“I don’t know if we’re going to be able to record anything tonight,” he said. “I’m sorry to waste your time like this.”

“You’re not,” Tyler said. “What else would I be doing on a night like this?”

“It feels like November,” Leon said, rubbing his arms. “Whatever happened to global warming?”

We heard a faint boom just then, from somewhere around the other side of Waishkey Bay.

“They’re trying to do the fireworks,” Tyler said. “I can’t believe it.”

There was another boom. We could see a few red streamers in the air. Just barely. Michigan is already pretty loose with its fireworks laws, and on the reservation it gets even looser. You can fire off just about anything short of an intercontinental missile, but on this night it was a total waste of gunpowder. Whoever it was over there, he fired off five or six more before finally giving up.

“Well, that’s it for this year,” Tyler said. “I think summer is officially canceled.”

“Wait, what’s that sound now?” Leon said.

From inside the studio behind us, somebody ran through a few guitar chords.

“That’s your man Eugene,” Tyler said. “Pretending he’s Jimi Hendrix. Does he know how to tune that thing?”

“No, I mean out there,” Leon said.

The guitar stopped. The three of us stood there in the near silence, listening. There was a low droning noise, somewhere out on the bay. It was getting louder.

“It’s a boat,” Tyler said.

“Is it safe to be out there?”

“As long as you know where you’re going.”

“You can’t even see where you’re going.”

“You have to have the right equipment.”

The noise was getting louder.

“Whoever it is,” Leon said, “he’s going fast.”

“If he’s been here before, he can follow one of his old GPS courses…But yeah, you’re right. Even if you’re on a safe line, I don’t think you want to be going that fast. You don’t know what might get in your way.”