AHMM, March 2010 by Dell Magazine Authors

Author:Dell Magazine Authors
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dell Magazines

Fiction: DESERTERS by Chris Muessig

* * * *

Edward Kinsella III

* * * *

Knee deep in the shallows, Jake Miller looked across Champlain to the whale-backed mountains and put aside the sins and misfortune that whispered for his attention. The lake was placid, chilly, though the morning was beginning to pile up with heat and humidity. A ball game had started up behind him—Supply Company vs. Troop L—and hearty souls were already thrashing and diving out by the rafts. It was not hard to give in to the green world and its birdsong.

He stepped forward, and the water soaked into his flannel knee pants. Bending, he thrust his sleeves below the surface and brought up a cold armload to splash against his wool jersey. In the corner of his eye a pair of men leapt from the nearest raft. He turned their way and saw the platform left bare and bouncing on its barrels. Good, the deserted raft would allow a diving start for a swim out beyond the ropes before the lifeguards came on duty.

One of the divers swam in with a quick, fluid, crawling stroke unlike any Jake had ever seen. He watched in fascination as the man drove shoreward, but he could not make out the face that barely came out of the water. How did he breathe?

The man was almost to shore when Jake looked to the other swimmer, who had been left far behind. This second man was only a few body lengths from the raft, still twenty-five yards off the beach. He had stopped there and looked as if he was trying to push himself up out of the lake. He did not yell, probably because his mouth was too full of water. The wide eyes looked Jake's way as they went under.

Jake pointed at the spot, riveted his eyes upon it, and yelled, “There's a man in trouble! Man in trouble!” in his best parade-ground voice. Then he ran forward, eyes wide open, and went into the deeper water and began to breast stroke powerfully toward the spot where the desperate face had gone down. He did not look back for any others who might have heard his call; he was too afraid of losing the exact mark.

Feeling neither the cold water nor the weight of his suit, Jake kicked and reached forward, raging at his slowness. He tried not to blink; and when he reached the spot, he took three quick, shallow breaths and dove straight down.

The water was perhaps ten feet deep, clear in the slant light for the first fathom and then darkening into a murky blend of silt and vegetation that camouflaged the bottom. He cleared his ears and kicked hard against his natural buoyancy. His anxious, groping hand churned up clouds of particles that added to the obscurity along the lake bed.

Fingertips finally encountered a foot that toed into the mud like a climber's. He pulled himself along the leg and got a grip on the upper suit. There was no struggle against him.

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