The cold November wind tore at LePere as soon as he stepped outside. He shielded his eyes with his hand and looked aft. The Teasdale was 603 feet from bow to stern. She was carrying a partial cargo, 221 tons of bituminous coal. On a calm day, she was a sight moving across the water, a mammoth creature of ungainly grace, ruler of her domain. As he watched the huge waves slam against her sides and flood her deck, LePere knew her greatness was an illusion. After he’d made coffee in the galley, he timed his return up the ladder to the pilothouse so that he wouldn’t be soaked by the spray of the breaking waves. Even so, water hit him in the face-but it was not the cold spray of the lake. He realized with alarm that the wind was so strong it created a vacuum as it passed over the spout of the pot and was sucking the hot coffee out.

In the pilothouse, the men were laughing.

“I’m going below,” John LePere told his brother. “You coming?”

“Ah, let ‘im stay,” Bowdecker 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, he closed his eyes and fell asleep, knowing that when he woke, they would be anchored outside Duluth harbor waiting for permission to enter.