Loch Ness

by Donovan Galway

  The waiter cut him off. “I’m sorry, sir. You have a telephone call in the lobby.”

  Beau looked perturbed. “No, I don’t. I’m with friends. That’s why we turn our cell phones off at dinner.”

  “I do apologize. Mr. Weaver said it was urgent. Shall I take a message?”

  Beau hesitated. “No. I’ll take it.” Turning to John and Louisa, “Would you excuse me a minute? This is important but it won’t take long.”

  Once Beau was out of earshot, Louisa leaned forward. “Okay. We’ve only got a minute. The old man gave us the map and said his grandson will take us to the old nest. The problem is shaking Beau long enough to check it out.”

  “Is there no way to include him? We may need his help if there’s any digging to be done.”

  “If we let him in, we can kiss it all goodbye. I’m not ready to let go yet. Five years means more to me than that.”

  John felt a swelling in his chest that he was sure showed in his face like a beacon of pride and affection. “Thanks, Lou. I knew you were still with me.”

  “But Beau suspects it too. He’s watching us day and night.”

  “So one of us has to decoy him away for a day. He can’t watch us if we’re not together.”

  “So we split up? One of us will distract him while the other follows the grandson.”

  “It has to be you. I’ll take Spencer since I’m the one he’s watching.”

  Louisa wanted to go but the discovery itself meant more. “No. I think I can hold his attention better.”

  “But he’s been…”

  “Trust me. He’ll be more content with me. Take the Banana Brothers and follow the grandson tomorrow. I’ll keep Spencer occupied.”

  “Taking one for the team?”

  “I won’t take what he’s giving, but I’ll take up his day. You just find out what’s there and see if we’ve got a find or not. Shhh. Here he comes.”

  “So I’m just as able to contribute as a team member as I am as a leader,” John said to her as Beau rejoined the table. “Oh hey. Everything okay?”

  “I think so. It wasn’t Phil Weaver after all. It was Murphy asking about Weaver. It’s a whole grant thing. It can keep. Shall we order?”

  * * * * *

  Nathan Dotson had been to Australia twice. Once for an emergency operation when he was nine and once with his school to see the orchestra play at the opera house in Sydney. It was the little opera house, but at least they had to travel to get there. Other than occasional trips to Auckland when his grandfather ran out of medicine and it couldn’t be delivered, he had never been anywhere. This was not in any way obvious in his dress or appearance. He couldn’t do much about the accent, though he tried, but he had the East L.A. look down to slightly less than gangster.

  Nathan stood by the johnboat waiting for his passengers as he was told. He didn’t look like he minded until they came close. Then his tough guy face went on.

  “Yo. Wassup?” Nate barked at them.

  John looked at the guys to see if they were surprised. They were so it was all right for him to be. John extended his hand. “Um. Nothing, really. I’m Dr. Nagle. You must be Nathan.”

  “You want to see this shit?”

  Mac tried to respond. “I suppose we do. Can you show us the… shit?”

  “Man I know this shit like the back of my hand. But this shit gonna cost you.”

  “And how much is the shit?”

  “Depends.”

  “On?”

  “On how I feel. How the weather is. What time it is. You dig?”

  “Well, I’d like to. That’s why we came out here. Didn’t your grandpa—”

  Kyle intervened. “Look this is all cute as hell, Junior. But do you think you’ll come to a decision any time soon? We were hoping to get out there sometime in this lifetime.”

  Nathan tried to feign indifference but he knew he had to take them so he elected to get on with it. He simply had to assume they were all sufficiently impressed. “Aight. Let’s get in the boat. Russian guy first. It takes a while to get there and I’m already hungry.”

  They elected to taunt him silently so as not to delay their progress further. Nate sat in the back and started the Mercury outboard. The four men sat tandem in the front with their gear set in the center for ballast. Nathan was prepared to order them to do it and was only briefly dejected for not having to. With a final word of caution to his passengers, he twisted the throttle and they sped off across the lake.

  Nathan drove them along what could have been a very long lake or a very wide river. John made visual comparisons to Scotland and Loch Ness at several intervals. Nathan took them to an inlet west of Lake Te Anau on Worsley Arm. The connecting river shallowed but was just passable. Once free of the shallows, they turned west and headed toward the sea. The lake broadened and appeared cut off on all sides by high cliffs covered with dense, lush foliage.

  “Are we cut off?” John asked Nate.

  “There’s an outlet up there,” he said, pointing north. “It’s hard to see because it turns but you can still get a small boat out to sea from here.”

  “So where is the nesting ground?” Frank asked. “Are we near it?”

  Nate finally smiled. “You’re only slightly closer to your own underwear. This is it.” He waved his arms across the valley in panoramic grandeur. “All this was underwater. They swam here like goldfish in a bowl.”

  He piloted the flat bottom boat onto the bank and the team climbed out. They carried as much of their gear as they felt they needed and hiked up toward the foothills. Nathan again led the way, no longer feigning reluctance. He was in charge now.

  “There’s no bones or nothing. But there’s some marks on a cave up here that are pretty cool.”

  From the elevated vantage point, they could see the outlet. Had the water been higher, it would have made a perfect cove for a shallow swimming giant. They found a broad crack in the huge wall. This was the cave Nathan spoke of. The cathedral ceiling was at least one hundred feet high but the cave was relatively narrow. The flashlights came on and they started looking.

  Nathan stopped and turned to them with an expression of pride. Extending his left hand like a seasoned tour guide, he said, “Gentlemen. Your lights, please.”

  All turned their lights on the wall and found an impressive array of cave paintings. Many different species were clearly depicted as hunting or hunter. Birds were painted everywhere. The colors and style suggested this was not as ancient as they had hoped. John speculated they were a few centuries old at best. Mac took samples to analyze later for dating.

  “Oh, here we go,” Frank called. They had all been on their own quests but gathered around Frank as he traced a particular painting with his finger. “What’s that? What is that? John?”

  “What else could it be?”

  The painting was of an animal with a snake’s head and a round, flippered body. It was painted as in the water with only the head extended above the surface. The hillside above it appeared uneven, possible rocky, and two young were painted as out of the water.

  “They gave birth like turtles. The young had to walk to the water.” Frank was following the pictures like a storybook.

  “Hey what’s this guy doing here?” Kyle asked. He was off to Frank’s right. Well behind the ples and possibly on the opposite shore, a man stood at the edge and appeared to be blowing or sucking on a long pipe. Beyond him was a large eye seemingly floating on the water.

  Nathan didn’t bother to approach, as he knew the man of which they spoke. “That’s a diggery-do. The callers used them to call the beasts when it was safe. They knew all the calls to make them come and go. Without the callers, they couldn’t have found the place. I think.”

  “So why is he all the way over here?” John asked. “Is this a different painting?”

  “Nothing here is a different painting. It is all the story of them and the callers. He’s over there because the callers never came into the lake. They stayed at the sea a
nd called.”

  “Are you telling me that this thing couldn’t find its own nesting place without these callers?”

  “Oh they could. But they’d stay for long time. They didn’t know when it was time to leave. No fishing while they were here so the callers told them it was time to go.”

  “How did they do that?”

  “How the fuck should I know?”

  Kyle stood up and looked Nathan in the eye. “Buddy, you’re one crappy tour guide.”

  “So where are the callers now?” John asked. “Are there any left around here?”

  “There never were. They didn’t come from here. They were carried in on the waves. Or so I was told. To tell you the truth, most of this don’t make much sense.”

  “That would explain this,” John said, pointing to the caller’s clothes. Cave painting often depicted the men in wraps. But this man’s cloth was clearly tartan. “Why would a man in New Zealand be wearing a kilt?”

  “Nice spot, Doc,” Kyle said.

  Nathan put his hands up. “Musta brought it with him.”

  Mac and John had taken all the pictures they could before they left. Outside, Frank took a closer look at the gravel near the entrance. He found what appeared to be eggshells.

  On the long boat ride back, the team did far less sightseeing as they had much to discuss. Mac had done tons of research on the island’s composition. He explained to them that the island was once open to the sea. The area they were in was truly deep enough for a large reptile to dwell. Frank argued that there wouldn’t be enough food in this narrow strait for more than one animal of this size.

  John was reluctant to contribute but offered that it may have used the inlet solely for breeding. This made sense, as it would be a controlled environment safe from the larger predators of the day. Once the continental plate drifted and the strait was closed to anything bigger than a herring, the beast needed to find an alternative breeding place.

  “It would look for something comparable in climate and geography,” Frank guessed.

  Nathan considered the possibilities. “Could be another strait around the point but they’re all pretty much the same”

  “No place to go. Unwilling to change. Probably why it’s extinct,” Kyle said

  John pondered the glyphs. “But what if it did change?”

  “You mean its habits or…?”

  “No. What is it found a breeding place similar enough to work for it?”

  “You mean Loch Ness,” Mac said. “That would be virtually the same. The high cliffs. Cold water nearby. The passage to the sea that would be hard for her but impossible for anything that would hunt her.”

  “Might be worth a look,” Kyle said.

  John shook his head. “I don’t have a team anymore. My funding dried up. We’d have to let Spencer in on it if we wanted to pursue this.”

  Kyle asked John to move back by Nate and the roar of the outboard motor. The three of them gathered in the front of the boat and talked. After several minutes of nodding, head shaking and adamant hand gestures, they broke huddle and Mac came to John.

  “Have you still got your equipment up there?”

  John was puzzled. “It’s in mothballs. I owe some mooring charges and storage fees but, sure. It’s all still there. But I should warn you I don’t really want to bring Spencer in on this.”

  They all smiled as if rehearsed. “Neither do we,” they said in unison.

  “If you have room on your team, we’d love to see if we can help,” Mac said.

  “Really? You all want to come with me?”

  “Sure,” Kyle shrugged. “It looks like fun.”

  “And we weren’t having any with Pencil-dick,” Frank said.

  Nate laughed out loud. “I know Spencer. That’s so funny!”

  John was genuinely touched. They seemed like a great team. But his smile left him with a breath of reality. “Guys. I’m grateful and all. But I’m afraid this type of research costs money and I just don’t have it. So thanks but…”

  “I think I know where you can get some funding, boss,” Kyle said. “Don’t worry about that part.”

  Chapter Seven

  Carl Linton sat on the deck of his tiny research boat. The craft was an old fishing boat converted and had provisions for equipment but no quarters. It was good for a day trip around the Loch and little else. But that was exactly what he needed this day. He had gone to the spot dictated by John’s notes and from the safety of the deck, he and his assistant’s watched the monitors. A dark haired woman sat at a steering console and controlled the sub while Linton aimed the camera.

  Three hundred feet below, a large unmanned mini sub went to where it had been programmed to go and Linton found himself looking at the bones of Little Jumbo. “Stop here, Abby. Shawn,” he said without looking away. The direction was enough and Shawn Miller took hold of the pistol grips on his console.

  Below, the sub sprouted mechanical arms. The long arms unfolded themselves and reached for the bones. Abby held the sub still as Shawn expertly dug. In less than three minutes he was holding the skull of the baby elephant up to the camera. Linton looked at the remains of an animal which had no business being there.

  “Well, then,” Linton said. “Let’s find the culprit. Shall we?”

  The sub motored along the side of the loch as Shawn poked the loose shale with the extended arms. “We looking for anything in particular?”

  “Yes. We are. We’re looking for…” Linton paused as the piercing lights of the sub fell onto a rocky overhang. Below it, the shale had fallen into a huge bowl-like shape. “That, Shawn. Abby?”

  “Doctor?” she said dryly.

  “Go in there.”

  “You’re the doctor. Pull ‘em in, sexy.”

  At her warning, Shawn retracted the mechanical arms and she turned the sub away from the bowl. She took the sub to a distance of sixty feet before turning and driving full speed at the wall of fallen rock.

  Shawn clenched. “I hate this part.”

  The sub hit the shale at full throttle and drove deep into the pile. The nose cone was reinforced for this among other impact type procedures. The sub forced, wiggled and burrowed its way through the gravel. The two powerful propellers were shielded and continued to push even under the loose rocks. It was only a few seconds before Abby pulled the sub up and emerged on the other side of the gravel.

  The water here was relatively clear. The searchlights on the probe exposed a long cave, all underwater that extended westward or upward.

  “Your call, Doc,” Abby said as she held a stable position. “Up or out?”

  Linton thought for a second. The westward route didn’t seem to extend far and there was another mound of loose shale on the other side of the rock they had come up against. It could lead out to sea. Or simply be a pile of loose rubble. “Turn off the lights.”

  Shawn did not hesitate to switch off the searchlights and then the running lights. The camera picked up a clear but faint luminous glow. The light came from above. Abby turned the eye upward. No surface was visible but the light was surely coming from there.

  “Nice call, Doctor Boss,” Abby said. “Shall we?”

  “Please do,” Linton replied.

  “Lights, camera, action,” she said as Shawn flipped the running lights on. Abby turned the probe up and through the rocky channel. Two hundred feet up through a relatively broad, winding tunnel, the unmanned sub breached the surface of an underground pool. There was air and some light coming from thin cracks in the cathedral-like ceiling. The lights on the sub illuminated the large opening. On one side, Linton almost embraced the monitor as he gazed upon a large earthen mound. Ten feet tall and clearly fashioned rather than formed by nature, the mound had bits of shell and bone mixed with the soil that made it.

  “Can you reach it, Shawn?”

  “Depends on how close we can get. Abby?”

  “Fasten your seat belts, gentlemen.” She aimed the sub at the bank nearest the mound and accelerate
d full bore. The sub picked up enough speed and thrust to partially beach itself in front of the mound. “That’s all I got.”

  Shawn extended the arms again and reached out. With the metal hands, he clawed away at the soil on the side from the top down.

  “Deeper. Deeper. You’re almost there,” Linton urged.

  “Easy, Doc. You’re getting Abby excited.”

  Then he pulled away a clump of soil and revealed the source of their quest. Linton gasped. “I think I just got excited.” The three of them looked at a gray speckled, twenty-inch long egg. Not a fossil or remnant. This was a real egg.

  Linton clutched Shawn on the shoulder. “My boy, if you break that egg I’ll have to kill you.”

  “Then step back and let me work.” He made no attempt to grab the egg with the grasping hands. They were too insensitive and they had no way of knowing how frail this egg was. Shawn put the metal hands together like a diver and gently pushed them into the soil underneath the egg. As the supporting earth was pushed back, the egg rolled into the waiting hands and Shawn had it.

  “Easy,” Linton whispered.

  “It’s okay, doctor,” Abby said in her continual dry tone. “He’s got good hands. Don’t you, sexy?”

  “Leave me alone or I’ll get you after school.” Shawn spoke without taking his eyes off the monitor. He cradled the egg as if it were nitro glycerin as the hands slowly moved it toward the sub. “Open the box.”

  Abby pressed her control keys and a storage compartment in the back of the sub opened. A new camera angle was activated with the opening of the bay doors and Shawn could see his hands from inside the compartment. He carefully laid the egg inside. Then he pulled some of the moss and soil from around the nest and placed it in the box to cushion the egg for its return journey. He also took some fragments of broken eggs lying on the ground around the mound. They were clearly ancient but might lend some insight into the thickness of the viable egg. “All loaded up. Now get us out of here. And see if you can do it without the sexual harassment, would ya, boobs?”