In Darkest Depths

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.

Devious to The Bone

Shakespeare McNair took to lying in bed as eagerly as he would to lying on broken glass. He could not wait to get up and get on with his campaign against the lurker in the depths, but his wife insisted he rest while she went to make tea. He wanted coffee, but she said tea would be better for him.

“This is a fine state of affairs,” Shakespeare groused to her departing back, “when a man my age is treated like a one-year-old.”

From the doorway Blue Water Woman replied, “I would put—what do white women call them? Ah, yes. I would put diapers on you if we had any.”

“I wouldst thou did itch from head to foot,” Shakespeare quoted. “And I would not lift a finger to help you scratch.” But his barb was wasted; he was alone. With a sigh of annoyance he clasped his hands behind his head and propped his head in his hands and his hands on the pillow.

Shakespeare felt terrible about the outcome of the day’s effort: Louisa nearly drowned, him only slightly less waterlogged, and two canoes destroyed. “Not exactly a success,” he said to the ceiling. He had planned so carefully, too. The extra canoes, the harpoons—they should have been enough, but they weren’t. They should have done the job, but they didn’t.

The fault did not lie with them. They had done all that was humanly possible. Their mistake, if it could be called that, was in going out to engage an enemy they knew nothing about. Ignorance had been the cause of their downfall. ‘Know thy enemy’ was coined for a reason.

What did they know? Shakespeare asked himself. What had they learned so far? He mentally ticked off the short list: they knew the creature was a fish, they knew harpoons were useless against it, and they knew it would fight, and fight fiercely, in defense of its domain.

“Not much, is it?” Shakespeare continued his conversation with the rafters. Certainly, none of their paltry knowledge would help him destroy the thing. Frowning, he closed his eyes and tried to relax, but he was asking the impossible of his racing mind.

“There has to be something,” Shakespeare said. Again he went over his list: it was a fish, it had the temperament of a mad bull, it was more intelligent—in his opinion—than any fish he ever heard of, it liked to eat ducks, it stayed in the—

Shakespeare sat up. “It likes to eat ducks,” he said out loud. Or was it, he mused, that the thing was partial to meat covered in feathers? He chuckled, an idea taking form. He was still contemplating when Blue Water Woman returned, bearing a tray with the cup of the tea she had promised, along with a steaming bowl of soup.

“What is this, wench? The condemned man is treated to a last meal?”

“What are you babbling about?

“Were I a building, I would be on the verge of ruin,” Shakespeare said, moving his arms so she could set the tray in his lap.

“Does this have anything to do with your silly notion that you are being treated like a child?”

Shakespeare tugged at his white mane. “You don’t see infants with a mop of snow.”

“We are back to that again.”

“To what?”

“Never mind.” Blue Water Woman tapped the saucer. “I put toza in the tea.”

Shakespeare did not need to ask why. He was familiar with dozens of Indian remedies, everything from bitterroot for sore throats to juniper berries for bladder problems to the root of the horse-tail plant for sores. Toza was a tonic for those who were run down.

“Drink it.”

“Well moused, lion,” Shakespeare quoted. But he obliged her and took several sips. Setting the cup down, he picked up the spoon and was about to dip it into the soup when the aroma tingled his nose. “Unless my nostrils are mistaken, this is chicken soup.”

“We were out of badger meat,” Blue Water Woman bantered. They hardly ever ate badger.

“A fowl by any other feather,” Shakespeare said, and cackled. He eagerly spooned some of the broth into his mouth and delightedly smacked his lips. “Yes, indeed. It will do, and do nicely.”

“I am glad you like my soup.”

“I like your feathers more, madam,” Shakespeare said. “How many would you say we have, give or take an egg?”

Blue Water Woman could not hide her puzzlement. “What are you on about? I do not have feathers. As for eggs, I collected eleven from the coop this morning.”

“Eleven eggs but no feathers.”

“Will you stop with the feathers? You are making less sense than usual, which I did not think was possible.”

“On the contrary, my dear,” Shakespeare gloated. “You have given me a most wonderful inspiration.”

“In regards to what?”

Shakespeare spooned more soup into his mouth. “Between the feathers and the tea, my vigor and vim have been restored. I am ready to slay that finny dragon.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“I talked it over with Winona on our way to shore, and she agrees it is entirely too dangerous. We should let the water devil or fish or whatever it is be. Let it get on with its life and we will get on with ours.”

“You would give up just like that?” Shakespeare said, and snapped his fingers.

“You could have been killed. Lou nearly died. What more will it take to convince you to leave well enough alone?”

“Have I mentioned lately how wonderful your English is? If you were behind a screen, and I did not know you were a Flathead, I would swear you were white.”

“Are you trying to change the subject?”

“Me?” Shakespeare touched his chest in mock amazement. “Do you honestly think I would stoop so low?”

“Lower, if you thought you could get away with it.”

“Is’t come to this? In faith, hath the world not one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion?”

“I know how your mind works,” Blue Water Woman said. “You are as devious a man as any who ever lived, red or white.”