When Alex was almost done, Jaru said, “Can I help you carry that stuff?”

  “Nope. Ten cover it with a tip to you?”

  “More than enough, and no need to tip. I didn’t do anything,” Jaru said.

  Alex slapped a ten spot on the register as he threaded behind the counter to a short hallway that led to the office, a storage room, and a bathroom that got cleaned on an irregular schedule.

  The office door was open and Wahanu called out when Alex’s shadow fell across the room’s threshold. “Oi, been expecting you, my friend.”

  “So Jaru said. Care to explain?”

  “What you got there?”

  “Black tea the way you like it.” He handed over the paper cup and a sugar packet.

  “What, no roll?”

  “You carry rolls?”

  Wahanu smiled. “I do, was just wondering what was so special about the tea and what the rolls did to offend you.”

  Alex went back into the store and retrieved two prepacked buttered rolls. He tossed one to Wahanu and said, “When you’re right, you’re right.”

  The men ate, Alex taking sips of his tea, Wahanu taking large gulps like he was falling asleep in the middle of a marathon. Alex’s gaze drifted to the line of portraits decorating the wall behind Wahanu’s desk. The pictures were like a computer-enhanced biological timeline of Wahanu’s family, and as Alex’s eyes moved right to left, he saw the jagged jaw lines disappear, the deeply tanned skin fade to white, and long black hair replaced with shorter, more modern cuts.

  Wahanu and his clan traced their roots back to Attawandaron, native people that inhabited the Niagara area before the arrival of the Europeans. His father and Wahanu had become friends because the Attawandaron had believed a monster of unspeakable horrors lived beneath the falls, and some unsubstantiated accounts of early explorers accused the natives of providing human sacrifices to the beast by tossing people over the falls.

  Alex dropped his half-eaten roll on its waxed paper wrapping and said, “So you were expecting me?”

  The old man nodded, his eyes gleaming as he sipped his tea.

  “Care to elaborate?”

  “Why have you come?”

  “To ask you a few questions. I’m following up on some of my father’s research, and I—”

  Wahanu held up a hand. “That is how I knew you’d come. 2019 marks a sixty-sixth year. A year of the beast.”

  “Care to refresh my memory?” He knew most of the story, had heard it several times, but it had been a long time.

  “The legends of my people tell of a giant sea scorpion that returns every sixty-six years. It lives most of its life underground, beneath the falls, preparing to give birth and nurse its offspring, which makes one trip to the surface when it’s sixty-six years old.” Wahanu laughed and sipped his tea. “I have pictures of cave drawings found all around the gorges of Niagara, and two might be of particular interest.” He slid open a drawer and tossed two 8” by 12” photos onto the desk.

  “You really did know I was coming.”

  “The university people were here over winter break.”

  “Silverfish?”

  Wahanu nodded.

  The two photos depicted crude cave drawings, and they both showed a scorpion-type creature with a curved stinger tail twisting over its carapace, the beast’s mouth filled with teeth, two large pinchers at the ends of its forward legs. One of the drawings had lines shooting from the creature’s eyes, like light, and in the other the beast’s teeth were overlarge.

  “I’ve seen copies of these, and I think… I know I saw something like this… the tail… on the river today.”

  Wahanu leaned forward in his chair, springs chirping.

  “You heard about the tourist who went in the drink a few hours ago?” Alex said.

  He nodded. “It’s all over WIVB news.”

  Alex pointed at the picture. “Do you think this is what I saw?”

  Wahanu hiked his shoulders.

  “Any idea where it will surface again?”

  “Your father believed the Army boys sealed the entrance to its lair, so if it’s trapped, who knows where it might dig through.”

  “For a guy who might not believe you sound extra knowledgeable about the topic.”

  Wahanu hiked his shoulders again. “Same as you, my friend. I heard the stories my entire life. Your father was a good friend, but sometimes I just liked hanging out with him, hiking in the woods, searching the falls. Didn’t really matter to me what we were looking for. How’s your ma?”

  Alex updated Wahanu on his mother and his marriage, and the old man seemed miffed he hadn’t been invited to the ceremony. He didn’t know what he’d expected to get from his father’s old friend, but he felt whatever it was, he’d gotten it. “Anything else you can tell me?”

  “It’s more of a warning.”

  Alex lifted an eyebrow.

  “I figured you’d be here by April, and I wasn’t going to hold off much longer.”

  Alex waited.

  “If you hadn’t come, I would have found you. Your father asked me to.”

  “Because of the year?”

  Wahanu nodded. “He knew you didn’t believe, and—”

  “It’s not that I didn’t believe. I was young and didn’t have a clue what he was trying to tell me.”

  Wahanu held up a placating hand. “It’s O.K. He knew why you tried, and he loved you the more for it.”

  The door chime rang, and the rumble of chatter leaked into the office as Jaru helped a customer.

  “Your dad wanted me to warn you. He believed it was inevitable you’d get involved. There was just too much history and he wanted you to be prepared. He told me to tell you not to try and handle this thing on your own. As soon as you have proof…” Wahanu paused and rolled his eyes and waved his hands as if to say ‘whatever the hell proof is in this situation’, “…you should shout HELP from the top of the tallest building until the authorities listen to you.”

  Not much different than what his father had done, except without the tallest building part. A cycle year would prove him right… or wrong. Alex didn’t want the beast to wreak havoc and mess with tourist season, but at the same time the appearance of the creature would validate his father’s life, provide proof he wasn’t crazy and hadn’t imagined everything he’d heard, seen, and felt all those years ago as he dangled a hundred feet above the scree pile scraping rocks.

  Wahanu ran through some more evidence, all of which Alex had heard before, but hearing it from Wahanu made it real somehow. When the conversation entered its second hour he said, “I’ve got to hit the road. Thanks for your time.”

  “Don’t mention it. Don’t wait too long to visit again,” the old man said. He leaned forward and the chair’s old springs shrieked. He whispered, “Might not be here next time you stop by.”

  “That bad?”

  Wahanu looked past him into the hall. “I don’t have the heart to tell them. I had to take a reverse mortgage out on the place a few years back just to keep going.”

  “Where you heading?”

  “South, maybe. I hear the desert is nice out west.”

  Alex dug out a business card and handed it over. “Don’t disappear without calling me so I can say a proper goodbye.”

  “Whatever you decide to do, be careful.”

  Alex nodded.

  6

  Traffic was backed up on the main drag, and Alex took side roads to Stimpson’s Marina, the day’s events rattling around inside his head like stripped gears in a broken car transmission. His neck and lower back ached, and his head pounded in rhythm with his galloping heart, stress and angst doing solid work. The more he pictured the sharp stinger hovering above the river, as if held in place by invisible strings, the more his reality crumbled around him.

  Alex was good at self-delusion when it served his purpose, and he’d convinced himself of some stupid stuff over the years, but this… he couldn’t unsee what he’d seen, and then to see Wahanu’s pictures, hear him reaffirm everything his father had told him and more. He was getting sucked in just as his father had predicted. Alex gripped the wheel tight and rolled his shoulders as he made a left into the marina.

  He’d been docking his personal boat at Stimpson’s above the falls since he’d purchased the twenty-one-foot Grady White center console. He liked to fish, and he enjoyed the calm but fast waters that fed the falls. Upriver was different from his daily trips through the Niagara’s rapids below the falls. The marina was fifteen minutes from the Weston casa in Nashville and being upriver of the falls meant he had access to Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, while his tour boat could go to the lower great lakes. His friends said he had the best of both worlds, and when it came to the river, he supposed they had a point.

  The marina was carved from the riverbank like it had been created with a giant ice-cream scoop. Fifty boats were docked in between wooden poles, with parking around the edges, and there was a convenience store with a bar and grill along the river in the marina’s northern corner.

  Alex parked by his boat, grabbed a prepackaged sandwich and a six-pack of beer from the store, and loaded everything onto the center console, which was unnamed, its hull numbers, registration and Grady White logos the only identification. He fished out his boat keys from their hiding place in the bilge and stowed his food and all but one of the beers in the cabinet beneath the command console. The primer bulb was as firm as a tennis ball, and the 150HP Johnson two-stroke roared to life with the first turn of the key. He tossed the rear mooring lines onto the dock and hung the forward lines on nails protruding from the tops of the wood docking poles as a light easterly wind pushed the boat free of its slip.

  The sun sat on the western horizon like a fried egg, the bruised sky filtering through the thin clouds as dusk came on. He pressed down the throttle and the engine grumbled as the boat slid through the still water, and as soon as the vessel inched from the protective cocoon of the marina, the Niagara jerked the boat toward the falls. Alex turned upriver and eased the throttle down, the vessel making fifteen knots against the current, throwing a gentle spray over the undulating green water.

  His phone vibrated and he pulled it as he drew back on the throttle and put the boat in neutral so he could hear. “Yo.”

  “Hey, it's Gabe. Where you at?”

  “Floating up top. What’s up?”

  “I’m afraid I may have caused a problem.”

  Alex chuckled. “Your boss called my boss?”

  “Yup.”

  Alex waited.

  “When do you want to come by? I’ll grill.”

  He was having trouble concentrating, and he said, “You heard what happened on the river today?”

  “I did. I thought that might be a good reason to speed up our… hike.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Despite getting no help from the Johnson, the boat was moving at seven knots, the current inexorably dragging the Grady White toward the falls as darkness crept over the river. The way the gorge was cut, the sound of the falls crashing on the talus reverberated outward, not up and over the falls. The result was a dull static that didn’t compare with the thunder of the lower Niagara.

  “Listen, you’re overcomplicating things. Lilly is off Friday?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “And that’s your slowest day, right?”

  “Yeah.” Friday was a transition day, with people checking in and checking out. Friday was about beginnings and endings, not the middle.

  Gabe cleared his throat. “It’s supposed to be hot as balls this Friday. What say you and Lilly come by for a BBQ? I’ll take off from work and you can let Tina or Greg handle the tours. When the kids are in the pool and the wives are tits deep into their second bottle of chardonnay you and me disappear for a stroll around the reservoir.”

  Alex was proud of his boy. “I like it. I’ll ask Lilly to make her deviled eggs.”

  Gabe laughed. “Ginger will love that.”

  He knew his friend’s wife most certainly would not. She was afraid of mustard and mayonnaise, and the deviled eggs were a running joke. “Catch you on the rebound.” He clicked off and texted Lilly, who responded with a bored face emoji, and followed up with “What about the prof?”

  What about her? The professor had already met Wahanu, seen his pictures. Alex had read his father’s journal many times, and he was certain there were no new clues there, but still… He texted back, “I’ll tell her to come Thursday night.” He received another expressionless emoji.

  The sound of the falls picked up as the boat was sucked downriver, darkness pressing in on the Grady White, moonlight shimmering off the rushing green water. He flicked on the NAV lights and turned upriver as he cycled up the motor. He brought the boat up on plane, fighting the current and skipping over tiny rolling waves. He passed Tonawanda Island and the Radisson Falls Grand looming in the darkness to the west. Lights sparkled along the river’s edges, and the rumble of the falls faded, the sound of cars, water lapping against the hull, the cries of seagulls, and the brush of the wind filling the silence.

  When he was almost to Peace Bridge, he killed the engine and let the current tug the boat back downriver. Alex finished his beer with a long pull and grabbed another along with his sandwich. He sat on the bench seat before the command console, peering into the murky darkness as the river pulled the boat back north. Tourists often marveled that the Niagara River ran north, like that was some type of magic. He didn’t know why people assumed all rivers ran south, but there it was. He had also when he was a boy. He still remembered the cackling laughter of his father when he’d exclaimed a river couldn't run north. “No rivers run north or south, son. All rivers run downhill.”

  He ate and drank as he scanned the dark waters ahead, the pop and crack of the river cascading over stones and pushing through skinny areas rising above the wind, shadows dancing across the river’s surface like ghosts.

  Something slid by in the darkness, a tree branch, or… The lizard side of his brain was starting to spin tales his logical half couldn’t handle, and his nerves vibrated like an old car approaching its redline. He didn’t expect to see the creature, but it wasn’t that he was still in denial. That ship was leaving port, but he couldn’t stop rearranging the facts, exploring ideas and scenarios.

  Would the creature be able to access the upper Niagara? If the monster lived below the falls, getting upriver without being seen would be a challenge. He didn’t know if he’d seen the beast’s entire tail, or just its end, so estimating the creature’s size was difficult, but he was comfortable with the idea that the thing was bigger than an elephant, and he couldn’t figure how it could make it to the waters of the upper river without being seen.

  The tunnels beneath the city. Legends of fifteen-foot alligators in the subways of Manhattan, and giant anaconda climbing the skyscrapers of Tokyo made Alex think of the pump station behind Gabe’s house.

  Alex went back upriver and floated to the falls three more times and drank three more beers, the soothing sound of the river and the cool push of the wind like a gentle caress. On his fourth trip he knifed beneath the Peace Bridge, cars screaming along I-190 on the American shore, their headlights dancing off the trees that packed the river’s edge. He killed the engine, and sat on the forward bench seat again, wrapping himself in his alcohol-induced cocoon.

  Stars blinked through cotton candy clouds, moonlight casting long shadows over the river. Time slid away, the rumble of the falls growing. The flat nothingness of Navy Island inched by to the west, and further downstream the lights on the hydroelectric plant’s control dam glowed in the darkness as it reached across the river, creating power, and regulating the flow of Horseshoe Falls.

  The roar of the falls increased, and the current picked up, the falls a mile distant. A reddish-yellow glow hung over the northern horizon because the face of the falls was lit up like a Christmas tree. Alex closed his eyes and took a long pull of beer, letting the soothing growl of the river take him to his special place. He could go to sleep and that would be it. He didn’t want to die, yet letting it all go and leaving everything behind had a certain appeal, starting over and doing it better. Except, going over the falls wasn’t a beginning, but an ending. The walls of The Barrel were stacked with pictures of adventurers that had intentionally gone over the falls. Some in wood barrels, others in sturdier contraptions. With his luck he’d go over and survive only to live on as a quadriplegic, and he’d deserve it. He had so many things he didn’t deserve, yet he still felt his life slipping away, his past roaring back and threatening to drag him under.

  The falls were close now, the river getting shallow. The depth at the brink of the falls was only two feet, and rocks gleamed in the starlight, the NAV light on the bow shooting red and green arrows into the yellow-red cloud hanging over the falls. All he had to do was close his eyes. Sleep. Everything would be O.K. Lilly’s face appeared in his mind’s eye, but she didn’t look upset, but relieved. She said nothing, and her soft expression of pity didn’t snap him from his reverie.

  A park police patrol boat did.

  A siren. Flashing red lights. A screaming boat engine.

  The falls were only two hundred yards off, the roar of the water like thunder, the red-yellow mist lifting off the crest hissing like a snake. Alex vaulted to his feet, stuffed the empty beer cans into the command console, made sure a lifejacket was within reach, and fired up the Johnson. Metal shrieked on metal as the flywheel spun and the engine roared to life. Alex dropped the hammer as he twisted the ship’s wheel, bringing the vessel about, red flashing lights spinning off the starboard bow.

  He scanned the boat, making sure all the beer cans were stowed, and he eased back on the throttle as the boat drove through the current, inching its way back upstream, the police boat blocking the center of the river.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” shrieked an officer. He stood in the bow of the aluminum patrol boat, the silver pilothouse gleaming behind him. The officer had his hand on his sidearm, gold badge glinting under the glare of the boat’s harsh spotlight.