STRAY CAT STRUT

By the time I awoke it was already too late. I knew something was wrong before I’d even fully struggled out of my sleeping bag, before I’d unzipped the tent and was standing out on the wet sand of the beach. In front of me there was only one boat where there should have been two. Sundog, the other the two 18ft beach cats the four of us planned on using to circumnavigate Lake Superior, had disappeared. Only Lunacy, the other half of the team, remained, white hulls gleaming.

A thunderstorm was gathering to the south, the gentle breeze increasing to a steady wind, as I charged down the shore looking for a boat I already knew was long gone. Dead and gone, eaten like so many others by the vast, remorseless body of water that is Lake Superior. The sun was dawning a viscous red through the heavy mist of the oncoming thunderheads. I knew I had only a few scant minutes before the storm ripped and our dreams out onto the lake’s unforgiving open waters. I stopped at the end of the beach. The red rocks of the low cliffs that