Chapter 35

False dawn. The sky turns from its nightly diamond glittered black and takes on a deep deep blue. There is that calm between the night breeze flowing off the sand and the day breeze blowing to the land ... it is a twice a day mini front when the exhaust of the fish tug engines make perfect smoke rings that follow like bereft halos seeking their fallen angels.

Seagull cries, the gentle swash, swash, swash of the outgoing tide against the shore. The putt putt rattle putt rattle rattle putt putt of a make-break two cylinder engine in a Pentwater port Lake Michigan fish tug coming in from a night of net seining for whitefish.

They must have been successful, I could smell hickory smoke coming from the Clotitier's smokehouse. Odd name that, Clotitier ... French ... pronounced Clue-chi. They are long time Pentwater people ... Came from Quebec ... commercial fishermen ... bought their fish-rights from the Indians ... oh... 1770 or thereabouts.

The smell of their hickory smoke mixed with the wonderful smell of the last stand of first growth one hundred to two hundred foot tall white pines nestled in a little valley between the dunes north of town told me the light wind was out of the north.