In Darkest Depths

Third Incident

Louisa King was giddy with delight. The past few mornings she had woken up feeling queasy. It was a sign, she hoped, that at long last her dream would come true. But she did not say anything to her husband. She wanted to be certain.

On this particular day, Zach had gone off at daybreak with Shakespeare McNair to hunt. They were low on meat, and the valley teemed with deer.

Louisa spent the morning and early afternoon puttering about their cabin. She washed the breakfast dishes. She picked up the clothes Zach had left lying about. She picked up the bullets and patches he left on the table. She put away the whetstone he left on the counter. She cleaned up the feathers he left lying on the bedroom floor.

If Lou had told him once, she had told him a hundred times not to fletch arrows in their bedroom. But did Zach listen? No. Everything she said to him went in one ear and bounced out again.

If there was anything in all creation more aggravating than men, Lou had yet to come across it. Zach was living proof. He had a knack for irritating her in a hundred and one small ways.

Yet for all that, Lou loved him as she had never loved anyone. He was everything to her: her joy, her peace, her very breath. She could no more imagine life without him than she could imagine life without the sun or the moon.

How strange life could be, Lou mused as she strolled from their cabin to the lake and stood idly admiring the blue sheen of its peaceful surface. When she was young, she’d never expected to fall in love, never figured to take a husband, never believed a man could claim her heart. She thought she would somehow be immune to men. So what if women had been falling in love with them since the dawn of time? She was different. She was special. She was unique.

Lou laughed at her folly. Why was it, she wondered, that people denied their own natures? What made them think the passions that governed the rest of the human race did not govern them? Part of it, she supposed, was just plain silliness. It was ridiculous to imagine that with the millions upon millions of people in the world, and the untold millions who had lived before, that anyone, anywhere, ever had a thought that had not been thought or felt a feeling that had not been felt. It had all been done before. Truly, and literally, there was nothing new under the sun.

A commotion in the water intruded on Lou’s pondering. A short way out, small wavelets were rippling the surface, seeming to rise out of nowhere and for no reason.

Lou moved to the water’s edge for a better look. She was aware of the creature that supposedly lived in the lake. The Kings and the McNairs talked about it often enough. But she had never seen it and would dearly love to.

Opinions varied. Her husband and father-in-law leaned toward the notion that it was a great fish. Blue Water Woman thought it might be something out of Flathead legend. Shakespeare McNair, of late, had taken to calling the thing a monster.

If Lou could see it, she could settle the debate once and for all.

With that in mind, Lou hunkered so there was less chance of the thing seeing her. The wavelets were growing. Whatever was making them, she deduced, was rising toward the surface. She grinned, every nerve taut, excited that she would be the one to solve the mystery.

Something appeared deep down, a dark shape that gave no clue to its identity. Lou had been raised in the wild by her father and had hunted all her life, and she was good at judging size at a distance. But in this instance the best she could conclude was that the thing was longer than a horse and as broad as a buffalo. It boggled her that a fish, if that is what it was, could be so huge.

“Keep coming!” Lou whispered excitedly. “I want a peek at your big self.”

But the thing stayed where it was. Several small fish leaped out of the water and swam frantically off, as if in fear of being eaten.

Louisa rose a bit higher for a better look.

Without warning, the thing exploded into motion and shot toward her at frightening speed. Frozen in surprise, Lou did not think to run. She told herself that she was perfectly safe, that she was on land and the creature was a water dweller.

But then the water swelled upward with astonishing rapidity, creating a wave that bore down on Lou with the swiftness of an avalanche. A foot the wave rose, then a foot and a half. Belatedly, Lou started to turn, but she was only halfway around when the wave slammed into her legs. She was bowled over and fell onto her side, the breath whooshing from her lungs. For a harrowing instant she was engulfed in a cold, wet cocoon. Without thinking, she gulped for air and sucked in water. It got into her mouth, into her nose. Gasping, blinking her eyes to clear them, she groped frantically about.

Suddenly Lou’s arms were seized, and she was swung into the air as if she were weightless. Involuntarily, she cried out, then saw who had seized her. “Oh! Thank goodness!”

Zach had her by the right arm, Shakespeare by the left. Shakespeare was staring at the lake, but her husband only had eyes for her.

Unlike his sister, Evelyn, Zach had slightly more of his mother in him than his father. He was big, like Nate, and broad of shoulder, like Nate, and had green eyes, like Nate, but his black hair and swarthy complexion and facial features were inherited from Winona. He wore buckskins, and was a walking armory.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Lou said, embarrassed by her lapse and annoyed that she was soaking wet. She shrugged loose of them. “You are back sooner than I expected.”

“Forget that,” Zach said, and motioned at the water. “What in God’s name happened?”

“I saw it,” Shakespeare said.

Zach glanced at him. “What?”

“I saw it!” Shakespeare repeated. “For just a second there, before it dived, I saw the thing that lives in the lake.”

“I saw it, too,” Lou said. “But I can’t tell you what I saw.”

Zach looked her up and down and then at the lake, and scowled. “I would like to see it,” he said, and wagged his rifle. “Up close, so I can kill it.”

“I don’t know as it meant to harm me,” Lou said.

“I don’t care,” Zach said. “Nothing hurts you and lives.”

Louisa tenderly touched his cheek. “My protector. But there is not much we can do. It’s too big to catch and it hardly ever comes to the surface for us to shoot it. I say we leave it be.”

“If a bear broke into our cabin while we were away, I would not let the bear live because it might come back when we were there,” Zach said. “If a mountain lion stalked our horses, I would hunt it down and shoot it before it killed one of them. This is no different.”

“No harm was done,” Lou stressed. Then she remembered her morning sickness and the time an aunt lost a baby early on when she fell from a wagon. Pressing a hand to her belly, Lou said, “At least, I hope no harm was done.”

“What are you—?” Zach began, and gripped her by the shoulders. “Wait! Are you saying what I think you are saying? You are with child?”

“What’s that?” Shakespeare said.

Louisa was disappointed that her surprise might have been spoiled. “I can’t say for sure yet, but some of the signs are there, yes.”

Whooping for joy, Zach swept her into his arms and spun her in a circle. “A son! We might have a son!”

“Or a daughter,” Lou said.

“A boy to teach to ride and shoot and hunt!” Zach said happily.

“Or a daughter,” Lou said again. It bothered her that whenever the subject of having a baby came up, he always assumed it would be male.

Shakespeare put a hand on her arm. “You better let Winona and my wife have a look at you.”

“I’m fine,” Lou said. “Besides I’m not certain yet. And I would rather not tell anyone until I know for sure.”

“We will keep your secret, but it never hurts to be safe,” Shakespeare cautioned, and bestowed a grim glance on the water. “Which is why I can’t put it off any longer.”

“What are you talking about?” Zach asked.

“That thing,” Shakespeare said with a nod. “Whatever it is we keep glimpsing and hearing. It could have killed Lou just now.”

“You are making more out of it than there was,” Lou assured him.

“I am entitled to my opinion,” Shakespeare replied. “And in my opinion, this has gone on long enough. We must find out what it is. Better yet, we must prevent it from ever harming us.”

“I call that overreacting,” Louisa said.

“I call it prudent,” Shakespeare countered. “What if you are right and you are with child?”

Louisa laughed. “I’m pretty sure Zach is the father and not the thing in the lake.”

“Poke fun if you want,” Shakespeare said. “But if you have a child, he or she will want to play near the water or go for a swim. What happens if the creature does to your offspring what it just did to you?”

“I never thought of that,” Lou admitted, troubled at the prospect.

“That is why you young folks need me and my white hair around,” Shakespeare said. “So you can benefit from my wisdom.” He paused. “I have made up my mind. I am going to find out once and for all what that thing is.”