“Off to take a nap.”
Shakespeare ignored the barb. He had a new habit of dozing off after big meals. Eating brought on a lassitude he could not shake. “If you are going to pick at me with your bowie, the least you could—” He abruptly stopped.
Down in the dark, something had moved. A giant shape was almost directly below them and rising fast.
“There!” Shakespeare cried.
“Paddle!” Nate shouted. He did so, but he had only stroked twice before the canoe gave a violent lurch and lifted half a foot out of the water. Grabbing the sides, he clung on as the canoe smacked back down with a loud whomp and water splashed in.
The creature promptly disappeared.
“Did you see him, Horatio!” Shakespeare said, laughing in delight. “Did you see the size of him?”
Nate had seen little beyond the suggestion of great bulk. “We need to get out of here.”
“No! It might come back.”
“That’s what I am afraid of.” Nate peered down, and sure enough, the bulk was rising toward them again. “It is going to hit us again!”
The next instant the creature did just that, this time striking the bow. Shakespeare grabbed hold of the prow as the canoe once again canted up out of the water and came smashing down with a gigantic splash.
The creature was already gone.
Nate could not get out of there fast enough. He worked his paddle furiously, then saw that instead of helping, Shakespeare was laughing. “We need to go! We need to go now!”
Still shaking with mirth, Shakespeare said, “Be at ease, Horatio. The canoe is too heavy to tip over. We are safe enough.”
“Like hell,” Nate said. He had the impression that the creature had not really tried to upend them. So far. “You might have a death wish, but I do not. Paddle, consarn you!”
“You would worry a wart to death,” Shakespeare said, and reluctantly dipped his paddle.
Nate chafed at how slowly the canoe turned. Once the bow was pointed toward shore, he pumped his arms, spray flying from under his paddle. McNair, however, was more intent on peering over the sides and only half exerting himself.
“Why am I doing all the work?”
“Because I have yet to get a good look at it,” Shakespeare said. “And unlike you, I have not yellowed my britches.”
“It’s only common sense,” Nate said angrily.
An unusual sound behind them, a sibilant sort of hiss that reminded Nate of nothing so much as the hiss of a snake, made him snap his head around. Sixty feet out, and closing, was a growing swell such as they had occasionally witnessed from shore. “It’s after us!”
Shakespeare swiveled, and cackled. “I do believe it is! What a stroke of luck!”
“Did you leave your common sense at home today?” Nate asked, applying himself to his paddle with renewed vigor. “Help, damn it!”
“Mercy me, the language you use!” Shakespeare said, but he bent to his paddle with a strength uncommon for someone who had seen as many years as he had.
“I did not count on this!” Nate said. He’d figured the creature, whatever it was, would fight shy of them. But not only was it not scared of them, twice it had bumped them from below, and now it appeared to be bearing down on them with the clear intent of ramming the dugout.
Shakespeare’s grin faded. He had not counted on this, either. Here he had been trying for days to come up with a way to lure the thing to them, and it had proven ridiculously easy. All they had to do was venture out on the lake. Getting back to land now posed the problem. His cockiness to the contrary, they were at a severe disadvantage. Their adversary was in its natural element; they were out of theirs. It did not help that their canoe was as slow as molasses.
The hissing grew louder.
Nate glanced over his shoulder. The swell was only thirty feet away, and closing. The water the creature displaced, cascading over its huge form, was the source of the hissing. “It’s gaining!”
Shakespeare could see that for himself. As big and heavy as the canoe was, the creature was bigger and likely heavier. If it should strike them at full speed, the result would not be pleasant. He glued his eyes to the swell, and when it was only six feet from the stern, he bawled, “To the right, Horatio! Swing us out of its way!”
Nate exerted every sinew in his body. The hissing became even louder, eclipsing all sound except the hammering of his heart. He nearly whooped for joy when the dugout angled to one side and the swell went hurtling past.
“We did it!” Shakespeare shouted.
Nate yipped in delight.
But their elation proved premature.
The swell subsided as the creature began to submerge. But just when it appeared the thing would sink out of sight and go on its way, the leading edge of the swell began to turn, and as it turned, it grew in size.
“It’s circling back at us!” Nate exclaimed.
Shakespeare experienced a twinge of regret. He would hate for Nate to come to harm when it had been his brainstorm to come out after the thing. He suspected Nate had tagged along more out of concern for him than from an abiding interest in the creature.
“Paddle harder!”
Shakespeare shifted. God in heaven, the thing is fast! It would be on them in no time. He stroked his paddle like a man possessed.
Nate was doing the same.
The shore was impossibly far away. They would never reach it in time. Desperate to keep from being rammed, Shakespeare stopped paddling and swooped his hand to his waist.
“What are you doing?”
Shakespeare did not answer. He whipped out a flintlock and thumbed back the hammer. He aimed for the front of the swell, for where he figured the creature’s head would be.
Nate froze with his paddle partway raised. A ‘No!’ was on the tip of his tongue, but he did not give voice to the shout.
Shakespeare fired. At the blast the pistol spewed smoke and lead. He thought he saw the slug strike the water. But the swell—and the creature—kept coming. He grabbed for his other pistol, determined to stop it if he could. As his fingers wrapped around the hardwood, a miracle occurred: the swell changed direction and passed within spitting distance of their canoe.
Nate was mesmerized. He longed to see the creature clearly, but all he saw was moving water and a dark silhouette. He caught sign of a fin, or imagined he did, and then the thing was past and the swell was rapidly dwindling as its source dived for the depths. The hissing faded. In seconds there was nothing to mark the creature’s passage beyond ripples and a few frothy bubbles.
“That was close,” Shakespeare said, exhaling in relief.
“You wounded it or scared it off,” Nate said, grateful whichever the case might be.
“Did you get a good look at it?”
“No. Did you?”
“Would that I had.”
“All that we just went through and we still have no idea what we are up against.”
“If it had struck us…” Nate let the statement dangle.
“Our broken bodies would have washed up on shore in a day or two and my wife would get to tell mine she told me so,” Shakespeare said with a grin. Sobering, he lowered the pistol he had not realized he was still pointing at the water. “Do you still doubt that it is dangerous?”
“It can be,” Nate allowed. “But so long as we stay off the lake, we should be fine.”
“Then I take it you are going to ride over to Waku’s and tell him and his family they can’t fish anymore. And after that, you will go over to your son’s and inform Zach and Lou that there will be no more swimming or bathing in the lake. Winona and Evelyn will need to—”