful black dog running beside her. She’s tied her long brown hair back with a pink band and she has a pink backpack on.
He meets her at the sandwich shop next to Carlson’s. Standing a foot taller than her, he hugs her and touches foreheads. Murphy wags his tail and lets Josh pet him. Without a word, they turn and head toward the center of the marina docks. They arrive at the fishing vessel and Murphy leaps in as if he’s been doing it all his life. Josh cracks a smile. He holds out his hand for Tessa to take and helps her into the boat. He waves to them to settle and throws off the lines from their moorings. Once inside, he does a soft prime and turns the key. The twin mercs rumble to life.
He gently backs out of the slip and throttles forward, wheeling the craft around the other slips and into the channel behind the breakwater wall. Once clear of the wall, he powers forward a bit more, the sun, just edging into Leland, hits Lake Michigan full on. It’s flat this morning and Josh raises his speed up a notch. He flips on his radar only once out of the harbor. Josh and the other seasoned operators always spied rookie owners who kept their radar going once in the marina. Depth finding carp or what? Yessirree, Bob, a multimillion dollar yacht and a several thousand-dollar computer system operated by a two-bit captain.
Josh hits eighteen miles an hour, with the smooth water the vessel skims over the deeper, often treacherous undercurrents of this inland sea. Many a ship has been lost in the Manitou Passage and many lives. Sailors from all over the world scoff at this inland sea, only to be taken by it. Josh has total reverence for any water he’s on.
Warm and inviting like now, or turn on you in an instant, the weather particular to the Great Lakes can conjure a thundering unseen squall and rush in, creating waves forty feet high. So much more treacherous than the long rollers in the oceans, when cold weather meets warm air over the water, the turbulence can be sudden and frightful. This water, in particular the Manitou Passage, is confined by deep turrets of channels, and several sets of shallow unseen shoals, a bathtub rocking and rolling unpredictably.
Terns skip alongside them, but Josh isn’t casting nets today.
Murphy lies at Tessa’s feet and Josh smiles again. Texting her the night before, Josh recommended she bring good drinking water, a towel, and a change of clothes. Since they’re heading to the Crescent Side, they should
be free of prying eyes.
With a recent self-made National Park System budget crisis, some park had overpaid a concessionaire somewhere, there’s no official park personnel presence on either South or North Manitou, and there won’t be any for another two weeks.
Tessa is totally safe.
Josh made sure of that.
Halfway around the north side, Josh nudges Tessa’s foot and gestures to the high sandstone cliffs. There, etched by the west wind are two perfectly conical shapes jutting out from the formation.
“It’s Madonna!” Tessa shouts gleefully, clapping her hands.
Josh nods and points upwards. A pair of eagles are soaring on the morning thermals. He rounds the Wisconsin side of the island, where the old shay train grade can still be easily seen. He knows the slope well—they’re closing in on the remnants of the old Crescent Dock.
After a few moments, he cuts the engines and picks along till he finds the outermost post and slowly follows the diagonal line to shore. Later in the season, the lake will lose some depth and the pilings will become visible above the water, but for now, Josh carefully edges his way along. Without a word, Tessa begins disrobing to her suit. She slings on a pair of quick-drying shorts and shimmies to the front of the boat, waiting for Josh’s signal.
Josh cuts the engines entirely and lets the momentum and the water propel the vessel forward. He looks out the side, not trusting the depth finder and when he judges that Tessa won’t get totally dunked, he nods. He watches her leap fearlessly off the front.
She grabs the bow lines, then guides the craft gently ashore. Murphy leaps off and follows her.
Josh tosses the stern line, and Tessa wraps it just the way he showed her years ago. He throws anchors fore and aft. He believes in being safe. He won’t leave the vessel for long. But he believes in thoroughness in all things.
They walk up the dune and spy the one structure still left on this side of the island. A huge old barn.
“That’s where AJ White lost his arm in 1912.” Josh points to a meadow with a slight depression in it. “Used to be a saw mill. That depression? A pond. The shay train came down the grade over there.” He points to the ridge they’d just climbed over. “I’m going back down. No one’s around. That depression is the one your Aunt Sadie meant.”
“You’re not staying and doing ceremony with me?”
“This is for you to do. We’ve done ceremony before.” He gives her an eagle feather he’d found on one of his earlier trips to the island. He takes an herb from his pocket, wrapped with ribbon. “This is rosemary from the mainland.”
“I brought sage too.”
He smiles and walks away.
She’ll be fine. He knows she doesn’t remember the ceremony from when her guts popped out. She would remember that when the time was right.
A STRANGE BACKPACK is propped up against the camper. Tessa is still sitting in the truck staring at it, counting to four when she hears, “Yo! Cuz!” and Joe lopes gracefully over from another campsite.
He leans in on the driver’s side with his most charismatic smile.
“I got a leave from nursing school. I can go with you the whole way. Won’t that be awesome?”
“Uhm, gee, Joe, I was kind of looking forward to the alone time. You probably should have talked with me first.” Tessa opens the door and Joe looks hurt.
“I thought you’d be thrilled. We can share the driving time . . .”
Murphy stays on Tessa’s left side away from Joe. A young woman with dreadlocks and big round glasses walks up between the cedars separating the two campsites, smiling, all her beautiful white teeth showing.
“This is Marissa.” Joe slings an arm over the girl holding out her hand toward Tessa. Tessa shakes it.
“Cool ride.” Marissa looks at the rig. “Mind if I look inside?”
Why yes, I do.
Murphy lies down with a harummph by Tessa’s camp chair.
“Beautiful dog.”
“He doesn’t like being petted,” Joe says.
“Ahhhh.” Marissa nods.
Tessa opens up the rig. “Have a look.”
Both Joe and Marissa pop in and the camper sags under Joe’s sheer presence.
Yeah, I feel that way too, camper.
“Wow, it’s tinier once you’re inside, isn’t it?” Joe turns from the doorway.
“That’s real gold on that vase, isn’t it?” Marissa says of the urn.
“Yeah, that’s real gold,” Tessa says, remaining outside, unpacking the groceries from Leland.
She really doesn’t want Joe anywhere around when she visits Eli.
“Marissa’s gotta take off tomorrow. She just gave me a ride up here.”
She can give you a ride back.
The voice inside Tessa’s head is being very forceful. It’s all Tessa can do to not let it just pop out of her mouth. She needs more information though. She needs to know why Joe is really here and why he is being so insistent.
“Well, you two have things to talk about.” Marissa, seems to pick up on Tessa’s vibe. “I’m gonna get some dinner going. Maybe you’d like to join us?” she asks as they leave the camper.
“Maybe,” Tessa says. She has the distinct feeling Marissa has cased the place. The carefully placed vacuous look, like, I really didn’t see anything.
“Where have you been? I got up here at ten this morning, figured I’d catch ya before you took off for the day.”
“I had things to do.”
“Ahh, the ashes, right? Smart not to take the whole urn with ya. How does that work anyway? You gotta take a picture of where you’re at and then send them to old man Forsythe, just so he knows you did it right or something?”
“Pretty much.” How the hell does Joe know so much about the procedure? “Look, Joe, this is not going to work. I like ya and everything, but it’s a bad move. I want my privacy.” Tessa stows the dry goods in a storage container on the outside of the camper, she begins taking the fresh foods inside.
“C’mon, cuz. My dad didn’t give me much choice. He says you need a bodyguard. I’ll stay out of the way. You do your thing, I’ll do mine. I can sleep in the back of the truck.”
“Your dad? Tell him I have the shotgun.”
Joe’s mouth opens and closes. Tessa can’t tell if he looks more like a fish or a marionette.
“Wow. He wanted that shotgun real bad.” Joe kicks some soft dirt around his toes, looking down at the ground.
“Yeah, he can talk to Forsythe about it.” Tessa shakes her head. “In fact, it’s his after the trip. I don’t give a shit.” She returns outside. “You can’t come. That’s it. Go back to school.” She tries to maintain her calm as she carefully folds the brown paper grocery bags.
“Hey, I get this is a touchy situation, given . . . everything.”
“Everything what? Just say it.” Her patience gone, Tessa turns and faces Joe squarely. He shifts away and looks at the nearby cedar.
“C’mon, why are you being so difficult? You’re acting just like a . . .”
“Just like a what? I’m not one of your bitches.”
“Wow. This strikes a nerve doesn’t it?” He looks her over.
“What the fuck? Why does everyone think I’m so helpless? If y’all thought that, then maybe somebody else should be doing this, but no, you’re all too busy. Then you just show . . . How would you like it, roles reversed?”
“Uh, not very well. You’d be cramping my style.”
“Exactly.”
“Look.” Joe drops to the ground, cross-legged style, holding a joint. “I don’t have a choice. If I don’t go with you, Dad’s cutting off the money for nursing school.”
“Damn, maybe you should work your way through school like everyone else.”
“Look, let’s just do a hit or two, calm down, and talk about it a little later.”
“I’m not changing my mind.” Tessa folds her arms.
“Okay, okay, I get it.”
“And don’t light that
shit up here. It’s a federal park, they fine you five hundred dollars.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. Go out on the public road. Or anywhere else. Not here.”
“Hey.” Joe gets up as he dusts his shorts off. He sticks the joint in the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. “Thanks for the heads up.”
Tessa is so mad, she’s not hungry. She decides to pour part of Aunt Sadie into a spice jar. She stows her up with the dried foods above the stove. She stashes the vase and the remaining ashes out of sight. She locks up the camper, then jumps in the truck with Murphy.
She just starts driving. She doesn’t know where she is going, but she doesn’t want to be anywhere near Joe, or Marissa, or their tent. She contemplates calling Forsythe, but what could he really do? Call Uncle Chuck and have him pull off Cousin Joe? Maybe he could hold something over their heads. Why did Uncle Chuck really want Joe to come along anyway? The fact they know her route creeps her out. She might call Forsythe and change it up a little.
A little south of Empire she finds a road leading to the beach. There are cars there, but to the left is another dirt road. She drives down it till it ends. It’s a Benzie county seasonal road and she gets out with Murphy and starts down a trail that leads west to the water. It takes a long time to wind around the flats and some rises. Josh told her that a long time ago the shores were even further apart. That maybe the ridge on North Manitou had been underwater. That was when the ancients hunted Mastodon, before there was even water, the hills were high and the water came in and flattened everything down. Some of the ridges she is passing by could be ancient burial mounds, and older shorelines.
She hears a flutie bird in the woods and spies enough poison ivy to know that she’d have to rinse Murphy down pretty well before hugging on him too much. At the water Murphy jumps in and paddles around. Tessa throws sticks for him and he doesn’t tire. Loons, further out, sing their distinctive yodel song. It’s nearing sunset. She takes a picture of the setting sun grazing the water and sends it to Dina. It’s not the same without you. She looks at the words and deletes the message. Great way to begin the trip. She hits send.
The Urn Carrier Page 4