In Darkest Depths

Everything had gone to hell. Shakespeare’s sole desire now was to survive. He groped for the rope and was thrown against the side when the canoe spun like a child’s top. The fish was swimming in small circles. Shakespeare clung to the gunwale as nausea flooded through him, either from the spinning, or his wound, or both.

Water spilled in over the side. The waves were rising. Normally so serene, the lake was being churned into a maelstrom.

Between the wind and the rain, Shakespeare could scarely breathe. Gasping for air, he dropped onto his belly and felt about. He found the rope. This time nothing would stop him. But as he brought the knife up, the rope went slack and the spinning slowed.

A clap of thunder made his ears ring.

Shakespeare pulled on the rope and it stayed slack. Maybe the fish at long last had pulled loose.

The wind nearly snapped his head back. He looked up just as lightning rent the heavens and lit the sky. The fog was almost gone, whipped away by the fury of the tempest.

Shakespeare’s heart sank.

The lake itself had been transformed into a monster. The water writhed and surged as if alive. White caps peaked the waves much as snow peaked the mountains, only these mountains were moving. As he looked on, a wave heaved up into a watery fist and smashed down over the dugout, knocking him flat.

Shakespeare had run out of time. He gripped the slack rope in his free hand and held it so he could cut it. A premonition made him look up just as another wave came crashing over the gunwale. Again he was knocked flat. The canoe tilted and settled back, water covering the bottom.

Shakespeare got to his knees, puzzled by a strange tightness around his left forearm. He tried to move his arm but couldn’t. A flash of lightning revealed why. Somehow the slack rope had looped around his wrist. He twisted his arm, but the rope would not slide off. He tugged, but that only made the rope tighten.

“Damn it.” Shakespeare let go of his knife and grabbed the rope to unwind it. Without any warning the rope went rigid, as it always did when the fish was about to move again. “No!” he shouted.

Jerked off balance, Shakespeare slammed down hard. His wrist, his whole arm, felt fit to be torn off. He gritted his teeth against the pain. The canoe was picking up speed, and the faster it went, the more pain he felt.

This was bad. This was very bad. Shakespeare tried to get to his knees but was yanked down. The rope was digging so deep into his flesh, his fingers were going numb.

Shakespeare rolled onto his side to try to get some slack in the rope. He did, for all of two seconds. He pried at it with his other hand but could not free his wrist.

The dugout hurtled headlong through the storm-tossed waters as lightning crackled and thunder crashed. Shakespeare managed to get to one knee and saw the knife at his feet. He reached for it just as the largest wave yet reared up out of the lake and curled above his head.

Tempest Fury

A ton of water smashed down. Shakespeare’s temple struck the bottom of the dugout, and for a few harrowing instants he feared he would pass out again. A black veil nipped at him, and his stomach tried to climb up out of his throat. Only by force of will was he able to stay conscious and shove his stomach back down where it belonged.

His wrist was in torment. The rope was a vise, the other end lost in the darkling realm under the canoe. He groped for his knife, but it was not where he had seen it last. Frantic, he cast about, but it was not to be found. Washed over the side, most likely.

Then Shakespeare remembered the harpoons. Grabbing one a few inches below the tip, he commenced sawing at the rope. The tip was not as sharp as his knife, but it would suffice.

The canoe kept swaying and bouncing, and he was handicapped by having to use one hand.

Wet drops spattered him, multiplying rapidly. Another cannonade of thunder heralded the unleashing of the deluge in all its elemental fury.

Shakespeare focused on the rope and only the rope. The fish had slowed, but that might be temporary, and it was entirely possible that its next burst of speed might yank him clear out of the canoe or tear his arm clean off.

With the storm roaring around him, Shakespeare sliced at strand after strand. Time seemed to slow. A result of the knock on the head, he reckoned. Or was there more to it? Shakespeare would be the first to admit that he was not getting any younger. He liked to joke about his creaking joints and aching muscles, but the truth was, they did creak and ache. Remarkable though his stamina and strength were for his age, he was not the man he used to be. The thought broke his concentration. He had never truly regarded himself as old before, but maybe it was time he started. He had limits, and the smart thing to do was to respect those limits and not go traipsing out on a lake after a creature more formidable, in its way, than a grizzly or a buffalo.

Shakespeare resumed slicing. He had lost all feeling from his fingertips to his wrist, and now the numbness was spreading higher. He prayed to God he would not lose the hand. “I have grown rather attached to it,” he said, and chuckled at his warped humor.

Shakespeare sliced as fast as he could, given how awkward it was to handle the harpoon with one hand. The canoe rocked without cease, threatening to upend him. Do it, damn you! he mentally shouted. So what if you are old? Think of your wife and think of your friends and do it!

As if in answer, the rope severed, and the end that trailed over the gunwale went sliding over the edge and was gone.

Wincing at the agony, Shakespeare unwound the loop from his wrist. He wriggled his fingers, or tried to, to help restore his circulation, which only made the pain worse.

Unexpectedly, the canoe pitched, throwing him onto his good arm. Thinking the fish might be to blame, Shakespeare looked up—and gaped in astonishment.

The world had gone mad. Writhing black clouds filled the sky from horizon to horizon, broken by vivid jagged bolts. The rumble and boom of thunder was continuous. One bolt, quite near, sizzled the air with a sound like that of frying bacon and struck something on the lake in a brilliant flash. The rain was Noah’s flood all over again. But the wind was the worst; it howled and screeched and churned the water into convulsions. It was the wind that gave birth to increasingly larger waves. The lake, once so tranquil, was in upheaval.

A wave caught the dugout and lifted it into the air, only to bring it smashing down with a jolt that jarred Shakespeare to his marrow. He had never seen the lake like this. It was just his luck—or lack of it—that he should be out in the canoe when the storm of the century swept in.

The fish was of no consequence now. All that mattered was surviving, staying alive so he could hold Blue Water Woman in his arms once again. So what if she would tease him with an endless litany of “I told you so”? She had been right and he had been wrong, and he was man enough to admit it.

Special moments rose unbidden in his memory. The first time he set eyes on her and was dazzled by her beauty; the deep, special love that blossomed; the giddy delight of taking her into his arms, and their first kiss. Lord, how he adored that woman! To think that he might lose her, or she him, because he had been too pigheaded to listen!

Another wave raised the dugout. Shakespeare braced himself as one side dipped lower than the other, using his good hand and his knees to keep from being catapulted out. He succeeded, but at the height of the wave, when he did not dare let go, his Hawken and one of the harpoons and the net slid over the edge. Impulsively, he almost lunged for the rifle, but if he did, he would follow it in.

Only then did Shakespeare remember he was not much of a swimmer. He could, when he had to, or occasionally for the fun of it, but he was not a seal like Zach, or even as good as Blue Water Woman. Were he to be tossed into the drink, he might never come up.