In Darkest Depths (9 page)

Warmth revived him. Blessed, wonderful warmth on his face and neck showed he was still alive.

Shakespeare McNair opened his eyes and squinted against the harsh glare of the midday sun. His face was warm, but the rest of him was cold and wet and a patchwork of pain. Blinking in the bright sunlight, he raised his head and looked about him.

The storm had ended. Far to the east a few thunderheads were visible, but otherwise the vault of sky was a pristine blue. So, too, the lake. The waves had stilled and the surface was undisturbed save for cavorting waterfowl.

“Thank God,” Shakespeare croaked, his throat raw, his voice not sounding at all like it should.

The next fact he established was that he was somewhere in the middle of the lake. That he had survived at all was in no small measure due to a fluke of circumstance some might call a miracle.

The dugout was floating upside down in the water. His head, right shoulder, and right arm lay across one end. Were it not for being buoyed by the canoe, he would surely have drowned.

But how had it happened? Shakespeare wondered. The last thing he remembered was being pitched
into the water. He remembered, too, hearing a loud splash that must have been the canoe crashing down next to him. The only explanation he could think of was that the canoe had gone under and bobbed back up—directly under him.

“I'll be switched,” Shakespeare said, amazed at his deliverance. He patted the bottom of the dugout. Here he had poked fun at it for being a turtle in the water, and the turtle had saved his life.

But his ordeal was far from over. He had lost both paddles. He had lost his knife and his rifle and the harpoons and the net. Worse, he had lost the parfleche with his food. The lantern, too, and they only had the one. Blue Water Woman would take him to task for his carelessness.

He was alive, though, and that was the important thing. Smiling, he sat up, pleased to find he had feeling again in his left forearm. His wrist hurt where the rope had dug into his skin, but his fingers wriggled as they should. Both pistols were still tucked tight under his belt, but the soaking had rendered them useless. His ammunition pouch, powder-horn, and possibles bag had likewise been under water.

Shakespeare sought some sign of land. All he saw was water and more water. Overhead, a gull screeched. Glancing up, he said in jest, “Fetch help, will you?”

Something brushed his left foot.

Shakespeare peered into the water, but it was like peering into a mirror. He saw his reflection, not whatever had brushed against him. He moved his legs back and forth, but it was gone.

A fish, Shakespeare thought. A
small
fish. Nothing for him to worry about. His first priority was to right the dugout. To that end, he slid off and tread water
and put his hands under the canoe. He figured it would be easy to flip over, but when he tried he could only lift it half a foot or so. It was just too heavy. On land he might be able to, but not in the water.

Shakespeare sighed. Here he'd thought his luck had turned. He slid his arms farther under the canoe and bunched his shoulder muscles for all he was worth, but all he did was set his gash to throbbing.

Shivering from the cold, Shakespeare reached up to pull himself out of the water. But the smooth hull defied his grasp. The Nansusequa had stripped the bark, and the hull was as smooth as glass. He had nothing to hold on to.

“When it rains, it pours,” Shakespeare muttered. He had to get out of the water. The longer he was in it, the colder he would become. He might become so cold he could barely move, and once that happened, it was a slow sink to the bottom, and oblivion.

“If I ever go out on this lake again, someone should shoot me,” Shakespeare said to the canoe. He refused to give up. Moving to the near end, he extended both arms and tried to wriggle and shimmy his way higher. His soaked buckskins were so slick that twice he slipped back, but at length he had half his body on the dugout. All it would take was for him to swing a leg up.

Then something brushed against his foot. Again. Shakespeare glanced down. There could be no mistake. It was not his imagination. “Surely not,” he said.

As if in answer, ten yards away a swell rose. A small one, but since the wind had died, it could only be caused by one thing.

Shakespeare scrambled higher and slipped back. He tried again and again, and each time it was the same. The whole time, the swell circled the canoe,
coming closer with each pass. It was within six feet when desperation lent him extra strength. He got a leg up out of the water. That was all the extra leverage he needed.

Prone on the overturned dugout, Shakespeare watched the swell go around and around. “What are you up to, devil fish?” To reach him it would have to show itself; he half hoped it would. One look. One good look was all he wanted.

The hiss of the swell again reminded Shakespeare of the hiss of a snake. He considered using a flintlock, but his pistols were so waterlogged they would surely misfire. He turned his head in time to see the swell slow and fade as its source sank. But the fish did not dive. It hovered just below the surface. Shakespeare had the impression it was studying him even as he was trying to study it. He prodded his memory, but he had never heard of a fish that behaved like this one. None in his personal experience, either, unless he counted the time a bass paced the bull boat he was in.

“What do you want, damn you?” Shakespeare asked the great shadowy bulk. His life, most likely. But the fish would have to work for it. He was too fond of living to give up without a struggle.

Shakespeare rested his cheek on his hand. The fish could float there all day. He needed to get to land and out of his wet buckskins. “Come closer so I can shoot you.”

As if it had heard, the fish swam nearer.

Shakespeare strained his eyes trying to make out details. The thing was so close he could almost reach down and touch it, and all he saw was shadow. Impulsively, he flung out a hand, and the shadow moved back out of reach.

“You are toying with me, damn you.”

Suddenly the shadow erupted into motion, making another circuit of the canoe.

Taking a gamble, Shakespeare slid further down and clutched at the swell. He could not quite reach it.

Determined not to be thwarted, Shakespeare eased lower still and held his arm a few inches above the surface. The swell reappeared, sweeping around the other end of the canoe, and he smiled. He had outfoxed the finny so-and-so. Spreading his fingers, he thrust them at the onrushing water. In a twinkling his hand was immersed and he flailed about for a solid body, but all he felt was water. “Impossible!” he bellowed.

Not if the fish had dived just as he reached for it. Shakespeare had forgotten how ungodly quick the thing was. Despite its size, it was aquatic quicksilver.

The surface was once again smooth and serene.

Shakespeare clambered back up. He was tired of the cat and mouse. Most especially, he was tired of being the mouse. It was high time he used the one advantage he had over the fish: his mind. Used it right, since so far the fish had gotten the better of him at every turn. “No more,” he vowed.

Shakespeare drew one of his flintlocks, thumbed back the hammer, and squeezed the trigger. As he expected, there was a
click
and nothing more. A misfire, thanks to the soaking he'd taken.

One eye on the lake, Shakespeare cleaned the weapon as best he was able, given that he did not have a dry cloth to work with. He used his sleeve to wipe the pan clean of the wet powder, then puffed to dry it, and blew down the barrel a number of times.

Opening his powder horn, Shakespeare carefully upended it over his palm. Powder trickled out.
Some was wet and some was not. He cast it over the side. He poured another handful and cast that over the side. A third handful had enough dry grains to suit him.

Shakespeare reloaded. Sliding the ramrod from its housing, he tamped a ball down the barrel. Since all his patches were soaked, he did without. The pistol should fire. He just needed to wait until the fish was right on top of him.

Waiting. That was the key. Shakespeare scanned the surface in all directions, fervently hoping the fish would come back. The minutes dragged, and he was about convinced it wouldn't, when forty yards out the swell reappeared, rising until it was a foot high. As before, the fish circled the dugout.

Shakespeare extended the flintlock but he did not shoot.
Wait
, he told himself.
Wait, wait, wait
. As the fish had done the last time, the circles were narrowing. From forty yards to thirty-five and from thirty-five to thirty. At twenty yards Shakespeare fidgeted with excitement. At ten yards his palms were sweating.

Keep coming!
Shakespeare mentally shouted. Another circle or two and it would be close enough. He thumbed back the hammer.

The next time the fish swept past, it was only five yards out.

Shakespeare intended to shoot it in the head. The only other way was the heart, and he could not be sure of hitting it. As huge as the creature was, the ball might not even penetrate far enough to reach it.

Another circle, and now the fish was only four yards from Shakespeare when the swell hissed by.

Shakespeare did not move. He remembered the
time he squatted motionless for over two hours when he was after a bighorn. Compared to that, this was nothing. He sighted down the barrel and grinned when the swell filled his vision.

Only three yards out.

Then two.

Shakespeare licked his lips, but he had no spit to wet them with. His mouth was dry. He held the flintlock with both hands to steady it.

Only a yard separated the dugout from the swell as the fish coursed by for what would be the next to last time.

Shakespeare leaned down so the flintlock was practically touching the water. He shifted, eyes glued to the end of the canoe where the fish would reappear. Inwardly, he ticked off the seconds:
one, two
,
three
,
four, five
. The swell swept into sight and hissed toward him. This time the fish was practically rubbing the canoe.

Shakespeare had it dead to rights. His elbows locked, he held his breath and lightly curled his finger around the trigger. He was primed to fire.

Then the unexpected happened.

The swell slowed and split down the middle as a pea pod might split, revealing peas of a different sort: the creature's eyes. Its head rose into plain sight, and those eyes, a pair of golden peas with black in their centers, gazed up at Shakespeare. Their eyes met.

Shakespeare gasped. His whole body trembled.

The fish had stopped and was floating there, staring. It made no attempt to attack.

“No!” Shakespeare said softly.

With an almost casual sweep of its powerful tail, the fish dived.

Shakespeare stared at the bubbles that marked its
descent. He lowered the pistol and slowly let down the hammer.

Confused, doubting he had seen what he thought he saw, Shakespeare bowed his head. He sat perfectly still for the longest while. Finally, seemingly apropos of nothing, he remarked out loud, “As God is my witness, I would never have guessed.”

The lake was still, the waterfowl momentarily silent. Shakespeare surveyed the blue expanse and shuddered. But not because he was still damp and the breeze was brisk. He said, “What do I do now?”

He held up the pistol and laughed. Wedging it under his belt, he swiveled onto his belly and slowly dipped his feet and legs into the water until he was half in and half out. Reaching down to grip the sides, he began kicking.

The dugout moved at a crawl, but it moved. Shakespeare reckoned it would take him the rest of the day and the better part of the night to reach land, but by God, reach it he would.

Shakespeare chuckled. A great weight had been taken off his shoulders. He sought a suitable quote to mark the occasion, but for the first time in a coon's age, he could not come up with one.

Several teal swam near and Shakespeare smiled and waved to them. “Wonderful,” he muttered as he lowered his hand. “I am behaving like a perfect idiot.”

His cold leg muscles were protesting and his hips were hurting, but Shakespeare ignored the pain and went on kicking. He wanted solid ground under him, wanted it more than he had just about ever wanted anything. He promised himself that if he made it back, he would fight shy of canoes for the rest of his born days. He thought of what he had almost done,
and unbidden, a quote tripped from his tongue: “O monstrous arrogance. Thou liest, thou thread, thou thimble, thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail, thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket thou!”

He was not talking about the fish.

He was talking about himself.

A sustained hiss drew Shakespeare's attention to the return of the swell some sixty feet out.

“You again! I have made my peace! Leave me be! Don't remind an old man of his folly.”

But the swell grew. It started to circle and then swung slowly toward the dugout.

“What the devil!” Shakespeare hollered. “Go eat a duck, damn you!” Expecting the swell to swerve, he made no attempt to push clear.

But the swell didn't swerve. It bore down on the canoe, rapidly gaining speed.

Appalled by the enormity of his mistake, Shakespeare shook a fist in the air. “Don't you dare! Do you hear me? Don't you dare!”

The swell kept on coming.

The canoes were gone.

Nate King stood at the spot they should be, consternation flooding through him. Any hope he had of finding Shakespeare quickly had been shredded. The hurricane-force winds had sent the canoes out onto the lake, where the waves had carried them off or sunk them. But the storm was not entirely to blame. Part of the fault was his. He should have come back when the storm first hit and dragged them higher.

Hoping against hope, Nate scoured the lake, but all he saw were geese and ducks and gulls.

Nate had to get out there. He racked his brain for an idea. Building a new canoe would take too long. But there was something else he could build, something that would only take a couple of hours. With a little luck, he could complete it before the women returned and demanded to go with him.

Turning, Nate raced for his cabin. He saddled his bay and led it from the corral. Then he collected his axe and all the rope he had, climbed on, and galloped toward the woods. He knew right where to find a stand of slim pines ideal for his purpose.
Bigger trees would provide bigger logs and be safer, but felling and trimming them would take most of the day.

Rolling up his sleeves, Nate gripped the heavy axe and went to work. He swung with steady, practiced strokes, the axe biting deep. After each tree toppled, he removed the branches and shoots. He worked as fast as he could, but worry made his frantic pace seem much too slow.

Four trees were down and Nate was chopping a fifth when a feeling came over him that he was being watched. He had learned the hard way never to ignore his intuition, and he glanced up, reckoning a deer or an elk or some other animal had strayed by. But the watcher was two-legged. “You!”

“I'm happy to see you, too, Pa,” Zach said dryly. He gestured at the downed saplings. “Why do you need firewood at this time of year?”

Instead of answering Nate asked, “What are you doing here? What about Lou? Should you have left her alone?”

“She practically threw me out of our cabin,” Zach reported. “She was fine this morning when we woke up except for feeling a bit queasy. She sent me over to get some of those sage leaves Ma keeps on hand.”

The Shoshones chewed the leaves for stomach upsets. Nate had used them on occasion himself. “I am not chopping firewood. I'm making a raft, and I could use your help.”

“A raft?” Zach repeated.

Nate explained about Shakespeare taking the dugout and going back out on the lake by his lonesome. “We fear he was caught in the storm,” he concluded.

“I saw some of it out my window—” Zach said, and stopped. “Dear God, Pa. Some of those waves had to be three feet high. No one could survive.”

“We don't know that,” Nate said angrily, and swung again, sending slivers flying. “Start hauling these to the lake. With your help I can get done in half the time.”

“Sure thing. Lou will understand. She cares about that old grump as much as we do.”

Nate doubted anyone other than Blue Water Woman was as fond of McNair as he was. He owed Shakespeare more than any man could ever repay. When he first came to the Rockies, he was as green as grass and would not have lived through his first winter if not for McNair's sage advice and kind help. Their bond of friendship had grown to where Nate regarded Shakespeare as more of father than a friend. His real father had always been cold and aloof, completely unlike Shakespeare. Nate sometimes wished his father had been more like his mentor, but then Nate might never have left New York for the wilds of the frontier. He would never have met Winona, never had Evelyn and Zach.

Nate was glad he had come West. He had seen things few men ever saw, lived as few men ever lived. He would not trade his experiences for all the jade in China. Yes, life in the wilderness was fraught with danger, but every pearl, it was said, came at great price, and the pearl of true freedom, of being able to live as he wanted without let or hindrance, was worth the perils that had to be overcome.

“Pa?”

Nate realized his son was trying to get his attention. He looked up. “What is it?”

“You can stop chopping,” Zach said, and pointed.

Blue Water Woman was riding along the water's edge toward Nate's cabin. She had a rope in one hand. The other end was tied to a bark canoe she was pulling after her.

“Let's go,” Nate said. Hastening to the bay, he climbed on and galloped to meet her. She spotted them, and was off her horse and untying the rope from the canoe when they reined to a stop.

“Where did you find it?” Nate asked as he alighted.

“Washed up on the shore.” Blue Water Woman glanced at where the canoes had been before the storm struck. “There wasn't one for you to use? It is a good thing I brought it, then.”

“I was making a raft,” Nate explained. He looked in the canoe; the paddles were missing. He mentioned the loss, adding, “I have one at my place. But only one,” he emphasized.

Blue Water Woman patted the canoe. “Finding this is an omen. I am going with you, and I will not brook no for an answer.” Something more than simple anxiety was telling her she must hasten out on the lake after her man.

“What about me?” Zach asked.

“You were fetching sage for Louisa, remember?” Nate reminded him. He was unhappy with Blue Water Woman's decision, but he had no right to stop her.

“She won't mind if I help out.”

“Three in the canoe would be too crowded.”

Blue Water Woman looked at Nate and impatiently motioned to the water. “Why are we still standing here? Hurry and fetch that paddle.”

The breeze was at their backs when they pushed off. Nate knelt in the bow; Blue Water Woman was in the stern, her hands clasped in her lap. To look at
her, at how calm she was, no one would guess what she must have been going through.

“You are holding up better than I am,” Nate commented, as he dipped the paddle in the water and stroked.

“Have you ever been attacked by a mountain lion?” Blue Water Woman asked.

Nate recalled a harrowing encounter he'd had with one of the big cats years ago. “Yes. Why?”

“There is a mountain lion loose inside me. It is ripping my stomach and clawing my heart, and if we do not find my Carcajou, it will tear me apart.”

The lake spread out in a blue-green sheen before them. Here and there were ducks, singly and in pairs and squadrons. Geese honked and plunged their long necks into the lake after fish. Gulls wheeled white in the sky, their high-pitched cries letting the world know they were there.

Blue Water Woman shielded her eyes from the glare and peered all about. “Where is he?”

“We will find him,” Nate said, more to boost her spirits than out of an unshakable conviction that they would.

“Were it not for his white hairs, I would do as white women do with their young and put him over my knee and spank him.”

“Spank him anyway,” Nate said. “It would serve him right.”

Blue Water Woman mustered a grin to be polite. “I have never understood that.”

“What?” Nate said, preoccupied with ripples to the northeast he could not account for.

“Hitting a child. My people think it is bad medicine. So do the Shoshones.”

“I know,” Nate said. Shortly after Winona had announced
she was pregnant for the first time, they sat down and talked about how they wished they could tell whether the baby was a boy or a girl, and what names they liked, and how they would go about rearing it, no matter which it was. At one point he had joked, “If we have a daughter, you will have to do the spanking. I could spank a boy, but never a girl.”

Winona had asked him what spanking was, and when he explained, she had recoiled in horror, then went on to say that for a Shoshone, the idea was unthinkable. “Hit a child and you wound their heart for life.”

“I turned out all right,” Nate told her. “And my father tarred the dickens out of me at least once a week.”

Appalled, Winona insisted there would be no tarring in the King family. Nate, as he always did, respected her wishes. But there had been times—

“Nate?” Blue Water Woman said. “Do you see them, too?”

Nate nodded. She was referring to the ripples he had noticed. They had grown in number and size. Something under the surface was agitating the water. Something big, by the looks of it.

“Could it be the water devil?”

Nate had been wondering the same thing. He steered the canoe toward them and almost immediately the ripples vanished.

Blue Water Woman sat forward and declared, “It
is
the water devil!”

Nate was not so sure. It could be anything. Plenty of big, ordinary fish inhabited the lake. He came to the approximate spot and leaned over to probe the depths, but it was like trying to see the bottom of a well.

Blue Water Woman was bent over the other side. “Do you see anything? Anything at all?”

“No.” Nate resumed stroking. The splash of his paddle and the honking of nearby geese nearly drowned out a loud splash. He looked but saw only ripples.

“What was that?”

“A fish,” Nate said. “The kind we like to fry in a pan.”

“I thought I saw a fin,” Blue Water Woman said. “A huge fin,” she emphasized. “It must be the water devil. It has killed my husband, and now it is after us.”

“You are jumping to conclusions,” Nate warned. Which for her was unusual. Out of all of them, she had always been the most level-headed. Even more so than his wife.

“It will return,” Blue Water Woman predicted. “When it does, you will see for yourself.” She put a hand on the pistol at her waist. “For what it has done to my husband, it deserves to die.”

“There you go again,” Nate said. “Sit back, will you?” Her weight was not enough to tip the canoe, but she was leaning much too far out.

“There!” Blue Water Woman exclaimed, jabbing a finger. “I told you!”

All Nate saw were a few small ripples. “That could be a minnow,” he teased her.

“I saw the head. It was peeking at us.”

“Peeking?” Nate repeated, and chuckled.

“That is not the right word?” Blue Water Woman took pride in her mastery of the white tongue. She was not as adept as Winona, but she flattered herself that she spoke it fluently.

Nate went on chuckling. “It fits, I suppose.” But the notion was as silly as a grizzly bear peeking
from behind a tree. “Whatever it is, it's not bothering us.” He rose higher to search directly ahead. “We shouldn't forget why we are out here.”

“As if I ever could,” Blue Water Woman said somberly. Long ago she had accepted that one day she might lose her husband. He was older, and he insisted on taking risks men his age should not take. But she had never imagined it would end like
this
. As she had been doing all morning, she reached out with her heart, seeking some sign that he was still alive. Often when he was away from her, she could feel him deep inside, but now she felt only a strange coldness. That, more than anything else, scared her, scared her terribly.

“When we find him we will have a good laugh over all of this,” Nate remarked.

“Have you been drinking?”

Nate snorted. He was not much for hard liquor. Every now and again he treated himself to a little brandy, usually on a winter's eve in front of the fireplace, but that was the extent of it. “I rarely do and you—”

The canoe gave an abrupt lurch, as if they had collided with a submerged object. Instantly, Nate dipped the paddle in to bring them to a stop, then checked on both sides. “What was that?”

“The water devil.” Blue Water Woman did not look. She drew her pistol and held it in her lap.

Nate continued paddling. They went ten feet without incident—twenty feet—thirty. Some of the tension started to drain from him. Suddenly the canoe gave another lurch. He started to bend over the gunwale. There was a loud
bump
from below, and the canoe rose out of the water a few inches and settled back again.

“Do you believe me now, Horatio?”

Under less harrowing circumstances Nate would have laughed. She never call him that. Only Shakespeare did. “I believe you.”

Ripples appeared in front of them and moved slowly off to the east.

“Follow it,” Blue Water Woman directed.

“But Shakespeare—”

“If he were alive, I would know.” Blue Water Woman raised her pistol. “Understand this. I intend to kill it. You can help, or I will come back out by myself. Either way, it is going to die.”

Nate did not reply. But she was not thinking straight. Her pistol would have no more effect than a pebble. He stroked harder, regretting that they did not have a harpoon.

“Faster,” Blue Water Woman urged. “Bring us up next to it.”

“What good will that do?” Nate asked. But he did as she wanted. The ripples were moving so slowly that he easily caught up and paced them. “Now what?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder. He thought she would take a shot. But she had something else in mind.

Blue Water Woman set her pistol down and drew her knife. In a swift, fluid movement, she stood, whipped her dress off over her head, dropped it at her feet, and dived over the side.