In Darkest Depths

“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.