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 John Albion has had a successful career in business as a manager, trainer, consultant and a champion of change. He has published business leadership articles for The CEO Refresher (www.refresher.com) and has been a contributor to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel business section. This is John’s first novel and he is actively working on a second, a murder mystery. John resides in Beaver Dam, WI.
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MY ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Beyond Fate, (1st Books) August, 2003
"I highly suggest mystery lovers purchase 'Beyond Fate.' It's a good read."
Carol Hegberg - Daily Chronicle, DeKalb, IL - "...a very interesting plot concept. I liked the way that you took multiple plot lines and wove
all of them into a single coherent plot."
- Writer's Digest - Business articles published at www.refresher.com ("The CEO Refresher")
- Business article scheduled to be published by ICFAI Press, India.
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MY NEWS:
- Personal appearance at Barnes & Noble (March, 2004) for a book signing.
- Second novel complete. Scouting for an agent.
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MY FAVORITE LINKS:
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MY RESIDENCE INFO:
City: Beaver Dam
State/Country: WI
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BOOKS PUBLISHED:
 From Beyond Fate, published in August, 2003 with 1st Books.
The digital numbers on the Port Washington State Bank sign indicated the time was 4:00AM and the temperature was forty-eight degrees in the lakeside town, still wrapped in the silence of a December night. A large raccoon trotted across a vacant parking lot, returning from fishing along the harbor jetty. With no wind, no cars and the clear night sky, the place seemed to be a ghost town where its inhabitants had abruptly ran out and left the lights on. In another hour a few hearty sport fishermen would gather at Harry’s Restaurant for breakfast, and maybe one more chance at a big Chinook before the lake iced itself closed for the winter.
High atop the building adjacent to the harbor, the neon outline of a fisherman in full rain gear with a string of fish on his back marked the home of Smith Brothers Fish Shanty Restaurant, a Port Washington landmark. Across the narrow part of the harbor stood the old building once used to process the fish caught by commercial fishermen.
The commercial business on the Great Lakes had waned over the past twenty years, leaving behind an active charter boat fishing business that catered to tourists and one lone commercial boat, the Gloria B., moored beside the empty fish processing building.
The advent of jet aviation could now bring live Maine lobsters to the heartland less than twelve hours after being caught in the Atlantic waters off Booth Bay Harbor, Maine. With the changes in commercial fishing, the Smith family business had expanded into seafood distribution with a new building on the edge of Port Washington. Most fish came from across the country, passing through Port Washington in ice-filled boxes on their way to other cities. Directly from Lake Michigan the only catch processed in Port Washington were the periodic chubs brought in on the Gloria B.
In the still of the unusually warm December pre-dawn, the forty-two foot long Gloria B. bobbed in the water, the 29-ton steel hull just as solid as it was when it was launched in 1962. The tank-like upper structure common to the ships used by commercial fishermen in the unpredictable waters of the Great Lakes was a sharp contrast to the nearby sport boats. The Gloria B. was made for any weather the Great Lakes could throw at her. If there were work to do on Lake Michigan, the Gloria B. would be the choice of any fisherman.
Out of the quiet of the night came the rattling sound of a Chevy pick-up truck, the rotting muffler rumbling across the empty streets. The truck rolled down the main street, slowing to turn into the area next to the old Smith Brothers building. Gliding to a stop, the vehicle’s headlights popped off and out jumped Karl Kroning, the captain and owner of the Gloria B.
At sixty-three, Karl still had the conditioning of a man half his age. He grabbed a lunch cooler from the pick-up seat along with a thermos of coffee and moved toward the sleeping boat where, without hesitating, he jumped aboard. Unlocking the cabin door, he went below to begin preparing for a day of fishing as he had done almost daily for forty years. Soon his crew would be arriving, and they would be underway by 5:00.
Today, Karl would act out the same ritual performed by his father and his grandfather before him. Fishing to the Kroning family was more than a job. This was their life. He moved below to the engine room and began going through his mental checklist. Engine oil, grease fittings on the propeller shaft, batteries charged and fuel tank filled.
Back at the helm he flipped the main power switch, started the bilge pumps, moved the throttle to the idle position and turned on the engine room ventilation fans that removed any build-up of fuel vapors. Once he was sure the fans were working, he pressed the ignition button that fired the six-cylinder engine, lurking below deck. Within seconds the sleeping giant sputtered, gurgled, then rolled into a slow chugging idle.
Karl turned his head to listen to the engine. Its pulsing sound told him more than the few gauges on the dash above the wheel. Like a doctor checking a patient’s cardiac rhythm, he assessed the heartbeat of the Gloria B. and gave it a clean bill of health. Soon his two crew members would arrive and ice would need to be loaded. He turned on the marine band radio to listen for the weather report and poured a cup of steaming coffee from the dented thermos.
His father said a fisherman could always tell in the morning if it was going to be a good day, and he could feel this day would be special. In a few years he would retire to Florida and all this would belong to his son-in-law. Fishing had been a hard life, but rewarding. The hard work and long hours had earned him a fair wage and he had been able to provide for his family. To Karl, this was all he needed.
The sound of a car door outside on the dock startled him from his reverie and sent him topside to see who had made it to work.
“Morning, Pop.”
“ ‘Bout damn time you got here. Gonna have to speak to that daughter of mine. How the hell am I supposed to make a fisherman outta you when she lets you sleep in like a banker?” Karl jabbed a playful punch at Jim Patrick.
“Dave not here yet?”
“He’ll be along soon. I told him to stop and pick up the ice this morning. You have your coffee yet?”
“No. Eva pushed me out of bed so fast I was dressed when I hit the floor. You got anything left in that thermos of yours?”
“Sure. Grab yourself a cup. The coffee’s below in the cabin. Then get your butt on those hydraulic net winches. Make sure the hydraulic fluid is full. I don’t want to get a net halfway in and have a pump freeze up like last year. I ain’t young enough to pull them damn nets in by hand like I could when I was your age.”
“Yeah, sure, you used to wrestle Moby Dick with one hand tied behind your back. I heard this all before,” Jim said, laughing as he went below for coffee. He had worked alongside Karl since he left junior college eight years ago, and he could think of no man he respected more than he did his father-in-law. The respect was mutual and Karl treated him like the son he always wanted.
Jim had taken to commercial fishing as though he were born to it. He worked hard and seldom complained, which had further convinced Karl he was the right man for his daughter. Karl looked out across the lake toward the east as the first light of the sun, still below the horizon, struggled to push back the stars.
At 4:45AM Dave Kazlowski arrived in a new pick-up truck loaded with ice.
“Hey! Give me a hand with this ice,” Dave called out as two heads popped up from below the deck of the Gloria B. “You guys gonna gawk or work? This stuff is heavy.”
The three men began the task of carrying the fifty-pound boxes of ice to the lower hold where, hopefully, fish would soon reside. The years of experience in working with their backs made the task go by quickly, and soon, everything was stowed below. The crew of the Gloria B. was ready to go to work on Lake Michigan.
“Okay, men. Cast off those lines. Let’s get underway,” Karl barked to his crew. With lines free of the dock, he eased the throttle forward and the Gloria B. responded by moving slowly ahead.
Jim stood on the bow and looked back at the sleeping harbor town. It was almost like something out of a dream. The stillness of the town reminded him of his children asleep at home. Whenever he looked in on them as they slept, it was like they were in suspended animation, frozen in time. Port Washington was that sleeping child at this hour, captured like a picture, forever still.
He turned to look east at the orange crescent of a rising sun. The unexpected warm air felt good on this December morning. Jim knew better than to stand on the bow with his mind wandering like a disoriented seagull over land because Karl’s booming voice would snap him back to reality. Now it was off to the stern to check the hydraulic winches that would bring in the nets. He remembered it had been a few weeks since he had last filled the reservoirs and checked the gearboxes.
“Did you oil those gear boxes?” Karl asked as he passed by.
“I’m all over it, Karl.”
“Good. Put some lighter weight oil in this time. It will be getting colder every day now. We got a good year goin’ and I damn sure don’t want any bum equipment or big repair bills screwin’ it up. I’m too close to retirement. Dave, can you check the weather report again?”
Karl steered the Gloria B. out of the narrow harbor opening and turned on a heading of 140 degrees, southeast, toward the waiting nets.
After a few minutes below with the radio, Dave stuck his head out of the cabin and said, “Weather looks real good. They’re saying clear, one to three knots of wind, visibility unlimited and a high of fifty-two degrees. We won’t see many more days like this.”
The Gloria B. cruised along for an hour toward the area where the nets hung motionless in one hundred eighty feet of water. Seagulls circled overhead, waiting in anticipation of a catch that would surely mean a feast for them as the fish were cleaned during the trip back to Port Washington. Karl saw the birds and smiled. The gulls were a good omen. Ahead he could see the floating buoys about one hundred fifty yards away, painted red and yellow to signify ownership by the Gloria B. He slowed the boat to an idle.
“Let’s go you two! We got nets!” With a few spins of the wheel, Karl guided the Gloria B. alongside the nearest buoy and cut the engine. Dave leaned over the port side and snagged the buoy using a boat hook. Once he had pulled it to the boat, he secured the net line to the steel cable feeder line on the winch with a blood knot, and started the winch. The line reeled free as it took up some slack, then began to slow under a strain they all recognized.
The taught line soon revealed nets filled with shimmering fish. The three men, clad in rubber aprons and gloves, went to work stripping the fish from the nets as they rolled over the stern and onto the deck. As each net was emptied and reset in the water, chubs covered the floor with an occasional Chinook salmon as a bonus.
“Dave, let’s start cleaning these fish below. I gotta call Smith Brothers and let them know what we’re coming in with. We’ll need one of their trucks at the dock. Jim, you reset the last net, put her on auto-pilot, then come below to help us clean these chubs.”
“Sure, Pop.”
“And don’t call me Pop! I ain’t that old yet.” Karl followed Dave below deck and reached for the cell phone hanging on the wall. Twelve miles away the dispatcher’s phone at Smith Brothers Distributing rang.
“Hello, Patty? It’s Karl. I’m gonna need a truck at the dock. Yeah, we got about a half-ton of chubs we’re bringin’ in. That’s right, you heard me right. We should be there in an hour, about 10:00. What do you mean, it’s 9:30 now? Okay, then make it 10:30. I guess this damn watch gave out on me. Hell it ain’t even runnin’. Okay. See you in an hour.” He hung up the cell phone and held his watch to his ear, then shook his arm in an attempt to free the stopped hands.
“Damn. Guess it’s time for a new one.” Karl grabbed one of the sharp fillet knives and began the work of gutting fish. This was the messy part, but each of them could do it in their sleep, they had cleaned so many fish over the years. Jim soon joined the others below, looking somewhat puzzled.
“I got the net back out, but it ain’t unhooked from the winch yet. The line went taut on me like it was hooked on something when I put it down. I can’t get it slack enough to untie it from the steel cable feeder line on the winch.”
“Hooked? Shit, Jim, what the hell could we hook on? We’re sittin’ in over two hundred feet of water. The damn nets don’t go down that deep. You sure you didn’t mess up the winch, Jim?” Karl gave Jim a look of disbelief he knew would get the younger man’s blood moving.
“Damn it, Karl. I’m telling you it’s hung up on something below…oh, shit!”
The Gloria B. rocked violently, sending the crew off balance. Boxes of ice-covered fish spilled everywhere in one of those brief few seconds when time stands still. Before anyone could recover the bow pitched upward at a forty-five degree angle, throwing the contents to the rear of the cabin, pinning the hatch closed. Jim slipped below the rising water, unconscious from being thrown into a bulkhead.
The cold, clear Lake Michigan water rushed over the aft gunwale like a raging river. In seconds the Gloria B. stood on its stern with water to its helm, only moments from sliding under the peaceful surface. Inside the cabin, Dave and Karl scrambled for anything that might free them. Dave beat furiously at the hatch, water rising to his chest. Karl turned knobs on the ship’s radio, but it was dead and the cell phone had long since been buried beneath fish, water, ice and any gear not tied down.
Outside the forty-two-foot boat paused, its bow showing twelve feet above the surface as though ready to ascend through a cloudless sky, then slid downward like a glider into the darkness. Only the circling seagulls looked on as bubbles escaped to the surface and disappeared. The Gloria B. was gone.
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