Angel Wings

by Stengl, Suzanne

  Ripley and Terrence trailed behind the newlyweds. The teenage boys from Bandit Creek. He’d taken them out several times already this summer. Those kids would be Divemasters before too long.

  He greeted the divers and sent them to get ready. That was six of them. There was supposed to be a seventh—a woman from San Francisco. He glanced at his clipboard.

  Christie McFee, the last name on the list. No experience was listed, but Charlie had scribbled one word. Trained.

  Gaven clenched his jaw. That meant Charlie had taken her to the pool at the Community Center. He would have given her a brief orientation there. That was all. Warm water and perfect conditions.

  Please God, don’t let today be her first open water experience. Not a hot August morning in a seven mil wet suit.

  He’d have to buddy with her, which meant his attention would be pulled from the group.

  But the boys, Ripley and Terrence, had done the dive to the Old Town before. They’d be able to help with guiding. And Gaven would be able to keep an eye on the new diver.

  He glanced at his watch. A few minutes past nine. Maybe she wouldn’t show up?

  No such luck. He saw the white Chevy Cobalt pull into the dirt parking lot beside Charlie’s Dive Shack. A Missoula Airport sticker decorated the rear window of the car.

  According to his clipboard, the woman lived in San Francisco, by the coast. Why not learn to dive there? Why had she come all the way to Lost Lake to do her first dive?

  He shook his head. It wasn’t his job to figure out why the tourists did what they did. His job was to keep them safe while they did it.

  And if he hadn’t needed the money, he wouldn’t be here.

  The driver’s door opened and an attractive young woman stepped out of the car, wearing sunglasses, a loose, long sleeved top, baggy shorts and sandals.

  She was about five foot six, maybe five seven. Her long brown hair wisped around her shoulders and, judging by the tan on those long legs, she’d been outdoors a lot this summer. Beneath the baggy clothes, she looked shapely, but . . . thin. Maybe a little too thin, like she’d recently been sick.

  He couldn’t read her expression. She looked like she was holding on to her feelings, keeping them tight. At any rate, she didn’t seem particularly excited about this trip.

  Carrying a net bag of mask, snorkel and fins, she stepped onto the dock, with her attention focused on the other divers who were pulling on their neoprene.

  “Good morning,” he said. “I’m Gaven St. Michel. I’m your Divemaster.”

  “I . . . I don’t want to wear a wet suit.”

  Not very friendly. No telling him her name. Not even a good morning. “You’re Christie McFee?”

  “Yes. But nobody said anything about wearing a wet suit. It’s too hot.”

  He heard his sigh, a loud one, and right at this moment he didn’t care about putting on his public face. “You’re up in the mountains, lady. The water is sixty-three degrees. You wear neoprene.”

  She gulped and her tanned face seemed to pale. “One of those hoods too?”

  “If you want to be comfortable. We’ll be down about forty minutes.”

  “I . . . I don’t like the hoods. They feel claustrophobic.”

  Somebody’d put her up to this. Somebody wanted her to learn to dive. Never a good scenario. “Have you ever dived before?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “In Bandit Creek. In the pool. With that guy from the store.”

  Great. Why did Charlie do this to him? “How much do you weigh?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing personal. You need weights, remember? I need to know what to put on your weight belt.”

  She looked confused. “Ah, in the pool, he gave me—”

  “The neoprene is buoyant. You need more weight than you did in the pool.”

  She nodded, like she’d just remembered that much. And then she told him how much she weighed.

  He was right. She was too thin. He wanted to ask her if she’d been sick, but he didn’t. Instead he said, “Tell me the five steps before entry.”

  He saw her go inside her head, pull out the information, and recite the steps. She knew them. Intellectually, at least.

  “You’re out of air.”

  “I am?”

  He paused, wondering if she was for real. Maybe Charlie had sent her as a test. “If you are out of air,” Gaven said. “Give me the hand signal.”

  She gave him the correct hand signal.

  He quizzed her on a few more hand signals. She seemed ready and she was probably safe enough, but for some reason, he had a bad feeling about this.

  “I’m your buddy. Stay close to me. No more than six feet. Come on.”

  Gaven walked down the dock and stepped onto the boat. Then he turned and waited for her to board. She was looking for something to hold on to. She’d probably never been on a boat.

  He held out his hand to help her and she put her small hand in his. The air temperature was already over eighty, but her hand felt cold.

  He guided her to a bench beside the Seattle newlyweds and she sat. Then he found his smallest wet suit and brought it to her. “Put it on.”

  She paused a moment, like she wanted to argue. And then she accepted it.

  Right. It was definitely not her idea to go diving. Someone had put her up to it. Or, maybe it was one of those bucket list things? Something she’d decided she had to do in her lifetime. Except, most people didn’t make a bucket list until they were a lot older than she was. She was too young for a bucket list.

  It was something else.

  · · · · ·

  “Yo!”

  Charlie ambled down to the dock, eating a ham sandwich. With all the fat he’d accumulated over the years, his Uncle Charlie Beauregard could probably last down there for an hour without a wet suit.

  Charlie had turned forty-one last Wednesday. A week ago today. The two of them had celebrated at the Powder Horn Saloon in town and Charlie had talked about how happy he was to have Gaven working for him over the summer . . . and would he consider staying on over the winter for the snowmobile and dog sled tours.

  Gaven, of course, had said no.

  “You checked her out?” he asked his uncle.

  “She’ll be fine.”

  “This is her first open water.”

  “I said she’ll be fine. She’s a quick study.”

  Gaven closed his eyes for a moment. If it was up to him, he wouldn’t take her. Not with the group.

  He looked over to where she sat. She was taking off her clothes, and—he’d been right—all that baggy clothing hid a shapely body. She wore a one-piece navy bathing suit.

  “Is it true about the legend?” the newlywed woman asked.

  “What legend?” the woman from the older couple asked.

  Christie McFee shook out her wet suit and started to pull it on.

  “There’s a legend,” Charlie said, neatly slipping into his spiel. “When the Old Town of Bandit Creek flooded in 1911, the miners left gold behind. Many have tried to find it. Several have come close. But anyone who tries to take the gold . . . dies.”

  Charlie paused in his chatter, waiting for the attention of his audience.

  It was a stupid legend to perpetuate. But it might keep the tourists from poking around the Old Town too much. If they tried to go into the submerged buildings, they’d think twice. Maybe.

  Of course, the legend had not stopped the Wreck Divers. Many of whom had come back with artifacts of the Old Town and sold them. Someone had even found books, which had been given to the Bandit Creek Library for restoration.

  “Are the buildings still standing?” the newlywed man asked.

  “Most of them,” Charlie answered.

  “Why don’t they rot?”

  “Same reason shipwrecks don’t rot,” Charlie said. “Especially in freshwater lakes, like this one. The wood will be preserved. Even in sea water, as long as the salinity is low, the old w
ooden ships have lasted for centuries.”

  “Sweet,” Ripley and Terrence said in unison, like they always did. The boys had heard Charlie’s tourist patter at least a dozen times.

  “How did the town flood?” the woman from the older couple asked.

  “Landslide,” Charlie answered. “Off Crow Mountain. The rubble dammed the creek back in 1911.”

  “And everybody in the town died,” Ripley said, like he always did.

  “Not everybody,” Charlie carried on. “Many got out in time, but a lot of lives were lost.”

  “And their ghosts still haunt Lost Lake,” Terrence said, like he always did.

  The teenagers both got into the spirit of the tour. Charlie didn’t even have to pay them. Although, he did give them a discounted rate for diving.

  “Nowadays,” Charlie went on with his talk, “we’re learning a lot about flooded forests. With hydroelectric dams being built, a lot of timber is submerged. It’s never been economically feasible to cut down the trees before building the dam, but now, some efforts are being made to harvest the timber underwater.”

  “Is that wood any good?” the man from the older couple asked.

  “As good as new,” Charlie said. “It’s the bacteria that eat the wood. There’s very little oxygen in the lake water for bacteria to survive. Some flooded forests contain premium wood.”

  “Can we take anything from the town?” the newlywed man asked.

  “Not unless you want the ghosts to get you,” Ripley said.

  “The Bandit Creek Ladies Historical Society is working to have the Old Town declared a national historic site,” Charlie said. “Most of the artifacts recovered from the Old Town are in the museum at the Town Hall. Be sure to stop by. It’s open from one until five every afternoon.”

  “I think this is too small,” Christie McFee said, as she struggled into her neoprene.

  “Needs to be tight, girl,” Charlie told her. “Fills with water. If you have too much water inside, your body can’t heat it and you’ll be cold.”

  Gaven pulled his uncle aside. “She doesn’t want to dive.”

  “She’s just a little anxious,” Charlie said. “She did fine in the pool. Normal to be anxious for your first time out.” He took another bite of his sandwich, and then, talking with his mouth full, he added, “Loosen up, boy. Ya worry too much.”

  · · · · ·

  Christie squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to take slow, calming breaths. The air temperature was at least eighty degrees, the sun beat down on them, and she was wearing this horrible, sweltering, tight wet suit.

  Charlie, the older man, stood at the wheel, not wearing a wet suit. That probably meant he would not dive with them. He would stay onboard. It made sense, that someone would stay with the boat. But she’d never done this before, so she had no idea what would happen.

  As Charlie guided the boat out to the center of the lake, he kept talking about the old Bandit Creek. About 1911, and the landslide damming the creek. And the water level rising over several days, and the Old Town now forty-eight feet underwater. And something about it all being preserved because the water was cold and because there was little oxygen. Who cared?

  She tugged the hood under her chin trying to let a sliver of breeze touch her skin and praying today would soon be over.

  Charlie’s banter continued. He was giving them a variation of the story she’d read in the Bandit Creek Gazette when she’d searched online. About the gold left behind by the miners.

  Gold qualified as treasure. This dive qualified as diving for treasure.

  Suddenly she felt water splash over her face and seep into the neck opening of her hood, trailing a cool path inside the wet suit. Blessed cold and refreshing water.

  “More?” the younger man asked her. She couldn’t remember what he’d said his name was.

  “Please,” she answered.

  She held her face up while he poured water over her head. He didn’t have his hood on yet. A slight breeze sifted through his dark hair.

  “Anybody else?”

  The older woman asked for a splash of water. Everyone else was tolerating the heat.

  “I’m okay,” one of the teenage boys said.

  “Me too,” the other one said. “We’re almost above the Old Town now.”

  Then the engine cut and the boat stopped traveling, and started bobbing in the water . . . in a nauseating rocking motion.

  The younger man, the Divemaster, was talking. “Check your buddy’s equipment. Make sure you have enough air in your BCD for the surface. Charlie will help you.” The group paired off, each going through what looked like a standard checklist.

  “Christie and I will go first,” the Divemaster said. “When we’re all in the water, give me the Okay signal. Then we’ll descend together.”

  “Hey Gaven,” one of the teenagers called out. “Is it all right if Terrence and I lead the way into the Old Town?”

  “You can lead,” Gaven the Divemaster said. “But don’t get too far ahead.” He continued with his instructions. “We’ll be at an average depth of forty-eight feet for about forty minutes. Stay close to your buddy and keep everyone in sight. None of you are qualified as Wreck Divers so don’t go inside the buildings.”

  “Yeah, the ghosts hate it when you do that. A couple of weeks ago, there was a guy out here who—”

  “That’s enough, Ripley.” Gaven cut off the story.

  She hadn’t read anything about a diving accident. And now she was glad she hadn’t done any further research.

  “All set?” Gaven asked, speaking just to her.

  Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. “I think so,” she said, still sitting on the bench, trying to focus on the horizon, trying to stop the nausea she felt with the pitching boat.

  He clamped an air tank to a vest—the BCD—that’s what Charlie had called it. “Stand up.”

  She did, holding the back of the bench with one hand, balancing herself as the boat swayed.

  Gaven slipped a yellow weight belt around her waist. “Right hand release, remember?” He bent his head, trying to look in her eyes. But she avoided his gaze. She didn’t want him to see how scared she was.

  There was so much to remember. She felt him take her hand, her right hand, and gently place it over the weight belt buckle.

  “Try it.”

  · · · · ·

  The Ghost and Christie McFee is available at

  Amazon

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  About the Author

  Reviews: The Ghost and Christie McFee

  Excerpt from The Ghost and Christie McFee