In Darkest Depths (6 page)

They all saw it.

One of the mergansers was starting to rise into the air, its webbed feet brushing the surface, when the lake bulged upward. The merganser uttered a sharp
karr-
karr-
karr
, its wings flapping furiously. In the blink of an eye it was gone, not so much as a feather to mark its demise.

His every nerve tingling, Nate King, who was nearest, paddled swiftly toward the spot.

Other mergansers gained altitude. Those that had not taken to the air were streaking through the water with fear-induced speed, their heads thrust forward, raising their cries to the sky.

A female was swimming in panicked flight directly toward the canoe Winona and Blue Water Woman were in. The terrified duck did not seem to see them. Both women were frozen by the tableau, their paddles in their hands.

Nate probed the water for the creature, but the glare of the rising sun hid whatever lay below.

Suddenly the female merganser, now only thirty feet from Winona and Blue Water Woman, let out with a
karr-karr-karr
of her own. The next moment she was wrenched under and was gone.

“Look out!” Shakespeare shouted.

A swell was rising in the spot where the duck had disappeared. As before, all that could be seen was the vaguest outline of a huge shape. With alarming rapidity, the creature bore down on Winona and Blue Water Woman's canoe.

“Ma!” Zach hollered, and worked his paddle to go to her aid. Louisa immediately did the same.

Nate was using his own with all the might in his muscles. He saw Winona reach down for one of their special weapons, but before she could lift it and just when it appeared certain the creature was going to ram them, the swell shrank and the creature passed under them. The swell reappeared on the other side and began to circle the canoes.

Relief coursed through Nate. If anything had happened to his wife—-he could not finish the thought. She was everything to him. Were she to die, he would never recover, never be the same. Some losses were too horrible to be borne.

Zach stopped paddling now that his mother was safe, and Lou took her cue from him.

“That was close,” she said.

“Too close,” Zach agreed. He glanced at his father and then toward Shakespeare, who yelled something Zach did not quite catch, and jabbed an arm as if pointing at something.

“Zachary?” Lou said uneasily.

“What is it?” Zach responded, looking in the direction that Shakespeare was pointing.

“Dear God!” Lou said.

Zach rarely felt fear. Even in the frenzied heat of battle, he was always able to keep his wits about him and not succumb to fright. But he felt it now, a spike
of raw, pure, potent fear that gripped his chest in a fist of ice.

The thing was coming toward them.

Louisa asked anxiously, “What do we do? Hope it goes under us, or get out of its way?”

Zach did not know. They could not outrun it. It moved three times as fast as they could ever hope to propel the canoe. And if they started to turn, it might ram them broadside. For a few seconds he was paralyzed with indecision, and then his instincts took over. He had one unfailing response to being attacked: he killed the attacker. Whether human or animal, it made no difference. If someone or something attacked him or a loved one, that someone or something died. It was as simple as that.

Nate and Winona added their shouts of warning to Shakespeare's, Nate's the loudest.

“Use a harpoon!”

Zach glanced down. It had been McNair's idea to make them. As Shakespeare had put it when he brought it up at the meeting, “We shot the thing and it had no effect. It is so big we can't be sure where its vitals are. So I propose we build us a bunch of harpoons.”

“Harpoons?” Dega had repeated quizzically.

“Whites use them to kill critters called whales,” Shakespeare had explained. “Whales look like fish but they are as big as this cabin, or bigger.”

“How whites kill?” Waku had asked.

“We go after them in boats and throw harpoons into them with ropes tied to the end, so if they try to get away they pull the boats after them.”

“But what be harpoon?” Waku was still confused.

“Think of it as a lance, only bigger and thicker.
The tips are made of metal and stick in the whale and won't come out.”

Now, with the swell sweeping toward him and his wife, Zach reached down and grabbed a harpoon. Over seven feet long and made of pine, it was as thick as his forearm. He had to use both hands to throw it. One end had been sharpened and then charred in a fire so it was rock-hard, the other had a hole in it.

Remembering Shakespeare's instruction, Zach bent and snatched up the rope that was coiled in the bow. Quickly, he went to thread the rope through the hole. But he was not given the time.

“
Zachary!
” Lou cried.

The thing was almost on top of them.

The hiss of water was loud in Zach's ears as he rose on his knees and raised the harpoon aloft. He could not see the creature, but he had a fair notion of where it was, and without hesitation he let his harpoon fly. The tip sliced into the swell about where the thing's head would be, or so Zach hoped.

But nothing happened. The creature kept coming. The lance was swept aside by the rushing water and bobbed up and down in the wake.

“Damn!” Zach reached for the second harpoon. Up to the very last instant he thought the thing might pass under their canoe as it has passed under Winona and Blue Water Woman's.

Then the creature slammed into them.

Lou screamed and clutched at the sides of the canoe. The bow swept upward and the whole craft tilted. Zach reached for her, and she lunged for his arms. But before she could grab hold, the canoe rolled.

Louisa gasped as cold water enveloped her, and in gasping, she swallowed water. Clamping her
mouth shut, she tried to hold her breath, but there was no breath to hold.

Zach, tumbling, felt a blow to his side, then a scraping sensation and pain. He tumbled end over end, water getting into his nose and ears but not his mouth. He'd had the presence of mind to suck in a breath of air in the split second before he went under.

Dimly, Zach was conscious of a great bulk sweeping by him. He glimpsed a silhouette: a narrow head, an enormous arched body, what might be fins or a tail. Then the thing was gone, and he kicked toward the lighter water above. Breaking the surface, he turned this way and that, seeking his wife. Nearby, the canoe floated on its side but was slowly sinking.

A shadow fell across him. Zach twisted as immensely powerful hands gripped him by the shoulders and started to lift him out of the water. “No, Pa. Not yet.”

“We have to get you out of the water,” Nate said.

“No!” Zach glanced wildly about. “Where's Louisa? Lou!
Lou!
”

From all quarters help was coming: Shakespeare, paddling like mad from the east; Winona and Blue Water Woman, their faces grim; Waku and Dega with their slow-as-a-turtle log dugout.

But otherwise the lake was undisturbed. The swell was gone. The creature was gone. And so was Louisa.

“Dear God,” Zach said, and dived. He reasoned that she had to be somewhere close, unless the thing had caught her in its jaws and carried her off. Or maybe—and he inwardly shuddered—maybe she had received a blow to the head and been knocked out and was even then sinking slowly to the bottom.

Zach grew frantic. He turned right and left, seeking some sign. But the sunlight did not penetrate far enough. All was murk and shadow.

Where are you?
Zach mentally screamed.

There!

A small figure floated barely a dozen feet away, head down, arms and legs dangling limply.

Zach's heart leaped into his throat. He flew to her, cleaving the water fit to rival a fish. Clamping an arm around her waist, he kicked upward. She did not stir or otherwise react. As they broke the surface, he clasped her to him and shook her. “Lou! Lou! Can you hear me?” She did not respond. Her eyes did not open. Chin slack on her chest, she was deathly pale.

“God, no!” Zach breathed.

Canoes materialized on each side. Nate reached down and took Lou. Swinging her up as if she weighed no more than a feather, he gently deposited her in the bottom of his canoe

In the other canoe, Winona and Blue Water Woman both offered their hands to Zach. “Climb in,” his mother urged.

“I'll stay with Lou,” Zach said.

Shakespeare glided up and leaned over to see Lou. “Is she breathing?”

Nate bent and put a hand over her mouth and nose. “I don't think so. I don't feel anything.”

“
Lou!
” Zach cried, and started to scramble up, rocking his father's canoe.

“Hold off!” Shakespeare commanded. To Nate he said, “We must act quickly! Pick her up with her back to you and wrap your arms around her middle. Let the upper half of her body sag some.”

Nate did not ask why. He did it.

“Now clench your hands together over her belly,”
Shakespeare said, “and pump your hands up under her ribs. Don't be timid, neither. You have to do it hard and fast.”

Nate looked at him.

“I know,” Shakespeare said.

“But what if—”

“Would you rather she were dead? Hurry, Horatio!”

Zach did not understand why his father hesitated. Lou had stopped breathing. They must not delay a single instant. “If you don't, I will,” he said, and again began to climb in.

Nate did as McNair had instructed, pumping his arms in and out, gouging his knuckles deep. He did it half a dozen times, but he might as well have been squeezing a tree for all the good it did. Dread rising, he pumped harder and faster. He willed himself not to think of her possible condition and what this might do to her. In and out, in and out, he rammed his fists nearly to her spine.

“Please, Lou,” Zach said. “Please.”

Nate despaired of reviving her. On an impulse, he stood up, causing the canoe to wobble and tilt. He might have gone over the side had Zach not held on to the gunwale to steady it. Upright, he tried again. Lou was bent almost in half, her head hanging low.

Nate rammed his fists once, twice, a third time, and suddenly water gushed from Lou's mouth. She weakly stirred, and groaned. “It's working!” he cried, and in his excitement, rammed his fists into her harder than ever.

Something other than water spewed from Lou's open mouth and spattered the canoe. She coughed and wheezed and flailed, her eyes snapping open in alarm. “What? Where?”

“You are safe,” Nate said, and eased her down as Zach swung a leg up and over and squatted on the other side of her, his arm around her shoulders.

“Lou? It's me, Zach. Are you all right?”

Unable to stop coughing, Lou wagged a hand at him and bent over again. Her shoulders shook and she moaned.

“Thanks, Pa,” Zach said. “You saved her.”

Nate did not reply. He was thinking of something else.

“Lou?” Zach tried again. “You nearly drowned. Pa had to almost break you in two to get you to breathe.”

Gasping in breaths, Louisa said, “It feels like he did.” But she raised her head and smiled at Nate. “Thank you. I thought I might be a goner when I went under.”

Zach kissed her on the cheek and stroked her hair. “You had me worried for a bit there.”

Lou stared at his dripping buckskins. “Was it you who jumped in and got me out?”

“I couldn't let you sink,” Zach said. “You owe me a backrub.”

Lou caressed his brow, then had to bend over again. The wet sounds gave way to dry, racking heaves. At length she subsided and swiped at her dripping mouth with a sleeve. “Lordy, if I had known this would happen, I wouldn't have eaten so much breakfast.”

“We have to get you to shore, little lady,” Shakespeare said.

Lou shook her head. “Don't be silly. I am fine. We have to keep after whatever did this to me.”

“You're the one being silly,” Zach said. “We are taking you home so you can rest, and that's all there is to it.”

“Since when did you get so bossy?”

Winona was easing her canoe in closer. “I agree with my son,” she said. “You need a hot bath, and then you should climb into bed and stay there until tomorrow morning.”

“But it's not even noon yet!” Louisa objected. “I refuse to let you make a fuss over me.”

“When you married my son you became my daughter, and my daughters always do as I say”

Their argument was interrupted by Wakumassee and Degamawaku, who had drifted in from the west. They commenced pointing excitedly, and yelling.

“Look! Look! There!”

The thing was coming back.

Shakespeare McNair refused to let anyone else be hurt. They were out on the lake at his bidding, their lives imperiled because of his belief the creature posed a threat. Louisa had very nearly drowned, and if the lake beast rammed another of their craft—Shakespeare was not about to let that happen. Suddenly pushing away from the others, he paddled his canoe into the path of the oncoming swell.

“What are you doing?” Nate demanded.

“Carcajou!” Blue Water Woman cried.

Shakespeare ignored them. He swung his canoe broadside to the swell and snatched up one of the harpoons. Rising, he balanced precariously on the balls of his feet and tensed for the throw.

Shakespeare had never been on a whaling vessel, but like most people, he was well aware of the particulars of the trade. The industry had existed since the late 1600s when Nantucket fishermen first began hunting whales for their livelihood. Half a century later, thanks to the valuable oil in their heads, sperm whales became the favorite catch.

Many a youth, inspired by dreams of an exciting
life at sea and the big money to be made, yearned to be a whaler. Shakespeare himself caught the whaling fever; for a while he had been torn between his hankering for a life at sea and his yearning to travel west of the Mississippi. As fate would have it, the mountains and the prairie won out over the oceans, but it was a close thing.

Now, with the hissing swell sweeping toward him, Shakespeare prepared to cast his harpoon as a whaler would. He sought in vain to see the animal he had come to slay, but all he could see was a dark shape.

“Carcajou!” Blue Water Woman screamed a second time.

Shakespeare cast the harpoon with all the power in his frame. He was old, but he was far from puny, and he had every hope that could he but pierce its head or body, he could put an end to the thing.

The harpoon flew true. It struck the swell right where Shakespeare wanted it to, at the point where the silhouette suggested the head should be. By rights, the tip should have sheared through the water and cleaved the beast underneath. But it was swept aside. Whether the rushing water deflected it or it glanced off the creature, Shakespeare couldn't say. He heard his wife shout something, and then the swell slammed into his canoe with the impact of a charging bull buffalo. Shakespeare felt the canoe rise up under him and tip. He threw himself out, or tried to, in an attempt to dive clear. Instead, jarring pain shot up both his legs, and the next thing he knew, he was under the water with a riot of frothing bubbles all around him.

And that was not all.

Shakespeare was aware of the canoe on its side above him, and of the gargantuan shape that had flipped it over. The thing had slowed and was turning.

It was coming back for him.

Levering his arms and legs, Shakespeare rose. He had to swim wide of the canoe, and he was still under the surface when his lower legs were struck a heavy blow. The forced knocked him back and down. Racked with pain, he glanced at his legs—and there it was.

The water devil, the creature, the
thing
was just below him. It was huge. He was willing to swear on a stack of Bibles that it was twenty feet long if it was an inch. Although his lungs were shrieking for air, Shakespeare did not rise. Not yet. Bending, he tried to pierce the gloom, made darker by the shadow of the canoe. Then a glimmer of sunlight penetrated, casting the thing's silhouette in relief against its watery domain.

It was a fish.

There could be no doubt. Shakespeare saw fins. Front fins and rear fins, a fin on top and possibly on the bottom toward the tail. The tail itself was split in the middle. The top half and the bottom half were not the same size, as in most fish. The top was twice as big and three times as long.

Shakespeare strained his eyes, but he could not tell what kind of fish it was. He started to rise, wondering if it would attack him, when suddenly the giant exploded into motion. But not toward him. It shot down into the depths. Living lightning, it was there one instant, gone the next. The last he saw of it was the sweep of its tail.

Too late, Shakespeare realized he had stayed under
too long. His lungs would not be denied. He willed his mouth to stay shut, but his lips parted of their own accord. Cold water gushed into his mouth and nose and down his throat. He gagged and sucked in more water. His movements became strangely sluggish. He could see the surface, so near and yet so far, but he could not reach it. His body would not respond as it should.

Darkness overcame him. Shakespeare's consciousness dimmed. He felt cold, clear to his marrow.

Then the darkness became total.

She went over the side before anyone could stop her.

They all saw the body, floating limp. Blue Water Woman cried out, “There he is!” and dived. She swam smoothly, despite her knee-length dress, and she had an arm around Shakespeare within seconds.

That was all it took for Nate to bring his canoe over. He grabbed hold of the back of Shakespeare's shirt and lifted. Zach and Lou moved to make room, but there was not enough and Nate had to lay Shakespeare's head and shoulders across Lou's legs.

“Is he—?” Blue Water Woman asked anxiously, treading water.

Nate saw his friend twitch. Putting a hand on Shakespeare's stomach, he pushed as hard as he could.

Water spewed from Shakespeare's mouth. Gasping and coughing, he opened his eyes and looked about him in confusion, then calmed.

“Oh, it's only you, Horatio. For a second there I thought I was being stomped by an angry elk.”

Blue Water Woman clung to the side and peered over at her man. “Are you all right?”

Shakespeare looked toward her, and coughed. “You dived in to save me, didn't you?”

“It seemed like a good idea.”

“Lordy. I will never hear the end of this one.”

“No, you will not.”

Shakespeare smiled and reached up, and their fingers brushed. “If I have not told you that I love you today, permit me to remedy my oversight.”

“You nearly died.”

“An exaggeration if ever I heard one.” Shakespeare turned to Nate. “This is not going as well as we planned.”

“We must get you to shore.”

“I am fine.”

“We must get
Lou
to shore,” Nate amended.

Shakespeare blinked. “Oh. Yes, we must. I had forgotten.” He slowly sat up and grinned at his wife. “Are you going to cling there all the way back?”

Winona had brought her canoe in and now offered her arm to Blue Water Woman. “Here, let me help you.”

Presently, their stricken armada was underway.

“Wait!” Shakespeare exclaimed. “What about my canoe?”

Nate pointed.

Only one end was still above water, and it was filling fast. Trailing bubbles, the canoe slowly slipped from sight, leaving concentric ripples to mark the spot.

“There was a hole in it as big as a melon,” Zach said.

“That makes two the fish sent to the bottom,” Shakespeare said. “And after all the work we put into them.”

“We should have made dugouts,” Zach said. “That thing can't knock a hole in them.”

“We aren't licked,” Shakespeare said. “We will make more canoes and be back out here in no time.” He looked at Nate, expecting him to say something. “Did you hear me, Horatio?”

“I heard.”

“Fish got your tongue?”

“We will talk about it after we get you and Lou out of those wet clothes and in bed.”

“Since when is a little wet worth so much fuss?” Shakespeare replied. “I am as well as I can be, I tell you.”

“Take it up with your wife when we get back.”

“You fight dirty.” Shakespeare shifted and regarded Louisa. “How about you, young lady? You look pale.”

“I am as fine as you, but my lunkhead of a husband still wants to put me to bed.”

“I share your indignation. The way some people carry on about nearly drowning is ridiculous. But I agree with your husband on this.”

Zach draped an arm around Lou's shoulders, and glared. “You and your stupid water devil.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I nearly lost her,” Zach said. “And we would not have been out here but for you.”

Shakespeare winced. “I grant you that. But your logic is faulty. If I were to suggest we go hunting, and while we were up in the mountains a Blackfoot put an arrow into your leg, would that be my fault?”

“Don't try to confuse me,” Zach said.

“I will not accept blame that is not wholly mine. If your spleen is agitated, I suggest you direct it at the fish.”

Nate glanced over his shoulder. “You keep calling it that. What makes you so sure?”

“I saw it, Horatio. As I am living and breathing again, I saw it. A fish such as mortal eyes have not beheld since the dawn of creation.”

Zach snorted.

“He is not the flower of courtesy,” Shakespeare quoted. “Scoff if you will, Zachary, but you saw the size of the thing even if you did not get a clear look at the thing itself.”

“A fish,” Nate repeated.

“You sound disappointed,” Shakespeare said.

“I was half hoping it was something else,” Nate said. “Something more.” The legends of the water creatures, so common among so many tribes, had led him to think they would encounter the new and unknown.

“What more do you want?” Shakespeare asked. “A fish that size qualifies as a marvel.”

Nate did not see how. Exceptionally large fish were often reported to inhabit lakes and rivers, to say nothing of the gigantic denizens of the seven seas. He mentioned as much.

“I grant you it is not as big as a whale,” Shakespeare said. “And I seem to recollect hearing that some sharks grow over twenty feet long, and that there is a critter called a whale shark that grows to pretty near sixty. So maybe our monster is puny compared to them, but it is still a monster.”

“It is a fish,” Nate said, stroking his paddle. “You said so yourself.”

“What difference does that make? It is a name, nothing more. That which we call a rose by any other word would—” Shakespeare stopped abruptly.

Waku had shouted and was jerking his arm. “Look! Look there! It come again!”

Not quite forty feet away was another swell. Their aquatic nemesis was pacing the canoes.

Lou gripped Zach's arm and swallowed. “What is that thing up to now?”

“Don't worry,” Zach said, squeezing her. “It won't attack us again.” But he did not feel as certain as he tried to sound.

“That blasted critter is taunting us,” Shakespeare said. “The fiend is rubbing our noses in our defeat.”

“It's a fish,” Nate said again.

“Fish, smish. Have you not been baited by bears? And what about those wolverines that stalked us? Or that time you waged war against a demon of a mountain lion?”

“They were not fish.”

Shakespeare let out an indignant harrumph. “Were I a finny dweller of the deep, I would take exception to your slander. To hear you talk, all fish are by nature dullards and do not share a whit of brain between them.”

“They are fish.”

“By God, say that one more time and I will scream!” Shakespeare declared. “Honestly, Horatio. I don't know what has gotten into you.”

Nate twisted around and gave a pointed look at Louisa and then at McNair. “What was it you once said to me?” He paused. “Now I remember. A great deal of your wit lies in your sinews.”

“Zounds,” Shakespeare said. “Hoisted by my own petard. Does this mean you have changed your mind about smiting the brute?”

Nate resumed paddling and did not answer.

“Verily, this does not bode well.”

Zach said, “I know I have changed my mind. All this over a
fish
? I don't care how big it is.”

“And you don't care about what it did to your wife, either?” Shakespeare asked.

“Don't get me started again.”

The swell continued to pace them until they drew near the west shore, close to Nate's cabin. When they were an arrow's flight out, with typical suddenness the swell shrank to nothing.

“Good riddance!” Lou exclaimed.

The canoes scraped bottom and they clambered out to drag them up onto land.

Shakespeare shook a fist at the lake, bellowing, “You have not seen the last of us, fish! We are in this to the death!” He smiled at the others. “Are you with me?”

No one answered.