Wilderness Double Edition 28

by David Robbins

  Darkness overcame him. Shakespeare’s consciousness dimmed. He felt cold, clear to his marrow.

  Then the darkness became total.

  She went over the side before anyone could stop her.

  They all saw the body, floating limp. Blue Water Woman cried out, “There he is!” and dived. She swam smoothly, despite her knee-length dress, and she had an arm around Shakespeare within seconds.

  That was all it took for Nate to bring his canoe over. He grabbed hold of the back of Shakespeare’s shirt and lifted. Zach and Lou moved to make room, but there was not enough and Nate had to lay Shakespeare’s head and shoulders across Lou’s legs.

  “Is he…?” Blue Water Woman asked anxiously, treading water.

  Nate saw his friend twitch. Putting a hand on Shakespeare’s stomach, he pushed as hard as he could.

  Water spewed from Shakespeare’s mouth. Gasping and coughing, he opened his eyes and looked about him in confusion, then calmed.

  “Oh, it’s only you, Horatio. For a second there I thought I was being stomped by an angry elk.”

  Blue Water Woman clung to the side and peered over at her man. “Are you all right?”

  Shakespeare looked toward her, and coughed. “You dived in to save me, didn’t you?”

  “It seemed like a good idea.”

  “Lordy. I will never hear the end of this one.”

  “No, you will not.”

  Shakespeare smiled and reached up, and their fingers brushed. “If I have not told you that I love you today, permit me to remedy my oversight.”

  “You nearly died.”

  “An exaggeration if ever I heard one.” Shakespeare turned to Nate. “This is not going as well as we planned.”

  “We must get you to shore.”

  “I am fine.”

  “We must get Lou to shore,” Nate amended.

  Shakespeare blinked. “Oh. Yes, we must. I had forgotten.” He slowly sat up and grinned at his wife. “Are you going to cling there all the way back?”

  Winona had brought her canoe in and now offered her arm to Blue Water Woman. “Here, let me help you.”

  Presently, their stricken armada was underway.

  “Wait!” Shakespeare exclaimed. “What about my canoe?”

  Nate pointed.

  Only one end was still above water, and it was filling fast. Trailing bubbles, the canoe slowly slipped from sight, leaving concentric ripples to mark the spot.

  “There was a hole in it as big as a melon,” Zach said.

  “That makes two the fish sent to the bottom,” Shakespeare said. “And after all the work we put into them.”

  “We should have made dugouts,” Zach said. “That thing can’t knock a hole in them.”

  “We aren’t licked,” Shakespeare said. “We will make more canoes and be back out here in no time.” He looked at Nate, expecting him to say something. “Did you hear me, Horatio?”

  “I heard.”

  “Fish got your tongue?”

  “We will talk about it after we get you and Lou out of those wet clothes and in bed.”

  “Since when is a little wet worth so much fuss?” Shakespeare replied. “I am as well as I can be, I tell you.”

  “Take it up with your wife when we get back.”

  “You fight dirty.” Shakespeare shifted and regarded Louisa. “How about you, young lady? You look pale.”

  “I am as fine as you, but my lunkhead of a husband still wants to put me to bed.”

  “I share your indignation. The way some people carry on about nearly drowning is ridiculous. But I agree with your husband on this.”

  Zach draped an arm around Lou’s shoulders, and glared. “You and your stupid water devil.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I nearly lost her,” Zach said. “And we would not have been out here but for you.”

  Shakespeare winced. “I grant you that. But your logic is faulty. If I were to suggest we go hunting, and while we were up in the mountains a Blackfoot put an arrow into your leg, would that be my fault?”

  “Don’t try to confuse me,” Zach said.

  “I will not accept blame that is not wholly mine. If your spleen is agitated, I suggest you direct it at the fish.”

  Nate glanced over his shoulder. “You keep calling it that. What makes you so sure?”

  “I saw it, Horatio. As I am living and breathing again, I saw it. A fish such as mortal eyes have not beheld since the dawn of creation.”

  Zach snorted.

  “He is not the flower of courtesy,” Shakespeare quoted. “Scoff if you will, Zachary, but you saw the size of the thing even if you did not get a clear look at the thing itself.”

  “A fish,” Nate repeated.

  “You sound disappointed,” Shakespeare said.

  “I was half hoping it was something else,” Nate said. “Something more.” The legends of the water creatures, so common among so many tribes, had led him to think they would encounter the new and unknown.

  “What more do you want?” Shakespeare asked. “A fish that size qualifies as a marvel.”

  Nate did not see how. Exceptionally large fish were often reported to inhabit lakes and rivers, to say nothing of the gigantic denizens of the seven seas. He mentioned as much.

  “I grant you it is not as big as a whale,” Shakespeare said. “And I seem to recollect hearing that some sharks grow over twenty feet long, and that there is a critter called a whale shark that grows to pretty near sixty. So maybe our monster is puny compared to them, but it is still a monster.”

  “It is a fish,” Nate said, stroking his paddle. “You said so yourself.”

  “What difference does that make? It is a name, nothing more. That which we call a rose by any other word would—” Shakespeare stopped abruptly.

  Waku had shouted and was jerking his arm. “Look! Look there! It come again!”

  Not quite forty feet away was another swell. Their aquatic nemesis was pacing the canoes.

  Lou gripped Zach’s arm and swallowed. “What is that thing up to now?”

  “Don’t worry,” Zach said, squeezing her. “It won’t attack us again.” But he did not feel as certain as he tried to sound.

  “That blasted critter is taunting us,” Shakespeare said. “The fiend is rubbing our noses in our defeat.”

  “It’s a fish,” Nate said again.

  “Fish, smish. Have you not been baited by bears? And what about those wolverines that stalked us? Or that time you waged war against a demon of a mountain lion?”

  “They were not fish.”

  Shakespeare let out an indignant harrumph. “Were I a finny dweller of the deep, I would take exception to your slander. To hear you talk, all fish are by nature dullards and do not share a whit of brain between them.”

  “They are fish.”

  “By God, say that one more time and I will scream!” Shakespeare declared. “Honestly, Horatio. I don’t know what has gotten into you.”

  Nate twisted around and gave a pointed look at Louisa and then at McNair. “What was it you once said to me?” He paused. “Now I remember. A great deal of your wit lies in your sinews.”

  “Zounds,” Shakespeare said. “Hoisted by my own petard. Does this mean you have changed your mind about smiting the brute?”

  Nate resumed paddling and did not answer.

  “Verily, this does not bode well.”

  Zach said, “I know I have changed my mind. All this over a fish? I don’t care how big it is.”

  “And you don’t care about what it did to your wife, either?” Shakespeare asked.

  “Don’t get me started again.”

  The swell continued to pace them until they drew near the west shore, close to Nate’s cabin. When they were an arrow’s flight out, with typical suddenness the swell shrank to nothing.

  “Good riddance!” Lou exclaimed.

  The canoes scraped bottom and they clambered out to drag them up onto land.

  Shakespeare shook a fist at
the lake, bellowing, “You have not seen the last of us, fish! We are in this to the death!” He smiled at the others. “Are you with me?”

  No one answered.

  Devious to the Bone

  Shakespeare McNair took to lying in bed as eagerly as he would to lying on broken glass. He could not wait to get up and get on with his campaign against the lurker in the depths, but his wife insisted he rest while she went to make tea. He wanted coffee, but she said tea would be better for him.

  “This is a fine state of affairs,” Shakespeare groused to her departing back, “when a man my age is treated like a one-year-old.”

  From the doorway Blue Water Woman replied, “I would put … what do white women call them? Ah, yes. I would put diapers on you if we had any.”

  “I wouldst thou did itch from head to foot,” Shakespeare quoted. “And I would not lift a finger to help you scratch.” But his barb was wasted; he was alone. With a sigh of annoyance he clasped his hands behind his head and propped his head in his hands and his hands on the pillow.

  Shakespeare felt terrible about the outcome of the day’s effort: Louisa nearly drowned, him only slightly less waterlogged, and two canoes destroyed. “Not exactly a success,” he said to the ceiling. He had planned so carefully, too. The extra canoes, the harpoons – they should have been enough, but they weren’t. They should have done the job, but they didn’t.

  The fault did not lie with them. They had done all that was humanly possible. Their mistake, if it could be called that, was in going out to engage an enemy they knew nothing about. Ignorance had been the cause of their downfall. ‘Know thy enemy’ was coined for a reason.

  What did they know? Shakespeare asked himself. What had they learned so far? He mentally ticked off the short list: they knew the creature was a fish, they knew harpoons were useless against it, and they knew it would fight, and fight fiercely, in defense of its domain.

  “Not much, is it?” Shakespeare continued his conversation with the rafters. Certainly, none of their paltry knowledge would help him destroy the thing. Frowning, he closed his eyes and tried to relax, but he was asking the impossible of his racing mind.

  “There has to be something,” Shakespeare said. Again he went over his list: it was a fish, it had the temperament of a mad bull, it was more intelligent – in his opinion – than any fish he ever heard of, it liked to eat ducks, it stayed in the…

  Shakespeare sat up. “It likes to eat ducks,” he said out loud. Or was it, he mused, that the thing was partial to meat covered in feathers? He chuckled, an idea taking form. He was still contemplating when Blue Water Woman returned, bearing a tray with the cup of the tea she had promised, along with a steaming bowl of soup.

  “What is this, wench? The condemned man is treated to a last meal?”

  “What are you babbling about?

  “Were I a building, I would be on the verge of ruin,” Shakespeare said, moving his arms so she could set the tray in his lap.

  “Does this have anything to do with your silly notion that you are being treated like a child?”

  Shakespeare tugged at his white mane. “You don’t see infants with a mop of snow.”

  “We are back to that again.”

  “To what?”

  “Never mind.” Blue Water Woman tapped the saucer. “I put toza in the tea.”

  Shakespeare did not need to ask why. He was familiar with dozens of Indian remedies, everything from bitterroot for sore throats to juniper berries for bladder problems to the root of the horse-tail plant for sores. Toza was a tonic for those who were run down.

  “Drink it.”

  “‘Well moused, lion,’“ Shakespeare quoted. But he obliged her and took several sips. Setting the cup down, he picked up the spoon and was about to dip it into the soup when the aroma tingled his nose. “Unless my nostrils are mistaken, this is chicken soup.”

  “We were out of badger meat,” Blue Water Woman bantered. They hardly ever ate badger.

  “A fowl by any other feather,” Shakespeare said, and cackled. He eagerly spooned some of the broth into his mouth and delightedly smacked his lips. “Yes, indeed. It will do, and do nicely.”

  “I am glad you like my soup.”

  “I like your feathers more, madam,” Shakespeare said. “How many would you say we have, give or take an egg?”

  Blue Water Woman could not hide her puzzlement.

  “What are you on about? I do not have feathers. As for eggs, I collected eleven from the coop this morning.”

  “Eleven eggs but no feathers.”

  “Will you stop with the feathers? You are making less sense than usual, which I did not think was possible.”

  “On the contrary, my dear,” Shakespeare gloated. “You have given me a most wonderful inspiration.”

  “In regards to what?”

  Shakespeare spooned more soup into his mouth. “Between the feathers and the tea, my vigor and vim have been restored. I am ready to slay that finny dragon.”

  “No.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I talked it over with Winona on our way to shore, and she agrees it is entirely too dangerous. We should let the water devil or fish or whatever it is be. Let it get on with its life and we will get on with ours.”

  “You would give up just like that?” Shakespeare said, and snapped his fingers.

  “You could have been killed. Lou nearly died. What more will it take to convince you to leave well enough alone?”

  “Have I mentioned lately how wonderful your English is? If you were behind a screen, and I did not know you were a Flathead, I would swear you were white.”

  “Are you trying to change the subject?”

  “Me?” Shakespeare touched his chest in mock amazement. “Do you honestly think I would stoop so low?”

  “Lower, if you thought you could get away with it.”

  “‘Is’t come to this? In faith, hath the world not one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion?’“

  “I know how your mind works,” Blue Water Woman said. “You are as devious a man as any who ever lived, red or white.”

  “I thank you.”

  “It was not a compliment, husband. You are up to something. Confess what it is and I will not be nearly as mad as when I find out on my own.”

  Shakespeare covered her hand with his and gazed up into her eyes. “Since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief,” he quoted. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  “Don’t you?” Blue Water Woman said. “Whatever you are plotting, do not do it. I ask you this as your wife of many winters.”

  “I live to please you,” Shakespeare said.

  “Good.”.

  “But I am also a man.”

  “Not so good.” Blue Water Woman placed her other hand on his shoulder and leaned down. “Let it go. Let it go. Let it go.”

  “You are a most marvelous parrot.”

  “I mean it.”

  “I am yours to command.”

  “You mean that?”

  “I am a living fount of truth,” Shakespeare said. “You can trust me to do what I have to.”

  “Very well.” Blue Water Woman smiled and straightened. “I have chores to do. Eat, then rest. By tomorrow you should be back to your old self.”

  “Assuredly,” Shakespeare said. He waited until she had left the bedroom, then snickered and said to himself, “A fox has nothing on me.” He ate heartily, plotting as he chewed and swallowed, and washed the chicken soup down with the tea.

  Content with the food and his plot, and feeling as warmly snug as a bear in its den, Shakespeare pulled the blankets up. He needed to get as much rest as he could. He let himself drift off, and to his surprise, he slept so long that when he woke up the bedroom was dark and the front room was lit by the glow of their lamp. Yawning and stretching, he sat up. He was about to slide out of bed when he remembered his brainstorm. Grinning slyly, he called out to his wife and erase
d the grin before she appeared.

  “You are finally up.”

  “Don’t blame me. It was your idea,” Shakespeare said grumpily.

  “I am glad you slept so long. You needed the rest.” Blue Water Woman came over and pressed a palm to his forehead. “You do not have a fever. How do you feel?”

  “Still a little tired,” Shakespeare fibbed. “But hungry enough to eat an entire buffalo, hooves and horns included.”

  “You stay right there. I will bring your supper to you.” Blue Water Woman kissed him on the cheek. “I am happy you have decided to listen to reason.”

  Shakespeare watched her go out, marveling at how little she truly knew him after all their years together. Never in his entire life had he ever given up on anything. He was not about to give up on this.

  The tantalizing aroma of cooking food filled the cabin. Shakespeare’s stomach rumbled. He was famished. When she brought in a tray with a sizzling slab of venison, hot potatoes smothered in gravy, and green beans, he ate with relish, savoring every bite. The deer meat, in particular, was delicious. It had been a staple of his diet for so long, he preferred it over beef. Three cups of piping hot coffee helped fill his belly. As he was pouring his last cup, Blue Water Woman came in and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “I have something to ask you.”

  “Ask away,” Shakespeare warily said, afraid she had guessed what he intended to do and would insist he not do it.

  “That talk we had a while back about each of our families getting a cow,” Blue Water Woman said. “Do you still want one?”

  Shakespeare smiled in relief. “I do if you do.”

  “I talked about it out on the lake with Winona. It was Nate’s idea, and it is a good one. We will have milk every day, and I can churn butter. I have never done that, but if white women can do it, I can, too.”

  “A cow it is,” Shakespeare said. “Nate and I aim to ride to Bent’s Fort in a couple of weeks to see about buying some from any pilgrims who might be bound for Oregon Country.” Invariably, in every wagon train, more than a few emigrants had cows tied to the back of their wagons, or else the cows were bunched in a common herd.