by Alex Archer
Now Annja stood on the sidewalk outside Sully’s What-Nots. It was a little later than she’d planned—9:00 a.m., an hour past when she told him she’d be here. But after Starbucks, she rode her motorcycle to the beach cabin, took a hot bath and lay on the bed for a nap. If her alarm had gone off, she hadn’t heard it.
“Please, Rem, where are you?” She hung up the phone and tried again. “Rem?”
“Your photographer?” Sully had cracked open the front door, just as the Catholic church on the corner starting ringing its bell for the morning service. This early in the day, she was surprised to smell the whiskey on his breath. “Your guy’s waiting inside. We’re all waiting on you. Coffee’s all gone. What kept you?”
Sleep, Annja thought in reply. A really necessary few hours of sleep.
Conversation filtered out through Sully’s open door, and she recognized Rembert’s voice. She was grateful but a little surprised that he had actually shown up.
She entered the shop and could tell immediately from the look on his face that he wasn’t happy about being here. He pulled her aside...as much “aside” as the close confines of the shop allowed.
“I swore I would never shoot another episode of Chasing History’s Monsters with you. Ever.”
“And yet here you are.” It was the money, she was certain, and Rembert needed quite a bit of it for his grandson’s eye operation. Annja felt guilty for talking him into this. “Look, we’re not going to shoot the entire episode today. In fact, I don’t want to devote much time to it. Who knows if it will even turn into something? But we have to do this.”
Rembert pulled a face.
“I’m going diving later this morning,” Annja said.
“Diving?”
“In Rock Lake.”
“In the lake? Why are you going to dive in a lake? Am I supposed to film you diving? And if I’m supposed to film you diving, why are we standing inside this junk store?”
She shook her head. “I need some maps so I’ll know where to dive. And we have to do this segment to get the maps. A simple trade-off. I’d like you to film a little bit of the dive. It could add some color to our segment.”
“Our segment on what? These guys won’t tell me. They just smile and chatter about an upcoming bake sale and barbershop-quartet competition. They won’t tell me anything, like it’s a big surprise they’re waiting to spring. Do you know what this is about?”
“The topic for this episode—”
“Yeah, the topic. Have you called Doug about this?”
“—is a little unusual.”
“Not that anything else you’ve handled hasn’t been for Chasing. Unusual, that is.” He let out a long breath that hissed like steam escaping between his teeth. “I’m here. You got me here. Against my very best judgment you got me here. For all sorts of reasons you got me here.” He lowered his voice to say, “You know how bad I need the cash. But maybe I’m going to be fine on the money end.”
“Shouldn’t take more than two hours,” she assured him. “If that.”
“Great. I can give you two hours. So, what are we calling this one?”
“‘In Search of Her Imperial Snakeship.’”
Rembert’s face contorted and he mouthed What? “Does Doug know about this?” he asked again. “You forgetting the conference and coming here? To go after a big snake? A lake serpent?”
“Rem, this is all on my time, remember? I’m not on Doug’s clock this weekend. Besides, you said you have enough video for Doug’s promo.”
“Oh, I have some great video, though not of the conference.”
She figured he was talking about the deaths. “And I did attend the conference.”
“For not much more than an hour, from what I could tell.” Rembert took a shot of her with the shelves filled with a myriad assortment of stuff as a backdrop. “Hey, I attended more of that conference than you did, and I’m not an archaeologist or interested in any of their moldy topics.”
“We’ll need some footage of the lake, certainly, maybe me diving, like I mentioned, so they get the idea I’m looking for Her Imperial Snakeship. Though that’s not what I’m looking for. And I need a couple of shots of a big piece of driftwood not far from the swimming beach. Some of the locals say it’s a serpent skull.”
Rembert panned the camera around, taking in more of the objects. He raised it to get a shot of bicycles, canoes and deer heads that hung from the ceiling. Annja hadn’t noticed them before.
“Let me introduce you, Annja, to the regulars at this little whatnot shop. ‘The boys’ Sully calls them. We’ve all been waiting for you, sucking down really bad coffee and wondering if you’d show up. They’re part of a club I’d guess you’d call it. They get together with the owner of the shop and talk about—”
“Her Snakeship!” Sully interjected. He’d crept up to them, but the creaking floorboards had given him away. He had the silver flask in his hand. He took a drink, made a toasting gesture and replaced the cap. “Her Imperial Snakeship.”
“This is getting better and better. No wonder you were all keeping the topic from me. Figured I’d bolt, huh?” Minutes later Rembert was taking still shots of the wall inside the whatnot shop, getting Sully and the others in the frame.
“Wisconsin is known for its critters,” one of the old boys said. He identified himself as George Bamford, a retired fifth-grade teacher. “They popped up more often years and years back, a hundred years back, dumping boats over, scaring the crap out of fishermen, making the summer people flee back down into Illinois. Heck, one summer the beach shut down.”
“Water dragons,” said another, the youngest of the six men who had gathered. He went by Kip, no last name. “Lake serpents. I like Her Imperial Snakeship—that’s what some newspaper once called her. She’d be as famous as that Loch Ness Monster if someone had gotten a good picture of her.”
Annja leaned over the counter and noticed that Sully had removed the gold piece.
“Somebody did get a photo, remember? Was printed in a newspaper a long while back, but it was all blurry.”
She could tell Rembert was actually getting into this, taking the camera from one man to the next, adjusting the mic to make sure he picked up every word. His expression had gone from disgruntled to one of genuine curiosity. The cameraman was far more interested in this than Annja was; she considered it only a means to an end. Satisfy Sully, and he’d give her the dive logs that might lead her to Edgar’s temple. Hopefully, it would be more real than Her Imperial Snakeship.
Kip had been babbling, Annja letting the words drift through the crowded shop while she continued to think about Edgar and the Mayans. Sully’s What-Nots was a worse floor-to-ceiling jumble of antiques, vintage toys and...stuff than she’d realized on her first trip. The wall near the counter, where the six old boys sat on folding chairs, was covered with framed newspaper clippings of Her Imperial Snakeship.
Rembert moved in closer to Kip, and Annja caught some of what he said.
“People—that’s why you don’t have many reports about Her Imperial Snakeship and the other lake monsters.” Kip tucked his hair behind his ears. “More tourists, more fishermen, lakeshore development, people encroaching on nature. It all drives the serpents into hiding or into deeper lakes. Rock Lake here, they say at its deepest it’s eighty-seven, ninety feet.”
Rembert whistled softly. “That’s pretty deep.”
“Big Sand is over a hundred down in spots,” Sully said.
Kip continued, “So the way we see it, Wisconsin’s monstrous serpent population has moved to the really deep lakes, to remote places and such. They must live a long, long while.”
Sully rose and tapped a framed clipping on the wall. One of his favorites, Annja guessed, because it was in a large gilded frame. “This article, and this one and this one. If you read ’em close, you can see that the biggest outbreak of lake serpents took place between 1860 and into World War I, mostly in southeastern Wisconsin. All of ’em stemming from right here in Rock
Lake.” He folded his arms in front of his chest, beaming proudly while regaling Rembert with his information. “I saw Her Imperial Snakeship myself thirty years ago, when I went swimming with my friends after high-school graduation.”
Annja’s heart sank. Sully had probably seen a plain old water snake maybe, but no monster. And so his deceased cousin probably never saw a temple in the lake, either...but the gold came from somewhere. Her stomach roiled at the thought that she’d gotten suckered into this deal.
Sully read passages from the clippings aloud, and Annja moved in front of the camera to stand next to him. It was reflex; she’d worked on so many episodes of Chasing History’s Monsters that this was just one more assignment. Except it wasn’t one of Doug’s ideas. She’d come up with this winner all on her own, just to get another lake dive.
“Since you’ve done so much research about—”
“Her Imperial Snakeship,” Sully said, puffing out his chest.
“Can you tell us when most of the significant, documented sightings occurred?” Annja asked.
His smile grew wide, revealing two missing teeth on the side. “For fifteen years, from 1870 to 1885, people saw her in the reeds. She hissed at people in boats. Fred here—” He moved over and tapped at another framed clipping. It was yellowed and had creases in it that had not been effectively smoothed out. “Fred hooked her. She towed his boat almost a mile. And another fisherman—” he tapped at another clipping that was horribly faded from where the sun hit it on the wall “—he speared it but couldn’t hold on. She got away.”
“Some called her the Rock Lake Horror,” the retired schoolteacher added.
“Better and better and better,” Rembert whispered.
“George, you got it wrong,” Kip said. “That’s the Rock Lake Terror.”
George shrugged. “Some people think she stopped showing herself ’cause folks were trying to catch her or kill her. So she hunkered down at the deep part of the lake, got bigger and near the turn of the century got some revenge.”
Sully pointed to another clipping, as if that news report verified George’s story.
“They was in a rowing race,” George explained, “a couple of men from here in town. And they said they saw a log stretched out in the lake, right in their path. Well, they’d been reading about Her Imperial Snakeship, and so they were careful.”
“But not careful enough.” This from Kip. “She dived and came up right next to ’em. Opened her mouth. Probably looked like that shark from the Jaws movie.”
Sully took a turn. “Anyway, it was reported that a man on shore grabbed a shotgun, took his boat out and was taking aim when it disappeared again. Didn’t show up for a week or more.”
“Said it was longer than two boats,” Kip said. “Two boats end to end.”
Just in case this really did turn into an episode of Chasing History’s Monsters, Annja injected another question.
“So where do you think Her Imperial Snakeship is today?”
“She ain’t dead,” Kip announced. “That’s for damn sure. Someone would’ve found her body.”
George cleared his throat. “Some say she slithered out of Rock Lake and through the woods to Red Cedar Lake, along the way eating dogs and pigs. One farmer reported half a dozen of his prized hogs taken.”
“Their half-eaten bodies were found on the bank of Red Cedar,” Kip said.
Rembert panned from one man to the next, recording their wide eyes and animated expressions.
“Said it was about fifty feet long by the time it made Red Cedar its home,” George said. “Some were calling it a dragon.”
“Got too big for Red Cedar.” The oldest gentleman, looking over eighty, picked up the storytelling. He’d refused to provide his name. “Hitched itself over to Lake Ripley, took the route of a river that used to run between the lakes. The folks who owned summer cottages back around 1900 closed them up and went south.”
George and Kip nodded.
“Folks hunted her fierce for some years,” the old man said. “And she moved around...or maybe there were more than one of them. I’m pretty sure there was more than one. Could be one of her offspring still swims in Rock. Madison’s lakes, Elkhart where she pulled a fisherman in, Pewaukee, Delavan, Oconomowoc and as far down as Lake Geneva. Heard tell that the one spotted on the shores of Lake Waubesa was more than sixty feet long.”
“Credible witnesses,” Annja said. “There were credible witnesses to Her Snakeship?”
“Her Imperial Snakeship. Oh, yes,” Sully said. “Down at Lake Geneva. A lot of rich folks live there. Lots of summer homes. But back around 1900, there were more common people. A minister by the last name of Clark saw her when he was fishing. It was bright as day. And he said it was a serpent. The newspaper carried the story.” Sully reached behind the counter and pulled out a scrapbook filled with old newspaper articles. He opened it to the one with Reverend Clark. “It says right here that people believed him, man of God and all and not having touched a drop of liquor in his life.”
“Maybe it was a dinosaur,” Rembert whispered. Annja could tell he’d gotten too caught up in all of this.
“Maybe she is,” Sully said.
“Some say she escaped into Lake Michigan,” the old man said. “But we don’t believe it.”
The men frowned as one. Rembert focused in close on the oldest.
“Mishegenabeg.” Sully pronounced the word slowly and with reverence. “That’s the Indian name for her. Their legend says she has antlers and eyes like the moon, big and reflecting.”
The old man straightened, his black eyes boring into Rembert’s camera lens. “But some Indians...Native Americans they call them now...some call the big serpent Anamaqkiu. It means dark spirit.”
“And you don’t believe she’s gone?” Annja stepped closer to Sully, a signal to Rembert to focus on the What-Not owner.
“No, she ain’t gone. I’m not saying there aren’t more serpents in the other lakes. But I’m saying that despite all the claims that she’s moved on, Her Imperial Snakeship or her kin is still in Rock Lake. It’s why I go out on the lake every chance I get. I know someday I’ll see her. Someday I’ll prove to everyone just how real she is.”
“We’re done,” Annja pronounced.
“That’s it?” Sully looked disappointed.
“Just done here,” Rembert said. There was an eagerness to his voice, but Annja couldn’t tell for certain if it was real or politely put on for Sully’s benefit. “I want to get shots at the beach. Annja mentioned some people think there’s a monster skull there. And then I want to get some video of her diving. I think you should close up shop and go out on the boat with us.”
Sully grinned wide. “I’ll go get the air tanks. Do you have a place to get them filled?”
Annja nodded. She’d already looked into that. She gave Rembert a foul expression; she hadn’t planned on taking Sully along.
“Maybe you’ll find Her Imperial Snakeship,” Rembert said when they were out on the street. He walked backward to capture a picture of Sully’s What-Nots growing smaller.
“Maybe I’ll find something else.”
Chapter 27
The pontoon boat bore the name H.I.S. Annja knew it had a double meaning: the boat belonged to Sully, so it was his, but it also stood for Her Imperial Snakeship. H.I.S. listed to its starboard side, even when all three of them stood against the port. Rembert wore a life preserver, a discolored orange one that smelled of fish bait. There were two other life preservers, but they sat unused on a bench, their presence only required for safety regulations. Annja wasn’t sure they’d work anyway. In fact, she was surprised Sully’s boat floated.
The boat had not been manufactured by any professional company. It was hand built out of big metal cans that had at one time been painted baby-blue, plywood that was warped in the center and ringed with garden fence to serve for a railing. The benches were plastic, one new and still having a price sticker on it.
Sully sat in a folding latt
icework chair and finessed the motor, which was probably worth as much as a decent used compact car. It was a Yamaha F90JA ninety horsepower four-stroke jet drive with four cylinders a twenty-inch-long shaft motor. Annja got a good look at it. It was pristine; it had an electric start, tiller controls, three-blade aluminum propeller and ran on an external gas tank. Overkill for this pontoon boat.
“Just got it. Found it on eBay,” Sully said, seeing her inspect it. “Low hours. Seller said it was used only a few times, had it hooked to a big lifeboat on his cruise ship. It was a steal at four thousand. Couldn’t have touched it new for less than ten.”
Annja wondered if he’d used the money he got from Edgar and Papa to buy it.
“Coffee?”
Annja shook her head. Sully had brewed a pot and poured it into two thermoses—and who knew how much he’d swallowed before that. It was close to noon now, as it had taken some time to go through the dive logs to judge where they needed to go. As the pontoon moved out across the lake, Sully kept one hand on the motor’s rudder controls, the other wrapped around a cup of coffee.
He slugged it down and smiled, put the cup between his knees to hold it and unscrewed the thermos, adding in the contents of his silver flask, sloshing it around and then pouring another cup of “coffee.”
“I’d mainline this if I could, Miss Creed. I was so excited, you coming to do a special on Her Imperial Snakeship, that I couldn’t sleep last night.”
She had no reply to that.
“I’m sure glad your photographer there thought I should come along.”
Annja had no reply to that, either. She’d stopped at the dollar store across the street from the What-Not shop. Rembert waited while she made her purchases: two pairs of shorts, two three-quarter-sleeve T-shirts with Bucky Badger on them—the University of Wisconsin mascot—ties to hold her hair back, another pair of tennis shoes and a plastic slipcase for the dive logs so they wouldn’t get wet. She wore one of the outfits now. It would have to do—Sully had sold his cousin’s wet suit a few months past.
It was cool on the lake, the breeze working in tandem with the motion of the pontoon. Annja let herself enjoy the sensation of the air playing across her skin. She looked toward the bank. Lily pads were in force near the shore, bright white and pink flowers open. A bird swooped low over the tops, probably finding insects to eat. Two fishermen were fly casting at the edge of the pads, the lines whipping back and forth sending droplets of water in passing as the hooks touched down on the surface and rose again, no doubt hoping panfish or bass would mistake them for bugs.