“The Weather Network reports that another band of thunderstorms is heading this way, and should arrive by 2 pm. This is not good news for an area already deluged by rain this past week.”

Jonah listened intently, while his father snored comfortably in the seat beside him. Jonah was thankful for that. The weather took top spot on every station, AM and FM. It should have. Three weeks of intense rain in the north parts of Minnesota and western Wisconsin had soaked the early summer soils to their capacity, and more rain was on the way to this hilly country. Storms were not an unusual phenomenon in the region, whether they were blizzards or summer storms, but the prolonged nature of these events could almost convince the most dedicated climate change denier that the climate was not as it should be.  The weather had far more anger to it than Cabot could remember in his forty-one years. He was sure that, if he woke his father, Jonah Sr. would agree.

Jonah Jr. had fought his biblical name since he was a teenager, opting for the simpler “John.” But, as his father’s health declined, the son had returned to his intended spelling, in deference to his dad’s wishes. It was a small token of respect. Names hardly mattered any longer, anyway. While Jonah had travelled away from his roots by eschewing the name his father and mother had given him, he had also travelled far in the real world, both in miles and in learning. And now, here he was on a brief excursion with his father, so that Sr. could absorb fresh memories of his home, prior to leaving the earth for good.

Senior saw his imminent death as a step toward everlasting life. Along with the Old Testament name, he had inherited a fervent religious conviction; one that Junior did not share. Senior accepted his fate calmly, yet not passively. His body was dying, and cancer was the enemy, but trading one life well lived for a better one seemed fair. In that, both Jonahs agreed. Live properly, so that you have no regrets. Faith in God, beyond belief in a moral life, was not a shared sentiment. Jonah Junior’s travels had shown him too much for him to place his blind trust in an unseen, ambivalent and obviously erratic god. But he would let his father believe what he wanted.

Duluth had ancestral significance to Jonah’s dad, as well as family connections. The Cabots, like the founder of Duluth, Daniel Greysolson, Sieur du Lhut, claimed France as home, even though actual French connections had been severed in 1679 with the founding of the trading post. Catholic connections had been traded for more Anglicized religion fifty years earlier. With less than two months to endure the small cell carcinoma eating at him, Jonah wanted to connect with his prior life. His wife, already passed on a decade earlier of a heart attack, was the only other family, beyond his son, to whom he could claim immediate kinship. That left the old homestead, which he had left in the 1930s.

Gordon Lightfoot wrote, “Lake Superior, it is said, never gives up her dead.” The Superior north shore was calling Jonah back, although not to die.

The two had chosen to travel, mid-week, to northeastern Minnesota for practical reasons. The Lutsen Resort, on Eagle Mountain, was offering a fifty percent discount on three-day rates from Sunday nights to Thursday nights. That was the first practical reason. The second was that summer traffic along IS 94 was beginning to peak, and neither Cabot liked to travel in heavy traffic, if it could be avoided.  The third was bugs. Black flies, brown ticks, no-see-ums and mosquitoes ruled the region from early July to mid-August, and they were an enemy that would not be defeated or deterred. Lastly, Jonah Jr. had business in Thunder Bay that he could work into the trip, with the Canadian city only two hours along Highway 61. They had, however, not counted on the weather.

“Highway Patrol recommends that people avoid travel on highways in and around the Duluth area, and along Highway 61 to Grand Marais. Flash flooding risk is high, and we have received reports of several creeks overflowing their banks.  Particularly in the area around Eagle Mountain, travellers are advised to be extremely cautious. We will keep you updated.”

The two had, only ten minutes earlier, left Duluth and were now on 61, in the midst of a moderately heavy rainstorm. Roads, it appeared, were still passable. Jonah pushed onward, but more vigilant, with the heavy cloud rushing in from the northwest darkening further as lightning painted the backdrop over the mountains in the distance. The highway was a secondary one, with one lane in each direction. Jonah recognized that some drivers appeared oblivious to changing road conditions, and that he needed to be even more alert. He checked his fuel gauge, just to be sure. There was a Cenex nearby. His tank, though, still showed three quarters, and he had his usual five gallon Gerry can in the box of the F250 Four-by-Four. Five gallons would get him sixty miles or so, and the resort was less than thirty away.

The two-year old Ford pulled into the chalet office just as the three o’clock news began on the radio.  Jonah now was glad that he had given in to his father’s wishes to take the truck, instead of Jonah Junior’s Toyota Echo. It was hardly a rough-road vehicle. Nonetheless, he had no intention of keeping the big Ford after his father died. He only kept it to please his dad, who had bought the vehicle just a few months before he discovered his fate. A seventy-six-year-old hardly needed an off road vehicle, but old farm habits had died hard. He had already sold the farm when he bought the Ford, and now he was buying the farm. It was a morbid joke that he told his son, once or twice.

“Pretty good travel out there?” It was a casually flippant comment by the desk clerk.

“We made it. Hardy Dakotans, you know.”

Both bits of small talk were off the mark. Jonah was no more from the Dakotas than the roads leading to the resort were offering good travel. He had left Minot, and several of the other cities and towns in which had laid around, years earlier. He was a travelling man, now, having only made enough to live a frugal life, but more than he felt was necessary. His dad claimed to be a resident of an assisted living centre that no longer wanted to assist him, now that he was dying. And the roads were a mess. Jonah had driven through three rivulets that threatened to erupt into streams crossing the access road, and the highway. There was real danger present.

The roads may have been virtually impassable, yet here was a couple, presenting themselves at the Emergency ward of the Cook County North Shore Hospital. Grand Marais sat almost isolated along Highway 61, half way between the Canadian border and Duluth. A modest-sized town deserved only a modest-sized hospital. True to standard, North Shore’s emergency facilities had only three beds, the entire hospital only sixteen. While it offered an admirable variety of services, they were of a transient nature, with MRIs and other diagnostics visiting only a couple of times per week. Unfortunately for this new arrival, Tuesday was not one of those days.

The injury clearly was extensive. His right hand flopped backward at the wrist, evidence of severed tendons. Two fingers curled inward to the palm, their extensor tendons also detached. The squall jacket served no purpose other than to slow, somewhat, the pulsing of blood. It was that meagre bandage, alone, that kept him from departing to the afterlife. He was dead, except for the staunching of the blood flow from the sliced artery. Had it been the vein, he probably would have died during the frantic rush to the hospital from twenty miles away. Yet, he was alive. In seconds, a bag was hung, an intravenous inserted, and he would live.

Graham had arrived, with Nicole, at 1:00 p.m. It was now four, and the ambulance waited to transfer the patient to Duluth. He had been stabilized. Two bags of blood were needed , but three bags of glucose solution had to suffice. They did not store blood here. Grand Marais could not handle the surgery, and he needed immediate care to mitigate the potential for permanent injury. In spite of the warnings against travel, the trip was vital, and urgent.

The story the couple told, though, seemed odd. Graham’s right arm had been injured, they said, by an axe head that had ricocheted back while he was cutting firewood. That, alone, was not odd. At least three or four times each year, in the forests around the region, someone would suffer a serious injury while chopping wood. What was peculiar was the timing. Why would anyone cut wood in the rain? It couldn’t be burned for days, and it was already early summer. Yet, both stuck to the story, and the hospital staff recorded the incident as told to them. Then there was the blood seeping from the male’s right leg, which he had rigidly refused to have examined.

“It was nothing,” he insisted. “It was just a nick from the log kicking back at me.”

But his limp said it was more than nothing. Again, the staff could do nothing, except make a note on the chart. With the storm raging around them, and cell phone and Internet coverage already down, the hospital had more urgent matters for which to prepare than a reluctant outpatient. Or soon to be outpatient.

Graham Reinert, 26 years. DOB 26-05-86. And his patient ID. He was now a number in the health care system, strapped to a stretcher, and being loaded into the rear of the ambulance that would transport him the 110 miles to Duluth.

“I want to ride with him.”

Nicole clung to Graham anxiously.

“You two married, or living together?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry, then. Family only, in cases like this.”

Graham was sufficiently lucid to cover for his girlfriend.

“We’re engaged. Please, it’s okay. I need her.”

Neither the driver nor the second EMS worker felt like arguing. She needed to come with him, and the rear was as good as the front. Having her drive their car in these conditions was only begging for another emergency call, anyway.

The vehicle pulled away from the loading dock, their cargo safely strapped in place, his drip IV dangling on the hook behind the stretcher. No flashing lights. Their patient was stable, and the roads were not. They would exercise caution.

 The resort appeared to be precisely as advertised. The Cabot unit was one of several, arranged like town homes on the rocky outcrop of the mountain plateau. At least four of the multiple unit buildings anchored themselves to the hard granite, a mark of good planning by the builders. Their unit was a one-bedroom, sufficient for the two. Junior would take the sofa bed, while his dad, needing a comfortable sleep, given his condition, would get the queen unit in the bedroom. The kitchen was compact, but adequate, and the living/dining area of a good enough size that they could huddle in here as long as it took for the rain to relent. It showed no signs of doing so.

The son flipped on the television. Satellite. That was good. It meant a better chance of a good signal in bad weather. If needed, they could obtain a few DVDs from the front desk at the store. As expected, weather news was on the majority of channels, including feeds from Wisconsin, Canada and North Dakota. The storm in which they were immersed was a monster. Having heard enough of the weather warnings, Jonah Jr. flipped to a movie for his father.

Senior had been engrossed in unpacking. Aside from the few clothes the few had brought, most of the elder Cabot’s possessions were medical items. The cancer had already mestastized to his spine and ribs. He needed his hernia belt, a heat pack, an ice pack, and his morphine tablets. Of all the reminders of his illness, he hated the pills the most. It was not the side effects, but the fact that his pain was so severe that he could not summon the strength to endure, without help. That was an indicator that his independence was lost.

Junior turned to the front window. Outside the wooden platform walkway, a narrow depression ran the length of two of the buildings. It was a natural contour, but now it held a rapidly flowing stream of runoff from farther up the mountain. Jonah knew that, if the rain intensified, so, too, would the rage of the flow. He stepped out onto the porch area to get a better look. The depression angled off into the brush, but he could hear the water bubbling. Walking to the end of the building, he noted where the rivulets met up with a broader flow into a creekbed angling down the steep slope. This channel could handle an immense rush of rainfall. The builders had anticipated well. He returned to the cabin.

His father, finished his unpacking, had thrown himself into the recliner.

“I’m going to catch forty.”

Senior spent much of his time sleeping, only waking when necessary.

“You going to be all right by yourself, if I go out to get us some food?”

He knew how his father would answer, but he asked anyway. The son wanted to be certain to have enough supplies on hand to wait out the storm and its aftermath. He had passed by a store at the head of the access road, but it had appeared to be closed. He remembered, from his visit nearly twenty years ago, that there was a roadside restaurant on the way to Grand Marais, and a small gas bar and store nearby. He would see what he could get.

The Cascades restaurant was less than twenty miles along 61. Jonah hoped that the road remained open. In that eighteen miles, three creeks, fed from the top of the Lutsen Mountains, crossed under the road. He had seen days when they crossed over, instead of under, and they were days far less onerous than this one. Still, he needed to take the chance, and the four-wheel drive Ford should meet the challenge.

As he drove through the town of Lutsen, he noted that the store on the left was open. A hundred yards past the entrance, he stopped, turning around. Better to get supplies now than risk having the store be closed when he returned from the Cascades River restaurant. Inside, he found a limited supply of food essentials, paying more than he had hoped, but not as much as he had expected.  The drive to the restaurant was another five or so miles, but, as the dinner hour was not yet upon him, he knew that, barring a crisis, the diner would be open, too.

The Cascade was open, and the lot was half full. Most, though, were not there for the food. As Jonah peered down the bend in the highway, he could just make out the asphalt bridge and railing over the Cascade River. Except the river was now over the bridge, and white froth bubbled as the overflow hit the pavement and railing, rushing across into Lake Superior. The road beyond was impassable, and a few drivers had opted to stop at the diner before returning to their origins.

Jonah entered, and ordered his meals, to go. Two chicken dinners, two burgers and fries. The burgers (or the fried chicken) could be reheated for breakfast, if they needed to and if the Lutsen restaurant was closed due to the storm, the next morning. Twenty minutes, and he was out.

As he glanced back to the north along the highway, a flash caught his eye. Just beyond the bend in the road, the flash repeated, but not of lightning. Blue, red, blue red. An ambulance. He waited, expecting that the lights would either disappear or make their way toward him. Neither happened. Then, he realized why. The lights were to the right of the highway, closer to the narrow parking area where sightseers normally would stop to view the river as it tumbled over the rocks into Lake Superior. There was something urgent happening and it involved the overflowing Cascade River. An accident, perhaps. His truck shot gravel as he spun out into the pavement toward the lights.

A hundred yards along, and the situation became more alarming. It was not an accident involving motorists, but an accident involving the ambulance itself. The rear of the ambulance protruded halfway through the brick and stone railing of the low bridge, the driver’s side pressed against a spruce tree, just where a set of stairs led down to the lake. Front wheels still clung to the pavement, but the ferocious, rushing water pushed hard at the wheels and front bumper, curling white foam up as the runoff raged against the weight of the vehicle. Both attendants had managed to escape, and were frantically seeking a way to re-enter the wagon. A woman stood, holding the double steel railing on the restaurant side of the bridge. Clearly, someone still was trapped inside the emergency vehicle.

Jonah braked just at the edge of the river, jumping from the truck.

“We can’t get him out. He’s still strapped on the gurney.”

The driver’s side door remained open, the passenger side forced shut by the force of the water. The rear door rested against the tree. It would be impossible, in any event, to get to the rear doors, hanging over the torrent below. The rig already was balanced precariously, being urged to tip backward by the angry flow.

Jonah looked around, examining his options. There was only one. He dashed to the toolbox in the back of his truck, snatching the tow strap out and tossing it toward the attendants.

“Here, unwind this.”

The strap was only a medium duty 2 inch by twenty footer. He rummaged for the second one, without success. All that he had was a fifteen foot long 8,500 pound tow strap. The two would have to do. There was no hope of pulling the vehicle, even with the one medium duty strap. He tossed the second one to the second attendant.

“Couple them  together. They’ll have to reach.”

The highway lanes were ten feet wide, with a four foot shoulder on one side, a narrow runoff to the parking lot on the other. It looked to be more than thirty feet, but  Jonah hoped it was not. He jumped from the bed of the truck, grabbing the hook end of the 10,000 pound strap. There was no way he would let someone else risk his safety. He slid under the front of the ambulance, bracing against the push of the water. To maximize the length of the ropes, he simply notched the U-shaped hook over the tie rod. It would have to do. Quickly, he slid out, soaked with the icy water.

“Here. Give me that.”

Like a relay runner, he sprinted across the highway with the end of the lighter strap in his grasp. Two feet short of the closest tree, his run ended. The rope was too short. The tree sat at an angle away from the disabled emergency vehicle.

There was only one other choice: the steel railings. They were not designed to withstand inward pulls. Rather, they were intended to dampen the effect of an outward push from an out-of-control vehicle. Would the railing hold?

The more critical question was how to get to the railing. The raging torrent would sweep away anyone who stepped into the flow. It already had swept a 7,500 pound truck across the road. Jonah had little choice, and less time. The van was starting to sway backward.

Straddling the railing, he slid his way along the length, locking his legs under the steel in an effort to resist the hammer-like push of the water. Bit by bit, he edged out as far as he could dare. Debris – tree branches and logs – bashed against the railing, and threatened to smash into his calf. He soldiered on. At last, he risked letting go of the railing with one hand, quickly dropping the open hook over the lip of the steel rail. Daring the river to do its worst, he crouched over the rail, snugging the hook around the metal and over the length of strap. There was just enough length to do so. Now, he needed to slide back, but, at least, he could count on the rope in an emergency if he slipped. He did not.

If the truck were to tip backward, however, the light-duty strap would snap in an instant. He hoped that the tautness of the rope would keep the vehicle stable, at least for a handful of precious minutes.

Now he turned to the rescue.

“Here.” He tossed the jack-all from the back of the truck. Jumping down, he grabbed the twenty pounds of steel and clamoured onto the hood of the ambulance. Risking a fatal slip, he kneeled and swung at the windshield, once, twice, three times.

Unlike in the movies, a car windshield does not shatter. The thin layer of plastic between the two layers of glass hold the fragments so that they break into crystals, held together. Jonah needed to break the glass, and then punch a large hole through the reinforcement, in order to slide into the cab. Now he had to work his way to the rear, hoping that his added weight and movement would not throw the truck backwards into Superior. He moved slowly, cautiously.

Graham was awake, frantic. But he also was securely strapped to the stretcher, which was firmly locked in place in the truck. Using the few straps and cords in the ambulance, Jonah fashioned a length of cable, wrapping one end around the mattress on the stretcher, holding the young man in place. Then, he called out.

“Gently, pull him out.” The two attendants grabbed the end that Jonah tossed to them, and, slowly, he guided the patient through the broken window. The rain continued to pour.

“Put him in the truck.”  Luckily, the crew cab would hold the two attendants, Nicole and Graham, as well as Jonah.

“We need to get him to Duluth immediately.”

Jonah had one other task to do first. Again, he slid out onto the steel railing, a hunting knife in his hand.

“I have to cut this, so no cars coming through will smash into it.”

Carefully, he sliced as close to the railing as possible. In the minutes during which he had been inside the ambulance, the vehicle had tipped a few inches further back, tightening the tow rope. If he cut too far away from the rail, the backlash from the sliced strap could whip him from his perch. He managed the cut without incident. Immediately, the truck tipped backward, sliding into the raging water with a series of crashes.

“Now we can go.” Jonah had forgotten all about his food. He hoped his father would be okay for the three hours that it would take to get to Duluth and back.

That hope was unnecessary. Just south of the Lutsen Mountains cutoff, the Knife Creek crossed under Highway 61. It was well named. It had knifed through the road, washing out the pavement. They were trapped, with nowhere to go but back to the resort. Jonah turned the truck around.

“I’ll need to call in for orders.” The driver was uncertain as to whether returning to the lodge was appropriate, even though there was little choice.

“Here. Use my cell.” Jonah handed his IPhone to the attendant. There was no need.

“No coverage.” He held the phone up to show that there were no bars visible.

“That’s odd. I had reception when I came in.” Jonah had checked, just in case an emergency arose. But he knew why. Cell towers. Normally installed at the highest point on the terrain, they were vulnerable to storms, even though they were designed to withstand wind. Carriers also opted for the most cost-efficient way to carry a signal, piggybacking on others’ towers where they could. In this area, the only population was in a line along Highway 61 all the way to the Canadian border, which meant that telecom providers could use repeater towers, broadcasting in a direct line along the route. During the week, that repeated signal could be further degraded, when the carriers decreased power output during low volume week days. All of that, combined with this storm, meant that all cellular coverage likely was out from Duluth.

What Jonah didn’t know was that the Knife Creek already had also cut the fibre-optic cable running underneath it, severing wire-based internet and most emergency communications. They not only were trapped, they were without a way to communicate their predicament to the nearby hospital. They were on their own. And the initial shock of Graham’s injury had long since worn off, as well as his Demerol. He was in pain.

Jonah Senior was still asleep when they arrived at the lodge. It was well after 6:00 pm. His son had been gone over two and a half hours; much longer than he had anticipated, but the father had not noticed. The meagre flow of runoff along the walkway now was a fast-moving torrent, but as Jonah had predicted, it was well contained in its channel. Down below, though, he could hear water raging as it rushed through brush and rock into the sloping creek concave along which the ski lift operated. Water, too, flowed from the plateau on which the store and office sat, across the road, and into the gully. It would only be a matter of time before the road above was washed out, if the rain persisted. In this maelstrom of noise, water and chaos, his father had slept. It was a testament to the strength of the morphine and the decline of his father’s health.

John hoped that the land line telephone in the suite was still working. It was not. Less than hopeful, he climbed up the incline to the office, careful not to slip and be caught in the rush of water at his feet. The telephone there, too, was out. And the news was even more disconcerting.

“Emergency services are out. They are closing the highway to Duluth, and into Grand Rapids.” The clerk had been watching the satellite feed. “It won’t be long before our television goes out. It often does in these thunderstorms.”

Jonah had hoped that either the road to Grand Rapids would be open, or the secondary highway through the mountains to Fort Frances, Ontario. Both were long shots, anyway, and three to four hours driving, under ideal conditions. Now, they were fully sealed into their tiny enclave, and needed to rely on good luck, instead of good weather. His dad had only brought enough morphine to last a few days. He was odd that way, carrying all sorts of emergency and repair equipment in his truck in case they were isolated, but not enough of his own emergency supplies. And, they now had another near-invalid on their hands. He returned to the suite with the bad news.

One of the attendants had managed to find a link to CBC Thunder Bay broadcasting. It was one of only three or four for which the signal had not scrambled, disappeared, reappeared and then faded again. The clerk was right. Soon, even satellite would be out, and still the storm roared around them.

Graham was restless. He grimaced, then groaned in pain. There was nothing to be done. In his haste to extricate the injured patient from the ambulance, Jonah only had managed to secure the drip bag to the mattress. He had not bothered with the EMS medical bag, and now the attendant had removed the empty IV, too. Having anticipated this, Jonah had purchased a bottle of Tylenol a bottle of Aspirin and a bottle of Advil from the front desk. Always being very reluctant to use OTC drugs, he had no idea which would be most effective. He would leave that up to the EMS people.

Tylenol was their first choice.

“Aspirin can make bleeding worse. Many doctors still prescribe it as a blood thinner for older patients. Advil is an ibuprofen, and it, too, can exacerbate bleeding. We don’t want to have that injury bleed any more than it already is.” He pointed to the arm, then to the pant leg, which, by now, was clotting with blood and adhering to the shin.

Jonah had not noticed the second injury. Wrapped in a blanket, Graham’s leg had been covered as he was being lifted through the ambulance windshield.

“Both of those from the same accident? What happened, anyway?”

“Yeah.” Graham was reluctant to talk, glancing away as he answered.

“Chart says wood chopping accident.” The attendant lifted the clipboard as he spoke.

“Pretty nasty. Chain saw or axe?” Jonah had seen the gory effects of a chainsaw that had kicked back, slicing a friend’s foot and arch in a fraction of a second. He expected it to be the former.

“Axe. Head flew off.” That was an embellishment that neither Graham nor Nicole had include in their original story. It seemed a little far fetched that one axe head could do so much damage.

“Both the leg and the arm?”

Graham appeared nervous. “Log kicked up and hit my leg. It’s nothing to worry about. Just a lot of skin off.”

“They should have tended to it in the hospital. Here, let me see if I can clean it.” The lead attendant reached down to lift the leg. Graham kicked out sharply.

“No! I said it’s okay.”

That reaction generated quizzical looks from both attendants, and Jonah. Jonah’s dad startled awake. The attendant released the leg.

“Your funeral.”

The abrupt reactions of the five males panicked Nicole. She thrust her hand into her purse, then looked nervously at the group before relaxing again. No one had noticed her response.

Tense and cautious, Jonah and the two attendants turned their attention elsewhere. The television was the natural draw.

CBC was just wrapping up national news, and was beginning Thunder Bay local coverage. A shot of the liquor store at the border, in Grand Portage came on the screen.

“Hey, turn it up. I know that place.” It was the second attendant. “That’s Reyann’s, just before the Customs station.”

“Shortly after noon, today, two people attempted to hold up the duty free south of Thunder Bay. The store had been operating on a cash-only basis since early morning, with their banking connections down. The two, a woman and a man in their mid twenties, entered the store, then the male donned a ski mask and approached the register, demanding cash. The woman watched the door.

The owner of the liquor outlet had been working on some renovations at the counter, figuring that business would be slow. As soon as the male approached and reached into his jacket pocket, the clerk reacted by swinging at the robber’s arm with the crowbar on the counter.”

The camera shot flashed to the store owner, standing at the front of the counter.

“I knew he was going for a gun. I figured that, by the time he got it out of his pocket, I would be done for, so I just reacted. That’s just how dumb some crooks are. They forget how long it takes to draw a pistol, cock it or release the safety, aim and fire. I had lots of time to give him a good whack.”

The camera panned to blood on the counter and on the floor leading outside.

“It appears that it was more than a good whack, as you call it.”

The owner grinned. “I guess the claw really did some damage. They didn’t get nothing, though.”

The camera flashed away from the owner to a spot near his feet.

“Is that a bullet hole?”

“Damned right. The gun went off in his pocket, and the ass shot himself in the leg. Too stupid, keeping a cartridge live in the chamber.” He grinned again.

Back to the announcer. “Apparently, the clerk first attempted to call 911, but all emergency services were down. Then he tried his cell, with the same result. By the time he ran outside, the robbers were gone. He dashed the quarter mile to the customs station to alert them, but no car had passed through the checkpoint in the prior ten minutes. State police will be on the lookout for the two heading back along Highway 61 toward Duluth.”

The station then went on to describe the two. There was no need for the assembled people in the lodge. They all knew who the two would-be robbers were. Nicole stood, her back to the wall, holding a .22 calibre handgun.

Jonah Senior responded first.

“What do you intend to do? Shoot all of us? That pissy little gun wouldn’t take us out, unless you got real lucky and hit each of us in the head or heart. It’s only a .22, you know.”

He may have been in deteriorating health, but he still was aware, and now fully awake.

Jonah Jr., too, was on the defensive, primarily out of concern for his father’s safety.

“You’ve got a problem. Your partner, there, needs surgery and medical help as soon as he can get it.” John held up his left forearm. “I know what severed tendons are like.”

There was a roadmap scar, running from Jonah’s wrist nearly to his elbow. He turned the arm over, for effect, revealing a similar scar on the top of his forearm.

“Plate glass window. Took me over three months to get back in shape. Doctor told me that, if I had been a couple of hours longer without a good supply of blood to the hand, I would have lost it. Your hand’s likely facing the same fate. Your leg, that’s another issue. Your problem is that if you need to run, you can’t. The way I see it, you really need us, and pointing that gun our way isn’t likely to win friends and influence people.”

“Yeah, like you’ll be eager to help us escape. Some sort of good Samaritan, are you?” It was Graham, speaking for himself and Nicole.

“Did you hear me say I was going to help you escape? I only talked about helping each other. Escape is your concern, although you would be a damned fool to try it right now. You’re only going to escape into a wicked storm, with no roads available.”

As he spoke, Jonah thought of his father’s pain medicine, and Graham’s lack of it. In that thought, both a concern and an avenue of opportunity poked into his conscious. Graham would be demanding pain relief again, soon, and Advil, Aspirin and Tylenol wouldn’t do it. If either Nicole or Graham learned of his father’s morphine, they would strip the older man of it, leaving him to suffer significantly. Junior had no intention of letting that happen. On the other hand, there was a possibility of using the medicine to their advantage … He opted to steer the conversation a little differently.

“One thing you need to do is get that leg looked at by the EMS boys here. Now that we know why you were so defensive about it, it doesn’t much matter any more, does it? And your partner there (he nodded to Nicole) can keep her handgun on the ready if she wants. Just make sure she has it in her purse, so she doesn’t flinch while you are being tended to, and accidentally shoot someone.”

It was a rational idea, and Graham clearly was in some distress with the leg, as well as the arm. Seeing the incident that caused his pain on television heightened his awareness of the injury, as well as his predicament. Giving up any sort of control was not a good choice, at the moment.

“I could use some help.” It was not the aggressive statement of a hardened criminal. Rather, it was the acquiescence of a young man, probably still weaning from his parents’ oversight. “I don’t think the leg is too serious, though.”

He gingerly pulled his pant leg up to reveal a five inch strip of ugly flesh torn from the front of his calf, angling across the face of the tibia. Doubtless, some fragments of bone had been shaved from the leg, but the wound was not deep, and the leg was not fractured.

The lead EMS attendant moved forward reluctantly to examine the wound. He had been well-trained to tend to injuries, and was hardened to varying degrees of grotesque situations, but he his training also required him to hold back in criminal matters. He, justifiably, was fearful of the gun and fearful of startling an unexpected reaction from either of the fugitives.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he began as he lightly touched the area around the wound. The bleeding was not as severe as the clotting through the jeans had indicated, but any application of cleansing liquid would cause an immediate shock of stinging pain. “But I need to clean that cut.”

“Do it.” Both young people were aware of the short-term pain.

“You got rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide here?”

“Both.” It was Jonah Junior. And gauze and bandages. My dad’s not in good health.”

All four looked to the older man.

“Hell, don’t look at me like I’m dead. Not just yet, anyway. It’s just a little problem, that’s all.”

He, too, knew that revealing too much to Nicole and Graham could tip the scales against the rest of them. He fought against the fatigue that was returning, creeping over him.

Making sure that Nicole could observe as he worked, the attendant began by pouring the peroxide over the injury. Graham failed in his attempt to keep from cringing. The exposed bloody flesh foamed like the head on a new beer. The gauze didn’t quite cover the wound. Using a dish towel from the kitchen, and using a set of small travelling scissors, the second attendant cut strips of binding, tying the gauze to the cut as well as he could. Then, the two medical workers worked the pant leg back down over the repair.

“Here.” Jonah handed the workers the Advil and Tylenol. “You know what is best.” He held back the Aspirin.

The attendants shook out three Tylenol, handing them to Graham, then handed the bottles back to Jonah. “These will help in a few minutes.” They, too, knew that the leg was the least painful of the problems, and that the immense pain that was grinding into Graham from the arm would soon be more than unbearable. It was a concern.

Jonah’s attention already was elsewhere, directed toward his father, his father’s emerging needs, and his father’s medication. They had returned here for two reasons. The first was that Senior knew he had little time left, and he wanted to reconnect with his past before past and present blended into oblivion. The second was for Junior to re-acquaint himself with the passion for the place to which he had been introduced in his early years. As a young man, he had fought the typical battles of youth versus age and wisdom, rejecting much of what his father had wanted to teach him, but when the two of them had begun their annual treks, first to the dragway at Brainnerd, and then to the backwoods of the Superior forest region, both Jonahs had found a connection that ran as deep as the earth itself. Junior had fallen in love with the pristine way of life, while Senior had renewed his family bonds and connection to a way of life that had disappeared.

Then, twenty years or so ago, they had stopped coming. The region was changing. Mining, long a part of the history, had scarred the landscape, while the pulp industry had injected toxic drugs into the veins that ran from mountain to ravine, from wilderness to Great Lake shores. Nature was being replaced by a distorted image of progress, and neither liked it. Now, he had been invited back to consult with the people who still cared about their home. “Wacky environmentalists” was how one well-placed politician had described them. And Jonah had become a fervent wacko, with a reputation for fighting back against this so-called modern way of life. He would offer what help he could.

The logging industry was a natural for the area, so long as the approach to timber was a balanced one. Bleaches and mercury from the pulp industry, though, had destroyed the fisheries upstream, tainted Superior’s water. At least now, the mills had, belatedly, adopted a more benign approach to making paper, discarding the toxic mercury. But mercury still impacted on the lives of locals, mostly Indians, who relied on fishing.

The old iron ore mines had flourished and then been depleted, but there was talk of a new explosion of mines, extracting copper and silver. That would be an environmental nightmare, Jonah realized. “The potential to be another Bakker.” The comparison to the huge oil discovery in neighbouring North Dakota offered both the same economic boom, on a smaller scale, and environmental threat, on a larger one. It had to be stopped. So Jonah had come home, to see if his particular skills could be put to use.

He hardly fit the image of a terrorist, but he realized that those aligned against his beliefs viewed him as just that: an environmental terrorist, even though none of them knew him by name, by sight or by reputation. It was a closed world. That made his brand of terrorism more terrifying. Even more so, he eschewed violence of any sort, and avoided physical sabotage wherever possible. His strength lay in converting his opponents’ own efforts into weapons against them. In that, he was more like a martial arts expert. In part, it helped explain his frequent, nomadic moves and clandestine lifestyle. Even his own father did not suspect.

The Cabot son found the behaviour of the two criminals slightly incongruent with their purported crime and chosen actions. Even Nicole held the gun reluctantly, but clearly prepared to defend her partner. And by now, Graham should have been demanding more medication. Instead, he grimaced and contorted, but remained in control. It did not fit with youth, impetuosity, self-serving actions and a disregard for others. He had, after all, been prepared to draw a gun on the liquor store proprietor.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Jonah began, “What were your plans if you had got the money from that store up north?”

He cared little if they minded, but he had spent a sizeable portion of his life in Canada. Those Canadians always seemed to be apologizing for something, but never truly being sorry for their actions and decisions. Probably a carryover from British colonialism, he had rationalized a long time ago. He had learned never to underestimate Canadian resolve. It was a stereotype, to be sure, but one that served him well. He had learned their way of understating their intent.

“It’s probably none of my business,” he continued to Graham, “but it seems strange that you choose a point of no return, with only one way of escape back south, and the border within eyeshot.” His business or no, he would size up these two.

“We have passports.” Nicole was revealing more than Graham would have liked. The two had professed o have no identification when they presented themselves at the rural hospital.

“Really?”

“It’s none of your concern.” Nicole brandished the .22 weakly, as if to emphasize her point, but actually making the point that Jonah suspected: these two were novice criminals.

Jonah chose to disrupt the flow of the talk that he had started.

“Look, my dad needs to rest. Why don’t you check out the bedroom to make sure there’s nothing dangerous in there, so I can help him get ready for a bit of a sleep. Your friend can keep the gun on us, or whatever you like.”

His intent was to assess whether the two were novices just starting a spree that thrilled them, or if they were two young people caught up in something else that had overwhelmed them. His first thought was of drug addiction, but neither seemed to be druggies, and Graham acted as if he would prefer to endure discomfort, rather than swallow too many pills.

He had also considered gambling addiction, or some other ego need, but again, the two acted more like a couple dedicated to each other than people wrapped up in their own selfish wants. He was a little perplexed, and hence, wanted to test the water with a little bit of bait, to see what bites he could provoke.

Nicole looked to Graham, Graham to her. He nodded, and she lowered the gun toward the floor.

“You get the room ready. She’ll check you out when you come out, and then send your father in. He looks a little exhausted.” It was Graham speaking.

That bit of fishing had stimulated a nibble. These two had shown heart where it came to family. Jonah thought he might be on to something.

Cradling the Tylenol caplets in his pocket, he entered the bedroom. Once inside, he turned down the bed, turned up the heat. Then, out of view of the doorway, he broke open four of his father’s morphine caplets, then did the same with four Tylenol. With precision, he poured the beads of morphine into the Tylenol caplets, reinserted the other half of the caplet into the full half as best he could, then swept the remains of the Tylenol into the morphine pill glycerine. He was ready for Graham’s next “fix,” and his father could spare four pills out of his dozen or so that remained.

Four morphine doses would knock out a horse. Probably come close to killing a human. He hoped it would not come to that. When (and now, it seemed, “If”) the young man demanded morphine, he could substitute the Tylenol-filled ones, and, if Graham stuck to Tylenol, knock him out with the morphine.

“Dad, it’s ready. And don’t forget your medicine,” He didn’t say “morphine.”

Nicole didn’t bother to search Jonah.

“How about if I put together something to eat? It’s almost eight.”

He doubted that Graham would be hungry. He was right.

“I don’t want anything, but maybe the rest of you do.” It was another unselfish, incongruent gesture.

“I understand. It might be best if we focused first on a way to get you to the hospital.”

Nicole agreed, as did Graham.

“I know that you would like to get out of this mess, but both of you know that it is criticsl that Graham gets that arm fixed. Agreed?”

Nicole looked with panic at Graham. He thought briefly, and grimace in pain. Then, he slumped.

“It’s true . There’s no way out for me. But Nikky, she doesn’t have to be part of it.”

Jonah considered, for a few seconds, how to respond, but Nicole took the impetus from him.

“I’m staying with you. We’re both in this.” She turned to Jonah. “You sure it’s the only way?”

Jonah was seeing more than a shaft of light. It was a full ray. “It’s the best, for everyone. If we can get out of here soon.”

Nicole, too, slumped, knowing that this was the only answer.

Jonah thought to himself, “Maybe we won’t need the pills.” It was a declaration that they were almost out of the woods, if not literally, then, at least, figuratively.

“Then I need to go back up to the chalet. I want to see of they have some sort of communication system that we can use.” He prepared to leave, and Nicole shot into sa rigid stance. Graham shook his head. She relaxed, once again.

“Go, then.”

Jonah donned his squall jacket, and made his way out of the cabin.

“I hope Joshua will be okay.”

Graham’s comment drew Nicole back into the real world with a slap.

“My god. My mother. How will we let her know?”

The second attendant understood. “Your son?”

“Yes, yes. Mom’s looking after him in Grand Rapids. We told her we would be home by nightfall. She’ll panic.”

“That’s too bad. You know, I had a classmate who lost her son when she was sent up for hooking. The government is pretty quick to grab these kids, you know.”

It was not meant maliciously, but was said without forethought. It hit Nicole and Graham with equal force.

“What the fuck are you talking about? They can’t take my boy!” Nicole shot a panicked look toward the walkway, down which Jonah had just passed. “I’ve got to stop him.”

She dashed for the door, before Graham could calm her.

Jonah already had smashed the glass in the front door of the lodge store, opened the store and was working his way through the back office when Nikky burst in.

“Stop. We’ve changed our mind. We can’t go to Duluth.”

Jonah saw that there was an irrational fear in the girl’s eyes. He explored.

“You know we must. What has changed?”

“I can’t tell you,” Nicole began, then realized there was no reason why not.

“It’s our son. We can’t abandon him. Can’t let Child and Family Services take him. He needs us.”

“You have a son? How old?”

“Three.”

“Where is he now?” Jonah had a vision of a child abandoned in a car back at the hospital that they had left hours earlier.

“With my mother. Grand Rapids. She’s looking after him. But if I go to jail, Family Services will take him. It’s not right. We are the ones who risk everything for him.”

In that moment, Jonah saw their situation more clearly.

“Risk? You mean that this robbery involves him, his needs?”

Nicole could not hold back any longer. She broke into convulsions of tears, and Jonah stepped in to hold her like a father. The gun was forgotten.

“Tell me about him. About the two of you. Maybe we can figure something out.”

He already knew that the two were not career criminals, and now he saw them instead as career parents, who had acted in desperation.

Nicole told him everything. Joshua, their baby, had been born with a deformed pelvis. Now, a year and a half after he should have been walking, he was still immobile. Yet, the health system would not cover his remedial surgery. “Not life threatening,” they had told the distraught parents. Over $120,000 to undertake the three to six corrective surgeries he would need, and he needed them now, before pliable bones became to large, to brittle to repair. Yet, they had no insurance. Graham’s parents, like hers, could manage only a few thousand dollars, and, even if they remortgaged the home, in the current economic crisis, there was little equity. And, Graham and Nicole had chosen to be independent, once Joshua was born, so they had no coverage through their parents, either. The situation was grave.

“Surely you didn’t think that robbing the store would get you all the money you needed? There wouldn’t have been more than a few hundred or couple thousand, at best.”

“We thought of that. But at least we could put down the first ten or fifteen thousand. And we knew we would have to find bigger, better targets to pay it off. But what would you have done?”

It was rhetorical, but deserved an answer.

“Acted in desperation, probably.” But now, Jonah had a greater appreciation of their plight.

“I think I can help.” The two sat for several more minutes, discussing options. Then, Jonah rose.

“Let’s get on with it.” He worked his way through the cupboards in the office, at last finding what he wanted.

“Here we have it.”

The two gathered up the needed tools, then returned to the cabin.

“Walkie talkies. They use them on the slopes in winter, and the guides use them in the summer. These ones have up to a twenty mile range.”

Jonah powered up the first, thumbing through the two most common channels. A crackling response over the speaker told him he had accomplished what he wanted: a radio operator at the other end. Within minutes, connections had been made, emergency services alerted. For added commitment to the responder’s task, he had thrown in a bit of a fib, telling them, not only about Graham, but about his father, and how he was in desperate need because of his lack of morphine. He reminded them that the two young people were wanted for the robbery.

“They say that there is a bit of a lull in the thunderstorms. They will fly in immediately.” He need not have repeated the message. All present had heard that the helicopter would be dispatched.

“Remember what we talked about.”

Jonah wanted Nicole to follow the script. She was more than willing. He then recounted to the EMS workers what Nicole had told him, ensuring that they, too, would share his compassion for her plight.

“You know, she never once threatened us or pointed the gun at us.” It was a declaration intended to reinforce the story they would tell, to mitigate the charges against the girl.

“It’s odd, all of this with the gun. It is kind of funny, too.” It was a peculiar thing for Graham to say, but he continued. “I wasn’t even reaching for the gun when I put my hand in my pocket. I had a note demanding money there, and I was just reaching for that. I accidentally pulled the trigger and shot myself.”

It reaffirmed what Jonah had suspected of the two, and added to his perception as incompetent robbers.

The dispatcher had asked that Jonah scout a suitable landing pad for the chopper. With the rough terrain and tumultuous weather, a level space, near the cabin and free of power lines was imperative. Jonah thought he knew where the best spot was, and had advised them of it. He also had suggested that he would set out a few flashlights around the location, to act as beacons. For that, he needed help. Neither of the two attendants were willing to volunteer to be left behind with Nicole and the gun, regardless of what they had heard of her intentions. Just one state over, Detroit’s reputation for gun deaths, and two over in Chicago forced everyone to act with caution. Nicole and Jonah would venture out together.

While radar was showing a gap in the line of thunderstorms, the mountainous nature of the region continued to toy with the weather. The wind gusted, by Jonah’s estimate, to nearly 50 miles per hour. He knew that such blasts could kill any attempt at landing if the open area was too small. Still, they needed to count on good fortune, and skilful piloting.

After fifteen minutes, drenched and cold, Nicole and he had laid out a circle of four camping lanterns, seven flashlights, the two flares that his father always kept in the truck and three led lights that he had stripped from two of the storerooms. Realizing that these lights were mere pinpricks in the darkness, He pointed his truck toward the circle, with its lights on, too. The yard light provided additional illumination. They worked their way back to the suite.

The situation in the cabin had deteriorated significantly.

One of the two attendants had not been convinced that Nicole and Graham deserved their sympathy and assistance. He had, against his partner’s wishes, decided that Graham would only be non-threatening if he was to be bound and restrained. In his aggressive approach to tying the reluctant young man to the chair, he had broken open the arm wound, and blood from the pressure bandage now flowed freely, drenching the couch, the area rug and the two combatants. The other attendant struggled to staunch the flow, using the remaining dishtowel and one of the bath towels that he had cut into strips with a kitchen knife. Graham screamed in pain and already had awakened Jonah Senior.

Junior rushed to assist the lead EMS worker.

“I think we’ve managed to slow the flow.” The paramedic was correct, but a lot of blood had been lost. Graham’ s breathing had become shallow and rapid, and Jonah could see he was near to fainting.

“Quick, untie him.”

The second attendant had tied Graham’s good arm to the chair, as well as securing a strap around his waist to the back of the chair.

“Get him laying down.”

Jonah snatched at the cloth binding, releasing the man. Graham slumped forward. The lead attendant struggled to lay Graham prostate on the carpet as the victim’s eyes began to glaze.

“Keep awake. Keep awake, man,”

To the startled second EMS worker he shouted, get some water. Hurry.”

A patient entering hypovolemic shock, or any shock, normally would not be given fluids by mouth, in case of choking. But this was an exceptional case, and Graham needed liquids as quickly as possible. The two – Jonah and the lead attendant, worked at keeping Graham alert, while Senior fetched a seconds glass of water.

Nicole, like the other attendant, was too overwhelmed by the emergency to do anything more than stand and stare.

Slowly, the pale, clammy skin of the patient started to regain a bit of colour, and Graham’s pulse dropped a little. They were out of the woods, temporarily. But there was more to worry about.

“The dispatchers called back on the walkie talkies.” In reality, the Duluth emergency responders had called the ham operator who had rerouted the call to the chalet. “They can’t fly. Weather is too nasty again. At least another hour before they can leave.”

Graham did not have that long.

“We need to handle this ourselves, then.” It was Jonah Senior.

“I agree, Dad. There has to be an option. We need a miracle, here.”

The lead EMS staff brought the other critical issue to the fore.

“Two glasses of water won’t be enough for him. He needs continuing fluids, and, when he is more stable, some pain control to prevent him from going into shock again.”

“How about the IV?”

“It’s empty.”

“Yes, but can we figure a way to fill it and hang it again?”

“Not without risking infection. I’ve never seen it done.”

Well, we need to improvise. How about if we boil the water, disinfect the needle and bag assembly, then cool the liquid and fill the bag? Will that work?”

“It could. It’s our only hope, I think, if he passes out.”

“Get it ready.” Jonah directed the order to no one in particular, and to everyone. “I’ll figure out the pain side of it.”

He already knew his plan. He would direct his father to dispense half a caplet of morphine, once the attendant gave his approval. It wouldn’t eliminate the pain, but it would take the edge off of it, briefly. He would also tell Senior about the reserve morphine in the Tylenol caplets. It would be his father’s emergency supply.

“I think there may be another way to get to Duluth.” They already had eliminated the lodge’s ATVs as too slow and not capable of carrying cargo across the breached Knife Creek.

“Just down along 61 there is another lodge. I know there are boats docked there. We’ll take Graham by boat, as soon as we can move him, to the city.”

With the plan set, and no alternative, the group set about readying for the two-hour trip. It would be rough and very dangerous, but it was the only option they had.

“You have enough food here. I’m leaving Nicole and one of you here with my. Is that okay, Dad?” No objections were raised.

“This time, I’m taking you with me.” He pointed to the second attendant. “No discussion. You are too much of a loose cannon to leave here with Nicole, and I’m not sure you are capable of handling any issues that came up. If you die on the way to Duluth, sue me. I’m likely to be with you at the bottom of Superior, anyway.”

With that, the strategy was set.

By midnight, they were ready to depart.

“Nicole, I need you to drive the truck to the dock, so we can take care of Graham in the truck bed. You ready.”

Nicole nodded. Just before they departed, Junior took Senior to the bedroom, explaining all the details that he had held back from the second attendant, and the first. Senior was satisfied.

As he had expected, there were several boats moored, and the lodge manager was more than willing to lend them his best twenty-footer. He preferred that option to going with them.

Jonah took a few moments in private with Nicole.

“Look, I want to start by saying I don’t approve of what you did at the border. But I understand your desperation. Here’s what I want you to do.”

He handed Nicole a sheet of paper that he had prepared earlier.

“Take the truck and drive. When you can get to your parents and get your son, head north to Fort Frances. Tell Customs that you are going to pick me up from the lodge in Rainy River, where I have been fishing for a week. They’ll let you across. Then, go to Kenora, and hook up with the family I have told you about. I’ll try to work things out here.”

“You are putting yourself at risk. What if they say you helped a criminal escape?”

“I’ll deal with that, if it happens.” Jonah hadn’t yet worked out those logistics. “Graham will do time, but maybe we can help your little one, in the meantime.”

Nicole began to weep.

“No time for that. Just follow the plan. I told my dad about it already.”

With that, the trio fired up the boat’s inboard, and they were off, hugging the shore of the lake to minimize the power of the wind whipping from the northwest.

Two hours and fifteen minutes later, the Duluth paramedics met them at the pier, along with Duluth police. Within fifteen minutes, Graham was in the emergency room, his crisis averted.

It was almost eighteen hours before Highway 61 reopened, and Graham was able to accompany the state police back to Eagle Mountain. He knew that the authorities would be disappointed when they found only Jonah senior and the EMS worker there.

It was Jonah who was surprised. There were three people waiting for him.

“I couldn’t leave your father alone,” was all Nicole said, in response to his quizzical gaze.

She was ready to pay the price, and Jonah knew that he, too, would find a way to pay the price, but for the child’s surgery, and not for his own actions. Senior merely smiled and shrugged. He had faith that things would work out.