When he was a kid boating with his father, they’d come upon a young couple that drowned in the canal up near Big Pool. Others had found them first, but you couldn’t take a boat past a drowning victim – that was the law. You had to leave at least some part of the body in the water until the police arrived, even if it was just the feet. That never made much sense to Cy. The couple had rented a canoe to paddle out for a picnic on a Sunday afternoon. The canal was only seven or eight feet deep in most places, but that was deep enough if you couldn’t swim. Cy watched the churning water drain away.
When the lock was half-empty, he saw the first dark strands of sea-moss bob to the surface, and his gut tightened. Human hair. The moss welled up again and unveiled a pale ear. He exhaled with relief when he realized the hair didn’t belong to Katie or Pete. A second shape floated to the surface near the first, a thicker, russet-colored specimen of moss. These bodies must be the Emorys. His hand slipped to the roll of bills in his pocket. They wouldn’t need his money now. Their heads were face down in the water and their necks and shoulders rounded into view as the water fell. His dread flared again as he realized that other bodies could still be submerged. What if the Emorys had dragged Pete and Katie into the lock with them? But how could the men have fallen or been pushed into the water in the first place? There was only a gap of a few feet between the scow and the lock wall!
One verdict was revealed as the water reached parity with the level downstream and stopped flowing. Pete and Katie were not lying drowned in the lock. Not unless they’d been weighted down, since less than five feet of water remained in the chamber and he only saw two bodies. The water was clear enough that if they were in there, they should be visible.
The other answer was still somewhere underwater, along with the extremities of the drowned men. He could see their upper bodies breaking the surface, but their legs converged in dark water at the bottom of the lock. It looked as if something was holding their feet down. He stared at the scene, unsure of what to do. Then he went to the lockhouse and found a pole in Jess Swain’s basement. It had a three-pronged hook and was long enough to probe the water.
He thrust its hooked end into the water and swept it between the bodies. The pole snagged something flexible and the body with dark sea-moss hair spun a half-circle. It felt like he was pulling a tether that bound an anchor to the corpse. He explored until he hooked the anchor, then carefully drew the pole straight back, hand over hand, flexing his arms and widening his stance as its full weight came onto the pole. The bodies of the dead men drifted on the ripples, and as he raised the anchor, their legs rose with it. When it was a foot from the surface, he saw a line connecting the dead men’s ankles. As the anchor broke the surface, he realized he couldn’t lift it further with the pole. The dead men were chained to it through a sturdy handle they had been unable to break before drowning. It was a toolbox, one he’d seen before. The Emorys used it to hold their cash, and he knew that if it hadn’t been plundered, the box held enough money to change his life.
***
By the time Lee Fisher passed Cy Elgin’s number 41 boat tied up against the berm, his headache was nearly gone. The boat looked uninhabited, but he could see it had been cleaned up for the start of the season. He quickened his pace. He’d slept much later than he wanted, then spent the rest of the morning getting ready to head upstream with the Emorys. After packing his bag and squaring away the lockhouse, he’d checked the big Pennyfield house to make sure everything looked proper. But he still needed to retrieve Charlie Pennyfield’s bicycle. Reaching into his coat pocket, he fingered the key to the leg-irons. Then he remembered what he’d forgotten to bring. Cy Elgin’s pint flask. The one Katie had brought to their dinner last night, filled with the whiskey that he was still feeling today.
Despite last night’s intoxication, he remembered Katie saying she would lock the bicycle to the canoe rack on the berm. He hoped now that he’d see her again at Swains this morning before he left. He could tell her where to find Cy’s flask at Pennyfield. And maybe they could arrange to meet again on his first run down from Cumberland with Ben Myers.
He rounded a bend in the towpath and saw the lockhouse at Swains in the distance. Alongside the towpath was a small blue shape, which he soon recognized as the hayhouse wall of the Emory’s scow. That was odd. As a light boat, the scow should be steering a path closer to the berm. And he noticed it didn’t seem to be moving relative to the lockhouse. Then he saw the mules grazing on the fringe of grass between the towpath and the canal. He sighed and shook his head in disapproval. Once again, his cousins had chosen an inappropriate place to tie up. It showed a lack of respect for the unwritten rules of the canal.
Passing the mules, he didn’t see either of his cousins nearby. He ducked under the mooring line and called out as he neared the scow’s cabin, but no one answered. Great, he thought, they’re off causing trouble somewhere. Then he remembered their reference to Katie when he’d seen them last Monday. She might be alone at Swains right now. Apprehension pulsed through him and he broke into a run for the short remaining distance to the lock.
The scow should have recently locked through, so he expected to see the upstream gates open and the lock filled with water. Instead the upstream gates were closed. And no one seemed to be around the lock. But the lockhouse door was open, so he angled off the towpath toward the crossing planks. As his foot hit the walkway, a figure passed through the door. He looked up and saw Cy Elgin.
Cy saw Lee at the same instant and stopped in his tracks. He stared Lee down for a few seconds without speaking, and Lee noticed the hacksaw in his hand. The silence grew strained, so he looked down while searching for the words to inquire after Katie. He saw two shapes floating in the drained lock, one tan and one gray, with flossy strands splayed out on the surface, and the shock of recognition hit him at the moment that he heard Cy’s voice.
“Don’t jump to no conclusions,” Cy said with an edge of menace.
“Jesus!” Lee yelled, his heart racing, “they’re drownded!” He sidestepped across the plank and gazed into the lock in disbelief. As his thoughts gained traction, he realized that he hadn’t seen the dead men’s faces. He looked at Cy and tried to steady his voice.
“That Kevin and Tom Emory?”
Cy nodded warily. “I think so. Haven’t gotten close enough to see for sure. Just found ‘em here myself a minute ago.”
“So you ain’t tried to help ‘em yet?”, Lee asked with a note of incredulity. “Gonna cut ‘em up with that saw instead? Maybe they’re not dead yet!” He glanced around for something he could use to help and saw the rope ladder rolled up on the ground. He paced across the walkway and leapt down onto the lock wall.
“They’re dead,” Cy said tersely. “They was at the bottom, under their boat. I found ‘em when I pulled the boat out and drained the lock.” Lee listened while reaching for the ladder. When he understood what Cy had said, his frantic energy dissolved into resignation. Cy retrieved the pole he’d left near the lockhouse door. “Looks like they had some help,” he said.
Lee finished untangling the ladder, then set its hooks against the stone edge of the lock wall and unfurled it. He looked up as Cy carried his pole to the wall – the same kind of pole Lee had spent hours drilling for Charlie Pennyfield. Cy extended its hooked end deep into the water and maneuvered it toward one of the bodies. He twisted it until its hook caught something, then raised the hook toward the surface. Lee saw a leg and a blocky object rise from the shadows. When the hook reached the surface he saw it held a chain, the near end terminating at the dead man’s ankle in a wet gray cuff that gleamed in the light. Lee felt the air leave his lungs as if he’d been kicked in the chest by a mule. He bent forward and put his hands on his knees, head swimming as he tried to understand what had happened and what it meant.