nodded.
‘Well, I’d better get to work,’ Nancy said, snapping the paper closed. ‘Me, too/
Coffee and juice in hand, she touched her cheek to his. ‘See you tonight.’
She headed for her small downstairs office while he left the house and crossed a short stretch of sidewalk to a clapboard garage. He raised the door by hand, glanced at Nancy ’s ultra-respectable steel grey Acura and clambered into a rusty Ford pickup that twelve years ago had been white, had possessed a left rear fender and had not required wire to hold its tailpipe up. The vehicle was an embarrassment to Nancy , but Eric had grown fond of The Old Whore, as he affectionately called it. The engine was still reliable; the company name and phone number were still legible on the doors; and the driver’s seat -after all these years - was shaped precisely like his backside.
Turning the key, he mumbled, ‘All right, you old whore, come on.’
It took a little encouraging, but after less than a minute on the starter, the old 300 straight- six rumbled to life.
He gunned her, smiled, shifted into reverse and backed from the garage.
The ride from Fish Creek to Gills Rock covered nineteen of the prettiest miles in all of creation, Eric believed, with Green Bay intermittently visible off to his left; farms, orchards and forests to his right. From the flower-flanked Main Street of Fish Creek itself the road climbed, curved and dipped between thick walls of forest, past private cottages and resorts,
heading northeast but swinging to the shore again and again: at the picturesque little village of Ephraim with its two white church steeples reflected in glassy Eagle Harbor; at Sister Bay where Al Johnson’s famous goats were already grazing on the grassy roof of his restaurant; at Ellison Bay with its panoramic view from the hill behind the Grand View Hotel; and finally at Gills Rock beyond which the waters of Lake Michigan met those of Green Bay and created the hazardous currents from which the area extracted its name: Death’s Door.
Eric had often wondered why a town and a rock had been named for a long-forgotten settler named Elias Gill when Seversons had been there earlier and longer, and were still here, for that matter. Why, hell, the name Gill had long ago disappeared from the area tax rolls and telephone book. But the heritage of the Seversons lived on. Eric’s grandfather Severson had built the farm on the bluff above the bay, and his father had built the house tucked beneath the cedars beside
Hedgehog
Harbor
as well as the charter boat business which he and Mike had expanded to provide a good living for two families - three if you counted Ma.
Some might not call Gills Rock a town at all. It was little more than a smattering of weatherbeaten buildings stretched like a gap-toothed smile around the southeast side of the harbour. A restaurant, a gift shop, several wooden docks, a boat landing and Ma’s house were the primary obstacles keeping the trees from growing clear to the water’s edge. Scattered among these were smaller buildings and the usual paraphernalia peculiar to a fishing community - boat trailers, winches, gasoline pumps and the cradles in which the big boats were dry-docked over the winter.
Turning into the driveway, the truck pitched steeply downhill and bumped over the stony earth. Maples and cedars grew haphazardly between patches of gravel and among the collection of huts near the docks. The roof of the fish-cleaning shack already sported a line of gulls whose droppings had permanently streaked the green shingles with white. Smoke from the fish-smoking shack hung in the air, pungent and blue. Permeating it all was the ever-present odour of decaying wood and fish. Pulling up beneath his favourite sugar maple, Eric noted that Mike’s sons, Jerry Joe and Nicholas, were already aboard the Mary Deare and The Dove, vacuuming the decks, icing up the fish coolers and putting in a supply of refreshments. Like himself and
‘Well, I’d better get to work,’ Nancy said, snapping the paper closed. ‘Me, too/
Coffee and juice in hand, she touched her cheek to his. ‘See you tonight.’
She headed for her small downstairs office while he left the house and crossed a short stretch of sidewalk to a clapboard garage. He raised the door by hand, glanced at Nancy ’s ultra-respectable steel grey Acura and clambered into a rusty Ford pickup that twelve years ago had been white, had possessed a left rear fender and had not required wire to hold its tailpipe up. The vehicle was an embarrassment to Nancy , but Eric had grown fond of The Old Whore, as he affectionately called it. The engine was still reliable; the company name and phone number were still legible on the doors; and the driver’s seat -after all these years - was shaped precisely like his backside.
Turning the key, he mumbled, ‘All right, you old whore, come on.’
It took a little encouraging, but after less than a minute on the starter, the old 300 straight- six rumbled to life.
He gunned her, smiled, shifted into reverse and backed from the garage.
The ride from Fish Creek to Gills Rock covered nineteen of the prettiest miles in all of creation, Eric believed, with Green Bay intermittently visible off to his left; farms, orchards and forests to his right. From the flower-flanked Main Street of Fish Creek itself the road climbed, curved and dipped between thick walls of forest, past private cottages and resorts,
heading northeast but swinging to the shore again and again: at the picturesque little village of Ephraim with its two white church steeples reflected in glassy Eagle Harbor; at Sister Bay where Al Johnson’s famous goats were already grazing on the grassy roof of his restaurant; at Ellison Bay with its panoramic view from the hill behind the Grand View Hotel; and finally at Gills Rock beyond which the waters of Lake Michigan met those of Green Bay and created the hazardous currents from which the area extracted its name: Death’s Door.
Eric had often wondered why a town and a rock had been named for a long-forgotten settler named Elias Gill when Seversons had been there earlier and longer, and were still here, for that matter. Why, hell, the name Gill had long ago disappeared from the area tax rolls and telephone book. But the heritage of the Seversons lived on. Eric’s grandfather Severson had built the farm on the bluff above the bay, and his father had built the house tucked beneath the cedars beside
Hedgehog
Harbor
as well as the charter boat business which he and Mike had expanded to provide a good living for two families - three if you counted Ma.
Some might not call Gills Rock a town at all. It was little more than a smattering of weatherbeaten buildings stretched like a gap-toothed smile around the southeast side of the harbour. A restaurant, a gift shop, several wooden docks, a boat landing and Ma’s house were the primary obstacles keeping the trees from growing clear to the water’s edge. Scattered among these were smaller buildings and the usual paraphernalia peculiar to a fishing community - boat trailers, winches, gasoline pumps and the cradles in which the big boats were dry-docked over the winter.
Turning into the driveway, the truck pitched steeply downhill and bumped over the stony earth. Maples and cedars grew haphazardly between patches of gravel and among the collection of huts near the docks. The roof of the fish-cleaning shack already sported a line of gulls whose droppings had permanently streaked the green shingles with white. Smoke from the fish-smoking shack hung in the air, pungent and blue. Permeating it all was the ever-present odour of decaying wood and fish. Pulling up beneath his favourite sugar maple, Eric noted that Mike’s sons, Jerry Joe and Nicholas, were already aboard the Mary Deare and The Dove, vacuuming the decks, icing up the fish coolers and putting in a supply of refreshments. Like himself and
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