would be enough to change that. The more Rentz had increased the pressure, the more she found herself standing firm. She was going to get her son back and raise him here. That thought kept her fighting.
Maybe she would have weakened in time. Come to her senses about how best to remake her life. But then Rentz had brought in the courts.
Bunch of bullshit about water rights and declaring tacit ownership of the twenty-acre lake that formed in the winter of 1863, when Bull Run overflowed and flooded the valley in the midst of a second raging storm in as many days. But whose land precisely had it flooded? Rentz claimed he was going to prove that none which lay beneath the water had ever been hers.
It was the disciplinary board all over again, men in suits she had no choice but to back down from. Take whatever they put on the table and go skulking off. She couldn’t give in again, though. There was still fight left in her, but if she signed on Rentz’s dotted line it would die right here on the land she had grown up on.
Liz was under no illusions. She knew full well that Rentz owned the courts in these parts. This was his county, more than one municipal building and hospital wing bearing his father’s name. Those kinds of favors gave him lots of political markers to call in.
But it felt good to fight him, fight for herself. This was the last dream she had left, and he was threatening it. It was either a shotgun or a pen, and right now buckshot made more sense to her than ink.
Liz gazed across to the shoreline opposite her farm, where Rentz’s divers were just about finished readying their gear. One of them switched on a powerful halogen light array, capable of putting out a million candlepower underwater. The other dangled an air bazooka, rigged by long hose to a compressor on shore, from his shoulder and tested the weight of what looked like an elaborate metal detector. Not that she could say what good such a device would do them in trying to settle a boundary dispute.
At least the halogens made sense. A person couldn’t see his arm if he stuck it in the water, never mind all the way down to the black bottom. She watched as Rentz’s divers sank below the surface, a trail of air bubbles left in their wake.
T he divers swam deep, slowing as they drew nearer the bottom. The halogen lights cleared barely any visible path in the black, silty water after they had passed twenty feet. Their field of vision had shrunk to less than a yard when the molecular frequency discriminator began to flash. Slowly at first, but then faster and faster.
On shore, Rentz heard a rhythmic beeping in his headset. He eased the microphone piece into place in front of his lips.
“What’s going on?” he asked excitedly. “Can you see anything?”
“Not yet,” returned the voice of one of the divers. “But there’s definitely something down here.”
“Metallic?”
The beeping grew blisteringly loud in Rentz’s ears.
“No, wait a minute—this is a motion signal,” the first diver told him. “There’s something moving dead ahead.”
“It’s coming straight for us!” wailed the other diver, who was holding the halogen light array.
The beeping sounded like one continuous shrill whine by that point, reaching a fever pitch, when, suddenly, it was replaced by a gurgling, frothy rasp, like someone trying to scream underwater. The sound curdled Rentz’s ears, as the currents lapped unnoticed over his shoes.
“Come in! Can you hear me? What’s going on down there?”
Behind Rentz on shore, something tugged on the bazooka hose and tipped the compressor onto its side. The two policemen grabbed the hose and began to pull on it desperately, just managing to hold their own.
Still seated in her motorboat, Liz watched it all happening, the stories her grandfather had told her of ghosts or monsters that dwelled beneath the lake’s depths no longer seeming so fanciful at all. She rose again and clutched her twelve-gauge tightly to
Maybe she would have weakened in time. Come to her senses about how best to remake her life. But then Rentz had brought in the courts.
Bunch of bullshit about water rights and declaring tacit ownership of the twenty-acre lake that formed in the winter of 1863, when Bull Run overflowed and flooded the valley in the midst of a second raging storm in as many days. But whose land precisely had it flooded? Rentz claimed he was going to prove that none which lay beneath the water had ever been hers.
It was the disciplinary board all over again, men in suits she had no choice but to back down from. Take whatever they put on the table and go skulking off. She couldn’t give in again, though. There was still fight left in her, but if she signed on Rentz’s dotted line it would die right here on the land she had grown up on.
Liz was under no illusions. She knew full well that Rentz owned the courts in these parts. This was his county, more than one municipal building and hospital wing bearing his father’s name. Those kinds of favors gave him lots of political markers to call in.
But it felt good to fight him, fight for herself. This was the last dream she had left, and he was threatening it. It was either a shotgun or a pen, and right now buckshot made more sense to her than ink.
Liz gazed across to the shoreline opposite her farm, where Rentz’s divers were just about finished readying their gear. One of them switched on a powerful halogen light array, capable of putting out a million candlepower underwater. The other dangled an air bazooka, rigged by long hose to a compressor on shore, from his shoulder and tested the weight of what looked like an elaborate metal detector. Not that she could say what good such a device would do them in trying to settle a boundary dispute.
At least the halogens made sense. A person couldn’t see his arm if he stuck it in the water, never mind all the way down to the black bottom. She watched as Rentz’s divers sank below the surface, a trail of air bubbles left in their wake.
T he divers swam deep, slowing as they drew nearer the bottom. The halogen lights cleared barely any visible path in the black, silty water after they had passed twenty feet. Their field of vision had shrunk to less than a yard when the molecular frequency discriminator began to flash. Slowly at first, but then faster and faster.
On shore, Rentz heard a rhythmic beeping in his headset. He eased the microphone piece into place in front of his lips.
“What’s going on?” he asked excitedly. “Can you see anything?”
“Not yet,” returned the voice of one of the divers. “But there’s definitely something down here.”
“Metallic?”
The beeping grew blisteringly loud in Rentz’s ears.
“No, wait a minute—this is a motion signal,” the first diver told him. “There’s something moving dead ahead.”
“It’s coming straight for us!” wailed the other diver, who was holding the halogen light array.
The beeping sounded like one continuous shrill whine by that point, reaching a fever pitch, when, suddenly, it was replaced by a gurgling, frothy rasp, like someone trying to scream underwater. The sound curdled Rentz’s ears, as the currents lapped unnoticed over his shoes.
“Come in! Can you hear me? What’s going on down there?”
Behind Rentz on shore, something tugged on the bazooka hose and tipped the compressor onto its side. The two policemen grabbed the hose and began to pull on it desperately, just managing to hold their own.
Still seated in her motorboat, Liz watched it all happening, the stories her grandfather had told her of ghosts or monsters that dwelled beneath the lake’s depths no longer seeming so fanciful at all. She rose again and clutched her twelve-gauge tightly to
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