Dinosaur Lake

by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

  ***

  Ann inspected the cluttered newspaper room. Jeff had fled hours ago and Zeke was in the storage area putting away supplies. She could hear him singing, off-key, as usual. With no husband to hurry home to she’d stayed late to finish her articles and to keep Zeke company.

  She didn’t need to be anywhere until eight. That was when Laura had her GED classes at the high school and she’d babysit Phoebe. So, in that sense, being in town was convenient. She didn’t mind babysitting. She was proud her daughter was following through on her promise to get her high school diploma.

  Ann wrapped up what she was working on, her mind far away with Henry and with the park’s newest inhabitant. She’d sell her soul to have that story with pictures. But overriding that desire was the prayer her husband and Justin would emerge from the situation unscathed. Safe.

  Outside the dusty windows the sun hung low in the sky, embedded in fleecy clouds and the breath-taking colors of an Oregon sunset. The town around her was lighting up like twinkling lights on a Christmas tree.

  Staying with Zeke was hard. Oh, not because Zeke wasn’t a sweetheart, he was. He loved having her and the girls there and spoiled them to death. He’d been lonely a long time and loved the company. Going to a lot of trouble, he’d fixed up two of the upstairs rooms. And he insisted on cooking for them, trying different kinds of exotic dishes he thought they’d enjoy. And he wasn’t all that bad of a cook. It was nice to have someone else doing the cooking, besides her. It was like a holiday.

  But she missed Henry and her home. She didn’t like living in town, snuggled in between a row of houses, with all the town noises. She missed the woods and the animals behind their cabin. Henry’s daily telephone calls didn’t make her feel less lonely, only more. Her body ached for his strong arms to be wrapped around her, for his cold feet to tickle her in bed. They hadn’t been separated like this, nights, since his police force days.

  She switched off and covered her computer, then turned off the desk lamp.

  Zeke was behind her. “Ready to call it a night?” He had his jacket and her sweater hanging on his arm, her purse in his hand.

  She stood up, her middle-aged muscles protesting. “More than ready.” She took the purse. Her boss, always the gentleman, helped her put on the sweater.

  Zeke knew about the trouble in the park. She’d confessed everything. He’d been astonished, then worried as she’d disclosed the complete story. Worried because so many people were missing or dead. She asked him not to print the story yet and he’d consented saying he understood. Though it was the kind of spectacular feature that could have saved the ailing newspaper, Zeke wouldn’t jeopardize people’s lives. He knew the story would only send curious people running to the park, where they’d be in danger, too.

  But he couldn’t wait until he could run it and talked about it constantly. What perspective to write it from, how to lay it and the photos out on the front page to gain the most effect, how long they could ride on the series.

  Ann stood on the dusk-darkened sidewalk and watched Zeke lock the door. They strolled through town past the shops on the way to his house, a tall rambling structure that cried for fresh paint and tons of work. Not that it was ever going to see either.

  “Ann, been meaning to tell you something, but I’ve been a coward, I guess.”

  She paused in front of a book store, slid a sideways glance at him, a sense of sadness settling, a heavy shawl, upon her shoulders. She knew what he was going to say and didn’t want to hear it. He’d been subdued all day.

  “After next week I’m shutting down the newspaper. I can’t make payroll anymore. Can’t pay the rent, the electric bill. I’ve gone through most of my personal savings and, well, now I have to admit defeat. Throw in the towel. I’m real sorry. I know how hard you’ve worked to keep it going. You’ve loved it nearly as much as I have,” his voice was choked.

  Ann didn’t know what to say. She wanted to cry, but that’d only make it harder for Zeke, who looked as if he felt bad enough. “I’m sorry.” She touched his hand sympathetically. “Really sorry.”

  They continued walking in sad, draggy steps.

  The paper had been Zeke’s life for so long, it was inconceivable to think of him being anywhere else but in that building down the street working on the following week’s edition.

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “Well, I imagine I’ll retire. I should have long ago. My son wants me to come live with him in Los Angeles. Says I can work part time on the paper there.”

  Ann was surprised. Zeke had lived his whole life in Klamath Falls and sworn he’d never leave, except in a box. But, times, as well as people, do change. “Are you going to?”

  The old man seemed to be taking in the last of the sunset, drinking in the misty pastel colors and the distant border of the park’s woods with hungry eyes. “Nope, I could never live anywhere else but here. But I think I’ll go up and spend the remainder of the summer with them. Get to know my son, my grandchild, a little better. It’s the right thing to do. Haven’t seen any of them in a couple of years. Always too busy. Now I’ll have the time, I guess.”

  Ann didn’t know what to say. She was experiencing guilt in the pit of her stomach. That dinosaur in the lake story would have saved the paper, could still save the paper. If only it was safe to print it. If only.

  “How about you? What will you do,” he could barely get the words out, “once the paper closes down?”

  She smiled. “Get another job, I suppose. Unlike you, I’m too young to retire.” Her and Laura both would be looking for new jobs. Even Henry, if he couldn’t get rid of that interloper in the park. “Besides, we can’t afford to live without my paycheck.”

  “Sorry, Ann,” he repeated spiritlessly. “I sure tried to keep it all going. But the rising costs and the declining circulations finally did me in.”

  “Ah, don’t think you have to explain anything to me. Worry about me. I know, better than anyone, how hard you’ve worked. I’ll do fine.” She patted his back in a daughterly fashion.

  “Oh, I know you will. You have Henry, Laura and Phoebe. You’re so lucky.” The man’s face, in the fading light, seemed to crumple. “None of this would bother me so if Ethel was still alive. We’d had such plans for retirement. Together. We were going to see America in a R.V. Now I’ll go see Los Angeles. Alone.”

  He looked at her over his shoulder. “Don’t ever take your Henry for granted. Life has a way of dealing us unexpected blows when we least expect them. I thought I’d have Ethel forever. We’d be old together. Die together. I miss her so much. It’s lonely in the world without the one you love.”

  They were in front of Zeke’s house and she gave him a quick hug. Over the years, he’d become like a father to her. So she wasn’t just losing a job. She was losing a mentor and a cherished friend.

  They went in.

  Breaded pork steaks, corn, and mashed potatoes were on the table waiting for them. Since Zeke had made supper the night before, Laura was paying him back. Her daughter, baby in her arms, was smiling as they sat down to eat.

  “What’s up?” Ann asked.

  “I got a job today. In town.”

  “Good for you,” she congratulated her daughter. “How about Phoebe?”

  Laura sat down with the child, sleepy-eyed, in her lap. They’d already eaten. “That’s what I want to talk to you about. The job is at Freddy’s Diner. Night shift. Ten until six in the morning. So I can still take the G.E.D. classes at night. I thought, well, I’d hoped that as long as we were staying here at Zeke’s you might watch Phoebe for me. She’d be sleeping, and you’d be here sleeping anyway, too.”

  Ann gazed at her granddaughter. Phoebe was a good child. She went to bed at eight and usually slept the night through. And Laura, like her, was only filling the time they found on their hands with the men camped out in the park waiting for their monster to show up again. Then again Laura needed a job. One thing Ann could say about her daughter, she wasn�
��t lazy.

  “All right.” Ann nodded. “As long as I’m here. Just don’t count on it forever. I’ll be moving back home any day now.”

  Laura gave her mother an understanding look. They missed their men. “Well, who knows, my plans might be drastically changing after that.” Laura offered a secretive smile, and wouldn’t say anything else. But it was easy to see she was in love and she had a secret. It showed.

  “Freddy’s?” Zeke huffed after a bite of mashed potatoes. “Does he know who your mother is, who she works for?” Freddy was the one who’d cooked the contaminated chicken for the Spring Fest.

  “Sure he does.” Laura’s eyes sparkled. “Don’t worry, you two, he’s not holding a grudge anymore for that article the newspaper did on the bad chicken.” Laura waved her hand. “He claims he got over that a long time ago.”

  “Good,” Ann said. “We never meant to hurt him or his business. We published the facts. The truth, nothing more. That weekend his bad chicken just happened to be news.”

  “Oh, he knows. He told me to tell both of you you can start coming back for lunch again any time. No hard feelings. In fact, he thanks you for making him aware of the bad meat. He changed his meat supplier and he’s more careful now.”

  Zeke and Ann exchanged subdued looks. When working, Freddy’s had been one of their favorite lunch places, but without the newspaper, there’d be no lunches to go to.

  They ate supper and talked about everything, except the newspaper. Laura went to her classes. Ann and Zeke cleaned the kitchen. Afterwards Zeke, despondent from the events of the day, went up to sleep. Ann played with her granddaughter until it was time to tuck her into bed.

  Afterwards she tried to call Henry’s cell phone, but the park, in certain areas, had terrible reception and the call didn’t go through. All she’d gotten was cut off. Then she tried their cabin. If he was there, which he should be, she should have been able to reach him. No answer.

  As she was waiting, she thought about what closing the newspaper would mean to Zeke, her, the town. She couldn’t let that happen. Not if she could change it. She remembered how the paper’s circulation jumped after the fossil story had come out. Zeke had told her if they’d just had had access to updates on the dig site (which they hadn’t), or another story, a series of them, as good as that one, the paper would have made it. Would have made it.

  Ann had been a journalist most of her working life. It was everything she’d ever dreamed of, except winning a Pulitzer. Yet how could she save the best little newspaper she’d ever worked on and help the old man who’d come to mean so much to her?

  Only one way. She had to get that story. She needed pictures of that dinosaur. But how was she going to steal into the park and get them without blowing the whistle on the cover-up or breaking her solemn promise to her husband?

  No way…unless…if she got the pictures and wrote the story anyway, but didn’t say where the exact location, or the lake, was. Kept it secret. There were many lakes in the area covered by the newspaper. All she had to do was make sure none of the background was recognizable as Crater Lake or the park land. Hard, but not impossible. Generic pictures with the monster in them. That’d work.

  She’d have Henry to contend with. Oh, well, she smiled in the dim living room, the telephone in her hand, she didn’t have to tell him now, did she? And once it was done, the story printed, well, what could he do about it then?

  Nothing.

  The phone was finally picked up on the other end and she spent the next twenty-minutes talking with her husband. It was comforting to hear his voice. To know he and Justin were okay. She made sure the questions she asked about the park and the creature sounded innocent. Which wasn’t hard to do. Henry was so trusting. Then she went to bed.

  Making that decision to sneak into the park had taken everything out of her.