Keweenaw Grace

The sky through the window was the color of slate as Jimmy slowly lifted the heavy tarp up over his head. The nauseating smell as well as the coarse texture of the canvas on his skin, had kept him awake in kind of a semi-consciousness. Victor was snoring peacefully in his bunk across the shed, and Burt, his huge German shepherd, lay close to the stove with his paws covering his black snout. Jimmy and Burt had formed a mutual dislike for each other ever since R.J. had dropped him off at Victors, and that was fine by him. But, time was running out, and if Jimmy was ever going to get away and find his brother, this might be his only chance. Quietly he pulled back the covers and slid to the floor. Reaching under the bunk he found his boots and slowly crawled into the next room. Burt lazily opened his eyes and watched him go, but soon returned to his dream. Tying the laces of his old work boots, and pulling an old work jacket off the hook by the side door, he quietly opened it enough to squeeze through and crept out into a fog so thick that he couldn’t see two feet in front of him. He had no idea which direction to go or what to do if he ran into anything. He crept outside into a copse of damp hemlock trees. Water dripped on his head. Jimmy just knew he had to run. Everything was wet. He could see his breath blowing from his mouth as he made his way through the rusted junk cars like giant land tortoises in the heavy morning mist. Reaching out in front of him, he felt a fence. With one foot in the snowy muck and his fingers enmeshed in the wire, he lifted his other foot and with all of his strength pulled his body over the top falling to the sloppy ground. “R.J., where are you?” he whimpered. Cold and wet Jimmy dragged himself through the fog until he reached a dirt road. Climbing the small bank on his hands and knees, he finally stood up. Jimmy turned left and came to a railroad track with rusty rails. He could feel the metal rails under his feet and knew which way the road went, but which way should he go? He stopped and listened. Water was dripping from nearby branches and a song bird was singing not ten feet away in the dense fog. As he turned toward the comforting sound, the snap of a three inch dead branch echoed from across the road followed by the sound of a bear rutting in the brush. Jimmy froze. Everything he had heard or learned about Michigan black bears flashed through his mind. If only he had a weapon, he thought. Maybe he could find a stick, or a big rock. Maybe he could hide. Tears started running down his cheeks. He was hiding. He couldn’t even see his feet.

“AAAARGH,” the bear roared, seeming closer, splashing water and throwing great chunks of something.

Run, Jimmy thought, but which way? Left, Right, down the tracks? Where was R.J.? This was all his fault. The bear roared again, and Jimmy took off down the road like a shot.

Running with his hands out in front of him to protect his face, crying like a baby. He ran right by Victor’s front gate, hopefully heading towards Baraga. With the fog beginning to dissipate, Jimmy dropped his arms, stopped his crying and ran faster.

Jerry Godwin, school bus driver for Baraga Elementary School District, was just pulling away from one of his stops when a loud thump on the side of the bus caused him to hit the brakes. The fog had blown back in and was so thick he thought a deer might have run into the side of the bus. He engaged the red blinkers, exited the bus and found the young boy the whole county was looking for lying on the side of the road covered in mud, unconscious.