“Oh, goddamn it!” Skip exclaimed as he turned the Sheriff’s Explorer off the highway and started threading past the two news vans. Lights already flashing, he blipped his siren startling the reporter talking to the deputy at the gate. The reporter scurried away as Skip inched the SUV forward and the deputy who was already opening the long gate to let Skip through. He lowered the window as he came abreast of the deputy, “Hey Eddy. When did the damn reporters get here?”
“About five minutes ago, Sheriff.”
“That was fast,” Skip shook his head, “I wonder if the family called them before 911.” He smiled wryly. “Well, just keep ‘em back. Thanks Eddy.” Skip started forward over the rutted dirt path leading across an open field and into a line of redwood trees. Evening gloam had fallen, and the flashing of parked emergency vehicles shone from beyond the tree line. He parked the Explorer next to a CHP Charger and stepped out into chaos.
Two deputies stood consoling an older woman wailing uncontrollably along with a younger woman and man. The county’s Light and Air rig, positioned as close as they could to the river as they could get, had its boom deployed with its enormous halogen lights shining down the river vividly illuminating half a dozen deputies and volunteers splashing along both banks in hip waders, probing the shallows with long poles. Electronic, strident, nigh-unintelligible police radio chatter punctuated the background hum of idling diesel engines, both utterly overwhelmed by the roar of the police helicopter making passes up and down the river, hyper-white spotlight playing across the murky green-brown water. Deputies, CHP officers, paramedics, and bystanders crisscrossed from beach to tree-line, to cars, back to beach. The area outside the penetrating light of the Light Air Rig’s elevated spots splashed with irregular red and blush flashes from the parked emergency vehicles.
Skip had expected the chaos – he’d set almost all of this in motion as soon as he got the call from 911 dispatch. This was also the third time in as many months this scene had played out. He took a steadying breath, adjusted his equipment belt, and stepped forward into the near-pandemonium, making a beeline for the Chief Deputy. “Hey Andy, what’s the sitrep?” Skip didn’t use terms like “sitrep,” but Andy preferred such terminology and skip knew that Andy would be more at ease orchestrating this scene if Skip used military terminology.
“Sheriff Barnes,” Andy stopped walking towards the lieutenant managing the waders. “No body so far. I’ve got two divers on stand-by waiting on your word.”
“When did he go in the water?”
Andy snapped his watch up to his face, “two hours, thirty-four minutes ago,” he said and then added, “roughly.”
Skip shook his head, “Call ‘em off. It’s too dark. If they haven’t found him yet they’re not going to find him until tomorrow at the earliest.”
“Roger, wilco,” Andy said.
“In fact, have lieutenant Riggs call the waders back in. They’re done for the night.” As Andy turned and sucked in a breath to call out over the distance to Riggs, Skip put a hand on the man’s shoulder and hastily added, “discretely, Andy, please.” Andy turned enough to acknowledge the request before hurrying down to meet Riggs at the water’s edge.
Skip zeroed in on a Fish and Game officer, black jacket zipped tight in the growing chill, watching the helicopter, alternately speaking into a handheld radio and listening expectantly for a response. “Yours?” Skip gestured to the helicopter now far enough down river to make conversation levels reasonable. She nodded. “Send it off for the night,” he said. The officer looked at him for a beat, then spoke into the radio. Both watched as the helicopter paused downriver, pirouetted midair, then started back up river, its spotlight winking out as it crossed their position on the bank and sped up river into the near-dark sky. “Thanks, Julie,” he said as the helicopter’s roar faded. I may call you tomorrow.”
She nodded. “Good luck, Skip,” she said over her shoulder as she started back towards the treeline.
Without the helicopter, the wails of the woman and, presumably, the family, sounded more pronounced. Skip was already moving in their direction. One of the deputies talking with the family spotted Skip, nodded to the other officer, and crossed to intercept Skip. “Hey Sheriff,” she said.
“The family?” he nodded towards the wailing woman.
“Wife, cousin, cousin’s son.”
“What are they saying?”
She flipped open her notepad, reading, “Approximately 4:15 Mateo Ortiz waded into the river after a soccer ball, slipped, went down into the water and didn’t come up. They called 911 after about ten minutes of searching.”
“Witnesses?” She cocked her head at him in a, what do you think? gesture. Skip was well aware of the fear among the undocumented Hispanic community out here that any contact with law enforcement would lead to deportation. Even among documented and native Latinos, they didn’t want to deal with any anticipated questioning. He was used to it, but it still annoyed him. Skip didn’t give a crap about documentation and this fear just got in the way of his investigations. It’s the world we live in, he thought. “Anything else?”
“The wife keeps saying he didn’t slip. ‘Serpiente!’ ‘Vibora!’ ‘Culebra!’”
“Goddamnit,” Skip cursed under his breath. “The snake thing again, Leslie?” he said quietly.
“Don’t shoot the messenger, Skip.”
“Did he know how to swim?”
“No.”
“Then no snake necessary.”
“You know I agree, Skip…” she paused. “If you like the snake, the cousin swears she saw La Llorona when they first got there in the shade by the tree right by where Mateo Ortiz went in.”
“You’re shitting me,” he stared at her. “Phantom snakes, the crying woman, Jesus Christ, what’s next?
“No, he hasn’t made appearance, but who knows? Round up some witnesses…”
Skip looked at her with an arched eyebrow, then he sighed, and they both started towards the family.
An hour later the family had departed, as had almost all of the emergency vehicles. The Light and Air rig had shut off its lights and retracted its boom and was now carefully making its way through the tree towards the road. Skip stared out at the river, placidly silver with reflected moonlight.
“Hey Jack,” a voice came out of the darkness.
Skip recognized it immediately, “Hey Timothy. Circus is over for the night, my Magical Pomo Friend.”
“I’m not here for that, my White Oppressor,” he said, his figure resolving in the moonlight. He brandished a fishing pole and tackle box. “It’s a full moon. I was coming down here to catch bass. Looks like it was a useless walk, with everyone stirring up the river.”
The last cruiser pulled up alongside them. “Stopping by the substation, Skip?” Leslie asked from the open window.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll be there in a bit.”
“Where’s Milo?
“Probably at home chewing on my slippers for not feeding him yet.”
“Want me to pick him up?”
“Thanks, Leslie,” Skip smiled.
“You bet, Skip. See you in a bit. Hey Timothy!” she said and started up towards the road.
“Hey,” Timothy called back. The car disappeared and the night settled on the two men. “Say, Jack, why do they call you ‘Skip’?”
“I never told you?” Timothy shook his head. “During the flood, a few years back that house by Monte Rio flooded and caught fire. No one was dumb enough to get out in the zodiac and we couldn’t get down to them from the road. So, I launched the boat myself.”
“Ah, skipper.”
“Yeah, I guess it caught on.”
“Clearly.” Timothy set his fishing gear down and leaned up against the front of the Explorer next to Skip. “Another drowning?”
“Yeah.”
“Shabaikai is hungry this summer.”
“Shabby-what?” Skip looked at the man in profile.
“Shabaikai. The name my people had for the river. It means ‘great snake.’”
“For all the twists and turns?”
“That’s what we told your people,” Timothy said with a wry smile.
“Okay, not because of the serpentine shape. What then?”
“It’s a long story,” Timothy started, stopped, chuckled, then continued, “and it’s actually a lot better when my people do it as a dance. But the short version is that the river is a live snake ever wriggling towards the sea. If you listen to some people speak they’ll tell you the snake drinks its fill in wet years, but when winter rains don’t slake its thirst in the winter it takes its sustenance in the summer.”
“By drowning people?”
“It’s just a story,” Timothy said. “A story passed down for longer than your people have been killing my people off, but, hey, just a story.”
“Ghost river snake…” Skip shrugged, “I’ve heard stranger. It’d explain why the witnesses report seeing a snake… and how we could lose people in 3 feet of calm water.” They both stood in the darkness listening to crickets, the occasional hoot of an owl, and the muffled whoosh of a car passing on the highway beyond the tree line. “Give you a ride?”
“Only if I can sit in front – people talk!”
Skip dropped Timothy off on his way to the substation. Leslie and Milo were waiting at the station when Skip got there. He got a jump on the mountain of paperwork and started preparations for the morning, but decided burning the midnight oil tonight wasn’t worth it. He gathered his dog and they both headed home.
Letting Milo in ahead of him he closed the door and turned off the porch light Leslie had left on for him when she picked Milo up. In the kitchen, he poured himself a tall glass of water and drank half of it in one draught. He started at the glass, then took out another glass and pulled the Bulleit bourbon out of the cabinet, poured two fingers and downed it in one long pull. He thought about Mateo Ortiz in the river… and poured himself another two fingers. He drank this pour more slowly, and by the time the glass was dry he was feeling the softening edge in his head. He looked at the bottle and considered another pour, decided against it, and finished his water instead. Putting the bottle back in the cabinet, he didn’t turn on any lights walking gingerly in the dark. He did manage to strip out of his uniform before he laid down, but sleep claimed him quickly. He had hoped the whiskey would let him sleep dreamlessly, but he wasn’t so lucky.
He found himself in the clearing by the river, looking at the line of trees, foreboding in the moonlight. He heard crying from the direction of the river and he started forward only to realize he was only in his boxers. His bare feet on the cold wet brush concerned him more than the lack of clothes. Nonetheless he made his way quickly to the tree line, and the crying got louder. He crossed beyond the trees moving more quickly than he knew was reasonable and saw the glowing figure in white by the river’s edge. Mateo’s widow? He thought as he approached. Her body wracked with sobs. “Mrs. Ortiz?” he heard himself say as he reached out to touch her shoulder.
The woman turned, her face a distended mask of grief and terror. “Ay, mis hijos!” she howled. Her cry consumed him. He stared into her face helpless to move, trapped in her scream and unnatural face. He felt himself being drawn into that face, his grip on reality loosening by degrees. “Mis hijos!” she cried and he felt himself floating, bobbing up and down… he reached up and touched his face. His hand was wet. He moved his head and realized he was floating in the river. He stared up at the bone white full moon high in the sky, so much like… No, no, it was the moon. Why was he floating? How had he gotten into the river. The river… Shabaikai. The snake. He started at that thought, flailing a little in the water before he lay still and floated calmly again. He turned his head gingerly and noticed the silvery light catch something in the water. He turned more in the water to get a better look and came face to face with the pale, bloated face of Mateo Ortiz beneath the surface of the water. He flailed, straining to get away from the body. He realized in a panic he wasn’t making any headway. Looking down to see why his feet weren’t moving, he saw the surface of the river erupt into the head of a serpent. In that moment, he stared at the glittering eyes like gold in a streambed, the form of its head coursed and pulsed, but it opened its mouth to reveal two alabaster fangs dripping with river water. Without time to react, the river snake, Shabaikai, clamped down on his right leg, the fangs piercing deeply while its powerful lower jaw clamped the fangs in place.
Skip jerked up in bed, panting, sweat covering his body. No, he sniffed his wet arm and recalled the briny scent of river water. “The hell?” he said aloud. He moved to get to his feet, but sucked in a breath from a pain in his leg. Flipping on the light on the nightstand he looked down at his bare leg. On top were two dark, quarter size bruises. He rotated his leg and saw an equally dark bruise in an arc on the bottom of his leg.
