The wall of the lock offered the Emorys no handholds but the rail of the scow was within reach, if they could thrust their heads high enough above the water. They dog-paddled toward the side of the boat, dragging their cuffed legs and the toolbox between them. Both men slipped underwater, drove hard against the lock floor with their legs, and propelled themselves above the surface. They thrust their arms toward the rail and all four hands were able to grasp it.
“Got to climb back up!” Kevin said, pulling himself toward the rail. Tom was able to elevate his chin to the level of the deck and Kevin reached that level with his eyes. But the weight of their shared anchor prevented them from climbing higher. Their muscles burned and both men slowly extended their arms, lowering their bodies back toward the water. The scow rode almost four feet above the surface, so for as long as their arms held out, the Emorys could keep their heads above water. But as the water rose, their chained legs raised the toolbox from the floor of the lock, its weight borne by both men. Their muscles throbbed and the cold water sapped their energy. The water churned higher, filling the lock at an accelerating rate. Three of the four wickets were opened wide, and the haystacks had broadened and converged into a wall of tumbling whitewater behind the upstream gates.
Katie opened the fourth wicket and left the key in place. She stepped from the plank onto the towpath, where her view of the Emorys was blocked by the hayhouse in the bow. She eased downstream past it. Two faded fedoras, one black and one gray, sat serenely near the center of the deck. She looked down and saw the surging flow was a long foot from the top of the lock wall. So the water in the lock was now over twelve feet deep.
She studied the scow’s starboard rail. Four sets of fingers were lined up along the edge, not far from the forward wall of the cabin. The hands were perfectly spaced, shoulder-width apart, with all of the fingers pointed in her direction. The bent fingers rose into pale and bony knuckles straining toward the sky. Screams from the tiring men pierced the background chorus of bubbling water. She watched the two left-most sets of fingers slip off the rail and disappear. Seconds later the right-most fingers followed. The screaming fell silent and no fingers remained.
She turned away from the scow and walked up the towpath, stepping around the towline that lay flat on the dirt. The Emorys’ mules were grazing unperturbed along the fringe of grass just past the lock. She passed them and continued down to the apron. At Swains this ground was commonly used for campsites, since it was flat and open with grass and scattered trees. Ahead the campground gave way to thicker foliage, and the river and towpath diverged until one was invisible from the other. She found the end of an old path and followed it into the witnessing woods.
Chapter 23
Angling
Saturday, March 29, 1924
Cy rounded a bend on his way up from Great Falls and the lockhouse at Swains came into view. With every step on the two-mile walk, his satisfaction from selling the bicycle was eroded by the grinding pain in his hip. From a distance he could see that a boat with a blue-painted cabin was riding high in the lock. It had to be the Emorys’ scow. They must have locked through at Great Falls while he was selling the bike. The mule team was grazing beyond the lock, but he saw no other evidence of life.
Usually you’d see the locktender or boathands standing around the swing-beams while a boat was locking through. Get close enough and you’d hear the banter of voices. Boatmen might be buying groceries from a locktender or exchanging news from along the canal. He was close enough now, but he heard no voices. The two benches along the façade of the lockhouse were empty. And something else about the scene looked strange, but he couldn’t point to it right away.
It registered as he approached the closed gates. The lock-keys were missing. The naked, square ends of the stems were sticking up through the swing-beams into the air. Without the keys, the lock was useless. A few steps later he realized that one key was still in place – the one closest to the towpath on the upstream gate. He angled over to the mid-point of the lock wall. As he’d surmised, the lock was full and the scow was a light boat, still snubbed to the post with the usual amount of slack in the line. Aside from two well-worn hats lying in the center of the deck and a jug, plate, and cups near the forward wall of the cabin, the scow looked deserted. On a mild spring day under the noon sun, the scow in the full lock and the quiet lockhouse formed a placid scene, but Cy was unnerved. There was something profoundly wrong with the view before him.
He stood in silence on the lock wall and stared at the scow. What the hell was happening here? The scow was heading upstream, so it must have come into a drained lock. Then with all but one of the keys removed, how did the lock get filled? It only made sense if the keys were removed after the water was in the lock. But why would anybody do that? And once the lock was filled, why wouldn’t the Emorys have opened the gates and pulled their boat out of the lock? Where the hell were the Emorys? For that matter, where the hell were Katie and Pete? And why did the Emorys wander off without their hats? He reflexively pulled the sagging brim of his Stetson down against his forehead. He didn’t always wear a hat, but he couldn’t remember seeing either Emory without one.
He called out for Katie and Pete but no one answered, and the sound of his own voice hanging in the air made his skin tighten. He called out “anybody on board?” but got no response. He shuffled across on the planks and headed to the lockhouse. The door was unlocked. He stood in the hallway at the base of the stairs and called again. No answer. Nothing looked disturbed. Poking his head in the kitchen, he saw a pan of cornbread and a jam jar on the counter but nothing unusual. He cut himself a slice of cornbread and headed back to the door.
Propped beside the door he saw the lock-keys, which he counted while finishing his cornbread. There were seven, so that accounted for all of the naked stems. He gathered the keys into a bundle in his arms and dumped them outside on the grass. The iron keys jangled as they collided, giving voice to the melee of fears and suspicions in his mind. He stared at them while considering how to proceed. He had to move the scow.
He opened the upstream gates, unwrapped the snub-line, and coaxed the mules into pulling the scow a hundred feet out onto the next level, where he tied it up to a thick tree. Walking back to the lock, he was no closer to understanding what had happened. Swains still offered no sign of life, and the thousand-foot reach of canal visible below the lock was equally deserted. He focused on the disturbing sight of the single lock-key suspended above the nearest upstream gate. Along with the seven naked stems, it told a story that he couldn’t decipher or ignore – an unavoidable story he sensed would not end well. He shut the upstream gates and the lock became a closed chamber, ripples on the water reflecting from the gates and walls.
He stopped to catch his breath and peer up and down the towpath. Nothing and no one. He returned to the pile of lock-keys and for the first time noticed a tangled rope ladder lying on the ground nearby. It hadn’t been there a few hours ago. His pulse quickened as he carried two keys to the downstream gate. He leaned out over the swing-beam and opened the gate’s two wickets. Ripples formed from wall to wall as water began flowing. Opening all four wickets would drain a lock in under three minutes; with two open it took about five, and that was fast enough for Cy. He stood on the wall and stared down at the receding water. His intuition told him there was something at the bottom of the lock, and he hoped it wasn’t Katie or Pete.