“No all-female groups are allowed to camp above Bluebell Glade between May thirteenth and June thirtieth.”
“But…” Then the light dawned. “Oh, shit.”
I nodded. “Satyr rutting season. Have them check Satyr Glade. And find out who the hell OK’d the campsite.”
Susan said softly, “Somebody’s going to get sued over this one.”
All I could do was nod. I wasn’t usually in charge of anything but the monster. Unfortunately, our chief ranger was on the injured list for at least three weeks. I was acting chief ranger at the height of the tourist season.
The barricade stretched across the most narrow part of the lake, from pine-covered shore to rocky outcrop. It was a deluxe steel net, enough give and no sharp edges so Irving wouldn’t be able to break it. The barricade had been the single most expensive item of the Lake Monster Breeding Program.
The net stretched smooth and unbroken, which meant the damage had to be below the water line. Irving had learned that if he damaged the visible part of the net, we’d discover his escape sooner, but underwater we wouldn’t notice the breakout until we spotted him.
The water was cold even in June, not uncomfortable but cool, and it closed around me on all sides. Air may be all around you on land, but it doesn’t have the invasive push of water. Water lets you know it’s there. On a good day the visibility is twenty feet. Today wasn’t a good day.
A swirl of water and Irving coiled through the silver trail of my air bubbles, the thickness of his body looped against my back. I brushed a hand down his side as he eased past me. I expected monsters to feel like dolphins, rubbery and somehow unreal, or snakes with their dry, soft brush of scales, but monsters feel like…monsters. Slick, wet but soft like pressed velvet. And underneath it all, even when you can’t see most of him, just a glimpse of shining, black coils, there is the feeling of immense power. Even if you can’t see him, you know he’s big. You know he could flatten you if he wanted to, but Irving is like some of the great whales. He seems to know he’s big and that you’re small. He’s careful around us.
The lake monster swam in and out of the wavering sunlight that pierced the water. Susan and I stayed within touching distance of each other. At twenty-five feet, we lost all light. Only my grip on the net let me know which way was up. I’ve been in caves where it was so dark you could touch your own eyeball and not see your finger. It was like that down here except the water gave the darkness weight and movement as if it were something alive. The water swirled, and something large rubbed against me. It had to be Irving, but my breathing seemed very loud. Even, deep breaths, that’s it. I’m not afraid of water, and I’m not afraid of the dark, but combine the two and I am not a happy camper.
I switched on my flashlight and Susan followed suit. Her beam flashed into my eyes and I gave her the OK sign. She returned it, and we continued down into the blackness. I had to let my flashlight swing on the little loop around my wrist so I could use both hands to hold the net and feel for looseness. The light swung bizarrely, a slow-motion liquid dance of light and darkness.
The net wobbled under my hands, loose. I waved my light at Susan, and she swam over to me. Together we found the hole that Irving had pushed under the net, tearing out two mooring lines. He was thirty feet long, but he had a snake’s ability to squeeze through the darnedest holes. I would have bet a month’s pay he couldn’t have slipped through the opening. After we fixed one, we’d make sure there were no others, but usually it was just one. Irving is a lazy monster and doesn’t do more work than he has to.
First, of course, we had to get Irving back through that little hole.
Susan swam through the hole, raising a cloud of silt that floated like a brownish fog in the flashlight’s beam. Now even with the light I couldn’t see anything. But Irving’s smooth bulk eased past my leg. Nothing else in the lake could displace water like our monster. He stopped and I put a hand on his side. I still couldn’t see, or feel his tail end. With a convulsive wriggle, Irving began to back out of the hole. It stopped almost as soon as it began, and I knew Susan was bribing him with some of the fish we’d brought. The way to a lake monster’s heart is through his stomach.
Two hours later, the barricade was temporarily secure. We were making our last dive and had stopped at fifteen feet for our decompression stop. If you go up too fast, the air in your lungs doesn’t have time to adjust to the pressure as you swim toward the surface. Swim directly up with no decompression stop, and you’ll get “the bends”—decompression sickness. The nitrogen in your blood will bubble like soda pop, causing, among other things, unconsciousness and death. That is the worst case, of course. Susan says I dwell too much on the things that can go wrong when you dive. I prefer to think of it as being cautious.
Irving butted me gently in the ribs, blowing bubbles at me. It’s hard to laugh with a regulator in your mouth, but Irving will make you do it. Sunlight hovered in the water at this depth, making the monster’s coils shimmer. He wrapped us both in his velvet muscled body, not tight, but to let us know he had us. Then he was gone swimming away into dimness.
Susan’s fingers brushed mine, and I took her hand. We kicked for the surface, turning slowly together, caught in the soft, hovering brightness of light and water.
We spent the rest of the afternoon searching for the lost Girl Scout troop. We found them asleep, drugged with music. They were curled around a sign that said, “No All-Female Groups Beyond This Point. Satyr Breeding Area.” Satyrs have a peculiar sense of humor.
I had found the orders for their campsite. They hadn’t camped where we told them. The park was not liable for their mistake. Honest.
That night Susan, as usual, was asleep first. She lay on her side, half curled against my stomach. My face was buried in the back of her neck. She smelled of shampoo and perfume and warmth. Nothing felt as good as going to sleep with Susan’s body pressed against mine. The soft rise and fall of her breathing was one of my top three favorite sounds in the world. The second is her laugh, and the first is the little sound she makes, deep in her throat, when we make love. It is a personal sound, just for us, no sharing. I’ve never been in love. Does it show?
The phone rang and Susan stirred in her sleep, but didn’t waken. I rolled over and grabbed the receiver. “Hello.”
“Mike, it’s Jordan again…” His voice trailed off.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“It’s Irving. A couple of drunks dragged their boat into his part of the lake. Said they just wanted to swim with the monster.”
I pushed the cover back and crouched on the edge of the bed. “What happened, Jordan?”
Susan touched my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. “Jordan, talk to me.”
“They hit Irving with the propeller. It looks bad. I already called the vet. He’s out on a call, but he’ll get here as soon as he can.”
We drove in silence toward the lake. The sky was black and glittered with the cold light of stars. So many stars. Susan’s tanned face was pale, her lips set in a tight angry line. Her eyes turn nearly black when she is really angry. They glittered like black jewels now.
I just felt sick. It was too ridiculous, too stupid for words, that all our work was going to be screwed up by some drunks in a boat. How bad was he hurt? The questions kept running through my head like a piece of song. How bad was he hurt?