the Lord. But yeah, we saw something mighty strange last night. And then there was them tracks we was followin’ when you, uhhhh…stepped out and introduced yourself.”
“What’s goin’ on around here, Mr. Kennedy?” Old Red said.
The old man took in a deep breath. He looked reluctant to speak, and once he got to going I figured I knew why. He was afraid we’d take him for a madman.
“I suppose the simplest way to put it is this,” he said. “We’ve got us a monster.”
Kennedy’s daughters stopped their bustling in the kitchen, listening along with my brother and me as their father told his tale.
“The Utes called it a Pawapict—a Water Indian. A spirit that lives in the lake. A lonely, ghostly thing, they said. Coaxes you in, then never lets you go. They can come to you as a snake, a baby, even a beautiful woman…or so the legend goes. I never put any stock in it myself. Redskin twaddle, that’s all I took it for. But then those Latter Day heretics swarmed in, and before long they were claiming the Indians were right. Some of the Brethren started saying they’d seen a sea serpent up near Fish Haven. The Bear Lake Monster, they called it. Of course, it was obvious what they were trying to do—scare us ‘Gentiles’ off our land. But we just laughed…until we started seeing the thing ourselves. A giant with great, glowing eyes prowling around our farms, frightening our women and children. Well…first the Mormons, and now this? It was more than most people could take. Argyle—that’s what the town called itself then—it just drifted away, scattering like dandelion seeds on the wind until it was all gone.”
Now, if we’d heard such a windy as this around some cattle-drive campfire, I know how Old Red would’ve received it: he’d snort, roll his eyes, and quickly compare it to the fresh little mounds dotting the ground all around the cows bedded down for the night.
My brother heard Kennedy out quietly, thoughtfully, though. He wasn’t quaking in his boots over that “Water Indian,” yet he wasn’t cutting loose with any sneers, either.
“Argyle ain’t all gone, though…is it?” he said.
Kennedy shook his head and chuckled. “No. Not so long as Kennedyville’s still here. And here it’ll stay. Here we’ll stay.”
“Why?” I asked. “I mean—you got a nice spread and all, don’t get me wrong. But it must be awful lonesome up here with all your old neighbors gone.”
Over in the kitchen, behind their father’s back, Eileen and Fiona exchanged a little look. Raised brows, widened eyes, tight lips.
The question I’d just raised—“Why stay?”—seemed to be one they’d done some thinking on themselves.
Eileen caught me watching, and I beamed a grin at her, turning my attentions into something flirtatious.
“And I can’t say I care much for your one new neighbor, from what we’ve seen of him,” I said. “I don’t guess you’d be too happy should he come a-callin’.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Eileen replied, her voice, like her father’s, honeyed with just a drop of brogue. “We’re grateful for whatever company we get.”
“Very grateful,” her sister added, mooning at Old Red.
My brother felt the sudden need to re-butter his hotcakes.
“Lonely or not,” Kennedy said sternly, going stiff-backed in his chair, “we won’t abandon our land. Not to the Mormons, we won’t.”
Old Red peeked up from his pancakes.
“And not to a monster?”
“Ah! That’s all the more reason to stay.” Kennedy leaned forward toward my brother. “I’m going to catch the rascal!”
That was enough to slow even my chewing.
“You aim to catch a ‘Water Indian’?”
“Why not? Whatever it really is, it’s solid enough—you’ve seen the tracks. Why shouldn’t a trap catch it the same as any other animal? And Mr. Barnum…he’d pay thousands for such a thing, wouldn’t he?”
“Maybe he would’ve,” I said. “But ol’ P.T.’s been dead goin’ on two years now.”
“Oh. Well.” Kennedy shrugged. “Some other huckster, then. It hardly matters who. Get your hands on a living, breathing monster, and the showmen’ll line up for the chance to buy him. We’ll be rich.”
I tried for another sneaky peep at the women to see what they thought of their father’s beast-wrangling scheme. But they were ready for me this time with faces as blank as a fresh-wiped chalkboard.
“Of course, it’s not easy without any help.” Kennedy slumped and shook his head. “It’s hard enough to manage the farming, just me and the girls. There’s not much time for tracking or trapping. Still, I’ve come close to catching the big devil. More than once, I have. And one day…”
Kennedy slapped a palm on the table.
“But look at me!” he boomed, suddenly jolly. “Keeping guests from their feed with all my blather. Eat up, boys! Eat up! Then, when you’re done, I’d like to show you around the place, if I may.”
Right on cue, Fiona and Eileen hustled over to re-heap our plates with steaming-hot grub, and when my brother and I stood up fifteen minutes later, my belly sagged out over my belt like an overfilled sandbag. Yet somehow I found the strength to drag my newfound girth around after Kennedy as he gave us a tour of his spread.
He had plenty to be proud of there: acres of wheat, garden vegetables growing in neat rows, a small but hearty assortment of livestock. And the pens, the barn, the water pump—all of it in good repair.
I was amazed one old man and two women could manage so well on their own. But then I learned of the toll it took, and it seemed to make a little more sense.
Behind the barn, in the midst of a small stand of firs, was a single grave marker. Kennedy noticed us eyeing it as he led us past.
“My wife,” he said.
Old Red moved closer to the lonely little family plot. Kennedy and I followed him.
When we reached the cool shade of the trees, we all stopped and doffed our hats.
“A good woman,” Kennedy said. “Been gone many a year now.”
But not as many as I would’ve thought. Carved into the dark, knotty old wood were these words, which I read aloud for my brother’s benefit:
ABIGAIL KENNEDY
BELOVED WIFE & MOTHER
DECEMBER 1, 1847—MARCH 15, 1875
Which meant Eileen wasn’t three or four years my elder, as I’d reckoned. If her mother died birthing her, she was three years younger than me. Pretty though she still was, at the rate she was going she’d be a bent-backed, snaggle-toothed crone by the time she hit thirty.
The Kennedys may have been surviving as
