In Darkest Depths w-56 Page 7

  Lou looked down at her belly and replied, “I just don’t feel up to it.” She did not elaborate.

  In Winona’s estimation, the women had the harder job. Skinning, curing, and tanning a hide took three days, and they had a lot of hides to prepare.

  The skinning went smoothly, so long as the animal was freshly killed. The hides peeled off with little effort, much like the skin of the banana Winona once had when she visited the States.

  Next came the soaking. All the hides had to be immersed in water for half a day. It softened them and made them pliable. Usually Winona soaked her hides in a large wooden tub, but since they had so many to get ready and they did not want to be all month at it, she proposed soaking them in the lake. They waded out until the water came to their knees, then weighed the hides down with rocks.

  While the hides soaked, they fashioned frames for the stretching and fleshing.

  At the end of half a day, each hide was taken from the water and wrung out. Then the hide was attached to the frame using cords spaced about a hand’s width apart around the outer edge.

  Fleshing involved scraping away the fat and tendons. It was tedious work, but essential. Normally, they would also remove the hair, but since these particular hides would not be made into clothes and the hair would make the hides more resistant to water, it was left on.

  Evelyn was put in charge of boiling the deer brains. She did not care for the task. The feel of holding a brain always made her vaguely queasy. But she did not complain.

  Evelyn would crack the skulls and scoop out the brains. She then placed them in a pot over a fire, and once the water was at full boil, she took them out and put them in cool water for a while. Usually they were still warm when she picked them out of the cool water and worked them with her fingers to get rid of the membranes.

  Finally, Evelyn gave the brains to Tihikanima and her daughters, and they rubbed the brains on the sides of the hides that did not have hair. They rubbed and rubbed until the brains were the consistency of paste.

  Afterward, the hides were placed in the shade for another half a day, then soaked again. To further waterproof them, they were hung on a tripod over a fire and smoked.

  All that was only the beginning.

  The men built the frames, but it was the women who fitted the hides over them. It had to be done hair side out, with the women exercising great care that they did not accidentally puncture or cut each hide.

  Twelve days after the meeting, they had their armada: four deer-hide canoes, in addition to the log canoe that Waku and Dega insisted on using.

  It was a proud moment when they lined up the canoes on the shore and stood admiring their handiwork.

  Shakespeare sobered them by shaking a fist at the lake and hollering, “We are coming for you, beast! It is either you or us and it will by God not be us!”

  “I wish you had not put it that way,” Nate said.

  “Your problem, Horatio,” Shakespeare responded, “is that you like your reality to be worry free.”

  “I am not an infant.”

  “I am only saying that we go from the cradle to the grave under the double grindstone of uncertainty and toil, and no amount of wishful thinking will change that.”

  “Talk about a cheerful outlook,” Nate said.

  The time had come.

  The canoes, the paddles, the net, the special weapons—everything was ready.

  They knew the creature fed at daybreak; Shakespeare had seen the teal taken with his own eyes. The next dawn found them on the west shore, preparing to launch their armada.

  Nate and Shakespeare both had canoes to themselves. In the third came Winona and Blue Water Woman. Zach and Lou had the fourth. Last to launch were Waku and Dega in the dugout.

  Evelyn, Tihikanima, and the Nansusequa girls stayed on shore.

  Zach King was glad his sister was not going. She had wanted to, but their parents had insisted she stay behind. Zach was not so glad about Lou tagging along. He could not bear the thought of harm befalling her. It was bad enough she had been acting strangely of late; she was often withdrawn and distracted, and a moment of distraction out on the lake could have dire consequences.

  Now, stroking powerfully, Zach looked back at her. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Why do you ask?” Lou absently replied while matching her rhythm to his.

  “You looked a little peaked when you woke up.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Maybe you should have stayed in bed,” Zach said. “I can manage on my own.”

  “It’s nothing!” Lou repeated irritably. She had not told him about her queasiness.

  “I can take you back to shore,” Zach offered, hiding his surprise. She was rarely cross with him without cause.

  “I am fine, I tell you.” But Lou did not feel fine. The motion of the canoe was doing unpleasant things to her stomach. She closed her eyes for a bit, and when she opened them again she felt a little better.

  Over in his canoe, Nate King overheard their exchange and did not like it. He remembered the romantic tryst they had taken up to the glacier a while back, with the express aim of starting a family, and he marveled that Louisa had not put two and two together. Increasing his speed, Nate brought his canoe alongside McNair’s. In his haste, they nearly collided.

  “What the blazes?” Shakespeare exclaimed. “If you are trying to send me to the bottom, you are off to a good start.”

  Nate gazed about to be sure no one would hear and said quietly, “I think Louisa is pregnant.”

  “She isn’t sure yet,” Shakespeare replied.

  “You knew about it?”

  “I know everything.”

  “Why didn’t you say something? She is my daughter-in-law.”

  “Didn’t you hear me say she isn’t sure yet? I will be happy to tell you when she is.”

  “You are particular about your gossip. That is rare for a biddy hen.”

  Shakespeare snorted like a incensed bull. “You prattle something too wildly, Horatio.” He regarded the canoe bearing Zach and Lou. “If she is, she should not be with us, but since she is here, we must take special care she is not placed in harm’s path.”

  Nate nodded. They had already decided that when the creature was sighted, Zach and Lou were to move in close and while Lou handled the paddle, Zach would cast one of their special weapons. “I will go in first when we spot the thing instead of them, Nate said.”

  “Why you and not me?” Shakespeare demanded.

  “I said it first.”

  “I was born first.”

  “That’s a ridiculous reason.” Nate used his paddle. “I will go tell Zach and Louisa.”

  “Don’t let on why.”

  Nate angled his canoe to intercept his son and daughter-in-law. They were so intent on the water ahead that they did not notice him until he was almost on them. “There’s been a change in plans.”

  “Pa?”

  “You and Lou will hang back and help Waku and Dega with the net.”

  “But we already talked it out. I want in on the kill,” Zach reminded him.

  “Be ready in case we miss.” Nate paddled away to avoid being quizzed. His son sounded disappointed, and he did not blame him. All Zach’s life, he had lived for the thrill of counting coup and the challenge of the hunt. Then Zach married Lou, and her love had blunted his bloodletting. But deep down Zach was still Zach; he still relished the excitement of pitting himself against any and all comers.

  Soon they were well out on the lake. The sun was half up, casting the sky in hues of yellow and pink. The waterfowl were astir. Ducks quacked and flapped, swans arched their long necks and raised their large wings, gulls squawked in raucous irritation. A pair of storks winged in low and alighted with admirable grace given their ungainly appearance. Fish were beginning to jump.

  Nate straightened and scanned the lake from end to end. If Shakespeare was right, the thing would soon rise out of the depths to feed. They must be ready, or they would mis
s the chance. He checked on the others. Winona and Blue Water Woman were to his right, Shakespeare to his left, the others trailing.

  Once the creature was sighted, Winona and Blue Water Woman would swing to the north of it, Shakespeare to the east, Zach and Lou and the Nansusequa to the west, and Nate to the south.

  “We will surround the varmint,” Shakespeare had proposed. “The only way it can escape us will be straight down.”

  Now, Nate stopped paddling and placed the paddle crosswise across the gunwales. The smell of the water, the lap of the wavelets against the canoe, and the shrieks of the gulls brought to vivid mind his last encounter. He hoped to God they fared better this time.

  Nate did not like having the women along. Not because he felt he was any better at handling a canoe, or any tougher, or even because he was a man and they were women. He did not want them there because he cared dearly for them, and what they were doing was terribly dangerous. He gazed across at Winona and Blue Water Woman. Winona noticed he was looking at them, and smiled and called out.

  “Is everything all right?”

  With a lump in his throat, Nate smiled and nodded.

  “Be careful, husband.”

  “You too, wife.”

  The part of the lake in their vicinity was still and serene. A few geese were to the southeast.

  Closer were nine mergansers, the males black and white, the females a dusky gray. The flock swam past Winona’s canoe without breaking formation, their heads held high, their tails twitching.

  Nate glanced down at the special weapons in the bottom of his canoe. Shakespeare had insisted that one weapon was not enough, so each canoe had a pair. He fingered one, praying his cast would be true.

  The mergansers started making a racket.

  Tensing, Nate looked up. The surface showed no sign of a disturbance below.

  Squawking louder, the mergansers broke rank.

  “What’s going on?” Louisa wondered.

  Suddenly the mergansers scattered. Several frantically flapped their wings to get airborne.

  That was when the monster struck.

  Disaster

  They all saw it.

  One of the mergansers was starting to rise into the air, its webbed feet brushing the surface, when the lake bulged upward. The merganser uttered a sharp karr-karr-karr, its wings flapping furiously. In the blink of an eye it was gone, not so much as a feather to mark its demise.

  His every nerve tingling, Nate King, who was nearest, paddled swiftly toward the spot.

  Other mergansers gained altitude. Those that had not taken to the air were streaking through the water with fear-induced speed, their heads thrust forward, raising their cries to the sky.

  A female was swimming in panicked flight directly toward the canoe Winona and Blue Water Woman were in. The terrified duck did not seem to see them. Both women were frozen by the tableau, their paddles in their hands.

  Nate probed the water for the creature, but the glare of the rising sun hid whatever lay below.

  Suddenly the female merganser, now only thirty feet from Winona and Blue Water Woman, let out with a karr-karr-karr of her own. The next moment she was wrenched under and was gone.

  “Look out!” Shakespeare shouted.

  A swell was rising in the spot where the duck had disappeared. As before, all that could be seen was the vaguest outline of a huge shape. With alarming rapidity, the creature bore down on Winona and Blue Water Woman’s canoe.

  “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.<
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  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