He screamed in fear and anguish, then tried to think clearly. The downstream gates offered no handholds or footholds, but two cross-beams on the backside of the upstream gates were still visible above the churning water. He knew there was a triangular sill at the base of the gate and another submerged cross-beam. If I can drag the box to the upstream gates, he thought, I should be able to climb onto the sill. Then I can step up onto a cross-beam. I’ll have to contend with the torrent, but it’s only coming through one wicket.
He dropped underwater to collect the toolbox, then began hopping through chin-deep water toward the upstream gates. As he emerged from under the bridge, his foot found a downward slope in the floor of the lock and his leg slipped out from under him. His head plunged underwater as his leg skidded into a hole. Shit! He quickly dropped the toolbox onto the lock floor behind him, transferred his weight to his shackled foot, and pulled his free leg out of the hole. His chest throbbed from the exertion and he thrust his head up for a breath. The hole could be lethal, he realized. I don’t know how deep it is. If I had dragged the box into it, I might not be able to pull it out. The upstream gates are out of reach. Think!
The keys. One of them must unlock the shackles. If I unlock either cuff, I can swim to the upstream gates. He dug into his pocket for the keys, then held his fist above the surface and carefully opened it to reveal them. The rising water lapped against his lips and nose. He plucked the smaller key and held it tight, stuffed the larger key back in his pocket, jumped for a full breath, and dropped back toward the bottom.
For an instant he remembered being buried in a snowdrift after falling through the bridge on the Billy Goat Trail while snowshoeing with Nicky. He had found her lying with limbs askew, and she had seemed distant, almost entranced. Vin had helped her up and then fallen headfirst into the drift-filled gully, because the orange warning sign had been thrown into the snow under the dismembered bridge. His scalp tightened underwater as he realized now that Nicky had removed the sign. Then she had dug for him in the wrong place while he struggled to forge an airway through the snow before suffocating. He had been living with someone who, unconsciously or not, had tried twice to kill him in the last eight months.
When his hip reached the floor of the lock, he brought his feet beneath him and swept his free hand until he touched the shackle. Where was its keyhole? He ran his fingers over the converged C-arms, then rubbed the base with his thumb. The chain must have been twisted when Nicky closed the cuff, because the keyhole was facing his foot. As he reached the key around to find it, he snagged a link of chain and the key jerked out of his fingers. In disbelief, he snatched at the chain with an open palm, then swung his hand through the water below it, hoping to catch the key before it settled into the silt. He touched only water. His head throbbed and he almost gagged. He saw himself on an icy mountain ridge, taking a single, false step and beginning to slide, confronting the reality as he accelerated that he had passed the point of no return. His lungs were burning and he needed air. Fuck!
He sprung skyward, kicking hard and thrusting his arms. This time his mouth barely reached the surface and he took a breath of watery air. Eyes directed up, he couldn’t see the lock walls, but the sound and turbulence of flowing water had diminished. The lock might not fill much further. He dropped back to the bottom and gathered himself.
There was a second key. If it opened the toolbox, he could dump out the contents and try to tread water despite its weight. Or maybe he could drag the box to the gate and find a way to climb it. He dug the remaining key out of his pocket, then traced the chain to the handle of the toolbox. His entire body burned with lactic acid and fatigue as he stroked the box in search of the lock plate. Where was it? Here. He brought his fingers together and attempted to insert the key, pressing it against the box as he adjusted its position. It slipped into the lock! He pushed it in fully, then tried to twist it left and right. The key refused to turn.
No! He twisted harder but couldn’t turn it. Was the lock rusted? Broken? Fuck! He let go, set his feet against the lock floor, and sprung toward the surface again, keeping his arms at his side and exhaling as he rose. The chain stopped him as the crown of his head broke the surface. He kicked violently with his free leg, thrust hard with his arms and hands, and felt the toolbox rise from the lock floor. As his mouth neared the surface, he thrashed harder. Close, closer, a breath. How many more times could he surface before his strength gave out? When he reached the bottom again, he ignored the box and rested, tethered underwater. Thoughtless seconds later he fought his way up for another breath and screamed.
***
Kelsey opened her eyes toward the roots of the trees and saw stars. They spun and receded as the dark trunks of the swamp oaks took shape. She rolled onto her back and raised her right hand tentatively to her warm, sticky scalp. The bleeding had stopped and the blood was drying now, but it had run freely down her temple, dripped onto her neck, and pooled in the hollow of her ear. She traced the stained skin lightly with her fingers. Someone had screamed in the distance a minute ago. She looked up at the canoe rack and saw a single looming hull on its uppermost arms. The two lowest slots were empty.
Shards of memory fell back into place. There had still been daylight when she walked over to examine the rack with the missing canoe. She had seen the wire cutters lying on the ground. And then as she was kneeling to pick them up, she’d heard a footstep and turned to see the iron rod diving toward her head. She’d flinched and ducked, and the bar had grazed her scalp and slammed into her shoulder.
Lying on the beaten grass between the canoe rack and the trees, she gingerly raised her right arm. A bolt of pain shot through her shoulder and neck. She closed her eyes and lowered her arm to the ground. Her throat felt dry and she tried to swallow. Another scream rose and echoed from a nearby well. She opened her eyes, propped her left hand against the ground and sat up. The humid air seemed chilly but the sweater she had tied around her waist was gone. Remembering what she had come for, she staggered to her feet. The canoe rack reeled before her and she leaned against it to regain her balance. Then she walked unsteadily across the lot toward the gates of Swains Lock. To confirm the truth of Whites Ferry. And so it wouldn’t happen again.
***
Suspended underwater, Vin felt himself slipping into a world between the living and the dead. The lock was quiet now, the water over nine feet deep. He realized that if the canal were still in use, the water in the lock and the level upstream would have been two feet higher and he wouldn’t be able to reach the surface. He could barely reach it now. He had refined his technique, but his exhausted body was burning its last reserves of energy after hours of exertion and fear. The skin around his ankle was flayed and abraded from the cuff. And he was cold. All he wanted was to breathe, and it almost didn’t matter anymore whether the breath was air or water. Just to inhale, exhale, and forget about the fight.
He dropped into a crouch on the lock floor and shot toward the surface like a hungry fish, flutter-kicking and driving with his arms as his mouth stretched for a breath from the ocean of air overhead. But now his shackled ankle flinched from the pain of kicking and its reticence left him short; his nose was still underwater when he stalled and began falling back. His lungs caught fire and he was compelled to exhale as he descended.