Purgatory Ridge Read Free

said. “A few more hours and we’re in Duluth. He’s good company, John.”
    LePere could see his brother was flattered. He nodded to Bowdecker. “Just don’t tell him about the Erie whorehouse, okay?”
    Bowdecker smiled, and a gold tooth glinted in the light. “Too late. Already have. You go on and get some sleep. We’ll take good care of Billy.”
    LePere went to the cabin he shared that voyage with his brother and crawled into bed. He read from a book,
The Old Man and the Sea
. He liked it because it was about a regular guy, a guy who knew big water and was trying to stay true to a few things. The pitching of the boat made it difficult to follow the lines of print, so he didn’t read long. After only a few minutes, heclosed his eyes and fell asleep, knowing that when he woke, they would be anchored outside Duluth harbor waiting for permission to enter.
    He had no idea how much time had passed when he was awakened by a great
boom
that ran through the ship. After that came a scream of metal, long, like an animal in pain. The ship jolted, and he was thrown from his bunk. Sparks flew from the striker of the bell as the general alarm sounded. In darkness, he flipped the light switch in his cabin, but the light would not come on.
    “Billy!” he called.
    His brother didn’t answer.
    LePere stumbled across the tiny cabin and grabbed frantically for the life jacket in the rack over his bunk and then for Billy’s. He snatched his peacoat from its hook and headed up top. He remembered Bowdecker’s promise—
We’ll take good care of Billy
—and he held to that as he stumbled into the companionway and toward the ladder. When he reached the spar deck, he saw that although the rest of the ship was completely dark, the stern was still brightly lit. That gave him hope—until he realized what was actually happening. The center of the
Teasdale
had begun to lift, like a playing card being folded in the middle. As he watched, the inch-thick steel decking started to rip from starboard to port, and the sound of its rending drowned out even the howl of the wind. Sparks shot into the night like fireworks and great clouds of gray steam erupted. LePere gaped in horror as the
Teasdale
broke in half.
    “Billy!” he cried and rushed up the ladder to the darkened pilothouse.
    Orin Grange was at the radio, speaking frantically,trying vainly to send a message on a dead set. LePere grabbed his shoulder.
    “Where’s Billy?”
    Grange shrugged off his hand. LePere grabbed him and spun him around. “Where’s Billy, damn it?”
    “He went aft with Bowdecker,” Grange hollered, then turned back to the radio.
    LePere headed toward the lighted stern. He passed a group of men gathered at the pontoon raft between hatches two and three. The captain was among them.
    “Where are you going, LePere?” Captain Hawley cried out to him.
    “My brother. He’s somewhere aft.”
    “You can’t get there now.” Hawley grasped his arm. “Get into the raft, man.”
    LePere pulled free and ran on.
    As he approached the place where the deck had split, he stopped abruptly in terror. The severed stern of the
Teasdale
was rising up, driven forward by the propeller that was still turning. For a moment, LePere was sure the whole aft end would ride up onto the deck where he stood and crush him. He could see the open sections of the severed cargo hold lit by lights, full of fire and swirling clouds of steam. It was like looking through the doorway to hell. He had a moment of perfect calm, sure he was about to die, and he saw, or thought he saw, silhouetted in one of the lighted windows aft, the shape of Billy standing all alone.
    Then the stern veered to starboard. As LePere watched, it passed him slowly and headed off into the night and the storm like an animal crawling off to die.
    “Billy!” he cried out in vain. “Billy! God, Billy!”
    He teetered at the brink of a section of ship thatwas tipping, preparing to slide into the deep. Hands pulled him