In Darkest Depths

always been the most level-headed. Even more so than his wife.

“It will return,” Blue Water Woman predicted. “When it does, you will see for yourself.” She put a hand on the pistol at her waist. “For what it has done to my husband, it deserves to die.”

“There you go again,” Nate said. “Sit back, will you?” Her weight was not enough to tip the canoe, but she was leaning much too far out.

“There!” Blue Water Woman exclaimed, jabbing a finger. “I told you!”

All Nate saw were a few small ripples. “That could be a minnow,” he teased her.

“I saw the head. It was peeking at us.”

“Peeking?” Nate repeated, and chuckled.

“That is not the right word?” Blue Water Woman took pride in her mastery of the white tongue. She was not as adept as Winona, but she flattered herself that she spoke it fluently.

Nate went on chuckling. “It fits, I suppose.” But the notion was as silly as a grizzly bear peeking from behind a tree. “Whatever it is, it’s not bothering us.” He rose higher to search directly ahead. “We shouldn’t forget why we are out here.”

“As if I ever could,” Blue Water Woman said somberly. Long ago she had accepted that one day she might lose her husband. He was older, and he insisted on taking risks men his age should not take. But she had never imagined it would end like this. As she had been doing all morning, she reached out with her heart, seeking some sign that he was still alive. Often when he was away from her, she could feel him deep inside, but now she felt only a strange coldness. That, more than anything else, scared her, scared her terribly.

“When we find him we will have a good laugh over all of this,” Nate remarked.

“Have you been drinking?”

Nate snorted. He was not much for hard liquor. Every now and again he treated himself to a little brandy, usually on a winter’s eve in front of the fireplace, but that was the extent of it. “I rarely do and you—”

The canoe gave an abrupt lurch, as if they had collided with a submerged object. Instantly, Nate dipped the paddle in to bring them to a stop, then checked on both sides. “What was that?”

“The water devil.” Blue Water Woman did not look. She drew her pistol and held it in her lap.

Nate continued paddling. They went ten feet without incident—twenty feet—thirty. Some of the tension started to drain from him. Suddenly the canoe gave another lurch. He started to bend over the gunwale. There was a loud bump from below, and the canoe rose out of the water a few inches and settled back again.

“Do you believe me now, Horatio?”

Under less harrowing circumstances Nate would have laughed. She never call him that. Only Shakespeare did. “I believe you.”

Ripples appeared in front of them and moved slowly off to the east.

“Follow it,” Blue Water Woman directed.

“But Shakespeare—”

“If he were alive, I would know.” Blue Water Woman raised her pistol. “Understand this. I intend to kill it. You can help, or I will come back out by myself. Either way, it is going to die.”

Nate did not reply. But she was not thinking straight. Her pistol would have no more effect than a pebble. He stroked harder, regretting that they did not have a harpoon.

“Faster,” Blue Water Woman urged. “Bring us up next to it.”

“What good will that do?” Nate asked. But he did as she wanted. The ripples were moving so slowly that he easily caught up and paced them. “Now what?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder. He thought she would take a shot. But she had something else in mind.

Blue Water Woman set her pistol down and drew her knife. In a swift, fluid movement, she stood, whipped her dress off over her head, dropped it at her feet, and dived over the side.

The Heart of Darkness

Blue Water Woman was a Salish. The whites called them Flatheads. The whites also called the lake at the heart of Salish territory Flathead Lake. To her, growing up, the lake had been as much a part of her life as the grass and the trees and the sky. She could swim by the time she had seen six winters. Thereafter, she spent every free minute she could in or near the water. Her fondness went far beyond that of any other Salish. So much so, that she earned the name Blue Water Woman.

Now she lived up to that name. She cleaved the water with barely a splash and swam with the agility of a seal. Ahead loomed a dark mass. She had been right. It was the water devil, and it was swimming slowly along, as if water devils did not have a care in the world.

Her mouth clamped tight and her lungs filled with air, Blue Water Woman pumped her arms and legs. It did not turn or look back. Either it was unaware she had dived in or it did not regard her as a threat.

Blue Water Woman clutched her knife more firmly. She thought of Shakespeare, the man who meant more to her than the breath she was holding, who meant more to her than anything, and her resolve to kill the beast became an iron rod of vengeance.

She did not care how big the thing was. She did not care that it could kill her with a casual swat of its huge tail. She did not care about anything except avenging the other half of her heart.

She gained quickly, swimming wide of the tail and then angling toward the great bulk of the body. Inwardly she smiled at the image of plunging her blade in again and again. She was almost close enough, the thing was almost within reach of her knife, when something seized hold of her ankle.

Nate King could not say which had shocked him more: that Blue Water Woman had stripped naked right there in front of him, or that she had thrown herself into the water after the water devil. But he had not lived as long as he had in the wilds by letting shock slow his reflexes. No sooner had the water swallowed her than he was up and stripping off his pistols and possibles bag and powder horn and ammunition pouch. Then he dived in after her.

Nate spotted her right away, swimming with amazing swiftness. He swam after her and discovered that while he had always been accounted a powerful swimmer, she was faster. He was a catfish, she was a bass. He tried to catch her and couldn’t. The realization that if he didn’t, she might die, lent extra energy to his limbs, but she still stayed ahead of him.

The fish filled his vision. This close, there could be no doubt what it was. An enormous fish, the most enormous he’d ever seen, the most enormous he’d ever heard off. No doubt there were bigger fish in the oceans and elsewhere. But in this lake at this moment, this fish was a leviathan.

The thing could slay either of them as easily as they could slay a tiny guppy.

Fear for Blue Water Woman spurred Nate into exerting his all. She swam wide to avoid the tail, and in doing so, enabled him to narrow the gap, enough that by hurtling forward, he was able to grab her right ankle and hold fast.

Blue Water Woman glanced back. The fire of her vengeance became the fire of resentment. She jerked her leg, but Nate would not let go. Twisting, she pushed his arm, but could not move it. She glared at him and saw he was not looking at her but at something behind her. She sensed movement and knew what she would see before she turned.

The fish seemed to fill the lake. It floated an arm’s length away, staring at her, its head in shadow. By some trick of the light she could see its eyes. They gleamed like twin embers, but not with fury, or with hate, or with any emotion as humans understood them. Blue Water Woman looked into those eyes and the emotion she saw, if a fish could be said to have emotion, was sadness, a deep, pervading sorrow such as she had seldom beheld in any person or animal. It stunned her. She did not move as the fish came closer, until it was so near they were practically touching.

Blue Water Woman looked, and she could not stab it. She looked into those eyes and she would never be the same again.