On the 40-foot pass, at 56 feet below the surface, the bottom leveled out. He scanned the area with his dive light. Moments later the beam found the marker. It looked like what it was, a concrete monument, brown from decades of exposure to the mud and turbidity of Watauga Lake. It stuck out of what could be considered a knoll on the side of a hill now flooded with water. Jake swam toward the marker spraying the beam to find the capstone. Not an easy task when everything looked the same. A desert of brown mud.
As soon as his light found the metal plate capstone, it happened. Something rose from the gravesite and moved at him in slow motion. Like the apparition of Norman Albert Reese Jr. rising from the depths in protest of being disturbed. It was as big as he was, maybe bigger. Then it sped up, moving straight for him. His heart pounded, he inhaled rapidly through his regulator. It was almost on him. At the last second, Jake jerked to the side to avoid the collision. Something powerful struck his left arm causing him to drop the tether and the light. The impact knocked him fins over mask. The dive light struck bottom and tumbled toward the depths of the lake. He watched the beam bounce like a lopsided ball off the sloping bottom. It grew dim and stopped. He could barely see the beam shining on the bottom of the lake. He knew he had enough tether so he headed deeper to retrieve his light. He'd been careless not to secure the wrist strap.
On his way to the bottom he thought about what he'd seen. He'd heard the stories and had just assumed they were just that, fish stories. As he replayed it in his mind, he knew he'd spooked a giant catfish. A catfish with a mouth almost big enough to swallow him whole.
As he descended, the light got brighter. He reached the light and checked his dive computer. 127 feet. Shit. Now he was in the decompression mode instead of merely a safety stop. He grabbed his light, secured it to his wrist with the bungee strap, and started his slow ascent. At 60 feet, his dive computer signaled a decompression stop. He waited while the computer counted down. Ignoring the computer warning to stop could bring with it dire consequences. He had a buddy in the Navy who got the bends and had to spend a lot of time in a hyperbaric chamber recovering. His buddy still walked with a limp.
At 56 feet, he relocated the grave marker with his dive light and found the metal capstone. He waved his hand over the metal plate to clear the silt and read the inscription. He now understood why Reese was buried here and not relocated.
Norman Albert Reese Jr
Born January 14, 1925
Died December 14, 1944
World War II took our beloved son.
Born here, under this tree.
May he rest for eternity.
Jake studied the capstone; eight bolts secured the metal slab to the vault. Regan and the other woman would need a large wrench to remove the capstone and he doubted that either one of them would be able to free the bolts from the vault. Even if they did, could they remove the steel capstone itself? It probably weighed over a hundred pounds alone. No easy task underwater where leverage wasn't the same.
He'd seen all he needed to see. Jake pulled himself back to the anchor line and slowly ascended. At 30 feet, his dive computer signaled another deco stop. He checked his pressure gauge. He was in the red and had no idea how long he had been there. At 15 feet, the computer signaled a 5-minute safety stop. He doubted he'd make it without running out of air.
33
Her cell phone alarm beeped—4:30 a.m.
Startled out of a deep sleep, it took her a few seconds to wake up. She rolled over and picked the sleepy crust from her eyes. Ashley Regan and Christa Barnett hadn't gotten to bed until midnight and for a woman who needs at least eight hours sleep, Regan thought she did good just to hear the alarm. She pushed herself to a sitting position on the edge of the bed and tried to clear the cobwebs from her head.
"Christa." She shook the bed next to hers. "Christa. Time to get up."
"I've been up." The bathroom light came on behind her. "Been checking emails and stuff for the last thirty minutes."
"Have trouble sleeping?" Regan asked.
"No. I slept fine. I'm just used to getting up early."
"I'm having trouble waking up." Regan used the bed to push herself to her feet.
"When you get dressed we'll go get coffee and breakfast," Christa said. "A good breakfast before a day of diving is a must."
Now she was glad they had loaded everything in the car the night before. At least Christa had the forethought to suggest doing it to make the morning a little easier. But that's the way she'd always been. Even as teenagers, when everyone else was stumbling around wondering what to do next, Christa had already planned every detail. They spent several hours the night before reviewing the scuba equipment, its function, and how to use it. Christa had made sure Regan knew what to do. Christa had drilled scuba diving procedures with her until she felt comfortable she knew what to do. At breakfast, the drill continued.
The drive from Banner Elk, North Carolina to the marina in Butler, Tennessee was exactly 42 miles and took 59 minutes, which put them at the marina at 6:05 a.m. The sky was clear and starting to brighten in the east. To the west, the full moon had slipped behind a mountain creating a bright halo around its summit.
She expected the marina to be quiet at this hour, but she was wrong, very wrong. Two pickups were launching boats side by side while eight other vehicles were waiting their turn in line. Fortunately she had rented a boat from the marina, which was waiting for her in the slip marked 15. It took the two women fifteen minutes and two solo trips apiece in the predawn light to move the dive gear and supplies to the 20-foot Bayliner cuddy cabin rental boat. The third trip they took together to move the heaviest piece — a filtered air compressor.
Within minutes of placing the compressor on the rear deck, Christa had the boat underway. Regan, an expert in navigation acquired from years of extensive hiking, studied the map and, coupled with the use of the onboard GPS, guided Christa toward the spot the old man had circled on the map, a notch in the shoreline on the western bank at the mouth of where the Watauga and Elk Rivers meet the rest of Watauga Lake. According to the old man in the bait store, Old Butler was located at the confluence of the Watauga River and Roan Creek. The Reese property was on the southern bluff, overlooking the old town.
Twenty minutes later they had traveled the four miles from the marina to the bluff. Regan had rented the expensive boat because it came with a GPS linked, bottom-mapping depth sounder and a swim platform, both of which would simplify their diving. She set up a grid pattern and tracked it in a northwest/southeast manner until she located what appeared to be the knoll the old man described. Then she signaled Christa to drop anchor.
Christa wasted no time slipping her dry suit on over her polar shell under suit. After it was sealed tight, she strapped on her Buoyancy Compensator with a full tank attached and pulled it snug. She walked onto the swim platform and sat down. She slipped into her twin jet fins, pulled on her hood, and donned her full-face mask. After a quick equipment function check, she grabbed a buoy bag and stepped off the platform feet first into the water while keeping one hand on her mask.
Regan scanned the area. A red and white striped bass boat she recognized from the boat ramp whizzed across the middle of the lake sending a small wake toward her boat. Dawn had brightened the morning sky but the sun still hid behind the mountains to the east; the glow from the full moon had long disappeared due to the brightened sky. A small metal bass boat driven by a younger man motored into the cove and anchored nearby. He wore khaki colored pants, a long sleeved shirt, and wide-rim safari hat. The man promptly cast his fishing line in the water. She inspected the water and wondered if the man could see Christa's bubbles rising from below.