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.
Then it was gone. A flick of its tail and fish dived for the dark depths it called home.
Blue Water Woman shook herself to break the spell. She felt Nate tug on her ankle. He gestured toward the surface and she nodded. Together, they swam up and gulped air.
“Are you all right?” Nate asked.
“I am fine,” Blue Water Woman lied.
Nate swam to their canoe, climbed in, and offered her his hand. “Let me help you up.”
Blue Water Woman started toward him.
“Out for some exercise, are you?”
They turned. Coming toward them, on his knees in the bow of the dugout and paddling with his hands, was a white-haired devil of a different sort, wearing a grin a mile wide.
“Shakespeare!” Nate exploded. “We found you!”
“I would argue that I found you, Horatio, since I saw you first.”
Blue Water Woman squealed in delight and stroked to the dugout. “Carcajou!” she cried. “You are alive!” Pulling herself up, she threw herself into his open arms and clung to him as if to life itself.
“You are getting me wet, woman,” Shakespeare grumbled. “And I was just starting to dry out.”
“I have been in the water,” Blue Water Woman said huskily, her face pressed to his neck.
“In the middle of the lake?”
“I thought you were dead. I was avenging you.”
Shakespeare looked down at her. “Do you always do your avenging in the altogether?”
“You noticed.”
“Men always notice little things like naked women. All a woman has to do is take off her clothes, and she is a regular sensation.”
“I have missed you.” Blue Water Woman kissed him and closed her misting eyes.
“Not so fast, wench. Here I am gone for a while, and I come back to find you cavorting with my best friend.”
“Behave. He saved me from making a mistake.”
“He was a mite slow,” Shakespeare said.
“Not that,” Blue Water Woman responded in mild exasperation. “I was going to stab the water devil.”
Shakespeare gripped her shoulders and pushed her back. “You didn’t! God in heaven, tell me you didn’t.”
“I didn’t.”
Shakespeare exhaled in relief.
Nate was not following any of this. “Hold on. You were the one who kept saying the thing was a menace and had to be killed. I thought that was what all this was about?”
“Since when do you listen to me?” Shakespeare rejoined.
“I am serious. We have gone to all this bother. The steeple. The canoes. Lou nearly drowing. And now you are saying it was all for nothing? That you have changed your mind and don’t want the thing dead?”
“That is pretty much it, yes. Remember the Bard. He said that the quality of mercy is not strained; it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven.”
Nate shook his head in bewilderment. “You are as fickle as the weather. Next you will be saying that it was a mistake for us to come out after it.”
“A mistake and then some,” Shakespeare concurred. “What merit were it in death to take this poor maid from the world?”
“Are we talking about a woman or the creature?
“Ah, Horatio!” Shakespeare beamed. “A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.”
“I can never tell when you are serious.”
“I am always serious,” Shakespeare said. “Except when I’m not.”
“You are a lunatic.”