In Darkest Depths

First Clash

“What do you think of our craft, Horatio?”

On his knees in the stern, Nate King smoothly stroked his paddle. He had used canoes before, in particular a Shoshone canoe that belonged to Touch the Clouds, his wife’s cousin. The difference between the Shoshone canoe and the Nansusequa canoe was as night and day. The former was small and light and fast and responded superbly to every dip of the paddle; the latter was big and heavy and cumbersome, all of which combined to give it the speed and response of a brick. And because it was so heavy, the gunwales rode low to the water, barely a foot above the surface. A high wave might easily swamp them.

“I didn’t hear you…” Shakespeare McNair prompted.

“It will do,” was the best Nate could come up with.

“I think of everything, if I do say so myself,” Shakespeare crowed. He indicated the net piled between them. “We should practice, so when the moment of truth comes we will be ready.”

“You really expect to catch the thing with that?”

“Why else are we doing this if not to catch it and kill it?” Shakespeare responded.

Nate slowed in his stroking. “I thought you just wanted to learn what it is. What is this talk of killing?”

“Since when do you mind getting rid of an animal that could prove a menace?” Shakespeare rejoined. “You killed that grizzly, remember? And we had to make worm food of those wolverines.”

“The griz tried to break into our cabin, and those wolverines were out for our blood,” Nate noted. “I have no quarrel with this water devil, or whatever it is.”

“You will change your mind. Wait and see.” Shakespeare scanned the lake. They were drawing near where the mallard and the teal had been taken.

“I had no idea you were so bloodthirsty,” Nate teased. Only, now that he thought about it, he recalled that McNair had urged him to slay the grizzly the day they arrived in the valley. Other instances came to mind, leading him to say, “You like to nip danger in the bud, is that it?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Shakespeare admitted. He knew of too many men and women, red and white, who had lost their lives because they did not take a threat seriously enough.

“The water devil does not need nipping,” Nate said. “The thing never comes up on land. We have nothing to worry about.”

“We don’t know that it always stays in the water,” Shakespeare pointed out. “We assume it does.”

“If it’s a fish, we leave it alone.”

Shakespeare twisted to look at him. “Where is your sense of adventure? Of sport?”

“I only kill when I have to,” Nate said. “To feed my family or protect them, or to defend myself.”

“You have never hunted for hunting’s sake?”

Nate answered honestly. “When I was younger, yes, but only a few times.” He was well aware that most men did not share his view. Most liked to hunt and fish for the challenge and the thrill. He suspected he had his mother to thank for his outlook; she would never harm so much as a fly.

“What do these feathered yacks think they are doing?” Shakespeare wondered.

A dozen buffleheads had swum into their path. Shakespeare applied his paddle to veer the dugout around them, but it was slow to respond. Fortunately, the nervous buffleheads swam faster. He waited until the canoe was clear to say, “I have hunted since I was old enough to hold a gun and fished since I was old enough to swing a pole. To me this critter is no different than any other. I aim to catch it, come what may.”

“If you ask me—” Nate began, and stopped. To their north, perhaps forty feet away and just under the surface, something was moving. Something big. He pointed and exclaimed, “Do you see what I see?”

“By my troth!” Shakespeare blurted. Thanks to the play of the bright sunlight on the surface and the dark murk below, he could not be entirely sure of what he was seeing.

“Is that the thing we are after?”

“There is only one way to find out,” Shakespeare said, and sheared his paddle so the canoe swung toward it. He had brought the spyglass, but it was under his buckskin shirt, and anyway, another half dozen strokes and they would be near enough to have a good look. “Faster!” he urged, stroking harder.

“Maybe we shouldn’t get too close,” Nate cautioned.

“Nonsense.” Shakespeare leaned forward, eager for a better look. But the creature was no longer there. He stopped paddling and looked on both sides of the canoe, but it was gone. “Damnation!”

Secretly, Nate was glad. He was worried his friend might draw a pistol and shoot the thing.

“Where in blazes did it get to?” Shakespeare leaned farther out. The sunlight penetrated about six feet down. Below that lay the shadowy realm of the unknown.

“Off to take a nap.”

Shakespeare ignored the barb. He had a new habit of dozing off after big meals. Eating brought on a lassitude he could not shake. “If you are going to pick at me with your bowie, the least you could—” He abruptly stopped.

Down in the dark, something had moved. A giant shape was almost directly below them and rising fast.

“There!” Shakespeare cried.

“Paddle!” Nate shouted. He did so, but he had only stroked twice before the canoe gave a violent lurch and lifted half a foot out of the water. Grabbing the sides, he clung on as the canoe smacked back down with a loud whomp and water splashed in.

The creature promptly disappeared.

“Did you see him, Horatio!” Shakespeare said, laughing in delight. “Did you see the size of him?”

Nate had seen little beyond the suggestion of great bulk. “We need to get out of here.”

“No! It might come back.”

“That’s what I am afraid of.” Nate peered down, and sure enough, the bulk was rising toward them again. “It is going to hit us again!”

The next instant the creature did just that, this time striking the bow. Shakespeare grabbed hold of the prow as the canoe once again canted up out of the water and came smashing down with a gigantic splash.

The creature was already gone.

Nate could not get out of there fast enough. He worked his paddle furiously, then saw that instead of helping, Shakespeare was laughing. “We need to go! We need to go now!”

Still shaking with mirth, Shakespeare said, “Be at ease, Horatio. The canoe is too heavy to tip over. We are safe enough.”

“Like hell,” Nate said. He had the impression that the creature had not really tried to upend them. So far. “You might have a death wish, but I do not. Paddle, consarn you!”

“You would worry a wart to death,” Shakespeare said, and reluctantly dipped his paddle.

Nate chafed at how slowly the canoe turned. Once the bow was pointed toward shore, he pumped his arms, spray flying from under his paddle. McNair, however, was more intent on peering over the sides and only half exerting himself.

“Why am I doing all the work?”

“Because I have yet to get a good look at it,” Shakespeare said. “And unlike you, I have not yellowed my britches.”

“It’s only common sense,” Nate said angrily.

An unusual sound behind them, a sibilant sort of hiss that reminded Nate of nothing so much as the hiss of a snake, made him snap his head around. Sixty feet out, and closing, was a growing swell such as they had occasionally witnessed from shore. “It’s after us!”

Shakespeare swiveled, and cackled. “I do believe it is! What a stroke of luck!”

“Did you leave your common sense at home today?” Nate asked, applying himself to his paddle with renewed vigor. “Help, damn it!”

“Mercy me, the language you use!” Shakespeare said, but he bent to his paddle with a strength uncommon for someone who had seen as many years as he had.

“I did not count on this!” Nate said. He’d figured the creature, whatever it was, would fight shy of them. But not only was it not scared of them, twice it had bumped them from below, and now it appeared to be bearing down on them with the clear intent of ramming the dugout.

Shakespeare’s grin faded. He had not counted on this, either. Here he had been trying for days to come up with a way to lure the thing to them, and it had proven ridiculously easy. All they had to do was venture out on the lake. Getting back to land now posed the problem. His cockiness to the contrary, they were at a severe disadvantage. Their adversary was in its natural element; they were out of theirs. It did not help that their canoe was as slow as molasses.

The hissing grew louder.

Nate glanced over his shoulder. The swell was only thirty feet away, and closing. The water the creature displaced, cascading over its huge form, was the source of the hissing. “It’s gaining!”

Shakespeare could see that for himself. As big and heavy as the canoe was, the creature was bigger and likely heavier. If it should strike them at full speed, the result would not be pleasant. He glued his eyes to the swell, and when it was only six feet from the stern, he bawled, “To the right, Horatio! Swing us out of its way!”

Nate exerted every sinew in his body. The hissing became even louder, eclipsing all sound except the hammering of his heart. He nearly whooped for joy when the dugout angled to one side and the swell went hurtling past.

“We did it!” Shakespeare shouted.

Nate yipped in delight.

But their elation proved premature.

The swell subsided as the creature began to submerge. But just when it appeared the thing would sink out of sight and go on its way, the leading edge of the swell began to turn, and as it turned, it grew in size.

“It’s circling back at us!” Nate exclaimed.

Shakespeare experienced a twinge of regret. He would hate for Nate to come to harm when it had been his brainstorm to come out after the thing. He suspected Nate had tagged along more out of concern for him than from an abiding interest in the creature.

“Paddle harder!”

Shakespeare shifted. God in heaven, the thing is fast! It would be on them in no time. He stroked his paddle like a man possessed.

Nate was doing the same.

The shore was impossibly far away. They would never reach it in time. Desperate to keep from being rammed, Shakespeare stopped paddling and swooped his hand to his waist.

“What are you doing?”

Shakespeare did not answer. He whipped out a flintlock and thumbed back the hammer. He aimed for the front of the swell, for where he figured the creature’s head would be.

Nate froze with his paddle partway raised. A ‘No!’ was on the tip of his tongue, but he did not give voice to the shout.

Shakespeare fired. At the blast the pistol spewed smoke and lead. He thought he saw the slug strike the water. But the swell—and the creature—kept coming. He grabbed for his other pistol, determined to stop it if he could. As his fingers wrapped around the hardwood, a miracle occurred: the swell changed direction and passed within spitting distance of their canoe.

Nate was mesmerized. He longed to see the creature clearly, but all he saw was moving water and a dark silhouette. He caught sign of a fin, or imagined he did, and then the thing was past and the swell was rapidly dwindling as its source dived for the depths. The hissing faded. In seconds there was nothing to mark the creature’s passage beyond ripples and a few frothy bubbles.

“That was close,” Shakespeare said, exhaling in relief.

“You wounded it or scared it off,” Nate said, grateful whichever the case might be.

“Did you get a good look at it?”

“No. Did you?”

“Would that I had.”

“All that we just went through and we still have no idea what we are up against.”

“If it had struck us…” Nate let the statement dangle.

“Our broken bodies would have washed up on shore in a day or two and my wife would get to tell mine she told me so,” Shakespeare said with a grin. Sobering, he lowered the pistol he had not realized he was still pointing at the water. “Do you still doubt that it is dangerous?”

“It can be,” Nate allowed. “But so long as we stay off the lake, we should be fine.”

“Then I take it you are going to ride over to Waku’s and tell him and his family they can’t fish anymore. And after that, you will go over to your son’s and inform Zach and Lou that there will be no more swimming or bathing in the lake. Winona and Evelyn will need to—”

“I get the point,” Nate broke in.

“So what will it be? Do we let the critter alone, or do we make the lake safe for us and our kin? What wouldst thou of us, Trojan?”

“I am from Troy now?”

Shakespeare quoted, “A true knight, not yet mature, yet matchless; firm of word, speaking in deeds, and deedless in his tongue; not soon provoked, nor being provoked soon calmed.” He paused. “Have you been provoked, sir? Is it war or is it peace?”

“It is war,” Nate King said.