The Skeleton of Round Island
From the diary of William Dashell, 1864-1945
March 22, 1884
I have just finished working the sugar run on Mackinac Island in the north end of Lake Huron. Pleasing enough employment (with some very sweet fringe benefits). But I'm stuffed sick with maple sugar sweetness, so I'm headed for the Mackinac Inn and some real food. Payment in full by my employer, along with the warming weather, has left me feeling light and happy.
While headed for the inn, I see Ignace Pelot walking down the road. A weathered but sturdy old man well into his eighties. Ignace, the son of a Chippewa mother and a French father, carries with him a strong French accent and the leather clothes of a voyageur. He and my father had become friends years before while running trap lines on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
We greeted and talked small talk about my family and the weather. He spoke of how the shifting wind and increasing angle of the sun reminded him of a time in his youth and an adventure out on Round Island. "I ever tell you that story, William?" he said. Seeing his eagerness to tell his tale, I invited him to join me for supper.
We entered the inn and sat down facing each other across a wooden table near a window where we could see out onto the frozen lake. A low fire burning in the fireplace drew the spring dampness out of our clothes. We both ordered black coffee, and I a venison steak and fried potatoes. He looked across the table with deep reflection in his eyes. Then he told me his story.
********
Ignace Pelot had been hired to transport Mademoiselle Rosalin of Green Bay from Mackinac Island to the town of Cheboygan on the Michigan mainland some fifteen miles away. But the late March day he was scheduled to pick her up came in warmer than usual, and earlier that morning the wind had turned from the east to the west. Ignace knew well enough that someone going out on the lake on a morning like that to fish through the ice or collect wood along the shore may not be able to get home so easy. The ice gets rotten and soft, and can go to pieces quickly when the wind turns.
That day Ignace was bringing the mail in from the town of Saint Ignace with his dog sled. A traino it's called, short for train-au-galise, a flat birch sled turned up in the front like a toboggan. A traino is safer than a horse in the spring when the ice in the straits starts to bend and look too sleek. Hard ice just a few inches thick will hold a horse and driver, but the spring ice, even though a foot thick, is rotten and soft and dangerous. Rosalin stood in the crowd that waited for mail as Ignace arrived in town on his sled. She was weeping. Her friends in the crowd told her it was too late in the day to travel the straits, too dangerous. They said Ignace should not be expected to venture back out onto the ice.
But Rosalin was determined to get to Cheboygan anyway. She said she would make a bundle and walk if she had to. The woman she attended, the wife of an army lieutenant, had fallen sick in Cheboygan, and the letter Rosalin received summoning her was already a week old. She had traveled as attendant to her lady to cities like Detroit and Chicago and had seen many fabulous things. Her lady and the lieutenant were good employers, and Rosalin's loyalty was deep. So when the people said Rosalin couldn't travel on the ice in the afternoon, she did not listen. She went to her quarters, prepared a bundle and set off on foot across the ice toward Cheboygan.
Ignace saw her leave, determined to succeed despite everyone's warnings. As she set off onto the ice in the fading light, Ignace lost his better sense and set out after her. He thought she looked as grand as French royalty. Even though he could turn all the girls heads when he walked into Mass on Sunday, he did not feel worthy of Rosalin. He caught up with her and bowed deeply. "I will take you to Cheboygan," he said. He looked at the deep track the sled made in the slushy snow. "Dogs, you are not so tired, eh?" Then he looked into Rosalin's thankful eyes, and he smiled.
Ignace was not a man easily frightened. Young and strong, long and tall, with eyes keen enough to see the Michigan mainland. He could lift more than any man that worked the boats at Green Bay or the Soo. He could run longer, swim farther and snowshoe faster than any man around. And if he had to, he would go two or three days without eating. He'd just cinch up his belt and keep on going. And Ignace was not afraid of the ice break-up in the spring. There were times when he got caught on the ice floes and rode them down the lake to the other side of Drummond Island, 50 miles off to the east. He had no fear for himself. But to be responsible for the safety of a passenger, that was different.
Rosalin climbed into the sled and bundled up with furs. On the shore, some cheered, others shouted warnings. "The ice is cracked from Mission Point to the hook of Round Island," someone shouted.
"I know that," shouted Ignace. "Good day messieurs, good day." And Ignace and Rosalin moved off across the ice.
The crack from the Mission Point (under what is sometimes called Robinson's Folly) to the hook of Round Island always comes first when the ice starts to break up. Ignace held his breath in his teeth as he scurried the dogs across the crack and watched the water follow up along behind the sled. He listened to the ice grind against itself. He prayed the break-up would not come before tomorrow.
Ignace steered the sled around the west side of Round Island, between it and Bobolo Island, and when the shadow of Bobolo was cast upon them they felt the damp chill of the night, different cold than the dry cold of a winter arctic blast out of Canada. Ignace loped beside the sled, always keeping his eyes on the course to Cheboygan. They watched the islands turn blue as darkness began to stretch out over the ice. As they cleared Bobolo and the last remaining steaks of sunlight spread across the ice, Ignace looked to his left, over toward Round Island. There on the shore, as if sliding down the bank was a skeleton, bleached white and completely unearthed. This place where the skeleton lay was only a few yards from the Indian burial ground that sat on the open land above the beach, the burial ground of Ignace's ancestors.
As he stared at the bones laying still and silent, he felt the skeleton staring right back at him with its hollow eyes. It made Ignace laugh nervously at the strange sight. He cracked his whip and hurried on, embarrassed to think that Rosalin might also see the exposed bones of his ancestors. He wanted to push on, the night being so near and with so far to go. He decided to return another day to cover the bones, and he cracked his whip again. But something pulled at him from deep within. He tried to fight it. The ground was frozen. He couldn't cover the bones up. And he didn't even have a hatchet or shovel. But something pulled at Ignace. He slowed the sled. Unexpectedly, the dogs turned in hard toward the shore and ran the sled right up onto the beach.
Rosalin leapt out of the sled as soon as it stopped. "What's the matter?" she said. Ignace didn't know what to tell her, so he lied and said he had to find a stick to mend his whip handle. He thought he could cut a stick and rake some earth over the skeleton and come another day with a shovel and dig a new grave. The dogs lay down panting. Rosalin glared at Ignace and pleaded with him to hurry. Ignace was glad she would not see the skeleton. Then they both looked back to Mackinac with its large rise to the north and the village in its lap and the Mission eastward near the cliff. The whole scene seemed to be moving. Ignace ran down along the beach and saw that the channel between them and Bobolo was moving too. Ice the texture of wet sugar loaf ground together as it began to float by. Then the ice roared like cannon fire as it continued to break up. Ignace became faint as he realized what the something was that had urged him to bring the traino to the beach.
After watching the ice break up towards Mackinac, they walked to the other side of the island to look to the south and southeast toward Cheboygan. The scene was the same, ice slowly churning out in the straits.
"We are stranded on this island," Rosalin said. "What shall we do?"
"It is better to be prisoners on Round Island than on a cake of ice out in the straits. I been there on an ice flow. I know. We camp and build a fire in the cove opposite Mackinac. The town see the light and feel sure that we are safe."
"I have done wrong," Rosalin said. "If you lose your life it is my fault."
"Oh God, no," Ignace said. "You are not to blame for anything, and there is no danger for me. I have float many a time when the straits break up and not have my hide so dry as it is right know. We only have to stay on Round Island till we can get off."
"And how long will that be?"
Ignace shrugged. "There is no telling," he said. "Sometimes the strait clear very soon, sometime not, maybe two, three days.
Rosalin slumped down on a stone. Ignace continued to explain that they would make camp and show signals to Mackinac, and when the ice permitted, a boat would be sent to pick them up.
Rosalin began to cry, and Ignace comforted her the best that he could. He explained it was no good to go to Cheboygan anyway, since it had been a week since her lady had sent for her. But Rosalin wept anyway. Ignace felt maybe she just wanted to be alone, so he began his duties. He unhooked the dogs from the sled, then decided that while collecting wood he would slip down to the beach and cover up the skeleton. But when he got there the skeleton was gone. Ignace was sure he had seen a skull and arms and ribs all sliding down the hill, but now it was not there.
The night was coming quickly upon the islands. Ignace said a prayer to himself and wished they had landed on the more familiar Bobolo Island instead of Round Island, even though he knew there were wild beasts on both. Ignace stopped and surveyed the dense woods. The thought of wild beasts made him drop his search for the skeleton and get back to Rosalin to prepare the camp and places to sleep for the night.
Every man who travels by bateaux (a kind of open flat-bottomed boat) always has a tinderbox and knife. But Ignace had more than that. As he searched his sled he found the storekeepers bacon he was supposed to deliver to town. He was in such a hurry to leave, he forgot to take it out of the sled. Rosalin had been sitting on it the entire journey. It had lay under the furs in the sled the whole time. This pleased Ignace, and he sang like a voyageur the whole time he was building the fire. He knew they would at least have food to eat.
In the summer the driftwood on the shore is so dry you can light it with a pipe. But now in winter, the wood was heavily soaked. Ignace needed to build a fireplace with logs and cut pine branches to help light it. When the fire was blazing, Ignace took his knife and cut a tunnel like a little room out of the thick brush nearby. He laid a pile of evergreen branches on the floor. The night was raw, and Rosalin was shivering. She welcomed the shelter Ignace built. That made him happy. He unloaded the sled, took out the bacon and cooked some on long sticks. It sizzled and sang in the fire. The dogs came close and blinked and sniffed the fire. They licked their chops, and Ignace and Rosalin laughed because it smelled like they were in a good kitchen as they sat and ate nothing but toasted meat. Ignace thought it was sure better than the rye corn and tallow you normally eat when you go out with the boats. Ignace fed the dogs next, and Rosalin walked with him down to the waters edge. They both drank with their hands.
Later, sitting on the furs by the fire, Ignace felt comfortable as if he was sitting in his own house. He wished for his fiddle so he could play a song.
Ignace couldn't even think about heaven as a better place than where he was right then with Rosalin. She smiled back with big warm eyes and then looked off toward Mackinac. Ignace followed her look to see the little far-away lights of the island.
"They know we are on Round Island together," Ignace said to cheer her up.
Rosalin moved to the edge of the fur and said, "good night." She got up and moved over toward the shelter Ignace had built for her in the bushes. Ignace jumped up with the fur blanket and spread it out inside the shelter. He returned to the fire, and Rosalin closed off the shelter with branches so she was like a squirrel in a nest. Ignace felt honored to guard Rosalin in his camp. He sat down to light his pipe. His dogs gathered round him. His favorite, Savage, laid his nose on Ignace's knee. Ignace and the dog talked with their eyes as they stared at each other. Then Ignace said, "Old Savage, I have all the time been out with the boats, and in the Indian camps, and I not had in my life a chance to marry, because there are Mamam and the children to take care of after Papa died. But you know, old Savage. But you know...." Savage hit his tail on the ground.
"But she not want shut on Round Island with me while the ice go out. I'm no good man for her."
Savage hit his tail on the ground again to say, "Is that so." Then Ignace heard the water on the shore. Usually the sound was good company for him, but that night it made him even more lonesome. But just then there was a shaking in the bushes that jolted him back to attention. Savage and his sledmates started to bristle and stand and show their teeth. Rosalin came busting out of the bushes with a scream and ran to the other side of the fire.
Ignace had only his knife with him, so he grabbed a hunk of burning wood and moved toward her shelter. He thought he smelled the stench of a wild cat. He thought he saw glowing green eyes. But nothing was there.
Ignace took Rosalin's pine bough bed and laid it by the fire. Then he laid the fur robe on top of that. He pulled out red coals and put more logs on the fire. Then he sat down between the fire and off where they heard the noise.
"What was it?" she whispered.
"Maybe a stray wolf," Ignace said. "Wolves not eat people Mamselle, unless they hunt in pack. And they run from fire." Ignace tried to make conversation. "One time a man tell me about a wolf pack that chase him on the ice. He skate to Cheboygan with wolves chasing him all the way. He come to great wide crack in ice, he so scare' he jump it and skate right on! Then he look back and see the wolves go in, head down. Every wolf caught and drown in the crack. It is two days before he come back down, and the east wind have blow to freeze the crack over-- and there all the wolf tails, sticking up. Froze stiff in a row! He said he bring the tails home with him, but lost them on the way. Though he show me the knife that cut them off."
"I have heard that story," Rosalin said. "I think it a lie." They both laughed. Rosalin curled down so close to the fire that her cheeks glowed rosy. The campfire heated the air all around until it felt like a big dark room. Ignace was glad Rosalin was beginning to enjoy herself. And all the while he kept his hand on his knife, and cold chills ran down his back when he imagined how deep a wild cat could sink its claws if it decided to attack out of the darkness. But Ignace dared not turn around to face the cat, because Rosalin still thought it was a cowardly wolf that sneaked away into the darkness. Old Savage was uneasy and came up to Ignace with his fangs exposed, but Ignace sent him back to the edge of the darkness behind him to listen and guard his back.
"Sing, M'sieu' Pelot," said Rosalin.
Ignace thought, Oh God, yes it is easy to sing with a wild cat watching you on one side and this woman on the other. "But I not know anything except boat songs." he said.
"Sing boat songs," she said.
Ignace sang like a bateau full of Voyageurs, and the sound echoed in the dark. He laughed and sang and tried not to think about the wild cat. He smiled at the thought of the strange animal listening to the loud singing.
Then Ignace asked Rosalin if she would sing to him. She sang a song that her father had taught her in Quebec. Then they talked and laughed and sang some more. And Ignace did not see while they sang and laughed that the fire had grown lower, and Savage had crept around the camp into the bushes.
Ignace looked into Rosalin's eyes, for he felt she was getting ready to say something important. And as he did he saw her face change from ease and smiles to terror. She sprang up from the blanket. All around, the camp became a whirl of eyes and teeth and fur and claws. The dogs were all around Ignace. The wild cat had Savage. Ignace thrust his knife, stabbing out until the wild cat let go of Savage. Ignace looked at them both on the ground. They were both dead.
The dogs put their noses in the air and howled mournfully. Ignace felt sick for his old dog, but he was proud for the good friend that helped kill the wild cat. He wiped his knife on the fur of the wild beast and put it away.
******
"That is what happened, William," Ignace said. He looked across the table at my empty cup and the scraps of steak on my plate. Then he continued, "Two days they come from town to take us off the Island. Then three years later I marry Rosalin. My brothers and sisters take care of themselves by then, and Rosalin help me take care of my maman. It is when my boy Gabriel come home from the war to die that I see the skeleton on Round Island again. I am again sure it washed out, and I go ashore to bury it, but it disappear again. Nobody but me see it. Then before Rosalin die, I am out on the iceboat, and the skeleton give me warning. I know what it mean. You cannot always escape misfortune. But I find good luck that first time I land, and maybe I find good luck next time I land."
Ignace looked across the table and smiled. When I complimented him on his yarn spinning skill, he scolded me for my disbelief and insisted that every bit was true. I assured him that I was sure it was. Then he urged me to have a little dessert, "something to go with the fine maple syrup the innkeeper have lay out on the table," he said.
The End
Ignace Pelot died in 1897 at the age of ninety-three. This story is based on the retelling of his tale to Mary Harthwell Calderwood for Harper's New Monthly Magazine.
