inner ears.
At thirty feet, Bridger switched on his Ikelite. The water illuminated in the strong beam was blue-green. Except for the suck and sigh of his own breathing and the constant putter of bubbles expelled from his hose, LePere heard no sounds.
At seventy feet, the atmospheric pressure had quadrupled. They were nearing the depth where, LePere knew, without scuba his ribs would collapse, crushing his lungs. He could feel the press of the deepening cold through the rubber of his suit.
The curve of the Teasdale’s stern and the ten-foot blades of the propeller loomed out of the dark at one hundred feet. The hull rested on its side, tilted down a rocky slope at a forty-degree angle. LePere checked the psi gauge on his regulator hose. He’d used one third of his oxygen just reaching the bottom. He had only ten minutes of dive time before he and Bridger had to start back to the surface.
The man in the restaurant in Beaver Bay had been right. At that depth, in that cold, the lake was like a great meat locker and the dead did not decompose. When LePere had first found the wreck, he’d spent all of the precious minutes of every dive searching the quarters, the galley, the boiler room, the maze of companionways, looking in vain for Billy’s body. He’d carefully canvassed the rocks where the hull was cradled, but all he’d found there was the coal that had spilled from the gaping cargo hold. He’d known it was probably foolish, but he had to be certain. Now he dived for a different reason, something he might have argued was justice but felt very much like revenge.
Bridger let LePere take the lead, and they started down the sloping hull where, three hundred feet farther and fifty feet deeper, was the midsection with its severed edge.
LePere hadn’t gone far when the rhythmic clank of metal brought him around. Bridger had stopped and was tapping his tank with his knife. When he saw that he had LePere’s attention, he cupped his hand to the place on his hood where his ear would be, and he pointed toward the surface.
LePere listened. He heard it, too. A sound like the distant buzz of a summer cicada. A boat somewhere above them. Where exactly, LePere couldn’t tell. Abruptly, the sound stopped. Bridger shined his light upward. He looked like a man hanging at the end of a luminous icicle. He gestured emphatically, urging them to surface. LePere shook his head just as emphatically. He had only a few minutes left, and he intended to use the whole time for the purpose that had brought them. He turned and started again down the hull, ignoring the angry banging of the knife against Bridger’s tank.
His own Ikelite pierced the dark ahead of him. He took only a couple of minutes to reach the place where the hull ended suddenly in ragged metal. Slipping over the lip, he shined his light into the huge cavern that had been the hold of the ore boat. For a long moment, he hung suspended in the mouth of memory. The hold was empty now and black. But on that night a dozen years before when LePere stood at the edge of the sinking bow section, crying out Billy’s name, the hold had been full of smoke and fire. LePere had stared into the belly of a beast, and the beast had answered his cries with its own deafening scream of rending metal. He’d watched, paralyzed, as the beast tried to mount the deck where he stood, tried to get at him, to crush his bones. Many times after that, in the lonely dark of a drunken night, LePere found himself wishing bitterly the beast had succeeded.
The beam of Bridger’s light swung into the hold beside his own. Bridger signaled toward his watch. They didn’t have much time. Using their lights, they began to inspect the plating along the edge of the opening. About halfway down the hull, Bridger pointed to an area of metal that appeared gouged, bubbled at the edges, and he gave LePere an enthusiastic thumbs-up. LePere turned on the camera and drifted slowly down, pausing to let the camera linger on those areas where Bridger indicated. Very soon-too soon for LePere-Bridger pointed upward. Time to surface. LePere checked the gauge on his regulator. The needle lay at 500 psi. Bridger was right. They should head up. LePere ignored him and kept at the work. Bridger grabbed him and yanked him away from the hull. He jammed his hand upward vehemently. LePere could guess what he’d have said if he could speak. But they were onto something, and there was so much more to film. He shrugged off Bridger’s hand. With a disgusted gesture, Wesley Bridger washed his hands of his partner, turned away, and exited the cargo hold. LePere was alone in the great empty dark.
Although he was angry with Bridger for a moment, he knew the man was right. And he knew, too, that to jeopardize his diving companion was a selfish and ultimately cowardly thing to do. He turned off his camera, pointed his Ikelite where Bridger had gone, and followed.
He was thinking in an excited way about what he’d captured on the film, but he didn’t think it long. As he swung under the ragged lip at the entrance to the hold, he felt himself pulled back, like a dog on a leash. Some part of his gear had snagged on the sharp teeth of the broken, twisted metal that surrounded the mouth of the open hold. He tried to turn back but found he couldn’t. He imagined his air hose, hooked on a razor-sharp sliver, ready to be severed if he pulled too hard. Reaching back, he tried to feel what was hung up, but his camera and light encumbered him. He realized he was breathing hard. At that depth every breath took several times more oxygen from his tank than at the surface. He could feel the panic taking control. Stay calm, he told himself. He swung his light over his shoulder but couldn’t turn himself to look. He strained to reach back, to feel the problem, only the camera got in the way and his thick gloves made his hands too clumsy. He let go of the camera and watched it drop slowly into the dark below him, then he took a precious few moments to peel off his gloves. Immediately the frigid water made the muscle and bone ache. He felt along his air hose, then his tank. Nothing. What the hell was hanging him up?
He checked the gauge on his regulator again: 300 psi. Even if he freed himself now, there wasn’t enough air left to make a safe, slow climb to the surface. His only hope would be to inflate the vest he wore as a weight compensator and shoot himself upward to the ten-foot marker for decompression. There’d be hell to pay in a lot of ways, but at least he’d be alive.
Then the beam of another light struck him full in the face. Wesley Bridger maneuvered behind him, and a moment later LePere was free. They swam quickly up the hull. At the cable, they started toward the surface. Bridger stayed beside him, holding him back when he tried to go too fast. At thirty feet, LePere motioned toward his tank, then made a slashing motion across his throat, indicating that he was out of air. Bridger pointed toward his own mouthpiece and gave him the “okay” sign. They held at ten feet, sharing the last of the air in Bridger’s tank. Finally they surfaced and climbed aboard the Anne Marie.
LePere shed his mask and gear and turned to his diving buddy. “Thanks, Wes.” He offered his hand gratefully.
“Forget it.” Bridger accepted LePere’s hand. “Christ, you’re freezing. Where are your gloves?”
“Had to get rid of them. The camera, too. I’ve got to go back down.”
“Not today.”
“I’ve got to get that camera.”
“It’s not going anywhere. One close call in a day is plenty.”
The late morning was hot, the sun bright. Although it felt great standing on the deck of the Anne Marie, breathing in the sweet, plentiful air, LePere couldn’t help thinking about the evidence he’d captured on film. He wanted it in his hands.
“What kind of SIT are we looking at?” he asked, speaking of the time interval required on the surface before he could safely make another dive.
Bridger had turned away and now knelt at the portable compressor they’d brought to fill their tanks for a second dive. “I said forget it.” He stood up. “We couldn’t go back down even if I wanted to, which I definitely do not. Somebody took the filter off the compressor, Chief. They were probably hoping you’d go down again. Wanted you to breathe dirty air. I told you those rich sons of bitches would do more than just watch us. That camera of yours must’ve made ‘em nervous.” He scanned the lake, but the white launch was nowhere in sight.
“We’ll come back tomorrow,” LePere said.
“I already told you. I’m in a big poker tournament down at Grand Casino Mille Lacs tomorrow. We can do it another day.” Bridger glanced at him. “Ah Jesus, Chief. I can read you like you’re thinking in neon.” He stepped across the deck toward LePere, who’d never seen on Bridger’s face a look so serious or afraid. “Promise me, God damn it. Promise me on your brother’s watery grave here that you won’t dive alone. Promise me, Chief.”
The lake was dead calm. Over it hung a high pall scented with the vague smell of smoke. The sun was white, and it lit a pale fire on the lake all around the Anne Marie. John Sailor LePere looked at these things, then at Wesley Bridger. He smiled calmly and said, “I promise.”
