Pierre Starts South

                 Pierre was very quiet after passing through American Customs The only thing he said between Roseau and Baudette was, "There must have been a dozen agents at that spot in the gravel road, but only one at the regular custom’s station. I thought custom’s agents were supposed to stay in one spot and let people slip by a little out of sight. Are they changing the rules? Is there nothing a guy can depend on?"

                There was nothing I could say. I just shrugged. No, matter what I would have said at that point would have sparked a fight with Pierre. He would have taken the opposite stand of whatever I said. Then I would have taken all the abuse that he had wanted to heap on the Canadian agent that had given him the fine.

                 Pierre also realized he had been in the wrong in not having a Remote Area Border Crossing (RABC) permit. There is nothing a Frenchman hates more than knowing he was wrong and having to take the wrong side of an argument to defend his wrong actions. That is like getting slapped in the face and turning the other cheek and having that cheek slapped too.

                When we got to Baudette, we paused to buy the usual pizza and Pepsi to keep Pierre peppy as we passed through the bog on the way to Black Duck. (Hope you are not trying to read this story aloud.) That might have been the first food Pierre had eaten all day and it brightened his spirits. Soon he was enjoying the storm from the west that had finally caught up to us when we turned south and gunned it down Highway 71. It had not rained hard in the North since last October and Pierre had been worried that the blueberry plants would dry up. That would make the summer difficult for Pierre and the bears. Both needed those berries to get through the winter.

                With each lightening flash, I could see a bigger smile on Pierre’s face as we drove through the night. Who knows what was going through that mind? It could have been berries, bears, or the people Pierre would soon be seeing. Rather than break his thought process, I decided to take a nap. It seemed like a safe thing to do. With the raining pouring down, Pierre had slowed some and would never attempt to break his personal best speed record of 135 miles per hour for that stretch of road. He probably didn’t want to have the engine rebuilt again. The wet road would make the car harder to steer so that would hopefully help to keep him alert too. Pierre tends to get sleepy if everything is easy for him.

                When I awoke later, it wasn’t raining and the moon was much further to the west. I finally broke the silence of the long trip and whispered, "Pierre, where are we?"

He shrugged. He must have been almost asleep too and had just been keeping the long yellow line at the edge of the road on the right side of the car. I looked at the gas gauge. The red light was blinking. Pierre had planned on buying gas in Bemidji so we had to be south of there. Hopefully we had enough gas to get back to the 24-hour station on the south side of town. There certainly was not enough gas to get to Motley. I should have known by now that I had to keep an eye on this guy every moment.

                Pierre turned around and headed north again. We didn’t talk. Pierre had had a bad enough day and didn’t need to have anyone tell him he had screwed up again. One should never kick a dog or a proud man when he is down. When we got to the top of the long, steep hill overlooking Bemidji, the engine sputtered and was about to die. We could see the bright lights of the south side station miles down the road.

                 In a flash Pierre shut down the engine, and turned the key partly back on so the steering would not lock up. (He had remembered to do that from a previous mistake in the mountains.) At the same time he kicked in the clutch and threw the car into neutral. It was soapbox derby time!

                 As we coasted faster and faster down the steep hill, Pierre became alive again. Keeping one eye on the speedometer and the other on the road, Pierre broke 110 miles of silence, "This will be a piece of cake. I’ve run out of gas numerous times in my boat, truck, and even with the old Laketrails’ camp bus.  Do you remember that bus with the flames painted on the fenders and the bearded guy painted on the side under the driver’s window?    A few people thought that guy with the beard looked like me. Some of the religious types thought it was Jesus. Most of the people who rode the bus thought it was the Zig Zag Man. Everyone at camp was happy with that guy on the side and felt at home."

                As the air screamed by the partly opened window, Pierre loudly and swiftly told about his past glories on an empty tank. For a guy who usually ran a quart low, an empty tank was not a problem. It was a challenge.

                "Once when it looked as though I would wash up on that rocky tip of Flag Island with my little 12 boat, I poured the gas from my chain saw into my boat’s empty gas tank. Then I waited until the boat drifted close to shore before starting up the old eighteen horse motor and driving away from the rocks. I parked the boat in some thick bull weeds about a hundred yards away.

" My yellow kayak was in the boat. I usually hauled it in that boat because I didn’t trust its motor. I threw the kayak in the water and paddled to Flag Island Resort, and had ‘em fill up an empty rum bottle that we found in Blow Joe’s guide boat. I told the guy at the gas pump that I was going to play a trick on Blow Joe and fill his rum bottle full of gasoline. ‘The gas in the bottle might not stop Blow Joe from drinking, but it might make him think twice before he lit up a cigar again.’

" With everyone on the Flag Island Resort dock laughing, I paddled the kayak back to my boat. Then I poured the gas into the gas tank, started the engine and drove the boat to a spot on the lake where the wind would blow me towards Laketrails. I landed at  the Laketrails’ dock with a dead stick, turn around landing. Of course I still had a little gas left in the tank if I would have needed to make a last second adjustment. I always plan ahead.

"Sister Janelle OSB, who was working there as a guide that summer, had been watching me float toward shore. When I got out of my boat, she greeted me with a smile and said, ‘Pierre, I have been praying for you!’

"I said, ‘Your prayers have been answered, Sister. Here I am in the flesh.’

"Sister let me bum a whole tank of gas from Laketrails. Then she sent me on my way. I don’t think she wanted me hanging around the young ladies on the dock."

When the speedometer hit 80 and started to slow, Pierre yelled out, " That is a personal high speed record for any vehicle I’ve driven on a drift. When I drove the old Laketrails’ bus, I got ‘er up to sixty once and that was at full power at the end of a long hill.  That bus had no glide to it.”

Then Pierre told another story about that the time he gotten a chance to drive that old Laketrails bus with his picture on the side. He thought he could make it all the way to Warroad on a tank of gas from Little Falls, but a strong wind held the bus back. With the engine coughing, he drove the bus into a farmyard to get some gas from their tractor bulk tank. It just so happened there was a Cenex tank truck in the yard filling up the bulk tank. Pierre ended that story by saying, "That was a blessing. I didn’t have to pay a tax on that gas from the bulk truck. It was cheaper than going to a regular station. I don’t know why Laketrails wouldn’t let me drive that bus again. I’d save them money."

                By that time the car was going slowly enough to make the turn into the gas station we had seen from the top of the hill. Pierre said he never touches the brake when he is on a good drift. It is a waste of natural resources. As we slowly coasted up the slope to the gas pumps, Pierre was excited. He had set several personal best records. Longest distance between gas fills. Fastest speed on a drift. Longest drift. Fastest turn on a drift. Finally, best landing with a car on a drift. Pierre thought he had come to a stop right at the gas pump. He was an achiever!

                Pierre always goes to the restroom before pumping gas. It has something to do with the power of suggestion. He hates jumping around on his toes with crossed legs as he pumps gas. As he walked into the station, I heard him say, "God must love me." After I heard him say that, I gave his car a little push and put the gas tank opening next to a gas pump rather than the diesel pump. I didn’t want to burst his bubble of faith by having him fill up his tank with diesel fuel. Pierre had made the diesel vs. gas mistake once with a friend’s car. He, of course, had made it up to her for his mistake. The diesel fuel might have been good for her car. It probably needed a tune-up anyway.

                After filling the gas tank and buying some Good and Plenty licorice to keep himself awake, Pierre decided to go to Duluth instead of Little Falls. It was already 1:30 in the morning and it was about two hours to either place. Most people don’t like getting company at 3:30 in the morning, but his mother would not hear him sneak into the house.   Besides there were less turns if he went to Duluth. Having a new direction in life, he headed down Highway 2 popping a few Good and Plenty whenever he felt sleepy. Wide-awake, I watched him this time.

                Much of the rest of the trip was a blur for Pierre and a white-knuckle ride for me. We did stop at Jennifer’s grave in Grand Rapids and listened to the wind chimes hanging in the tree near her head stone. The stop gave Pierre some fresh air and time to reflect on how precious life is. He was more alert in his driving for a time. Fifty miles south of Grand Rapids, I did get Pierre to pull into the driveway of an abandoned farm to sleep a little. That helped for a short time.

                When we were only about twenty miles from Duluth, an event happened that saved Pierre. A sudden loud bang woke him before he drove into the ditch. He got the car under control and pulled to the shoulder of the road.

                Not sure what had happened, Pierre counted aloud to two. He had learned to do that from being in some many lightening storms on the lake. If he could get to two after a close lightening strike, he knew he was still alive. He got to two. Next he tried to figure out what had made the loud noise.  (Pierre had learned to think in an analytical way from Jim Dingle.) First he felt the tires to see if one had blown. None were flat on the bottom and the tops felt rounded too. The warm curve of the tires felt great to his fingers so he felt them all again. Then he checked under the hood. The engine was still there, another good sign. Having exhausted his knowledge of engines, Pierre slammed the hood back down. The hood sounded solid so there was a good chance no other parts had fallen off the car. Then he looked under the car. Nothing was dragging from either the car or something he had run over. What else could be wrong? He had checked everything!

                Pierre got back into the car and sat for a while thinking. After ten minutes he got out and felt the edge of the road. There were grooves at the edge. More than once he had run over the grooves at the edge of the road and the noise had awoken him from a comfortable drive. Maybe that had happened again.

                Of course the theory had to be tested. Pierre lit up the engine. Before he could even drive over the road grooves, he heard a sound like a B 29 taking off. Since there were airports close by, the noise had to be coming from his car. Then Pierre put the car in gear. It moved. The problem must not be serious. As he gained speed, the noise got louder, but the car was still moving and the vibrations felt good. He tried second gear. That worked too. It couldn’t be the automatic transmission. The car had a stick shift. Pierre tried gear after gear until he knew all five were working and the car was going the speed limit. He figured there had to be a flaw in the muffler system. He continued on his journey to Duluth thinking a little noise wouldn’t hurt anyone. All the dogs barking in the yards were making more noise than the Porsche was. It was time for people to wake up and enjoy the day.

                The roars of the engine, as well as the vibrations, kept Pierre happy and alert the rest of the way to his mother’s house. When he got within a block of her house, he cut the racket in order not to wake the neighborhood. Then he drifted silently down the street and into the driveway for another perfect landing in front of the garage. He turned to me and said with a big smile on his face, " I should have been a bush pilot like Don Hanson."

Eagle Watcher