by Zane Lovitt
She could not have seen him; it was too dark out. He started the car again and drove away. He went halfway around the lake and then out past Dawson’s Valley. The asphalt became gravel and then dirt that whipped hard at the undercarriage of his car. A road sign warned that the roads were not serviced during the winter months and he slowed down.
He stopped at a chain that ran across the road. He took down the Road Closed sign and put it in his boot. The chain was held closed with a pair of handcuffs so anyone could open them with a regular key and he unlocked the chain, wrapped it around a tree, locked it again. He wondered why they bothered with the handcuffs. No-one ever came out here but Marlin. Teenagers with girls or dope went somewhere with a lake view.
The road stopped after ten miles and he got out and walked through the trees. The beam from his torch bounced over the woods like a drunken horsefly. He started to sweat.
A heavy tree had fallen across the path long ago. Now it was covered with moss and ferns grew out of it. There was nothing on the other side of the tree and Marlin sat on it, his sweat cooling on his skin, and looked around, played the beam of his torch here and there and at nothing at all. It was dead quiet. He guessed no one had been there for a very long time.
When he was a teenager he’d come out to the fallen tree to smoke. Left the lake views for the other guys. When he started seeing Carol in the middle of his divorce he’d come out to the tree to hear himself think. Now he thought about Mrs Lange. He was surprised to find himself glad she was back.
*
The mosquitoes were getting worse. Even early in the morning, while it was still cool from night, Marlin felt them buzzing over the lake. He sat in his car at Thirteen Mile Point and looked down on the lake and waited for Thompson’s boat. It would come. Sooner or later, she would come.
He got out of the car and rubbed insect repellent into his arms and neck. He stood high over the water and looked around. Years ago Carol had taken him to Thirteen Mile Point and they’d made love for the first time. He remembered her swollen, smiling lips; they always looked bruised and raw. Born and raised a few miles away, but he’d never known about Thirteen Mile Point. It was only good at sunrise. Not many people had the patience for a sunrise. He wondered how many men Carol had taken there over the years.
Thompson’s boat came from the south. It moved slowly. It came head on towards Marlin and turned. They had covered a lot of ground in a week.
She stood holding a gunwale. Her neck was straight and smooth. Marlin liked the look of her tight blue jeans. He saw the dive tanks in the boat. He didn’t know she could dive. She didn’t do any diving last year.
They came back at him. A mosquito buzzed in his ear and he rubbed the insect repellent into his ears and along his cheeks as he watched Thompson’s boat. They were doing a typical search and rescue, grid by grid. Marlin had taught Thompson how to do it properly last year.
Marlin looked at the clouds and felt the coming of the rain in the wind. He got back in his car and sat. He watched the boat head back south and keep going. They would be done for the day. Thompson wouldn’t let her search with the weather turning bad.
He picked up three coffees on his way to the landing and was waiting with them in a cardboard tray when the boat came in. He walked out along the dock towards them and swallowed. His throat was too dry and he had to force his steps forward.
‘Mrs Lange,’ he said.
‘Deputy Marlin.’ She stepped off the boat and stood close to him.
Thompson jumped off and stood behind her, smiling. ‘Hi there, Rick.’
‘You want a coffee?’ Marlin asked.
‘I always do.’ Thompson took the coffee and stood waiting.
Marlin looked at the clouds over the lake. There was still time before the rain.
‘Find anything today?’ Marlin asked. He gave her the other coffee.
‘No,’ she said. ‘But we’re just getting started. Thompson’s got a new radar. State of the art. By the time I’m done looking I’ll know everything there is to know about this fucking lake.’
He nodded and looked at his feet. The dock felt slick out over the water.
‘You sure got pluck, Mrs Lange.’
‘Pluck?’
‘Pluck,’ he said. ‘Like fortitude.’
‘I know what it means, Deputy. Just didn’t think you were old enough to use that word.’
Other fishing boats were coming in. Some were still far out and Marlin thought they would be caught by the weather. Thompson always had a good eye for weather. First in, first out.
‘What if you don’t find anything?’ he asked.
‘Then I’ll look somewhere else.’
‘And what if you do find something?’
‘Then I’ll know.’
He nodded. He looked at the water. It was very still and he frowned. ‘You sure that’s the best thing?’
‘I have to know, Marlin. It’s my son.’
The rain came and it hit the lake and Marlin thought about what Carol looked like naked, that time at Thirteen Mile Point.
*
He came in the door and took off his raincoat. He could smell chicken but knew Carol would have eaten earlier, without him. He listened and heard the radio in the kitchen and the rain outside and the blood in his ears.
‘You’re home late again.’ Carol came from the hallway. Her face looked like it had been scrubbed hard. He wanted to kiss her.
‘Sorry. I had to work back.’
‘Don’t apologise. I’m used to it.’
‘There was an accident on Route 106. Some tourist wrapped his car around a tree and then walked off into the woods. Not a scratch on him, but he has no idea which way is up.’
He followed her into the kitchen. It was warm in the house and she wore old yoga clothes. They fit her well.
‘I made dinner.’
‘I can smell it.’
‘I already ate.’
He nodded and watched her bend over to open the oven. She took out the baking dish and he could smell the garlic on the chicken.
Marlin moved up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. He kissed her neck. Her shampoo was expensive and smelled like it. He pressed his face into her black hair and she felt small in his arms. The muscles in her back were tensed and her arms were still. He tried to take her hands in his and they were cold. She started to shake slightly and he felt her chest gasp quietly for air, sudden and sharp and crying.
He held her and kissed the back of her head.
That night he lay in bed and listened to her sleep, to the soft, warm sound of her breath. The rain had stopped, but when the wind blew it still fell in the trees out front of the house. He got out of bed and she stopped breathing. He knew she was awake. He got dressed in the hallway and went outside and sat in his car.
Marlin looked at his watch. The sun would be up in two hours. He drove out to the Windy Water Motel but Lange’s pickup wasn’t there. He wondered who she was staying with and drove around the lake and then out past Dawson’s Valley. He sat on the fallen tree until the sun came up and then he went in to work.
*
The lake was quiet, empty. The morning mist hung close to the black surface of the water. It gave Marlin the creeps. He thought it looked like a black hole that would suck a man down in a second and leave nothing but a calm, soft ripple that would fast disappear. He didn’t know how people could go out over it day after day. But they did.
Her son had been missing over a week, but no-one had really noticed. Not until his backpack washed up on the shore, a good spread of blood on it. Then they realised he was gone. Then they worried. Soon Marlin found part of an outboard motor, banged up badly. Most people figured Jason Lange had gotten drunk again, taken a midnight ride again, and had crashed and gone under, swallowed up by the lake. Marlin suggested he might have pushed one butto
n too many and just left town, but no-one believed that. So they searched the lake. Marlin ran the whole show from dry land. Born and raised just down the road, but nothing scared him more than that lake.
Nothing was found. No body, no more boat parts and again Marlin suggested maybe Jason Lange had left town. But his mother came and one look at her face and he knew they had to look again. So they did and she stood by and watched carefully. She had asked Marlin why he didn’t go out on the water.
‘That’s a lot of lake,’ he had answered. ‘I can see it all better from up here.’
‘Then I’ll go.’
‘We already looked twice. The boss won’t let us take up more time or money.’
‘I’ll do it myself.’
And she stayed until the season ended and the weather became too bad and Thompson told her half the lake would freeze over for winter.
Now she was back out on the water, looking again. Slower, more carefully. She would know that lake better than anyone soon enough. She would know everything about it.
Marlin watched the lake silently. Though it was still foggy, the weather was fine. He knew she would be out there all day. She would stay out in a storm if Thompson let her. He thought of her face, grown old but still striking, and he bit his lower lip and thought she was tougher than hell.
*
He drove home along the lake and thought that now even the nights were muggy. He hoped Carol was still up, but it was late. It wouldn’t matter if she were awake. She faked sleep as well as everything else. But at least she was singing again. Not around him, but it was something. He remembered her voice. He loved it almost as much as he loved her mouth.
Marlin turned away from the lake and went past the motel out of habit. Lange’s pickup wasn’t there. He drove by the motel most nights and it was hit or miss with her truck. She had made a friend. He smiled and thought she would be a good friend to have. She had loyalty in spades.
He saw her pickup under the streetlamp near his house. He looked in the truck as he went by and it was empty and lights were on in his living room window. Carol had let her in.
He guessed Lange was waiting for him and he didn’t stop. Didn’t even slow down. He didn’t like the thought of Carol talking to her, but he liked the thought of walking in on it even less.
He went back to the lake drive and started around the lake. It was quiet and dark and he wondered why Lange would go to his house so late.
Because she needed to find her son. Nothing else mattered. Not to her.
Headlights shone in his rear-view mirror and when he looked again it was black behind him and the road was empty. Marlin eased down below the speed limit and cruised along, watching every now and again in the mirror. He went around the lake and saw the turn off for Dawson’s Valley. He ignored it and kept going straight. Stayed close to the lake. Close to home. He wanted to go home to Carol.
*
They found something. He didn’t know what, but by the way they moved around in the boat he knew they’d found something. Sweat ran down his back and he smiled. It was Thompson doing the diving. Marlin thought a man could see everything from Thirteen Mile Point. Sometimes too much. Thompson stripped down to his underpants and pulled on the wetsuit while Mrs Lange stared at the radar. The sky was clear and there was no wind, but the boat rocked. Something in the lake that couldn’t be seen. Marlin shook his head.
Thompson fell back into the water and was swallowed up. Every now and then air bubbled up to the surface. Lange stood watching the radar. Her shoulders had become red with sunburn in the last few days. But it was a healthy sunburn that made her skin look smooth, made Marlin wonder what it would be like to touch.
The boat swung heavily as though being pulled down into the flat lake. Lange fell back and grabbed hold of the throttle and the boat shot forward. It motored south, full tilt and Marlin stood straight.
That fucking lake is haunted, he thought. Thompson’s boat left a canyon of white water for a wake and finally circled to a slow stop and rocked back and forth and it was empty.
Marlin went to the water’s edge, high over it and looked again. The boat was far away but he couldn’t see Lange. He went to his car and opened his lockbox, the binoculars next to his gun. He took the binoculars and scanned the water and saw Lange floating, face down. He watched her thin body and she sunk a few inches and came back up. He waited, hoping for Thompson to surface.
He dropped the binoculars and ran down from Thirteen Mile Point and kept going along the shoreline. The water looked calm and quiet, but he didn’t trust it. He got close to Lange and took off his heavy belt and his boots and jumped in the lake. He swam out to her and swallowed enough water to make his own lake. He pulled at her body, grabbed her belt and kicked back for shore. Her weight pushed him under and he tried to surface. He got a swallow of air and went down again and pulled her towards the land and felt the soft mud on the bottom. He thought it might suck him down.
Marlin turned Lange over onto her back and kept pulling. She breathed and he held her around the waist.
She grabbed his arm. Her nails dug in and she pushed him away.
‘Get the fuck off me,’ she said. ‘Get away from me.’
She stood in the shallows and he held up his hands. She coughed and moved to the shore and leaned forward, her hands on her knees. Blood came from a cut on her forehead. She looked over at Marlin.
‘I thought you couldn’t swim,’ she said.
‘I can’t.’
Out in the lake Thompson broke the surface. He looked around and saw them and waved happily.
‘I’ll drive you back to your motel,’ Marlin said.
*
It was a clear morning. They were rare. There was more fog in the trees than over the lake. But the mosquitoes kept it from being too idyllic. He saw a few boats, but none of them belonged to Thompson. But they were out there. Maybe doing the east side of the lake, maybe anywhere. It was a hell of a lot of lake. He sucked on his lower lip and thought about pulling her ashore. Her body had been very firm, very tense. It reminded him of Carol.
He pulled onto the road and made a lap around the lake and checked in at the office. There was paperwork from the car accident earlier in the summer. The insurance company didn’t want to pay out. He drank a coffee and looked out the window and put the paperwork aside for another day. It was too good a day for the office so he got back in the car and drove around the lake and then out past Dawson’s Valley.
The mosquitoes were thick in the trees but the insect repellent was thick on his skin. Even still they buzzed in his ears. They could make a man loose his mind, he thought. Just the sound of them. The constant buzz that trapped a man’s soul and sucked him down like that lake promised to do.
He sat on the fallen tree and stared at the earth and thought about Carol and thought about how she looked naked, her mouth wet and smiling, her black hair spread out as she laughed, that time at Thirteen Mile Point. Nothing was more beautiful.
Dead pine needles covered the ground he stared at. He looked at the ferns growing out of the fallen tree. Some had been flattened. He walked around and stopped, looking down at a shoeprint, a small one. He wondered who had been out there, sitting on the tree.
Marlin walked back to his car, followed by the mosquitoes. Thompson and Lange would be coming in soon. He wanted to be there. They would not find anything, not in that lake. He wanted to help her. Standing around was the only way he could think of.
She did not need any help, he thought. Not from him. Not from anyone.
He drove to the landing and waited. He parked next to Thompson’s truck and looked around for hers. It wasn’t there.
It was dark by the time he got home. Lange’s pickup was in his driveway and he sat parked on the street watching it, watching his house.
He thought about Lange, in his house again, with his wife again.
/> *
Marlin sat on the hood of his car and watched the sun come up. It was a hell of a sunrise. Not many people had the patience for a sunrise. Fewer still knew how good it was at Thirteen Mile Point. Carol knew.
He remembered how Carol breathed wetly in his ear the first time they were together and how they lay in the bed of the county pickup and hoped for a sunrise. There wasn’t one. Just the mist protecting the lake. He remembered how soft she was and he thought about Lange. There was nothing soft about her.
Marlin looked to the lake. It was too early for the mosquitoes to be out. The mist was burning away quickly and the lake was calm and quiet. He felt like it was watching him.
He remembered the way Carol laughed, her naked body shaking slightly, her black hair spread out over the Lange boy’s chest, and he remembered hearing her sing while he watched them. It was the last time he heard her sing.
Michael Caleb Tasker
The engine of Moss’s 1990 Commodore started to play up thirty minutes past the first sign for Riviera. He ignored the burning smell, cajoled and caressed the vehicle’s cracked dashboard, like a desperate jockey nearing the finish line.
Moss had bought the car for three hundred and fifty dollars from a hippy pet shop owner in Eden. He’d checked under the hood, with limited mechanical knowledge, and reassured himself everything was okay. He realised now he’d been too hasty to conclude the deal and get clear of the aroma of dog shit and marihuana that clung to the middle-aged love child.
When the burning smell got worse, Moss pulled off the road to an empty picnic spot, retrieved his black canvas bag from the back seat. He remembered the Smith & Wesson in the glove compartment, another impulse buy, wondered whether he should take it. He dismissed the idea.
He locked the car, set off on foot for the remaining ten or so kilometres into town, lit a cigarette as he walked along the roadside. The setting sun followed him in brittle yellow streams between the tall trees.