SEA LORDS OF THE COLUMBIA
“So give it. What are the Finns doing with mermaids?”
THE SOUND OF HEAVY FEET SLAPPING THE ground behind him came closer and closer. He was out of breath, but he’d been chased before down Old Baldy and Heartbreak Ridge, so he’d become used to running for his life. But that was Korea, not the ass end of Oregon in the old fishing town of Astoria. And he’d been carrying a carbine back then instead of the slippery yet voluptuous mermaid, her lips pressed against his neck sending thoughts that would make an eighty-year-old keel over for the sheer preposterousness of the position. Even now, with the Columbia River within reach, his cock was hard and his body twisted with the need to react to the mermaid’s advances, his mind acting out the fantasy until he was left gasping and out of breath and barely running. The only distraction was an odd track from the new Carl Perkins’ song, “Dixie Fried,” slashing through his head: Rave on, children, I’m with you, rave on, cats, he cried. It’s almost dawn and the cops ain’t gone, and I’ve been Dixie fried.
A shout from one of the burly Finns chasing him gave him new energy as he surged forward. The Columbia was less than fifty yards away. And, magically, Hemmo was already halfway there and waiting with a length of two-by-four in each hand. All Doogie had to do was reach the river and they’d all be free.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves . . .
***
THE STORY REALLY STARTED two days ago in the Desdemona, a bar where anything and, often, everything happens. The low-ceilinged wooden building built from the lumber of its namesake, a ship that foundered on the Columbia Bar fifty years earlier, is full of roughnecks, fishermen, and hookers from upstairs. Leather and chains are what the guys wear. Leather and lace is what the girls wear. Everyone has a story to tell, and it’s to the short Japanese man talking to the immense Finn where the story takes us, and you can tell right away that it’s a well-worked tale.
“The morning mist rising from the Columbia River met the fog rolling in from the Columbia Bar, creating a fabric of unreality. The normally troublesome waves had flattened, making the water around my boat as pristine as a mirror. I should have known something was going on, when a monster snagged at my line, almost breaking my arm with the force of it. Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed as I fought the fish, letting it drag as often as I would reel. When it finally landed, we were both exhausted. I noosed it and pulled it into the boat, then things got real interesting.” Doogie Nezumi, second-generation Japanese-American and Korean War veteran then lowered his voice and said what had been burning a hole inside of him for the last two days.
Hemmo slapped his beer down and open-mouth-ogled his war buddy and best friend. “What do you mean the fish spoke to you?”
Hemmo Saarsgaard was an acre tall compared to Doogie and as angular as a pike. They each wore a white t-shirt underneath leather jackets. Blue jeans and combat boots finished their ensemble. Doogie couldn’t help note that they were still in uniform albeit not the same uniform they’d worn in Korea. The difference was that back then they’d been part of something—part of something special. Now they were just—they weren’t part of anything. They were just drifting like every other war-aged man in America back in the Land of the Big PX with no focus and no prospects.
Doogie pushed the ennui aside and stood a little straighter. “Just as I said. It spoke to me.”
“I mean, did its lips move? Did it swim up to you and begin a conversation? I mean, come on, Doogie, you can’t just lead with, Did I tell you what the fish said?”
“It didn’t swim up. I caught it. I just told you. And no, its lips didn’t move. It spoke to me in my head.”
“How do you know that it wasn’t just in your head? Why attribute it to the fish?” Hemmo eyed Doogie. “You took a fair bit of abuse over there. Remember when we were mortared that one night near Kaesong? You were raving about seeing Chinese in the trenches for days.”
Doogie shook his head. “Fucking Third Battle of the Hook. You had to remind me. And there were like a billion Chinese in the trenches.”
“But they weren’t wearing pink leotards and attacking us with claw hammers like you screamed they were.”
Doogie gave himself a self-depreciating smile. “Okay, I might have been a little out of it then, but I swear to you I am not crazy.”
“Was a hard time, my friend.” Hemmo spun as he heard the clatter of chairs. He tossed back his beer, then threw his glass into a conflagration of men and pool sticks.
Doogie watched as the Finn used his ham-sized hands to pound belligerents into the floor. Within seconds, he was the only one standing. He glanced around, as if checking to see if anyone wanted more, then strode back to the bar.
Hemmo was always like that. He was the brute who’d take down anyone who stood against him or his friends.
Doogie felt the same way, but because of his size, he had to concentrate on speed and guile.
Sandra slid a fresh beer in front of the Finn. “Thanks, Hemmo.” Then she winked. “On the house.”
Hemmo grinned. “It’s what I do, Sandra. Hey, you up for something later?”
She flashed a grin. “I might be.”
“See you at one then.” He leaned over the counter and ogled her as she went to help another customer, then he stood straight and shook his head. “A good fight never fails to get them all hot.”
“I think you’re all hot, Hemmo,” Doogie said. “You know she’s married, right?”
“To a fisherman who never comes home.”
“Don’t you think it’s wrong?” Doogie asked.
“That he won’t come home and be with his woman? Hell yes.” Hemmo sipped his beer, then asked, “Where were we? Oh yeah, how do you know that the talking fish wasn’t just something you made up?”
“Because the fish told me that it got caught on purpose to deliver a message and would I please let it go when it was done.”
Hemmo took a long slow drink of his beer, using the opportunity to gauge Doogie.
Doogie took the moment to break for the bathroom. The door to the head was to the left of the jukebox. The combatants had already risen from the floor. A biker from M.C. Portland Joes was leaning over and making his selection. Probably something Elvis who was all the new rage. A hooker from upstairs came down smelling of roses and sweat. Doogie wrinkled his nose. He’d had enough of them back in Pusan when they’d been waiting to come home. Only, instead of Roses, they’d smelled of a different flower, something remarkably Asian.
After he was done and back at the bar, Doogie ordered another beer.
It wasn’t until it had arrived and he’d had a drink before Hemmo asked. “And did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Let it go?”
“Oh, hell no. Who lets go a thirty-pound salmon?”
“So you killed the talking fish,” Hemmo stated, both eyebrows raised.
“Evidently all fish can talk. Does that mean I’m going to give up fishing?”
“Who told you that all fish can talk?”
“The talking fish told me.”
“And you automatically believed him?”
“Based on talking to the fish who told me they all could talk I was inclined to do so, yes.”
This time it was Hemmo’s turn to go to the head.
Sure enough, Elvis crooned from the Juke about a “Mystery Train.” Sometime between the time they’d gone to war and returned in ’53, the music had changed. Or at least Doogie felt that way. He thought about the way he was telling his old friend the story and hated drawing it out this way, but he knew he had to in order to achieve the effect he desired—to get him to do what he wanted him to do.
Hemmo took his time, so the Juke cycled through Carl Perkins’ “Dixie Fried” and Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “Sixteen Tons” before he returned. Then he downed the rest of his beer and turned to face Doogie, not saying a word, just staring.
When it looked like he was about to ask the question Doogie was waiting for him to ask, Doogie interrupted. “What do you think it means to be Dixie Fried?”
“What? Where’d that come from?”
“The Carl Perkins song.” Doogie put down his beer and played air guitar as he sang, “Rave on, children, I’m with you, rave on, cats, he cried. It’s almost dawn and the cops ain’t gone, and I’ve been Dixie fried.”
Sandra gave a polite clap from behind the bar.
Doogie bowed and grabbed his beer. “So?”
“I don’t know what it means. Fucked up maybe? Dead maybe?”
“Dixie Fried,” Doogie mused. “I like that.
Hemmo grabbed the front of Doogie’s shirt and lifted him until he was on his toes. “Enough of this shit. You’re drawing out the story just to irritate me. What did the damn fish say? And if you say Dixie Fried I’m going to punch you.”
“Okay, okay. Put me down. It delivered a message.”
Hemmo released him. “Who sent the message?”
“The talking fish said Musma sent it.”
“What the hell is a Musma?”
“From what I gather it’s a sentient sturgeon living near the Columbia Bar.”
Hemmo’s mouth opened and shut in exasperation. His hand went into a fist, making Doogie back away. “Did you say a sentient sturgeon living near the Columbia Bar?”
Doogie nodded. “I did.”
Hemmo shook his head and seemed about to explode, but instead asked in barely controlled exasperation, “And what does Musma want?”
“For us to rescue the two mermaids that the Finns are keeping in Suomi Hall.”
Hemmo’s face went white. “And you believe the Finns have them?”
“I do now.”
“Why is that?”
“I think you know why. Because you didn’t question the fact that mermaids exist. Just that the Finns had them in the hall. So give it. What are the Finns doing with mermaids?”
Hemmo glanced around, then elbowed down to the bar. In a low voice, he said, “Doogie, you know I can’t tell you about any of that. I’m sworn.”
“But they’re holding a pair of fucking mermaids?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like?”
Hemmo ordered another beer and didn’t even look at Doogie until he’d taken a drink. Then he said, “They have a good life, Doogie. They want to be there.”
“Are they free to go?”
“They’re being kept safe, and like I said, they want to be there.”
“Come on, Hemmo. Remember when we took liberty in Pusan?”
“Yeah, I remember it. But this is different.”
“How is it different? What did you help me do when I found that guy renting out all those young kids to GIs?”
Hemmo sighed. “Beat the crap out of him and took him behind the lines to let him get shot as a North Korean spy.”
“And did we do it, Hemmo?”
“Yes.”
“And were you happy about it?”
“At the time, yes.”
“So why not the mermaids?”
“Because they aren’t . . . they aren’t . . . ”
“It’s because they aren’t human, right?”
Hemmo cocked his head, then eventually nodded. “I suppose.”
“What if there were dogs being abused, would you save them?”
Hemmo nodded again.
“So you’d help a dog but not a mermaid.” Doogie pounded the bar with his fist.
Hemmo dropped his gaze to the floor.
Doogie punched him in the shoulder. “Then why the hell won’t you help me save a pair of mermaids who are being held against their will?”
Hemmo looked away.
“Doing what’s right doesn’t depend on the species, race, or ethnicity, Hemmo. Right is just right.”
“But the Finnish Brotherhood . . . ” Hemmo began.
“What about them? Did they have your back in Korea?”
“That’s not fair, Doogie.”
“Who said life is fair.” He reached up and put a hand squarely on Hemmo’s shoulder. “We. Have. To. Rescue. The. Mermaids,” he said, enunciating every word.
“So says a sentient sturgeon to a mind-speaking salmon that you ate?” Hemmo shook his head and wiped his face with one of his meaty paws. “This whole conversation is insane, you know that.”
But Doogie pressed. “Even then. Right is right.”
Bo Diddley broke into his refrain from “I’m a Man” and neither of them talked about it anymore.
***
THE NEXT EVENING found them in Uniontown—the part of Astoria positively run by the Finns who’d come over earlier in the century like a Viking invasion. Normally, Suomi Hall, Home of the Finnish Brotherhood, was closed to only those of Finnish descent. But once a year on Veteran’s Day, they allowed non-Finn veterans into the hall for their celebration. Although Hemmo had been inside the hall a hundred times, this was the first time Doogie, or any Japanese-American for that matter, had been in the hall, and they let him know it right at the door.
“Well, I appreciate the hospitality,” he said to the hulking Finn guarding the door.
“Just don’t touch anything that isn’t yours or we’ll have to send you back to Korea where you came from,” the Finn said.
“I’m Japanese-American, not Korean.”
“Whatever the nationality of the squinty-eyed bastard what fathered you, I don’t give a shit. You just better behave.”
Ten minutes later, after elbowing their way through the throng of perpetually dissatisfied Finns being served warm beer and eating dried salt cod, they were standing by a door guarded by an even bigger Finn than the first.
“No way, Hemmo. Orders are no one goes down there except those with appointments.”
“Come on, Peter. We just got back from the war. We need some tension release.”
Peter gave Doogie a look much like a man would a rusted broke-down jalopy. “Not him.”
Hemmo pressed. “He’s a veteran too. Without him, I never would have made it back. Come on, man. Do it for your country. Do it for me.”
Peter was Hemmo’s cousin and they’d grown up as close as brothers. He seemed to be considering it, but then shook his head. “Sorry, Hemm. No way will Garn allow his type to touch them.”
“What if I just watch?” Doogie asked, putting on his best I’m just a poor Asian who doesn’t know any better face.
That made Peter blink. “You want to watch?”
Doogie grinned sheepishly. “Sure. I mean, who wouldn’t. If I can’t actually be with them, then watching would be cool.” He tapped his head. “I could save it as a memory for later.”
Hemmo put a hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “Yeah, Peter. What if he watches? I’ll make sure he doesn’t touch anything.”
Peter gave his cousin a pained look, then sighed. “Damn it, Hemm. Fine. Go ahead. But if I get shit over this, you’re going to owe me.”
Hemmo patted his cousin on the back hard enough to shatter a normal person, but it barely fazed Peter. “Thanks. You’re right. I do. I owe you one.”
Peter shook his head and stepped aside. He used a metal circle of keys to open an ancient-looking partially-rusted metal door. Hinges creaked with the weight and effort.
The heady scent of water slapped Doogie in the face as he descended, the aroma dark and murky with a hint of salt. Moss and lichen slimed along the concrete walls and stairs, so he held fast to the rail as he took each careful step. Light glowed green from below. The sounds of Bob Doss’s “Don’t Be Gone Long” rode over the top of people talking. Laughter, low and deep, gurgled from the chest of someone happy.
When they reached the landing, Doogie followed Hemmo, keeping his head and eyes down, trying to seem as insouciance as he could.
A thin help-yourself-bar was affixed to the wall nearest the stairs. The moss motif continued.
Hemmo grabbed two ceramic cups and filled them with beer from a pitcher. He passed one to Doogie and sipped his own, the cup all but disappearing in the hand of the Finn. Hemmo leaned back against the bar and surveyed the room.
Doogie joined him and allowed himself to see the room for the first time.
A half-naked incredibly fat Finn glared at him from a stool on the other side of the room. The hatred poured from his eyes, but that didn’t seem to be enough for him to want to get up and do something about it. Beating up Doogie probably seemed too close to exercise.
Five other Finns, all dressed in white robes, sat in metal chairs around a mossy rock that took up the center of the room, chatting and talking amongst themselves. Several glanced their way, but then returned to their muted conversation.
But it was the other side of the room that got his attention. A large circular grate was padlocked in the middle of the wall. Water trickled from the dark mouth behind it. Probably open to the Columbia somehow, Doogie surmised. The green glow he’d noted before came from each of the two pools on either side of the grate, which seemed to be fed by high tide. Underwater lights green-lit the water, letting you see all the way to the bottom. Each pool was roughly a circle and seemed to be carved out of the rock.
The pool on the left held a man who stood, back to them, chest deep in the water, elbows resting on the pool edge.
No one stood in the pool on the left, but something stirred within it. Doogie stared at it until he finally saw the cresting of a length of tail and a shimmering of scales.
That accounted for one of the mermaids, but what of the other?
Doogie returned his gaze to the pool on the right just as the man threw his head back and groaned. A shudder shot through his body, until he was completely locked into a rigid line. Then, as if the air had been let out of him, he sagged, deflated. He stood, staring at the water for a long moment, then turned, and with both hands, levered himself out of the water. His cock fluttered, then hung, worn and getting smaller. Standing tall, he stretched his arms high above his head. He was older than Hemmo by about twenty years, but still had the muscular physique of a working longshoreman. A tattoo of a triple-masted ship covered his chest, faded and blurred from age. The word LANKMAR in big blocky letters below the ship. He glanced up, then walked straight toward them. He passed Doogie without a look, then grabbed a cup and poured beer into it.
“Hemmo,” he said, taking a long pull of beer.
“Garn,” Hemmo replied, nodding.
“You bring a pet in here?”
Hemmo glanced at Doogie. “He’s just here to watch.”
“Ahh,” Garn said, draining his cup. “One of those.”
A flash caught the corner of Doogie’s vision and he turned back to the pool Garn had just exited. Blue-tinged hands with black nails grabbed the side of the pool and a head appeared. Long black hair streaked with blue hung wet at the sides of a face the color of a noon sky. Liquid yellow eyes slanted on each side of a petite nose. She was all woman until he took in the lips. Rather than the lips of a person, the mermaid had the lips of a bottom feeding fish—a sucker or a Koi. They were pursed and rigid, making it appear as if the mermaid were in a constant state of surprise.
Doogie couldn’t help but stare. Then he understood. Garn. His cock. The mermaid. Her lips. He felt a sickness course through his body that he hadn’t experienced since Korea when he’d discovered the man renting out young underage girls to horny GIs.
The mermaid locked eyes with him. He felt his sickness wear away as another feeling began to subsume it. Despite his wishes, he felt himself harden. Thoughts of touching her skin, rubbing his hands along her scales invaded his mind. He could see himself and her, entwined.
Then her eyes broke away and the feeling melted.
He watched as the fat man stood, dropped his towel on the stool, and with grunting effort lowered his prodigious body into the pool, belly so large it almost hid his tiny cock.
The mermaid pushed herself away from the side of the pool and floated on her back. Water rolled off perky blue breasts, each topped with a black nipple. She floated until the man seemed ready, then, like a body sinking into the sea, she turned slightly and sunk beneath the surface. Her tail slapped the water as she turned.
Soon the fat man’s head lolled back.
And Doogie knew exactly what was happening and he didn’t want to.
Garn suddenly erupted in laughter, head back as he bellowed toward the rocky ceiling.
“Your pet has a hard-on, Hemmo. It wants to join in.” Then he laughed again, rollicking in his idea of humor.
Doogie felt his bile rise, realizing that his hard-on remained. With a shaking hand, he sat the cup on the bar and pushed away unsteadily. He spun around, getting his bearings, then ran for the stairs. He slipped twice on the moss. When he got to the top, he banged on the door until it opened. He slid through the doorway, pushed his way through the crowd, out the door and into the street, where he fell to his knees, vomit spewing into the street. He stayed there, letting his cock unharden, the sky spitting drizzle on him until Hemmo came, helped him to his feet, and they both slouched away into the Astorian evening.
***
IT WAS WELL AFTER MIDNIGHT when Doogie directed Hemmo to pull his Jon-boat to the shore. The river was almost four miles across where they were, making it more an ocean than anything else, with waves and currents eager to capsize a vessel their size. But the hundred feet closest to shore was calm and almost flat, so they’d’ taken advantage of it, putting in two miles up and rowing down. They were dressed in black watch caps, black jackets, and black pants. They’d covered their faces in wheel grease. Hemmo pulled gently at the oars, while Doogie stood in the prow of the boat, ready to jump to shore.
After they’d left Suomi Hall, they’d gone back to Doogie’s place in John Day, where Hemmo had talked him out of stealing dynamite and blowing the fucking place down. They finished a six-pack of Olympia before Doogie had the idea of conducting night reconnaissance. He wanted to see where that grate let out and if he could access it from the outside.
As they neared the shore, Doogie moved to the front, jumped out with a rope in hand, and secured the boat to an old stump.
Hemmo shipped the oars, then slipped out the front more deftly than a big guy should move.
They both knelt in the lee of the bank. To their right was the access canal that would bring the water into the Suomi Hall basement during high tide. Now it was low tide, so only a few stranded puddles remained.
“You didn’t have to come with me,” Doogie whispered, “but I’m glad you did.”
“I’m sure you would have figured out a way to get caught if I hadn’t.”
A splash sounded from somewhere nearby making both of them jump a little in their skin.
Hemmo glanced toward the sound, while Doogie began moving forward.
“It’s a fish,” Hemmo whispered.
“What I figured.”
“No, it’s really a fish.”
Doogie glanced back for a brief instance and saw Hemmo staring at the water. “I heard you, now come on.”
“But the fish is staring at me—and it’s huge.”
This gave Doogie pause. He slunk back down the embankment and crouched near Hemmo. Sure enough, an immense hog of a salmon that had to be near forty pounds sat ten feet away from them. Its rainbow colors winked in the starlight as water dripped from its back.
“What does it want?” Hemmo asked.
Doogie remembered the salmon that spoke with him and now regretted eating it. There was a majesty to the fish in their own environment that was unmistakable. If the giant sentient sturgeon was the King of the Columbia, then these salmon were certainly the Dukes and Dames.
“I think it wants to tell us something.”
“What do we do?” Hemmo asked.
“I’m not sure.” Then he remembered. “I think I have to touch it.” He glanced at Hemmo. “Hold my left hand.”
Hemmo grasped it and Doogie stepped into the cold dark water. He reached out with his right hand but was still a little short. But the salmon took the initiative and closed the space, placing its head in Doogie’s outstretched hand.
She is dying.
“Who is dying?” he said aloud.
An image formed in his mind—a mermaid, slumped in the water, limbs akimbo and adrift, face slack, eyes closed.
Doogie remembered that one of the pools had been all but empty with just a hint of mermaid.
You must save her.
“I want to—we want to. But there are too many of them . . . Finns, I mean.”
It must be tonight or she will die.
“But we can’t. We need the tide. We’re not ready. This is reconnaissance only.”
The fish backed away, but remained near them.
Doogie retrieved his hand and Hemmo pulled him back.
“It wants us to—”
“I heard it in my head,” Hemmo said, voice low and filled with awe. “It must be because I was touching you.”
“Well then, you know what it wants us to do.”
Despite the glazed look in Hemmo’s eyes, he nodded. “I don’t see how we can do it.”
“Me neither, I—”
Doogie’s mouth hung open as he stared at the shape coming at them from across the water.
Hemmo saw Doogie, followed his gaze, and his own mouth gaped open.
Surging toward them like Moby Dick was a giant white whale. Like its namesake, it seemed capable of crashing through ships, tearing apart structures, and devouring men whole. Although they couldn’t see the mouth, two glowing great blue orbs seemed to glower at them from just above the water line. This whale wore armor. Instead of the smooth skin of a whale, this aquatic monster had hard rugged squares affixed to its body. Even whiter spikes ran from the front of its head and along its back.
“Call me Ishmael,” Doogie rasped.
First it was far away, and then it was on them. The displaced water slammed into them, sending them crashing against the bank. Doogie felt himself tumble, then go under the water, pulling at him as it receded. He tried to stand, but found that he couldn’t move his legs. Looking down, he saw with horror that they were held fast by several pairs of hands. Then his world turned upside down as his feet were pulled out from under him.
His head slammed on the rocky bottom of the shore and all went black. He was vaguely aware through the white hot pain that he was being pulled underwater. His ears rang. An avalanche of spots crashed into his eyes. His legs were tugged . . . once . . . twice . . . pulling him deeper. He shook his head to clear it. And realized that he’d been holding his breath. He opened his eyes and knew why. Somehow, somewhere, he’d been pulled beneath the water and was now living in a green universe where mermaids held fast to his feet. To his front floated a sturgeon the size of a whale. A sturgeon that could only be Musma.
The monster’s long snout ended in teeth the size of K-Bars. Four whiskers moved like antennae in the water.
Doogie looked down at his feet and saw that four mermaids held his legs. As much as he thought he’d want to, he didn’t struggle. But his lungs did burn. He wasn’t sure how long he could hold his breath.
He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and saw Hemmo, struggling against the tentacles of an immense octopus. The Finn was screaming in the water, great bubbles gouting upward. His muscles popped along his arms, as he used them to try and swim upward, straining to be free. Then be breathed in the water and his eyes shot wide. For a brief instant, he stared at Doogie, panic and worry alive in the eyes, then even that melted away and what life had been in him left with the last bit of bubbles.
Doogie felt the last of his own air go. He started to struggle, but realized that without the air, he hadn’t any energy. A sob sprung from deep inside him and shot free, his mouth opening, bubbles escaping. He tried not to breathe in water, he told his lungs not to do it, but they were too desperate to listen and fired a single frantic signal to his brain.
And he breathed in water.
His lungs filled with it.
His body convulsed.
And then he died.
For exactly ten seconds, then Musma reached out with one of its whiskers and grabbed him, pulling him into his mouth. Doogie lay in the darkness, his spirit aware of where he was, but only in the vaguest off-handest of ways. A moment, a day, a week, an epoch later, electricity fired through his body. His arms and legs shot rigid. A burning sensation sizzled impossibly along his wet skin, centering on his chest and neck. Then he was spit out, tumbling in the water, aware that he’d just drowned, somehow alive, and about to drown once more.
Doogie jerked his head back and forth and noted that he wasn’t held any longer by the mermaids. He could swim for safety. He needed to swim for safety. But his limbs weren’t his own yet. Another sob wrenched free and he began to—
Breathe.
He felt the rush of water through his neck and into, then out of, his lungs.
He brought a hand up and felt what could only be gills. He breathed and stared at Musma, then at Hemmo who was floating dead, nearby.
Why?
He wasn’t ready.
Doogie mentally scoffed. And I was. I never asked to be a fish.
Not a fish. Something else. Merman. Merro. Dogo. The words are those of man. You are now of the sea. You belong to the Columbia. More man words but now powerful.
But why?
Because I called and you came. We need you.
I had a life. Hemmo had a life. You’ve taken that from us.
Took nothing. Gave everything. Now go. Save her.
Doogie immediately knew whom he was to save. She had a name but it was a piscine thing and unutterable to the human tongue. He felt the urge, the press to free her. Without a second thought, he surged to the surface, grabbing Hemmo as he went. He swam fluidly, his body understanding what he could never know, the way to move that created the easiest motion. When he neared the shore, he let his feet propel him forward. When his head broke the surface, he wretched free the water that was in his lungs and breathed air as if he’d done it a hundred times.
Doogie had never been strong, but he was strong now. He hauled Hemmo from the water and began pumping his chest.
“Come on, Hemmo. Come on, man,” he said as he pumped. The sky was lightening which meant that they’d been under for hours. There was little to no chance that his friend could be alive. He was about to give up, when the Finn gagged, then lurched to his side, expelling water and bile onto the rocky shore. He fell to his side, gasping.
Hemmo lay there, chest heaving, his face white, eyes wide. “What . . . what was that?” he stuttered. His eyes were red as tears found their way free. “I died, Doogie. I died.”
“You were Dixie Fried, Hemm.”
“I was,” he said, coughing. “I was fucking Dixie Fried.”
Doogie placed his right hand on Hemmo’s head. “But now you’re back.”
Hemmo locked eyes with Doogie, his eyes pleading. “Was it all real?”
“It was all real, Hemm. It was real and we were saved for a purpose.”
“Doogs. What’s going on? You’re talking funny.”
Doogie shook his head. “I can’t explain it. I’m now tied into things. I can feel the pulse and throb of the river. I can hear movement in the deep. And what about you, Hemm? What do you hear?”
Hemmo levered himself to a sitting position. He seemed about to say something, then closed his mouth and cocked his head. “I can hear . . . what is it I hear . . . ” Then his eyes brightened. “I can hear the trees.” His head twisted to the right. “And the birds. I can understand them. Doogie. I can understand the birds. Oh my God, what is going on?” he lurched to his feet. “They’re crazy, Doogie. The birds are fucking crazy.”
“Never listen to the birds.” Doogie stood as well, smiling. “You have responsibility of the land, without it, the Columbia would have nothing to feed it. My responsibility is to the river, without which, the land would die. We’re together in this, Hemmo. You and me.”
Hemmo nodded. “I feel it too. I haven’t felt so part of something since . . . since . . . ”
“We were fighting in Korea.”
“Yes!” Hemmo said pounding a fist into his hand. “Then we belonged to the army. We were saving the Korean people.”
“Now we’re part of a different army, Hemm.” Doogie turned to move. “We have a mission—mermaids to save. Won’t last until morning.” He considered the graying sky. “We haven’t much time.”
When they reached the canal, they halted. They’d been in the water a long time. Long enough for the tide to shift. Where before it had been all but dry, it was now filled with water the height of a man’s shoulders.
“Hemmo, you stay on the land. I’ll take this way.”
Doogie dove in and inhaled water until his lungs were once again filled. He swam with a grace he’d never had. Around him swam several mermaids and an immense octopus—the same one which had held fast to Hemmo until he died. As it passed, it touched him, and he felt the creature’s sadness at having done what it had. When they reached the grate, the octopus wrapped its tentacles around it and strained, but it was pulling the wrong way. Doogie touched it and sent the image of the grate opening into the room. The octopus immediately understood and began to push, as did the mermaids.
Reaching behind him, Doogie pulled out his K-Bar and began to work at the mortar the grate was set in. He began at the top, his head just barely out of the water. He’d been chipping away for several minutes, when he heard a scream from inside and saw a body plummet down the stairs. Hemmo bound down them and over the body, rushing to the grate. He had an old set of keys in his hand on a metal loop. He tried one, then the next. The third key fit the lock. He opened it, then turned and threw both the lock and the key at the Finn who was coming up behind him. The Finn tried to block it and got a boot in the jimmy for his effort.
Doogie pressed inside.
The octopus and the mermaids followed.
At this early hour, the place was empty.
The others led the healthy mermaid out and down the canal.
The sick one floated face down in her pool, unmoving, the skin more green than blue.
Doogie stared for a moment, wondering what it was he could do. Then it came to him. He dove into the water, grabbed her by the arms, and wrestled the body to the bottom of the pool. He knelt beside her, and began to pump her chest, his hands placed just above her breasts. Underwater himself, he breathed water into her lungs then continued pumping. It wasn’t long for her eyes to flutter, then open, revealing sickly yellow orbs. She’d needed some of the Columbia. In here, with the vestigial tide, it just wasn’t enough. She needed the river. She needed to get home.
He took her into his arms and climbed out of the pool.
Hemmo had worked through two Finns but a third, this one even larger than he was, body slammed him against the far wall.
“You—Jap—put my property down,” bellowed Garn.
Hemmo climbed unsteadily to his feet. “Go on,” he said, waving a hand like it wasn’t hardly anything. “I got this.”
Doogie raised an eyebrow, then turned, and ran toward the canal. With the mermaid in tow, he swam exactly twenty feet before he came up against a metal wall someone had slid in place. He felt for a seam, someplace he could put his fingers to lift or push it out of the way. He took precious minutes trying to find a way past, or under, wondering at any second if he might be seen. But try as he might, he couldn’t discern a way through.
So, with the mermaid in his arms, he stood and felt hands immediately grab him and jerk him free of the water. Then he was airborne. Still holding the mermaid, he flew through the air. He managed to turn so that he landed on his back to avoid crushing the smaller delicate creature. The water he’d been breathing spewed from his mouth. He gasped at the air. He pushed the mermaid off of him and tried to catch his breath.
He saw the boot coming. He could roll away, but instead, he rolled into it, caught the boot in between his ribs and his arms, then rolled to his right.
The Finn fell like lumber.
It was Peter, and his mouth was twisted fury.
Doogie couldn’t let him stand, so as the Finn pulled himself to his knees, Doogie kicked him in the face.
Peter fell back, dazed.
They did this twice, before Peter managed to grab Doogie’s leg. He pulled his smaller opponent close and Peter got two fingers in his eye for his effort. He let go of Doogie, who rolled away, scooped the mermaid into his arms, turned, and ran for all he was worth.
The sound of heavy feet slapping the ground behind him came closer and closer. He was out of breath, but he’d been chased before down Old Baldy and Heartbreak Ridge, so he’d become used to running for his life. But that was Korea, not the ass end of Oregon in the old fishing town of Astoria. And he’d been carrying a carbine back then instead of the slippery yet voluptuous body of a mermaid, her lips pressed against his neck sending thoughts that would make an eighty-year-old keel over for the sheer preposterousness of the position. Even now, with the Columbia River within reach, his cock was hard and his body twisted with the need to react to the mermaid’s sexual advances, his mind acting out the fantasy until he was left gasping and out of breath and barely running. The only distraction was an odd track from the new Carl Perkins’ song, “Dixie Fried,” slashing through his head: Rave on, children, I’m with you, rave on, cats, he cried. It’s almost dawn and the cops ain’t gone, and I’ve been Dixie fried.
A shout from Peter who was chasing him gave him new energy as he surged forward. The Columbia was less than fifty yards away. Hemmo was already halfway there and waiting with a length of two-by-four in each hand. All Doogie had to do was reach the river and they’d all be free.
He could barely speak, but he had to ask Hemmo. “How?” he hollered as he ran past, exhausted shorthand for how did he get past Garn. All those minutes he wasted in the canal looking for a way out let Hemmo get ahead of him. Small blessings in strange places.
“He was in the way of me helping my family,” Hemmo said, with more than a hint of pleasure.
And that was all he had to say. Hemmo didn’t identify as a Finn any longer. He was now a true denizen of the Columbia, just as Doogie was. They’d not only found a home, they’d found a reason to be there. Now, while the other cats back from the war were slouching toward ignobility and possibly prison, Hemmo and Doogie had a mission. They’d become Sea Lords of the Columbia and he could feel every part of it like it was his own body.
“What?” Doogie managed to yell, more shorthand for what happened to him.
Hemmo laughed, then shouted, “He got Dixie Fried!”
Then came the sound of two pieces of wood meeting something meaty, a cry of pain, and a body hitting the ground.
Doogie liked that. And he smiled as he dove into the water, mermaid in his arms, hard-on beneath his pants, lungs filling with the joyous water of the Columbia.
WESTON OCHSE is the author of more than twenty books. His work has appeared in various anthologies and magazines, including The Tampa Review, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Soldier of Fortune, IDW, and DC Comics. His work has also been a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award five times and he’s been honored to have won the Bram Stoker Award for First Novel. He’s recently worked on several franchises, including Aliens, Predator, Hellboy, Clive Barker’s Midian, V-Wars, Joe Ledger, and X-Files. He splits his time between Arizona and Oregon and absolutely loves the outdoors. When he’s not writing, you can find him hiking, running, fly fishing, or just fusting about.