Splashes

by Thomas R. Willits

Table of Contents
Part 1 and part 2
appear in this issue.

Conclusion

Ripples

Two days later I awoke from another one of those drowning nightmares I used to have a couple years ago; the one where I’m stuck on the bottom of the lake. I brushed it away quickly, but I felt I had to do something.

Later that day I found myself standing on Jim Crowghost’s porch and staring at his front door. I couldn’t bring myself to knock. I needed to speak to him, but I sat on his porch for a long time. Strange, unexplainable things were happening around the lake. I desperately needed answers, and I didn’t know where else to turn.

After two days, Paul had still not turned up. His parents were hysterical, and they sent the police out to investigate. But it was only the beginning.

Jim’s door swung open slowly, and Jim stared through the screen at my surprised face. He looked at me strangely.

“Hello,” I said. I stood up and felt ridiculous. I wonder if he knew I had been out there. “I need to speak with you.”

His right eyebrow raised, checking me over as if I were in some sort of trouble. “Fine,” he said and pushed the screen door open. “I haven’t seen you on the cleanup crew in a while. I thought maybe you’d up and moved.”

“Oh, no,” I answered. I had missed the last few, but I couldn’t find a good excuse. “Do you know what’s happened?”

“Mmm,” he muttered softly in response and closed his front door. “Read it in yesterday’s paper. I saw your name in there too.”

“What happened to him?”

Jim found his pipe and relaxed down into his recliner. He glanced at me over his pipe as he ignited the tip with one large investigative eye.

“What makes you think I know what happened to him?” he said finally. “Don’t they have a case opened already? I’m sure they’ve got a bunch of people all over it by now. Probably got his picture posted on every corner back at town.”

“He went down to the lake,” I said. “You must know something. What’s happened?”

“What if I don’t know anything?” he asked in response. He exhaled a large puff of smoke and thought for a moment. “Well, why don’t you tell me what happened and we’ll see if we can put everything together.”

I told him everything. From the afternoon swinging from the rope into the lake, up to the time I heard him leave my bedroom and possibly the silhouette when I went outside to follow. I considered telling him my dream but didn’t. There were enough bad things happening without having to add to the list.

“I never told you the story about the Fly and the Moose,” he said when I finished.

At first I didn’t think he had even been listening to me recount the events. “No, I don’t think you did.”

“Perhaps I should,” he said. “It may have something to do with what has happened.”

“Do you really think it does?” I asked. I wanted facts, not fiction. His tales about the past were fine, but when it came to my friend’s life I didn’t want to rely on symbolism and folklore.

“It’s an old story that’s been retold many times,” he began with a puff of smoke. “An Anishnabe legend. It begins near the beginning of the new world, at a river that many fish lived in and that other animals visited to drink from its pure and fresh water.

“Unfortunately a huge, hulking moose stumbled upon the great river one day and began to drink its water. But the moose was large, and he drank so much that other animals began to notice the water level drop. The beavers noticed first when their homes became bone dry, and then the muskrats panicked, because they too, would not survive without the river.

“In all the confusion, no one considered the fish. They needed the water most of all. They all gathered together to devise a plan to drive the moose away. But none of the animals had the courage to stand up to the giant moose, for they were all too small and afraid. Even the largest grizzly bear cowered back into his cave for spring.

“A tiny fly buzzed around the animals claiming he could drive the moose from the lake. They all laughed and asked how. The fly dashed quickly around the moose’s head making him angry, and then the fly bit into the moose’s foreleg. The moose, down near the shore, stamped his leg down hard and water shot up, sinking his foot.

“Soon the fly bit the moose’s hind legs and back and tail and the moose was dancing in agony trying to rid himself of the pesky fly. But the fly wouldn’t quit, and soon the moose couldn’t move from the mud, and the water rushed over him, drowning him. The other animals and the river were once again happy and safe.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I screamed. “Are you saying the lake or the animals have killed Paul? You’re crazy.”

“It’s an old tale,” he said calmly. “Don’t get upset over it. What do you believe happened to your friend?”

I thought about it for a moment. I was sure I had seen him that early morning, near the lake. And I had seen the ripple... But it didn’t mean...

“How did the others disappear?” I asked him. “Back when this place opened. How many were lost? What did they find?”

“It was a long time ago. But, I guess there were about five or six of the residents. All of them vanished on the same night. Not a trace of them was ever found, save for some footsteps down around the lake. But they couldn’t trace them to that particular night; they could have been made days before, you see. The case was closed. ‘Missing persons’. They never turned up. I suppose you think this is related to that event.”

“It might be,” I said. It sure seemed like it. “What’s going on?”

“Are you sure your friend isn’t playing a practical joke on you?” he asked. “You said your friends like to pick on you. Maybe that’s all this is and he’s sitting back getting a big laugh all at your expense. Me, I’d just sit back and wait, too.”

“He’s not the only one missing,” I added. My eyes remained fixed on his as he puffed from the pipe. After he heard me, he set it down, apparently more in tune with current events. “Last night two more vanished. And no trace like you said. You know something.”

“Really?,” he muttered quietly. “Is that because I’m supposed to know something?”

I didn’t know what to say. I felt ashamed for accusing him, but still it wasn’t enough to subdue my fear and confusion.

“There may be a way to find some answers,” he added reading the emotion on my face. “It’s called a vision quest.”

“I’m not...”

“Doesn’t matter. The ability is within. If you’re true and honest, you will find the answers you seek. Perhaps you’re afraid to seek your answers, to find your inner being and spirit. Don’t be. Sometimes the visions are very powerful, but you don’t need to worry about what you cannot control. The idea is to be open and listen. Be patient and it will come.”

I remained silent as he explained his first vision quest when he was very young. Then I asked: “What must I do?” He prepared the ceremony with a small rectangular tray with a propane grill surface. It did resemble a cooking grill, except it only put out a large flame in its center. He adjusted it to full strength. The flames shot up about two feet as I sat cross-legged opposite Jim. He lit his pipe. He lit another and handed it to me. I tried to look like a smoker, but after the balefire left my lungs, I coughed horribly.

Jim watched as I sat examining the light of the flame from the propane tray between us. He told me to close my eyes, and I did. The next words he said I didn’t understand; more native tongue, no doubt. I felt nauseous and dizzy, and I felt my eyes burning from the smoke of the pipe while the heat from the fire warmed my face.

Time seemed to pass more quickly as my thoughts raced ahead and back, the room spinning out of control. I wanted to open my eyes.

Eventually I heard Jim speak something I could understand. By his word, my eyes did open but I soon found I was alone and no longer in his cabin. As I pushed with both hands to stand up, I left a hand print in the moist earth.

Jim’s cabin was nowhere around. I couldn’t place my location. I was in a clearing surrounded by hundreds of trees. I nearly fainted when I saw the coyote walk by. He was white as fresh snow on a bright day, and he moved with incredible grace and agility. I actually felt a hint of jealousy inside me, longing for his power and wisdom.

Finally I snapped to and he leapt away in a hurry. I followed quickly, after him. He leapt over a fallen tree, making a rainbow-like path up and over it while I had to go around. By the time I did he was far ahead and out of sight. I could see the moon overhead, but fog began to move in, and the coyote disappeared within it.

A few minutes later I heard movement and other noises I couldn’t recognize. I slowed to a crawl and knelt down to conceal myself. At last I recognized where I was. I was near the lake. Shiriki. Shiriki, means ‘coyote’ to the Pawnee, so Jim had said. So maybe I had been following the lake all along, and not the animal.

And yet, maybe somehow both.

A fine, white mist emanated from the surface of the water. The mist spilled over its banks as it stole away from the lake. I looked closer. Near the water there was a figure, tall, strange, and dark moving toward the lake. About twenty or thirty feet to the south, another moved in the same direction. I moved closer, very cautiously.

Soon I stopped about twenty feet from the lake shore, where I had seen a dark figure walking a moment earlier. I wondered if it were Paul, but I dismissed the thought as crazy.

About thirty feet to my left, I heard a twig snap and saw another form coming my way. I slipped behind the nearest tree and waited. I realized that the form was a man. He passed by toward the lake. I followed about twenty feet behind and more slowly than he, making as little noise as possible.

The man stopped at the shore line and stared out into the middle of the lake as if something were waiting for him out there. His right foot entered first, and then the left. As I neared the spot where he had been standing, he was already about waist deep in the water.

I opened my mouth to speak, to yell at him and tell him to stop and ask what he was doing, but I saw others. Many others. Maybe hundreds down the shore line to my left and right, all wading out into the lake in the glimmering moonlight and chill, damp mist. Some were in old military uniforms from ancient times, and others were dressed in rags. Still others had on their Sunday best, which seemed awkward as the water rose above their brass belt buckles and silk ties.

The figure in front of me turned as the water rose to his neck. It was Paul. And then his head dipped below the surface and I could see him no more. Only ripples.

The others were going under just like Paul, one after the other, until I stood alone on the shore watching the water become still once again. I thought about what Jim said the first time I had been to his cabin two years ago: The ones who walked into the lake.

Surely this couldn’t be happening. But I couldn’t deny what I saw. The next thing I remember before waking was swimming across the lake on a warm summer day. My feet were kicking water under me as I swam toward the canoe about ten feet away. I could feel the cold water under me rushing upwards with each kick. It felt strange and yet compelling, but I stayed on course for the canoe.

I felt a prick next, like a fish had suddenly nicked the tip of my big toe. I dismissed it almost as quickly as it happened and then I felt another, this one on the surface of my ankle. Another fish? Very unlikely. But still, it had happened. I quickened my pace and then felt a slender hand from below grip my foot tightly.

My left foot was seized and then the right. I could no longer kick the water under me and stay afloat! Water spilled over my hair and face and rushed into my mouth as I gasped for air. I tried to kick myself free but the force was too strong.

The hand gripping my ankle slipped up further and that was when I went under, and under, and under.

My ears popped gently from the pressure change and my feet sank into the mud, deeper and deeper when I hit bottom. My feet kept sinking down into the cold mushy mud until I was knee deep. As I tried to lift my body up with my hands, they too sunk in. My eyes fluttered open and despite the dark muddy water, I saw the eyes staring back at me. Those eyes didn’t seem hostile, they were like an animal welcoming home its master.

My thoughts went to my chasing the coyote when I first entered the clearing and how I thought maybe I was chasing the lake. Had I been chasing a coyote or had it just been me out there?

Something had been wrong since I left Jim’s cabin. I could no longer remember my name. I did have a name, didn’t I? Yes, I certainly did and it was a powerful one: Shiriki, as the Pawnee called me when they needed help. Bit, by bit I began to remember through my vision quest. The ones I saw walk into the lake were vaguely familiar on some instinctive level like a suppressed childhood memory. I saw the eyes again and I found myself screaming until I woke. That is, if I had been dreaming.

Author’s note:

The story is fictional except for the following elements: Shiriki does mean ‘coyote’ in Pawnee. Jim Crowghost’s describing how the world was created and the coyote brought death into the world is also a Pawnee legend.

The legend “How the Fly Saved the River” is of Anishnabe origin. The Anishnabe are different from the Pawnee, but when I read the tale I found it fascinating and felt that it had a bearing on the story. When Jim tells the story of “The Fly and the Moose,” I reworded it to sound more modern and less preachy, but the content and moral are the same, except that the original ends with the moose driven away instead of drowned in the river. I hope I haven’t ruined the legend in any way or I might suddenly find myself having drowning nightmares!