Dog Training The American Male (41 page)

That
noose unexpectedly tightened when the creature’s temperament suddenly
changed. 

***

Two years have
passed. With my demons exorcized, I felt free to marry my
childhood sweetheart Brandy MacDonald, a dark-haired beauty with piercing blue
eyes and a body that could have landed her in any swimsuit catalogue. Our son,
William Wallace, named after our legendary ancestor, was born last year. Last
summer,
Nessie’s Retreat
, bankrolled by Angus’s lover, Theresa (Johnny
C’s widow) opened to great fanfare.

Ten
months later and the resort and Drumnadrochit are both on the verge of
bankruptcy.

Don’t
get me wrong – the hotel is first-class, every one of its three-hundred and
thirty-six rooms featuring a balcony-view of Loch Ness, each of its third-floor
luxury suites equipped with a fireplace, sauna, and Jacuzzi.

The problem
– no monster.

Loch
Ness without its legendary creature was just a peat-infested twenty-three
mile-long deepwater trough filled with water far too cold to swim in or jet-ski
on. And it wasn’t just Angus’s hotel that was hurting. Without Nessie, all of
the Highland villages had become destitute – the vacation equivalent of Orlando
without Disneyworld and its other local theme parks. Of course, Orlando was a
modern city located in sunny Florida. The Scottish Highlands were an isolated
cold weather region with seasons more akin to living in Alaska. Centuries ago,
the Highlanders worked the land to feed and clothe themselves, now the villages
were committed to tourism. It was the feast of summer that got them through the
famine of a long winter, and the sudden collapse of the Highlanders’ livelihood
threatened a cultural and economic collapse.

Something
similar had happened to the Inuit. Living in sub-zero temperatures in North
America’s Arctic Circle, the indigenous Eskimo population had thrived for centuries
– until the Canadian Provincial government started regulating their game.
Widespread unemployment led to a sense of powerlessness. As I had learned
myself, nothing attracts a fallen soul more than booze. Alcohol addictions
became rampant in the Innu villages. Teens saw their parents losing hope; they
too grew depressed and started sniffing gasoline in order to get high – a
lethal habit.

Suicide
rates among the Innu remain some of the highest in the world.

Concerned
over the state of its villages and the economic toll they were taking on the
capital city of Inverness, the Highland Council had been holding monthly
“brainstorming” sessions to figure out how to bolster tourism for the coming
season.  My father attended these meetings along with Brandy’s father, Alban,
and her big brother – my boyhood friend, Finlay “True” MacDonald. The imposing
big man with the auburn ponytail served as master of arms. Although the
meetings were open to the public, True’s
Do Not Allow To Enter
list had
but one name on it . . . mine.

In the
span of two years, I had gone from local hero to
persona non grata
. With
tourism down, hundreds of villagers faced the prospect of not being able to
feed their families without government subsidies and I soon felt the wrath of
their anger.
Why couldn’t Wallace have subdued the creature without vanquishing
it in the public eye? Had he no respect for the legend?

As they
say, no good deed goes unpunished.

By
December, I had become a hated man and was forced to move my wife and young son
from our once rent-free cottage into the near-vacant resort. I no longer
visited
Sniddles
or Drumnadrochit’s other watering holes, preferring the
hermit-like quiet of Nessie’s Lair, the resort’s closed restaurant and pub.

To make
matters worse Brandy and I were fighting, most of our arguments dealing with
monetary issues. For nearly a year I had earned a good living traveling the
world with my pregnant wife, signing books at sold-out appearances where I’d
tell enraptured audiences how I had battled a sixty foot barbed-toothed species
the Navy had nicknamed the
bloop
and our Highland ancestors had called
Guivres
.
But fame is fleeting, and my fifteen minutes in the limelight faded quickly
thanks to a myriad of YouTube videos overexposing my tale.

Having
gone through most of our savings, we were hurting financially like the rest of
the Highlanders.

Unlike
the villagers, I had options – lucrative offers for me to teach and complete
research at major universities. The problem was Brandy. Her father, Alban had
recently been diagnosed with ALS and his health was deteriorating. Having just
reconciled her relationship with the Crabbit, Brandy refused to abandon him in
his hour of need and the old fart was not about to leave the Highlands to
relocate to California or New York, or heaven-forbid London.
“Lad, yer aff
yer heid iffin ye think me or my lass will move tae bloody England!”

A quick
word about my lovely wife. Brandy MacDonald-Wallace was as beautiful as she was
loyal; she had already gotten into two fistfights with locals who had the
bollocks to criticize her husband and his work. And yet as the days of winter
grew shorter, her opinion of me changed.

“Been
o’er to the neebs, Zach. There’s bairns bein’ put tae bed hungry. Instead o’
grabbin’ yer daily nips and starin’ at the loch every day, why dinnae ye use
that big ol’ brain o’ yers and figure oot a way tae lure another monster into
the Ness.”

“We’ve
been over this, Brandy. Nessie grew big because she was trapped in Loch Ness
and couldn’t return to the Sargasso to spawn. It was a freak situation – one in
a million. There’s none like her out there anymore. And even if there was, the
tourists flocked to Loch Ness to see a plesiosaur, not a predatory fish that
went insane due to hydrocarbon poisoning.”

“Zach,
don’t git yer panties in a ball. Ye dinnae have tae lure a real monster; ye
could jist claim tae find clues. Tracks in the mud– ”

“Or how
about a half-eaten deer with a plesiosaur tooth lodged in its rib?”

“No
one’s askin’ ye tae go Nessie hunting. A few white lies and ye could jumpstart
tourism again. Ye could save Drumnadrochit.”

“A few
white lies? Brandy, I’m a scientist – a respected marine biologist, not a
cryptozoologist or some headline seeker feeding fake monster stories to the
news tabloids. Do you want to destroy everything that I worked for?”

“There’s
weans goin’ hungry, Zach. What if it were yer son . . . yer
kin? They’re starving because o’ ye bein’ such a great and respected marine
biologist.”

“You’re
blaming me? Brandy, the damn thing killed three people!”

“Aye.
And far more will go hungry this winter because of yer heroics. You really want
tae be a hero – make things right again.”

“You’ve
been talking to Angus, haven’t you? Brandy, what you’re asking for – I can’t do
it; it goes against my morals. My father, on the other hand, would sell his
sons’ souls to the devil if it meant filling his resort to capacity.”

“And
tae whit devil have ye sold yer soul, Zachary Wallace? The one who feeds yer
own massive ego?” 

That
conversation took place in late December. It was the last time we spoke civilly
to one another . . . the last time we made love.

I
shouldn’t have been surprised. Brandy was a MacDonald after all, as loyal to
her clan and to their own thousand year old history as I was to maintaining my
high academic standards

It was
mid-March when history came calling again . . . 

* 
*  *

Nessie’s Lair
was
located on the third floor of my father’s resort. After sleeping off a
bad hangover, I entered the restaurant at half past three in the afternoon. The
chamber was dark, the only light coming from the floor to ceiling windows which
offered a breathtaking view of Loch Ness and the snow-covered peaks of the
Monadhlian mountains rising along the far eastern bank.

The
closed venue and its abundance of liquor was a dangerous place for a former
alcoholic to be contemplating his future. Dark thoughts entered my head, its
seeds growing roots. There was nothing for me in the Highlands, no social life,
no career, no future.  I felt unloved, unappreciated, and rudderless; only
the hours spent playing with my infant son had brought me a respite from my
sadness.

Brandy
was barely civil. Having been through one bad marriage that led to a divorce, I
wouldn’t have been surprised if she had already filed papers with a local solicitor.

Her
cold mind set forced me to make a tough decision – to get on with my life. If
my happiness and self-worth resided outside the Great Glen, then I would follow
that road and see where it took me . . . even if it meant
leaving my family.

The
career decision came first. I had narrowed my job offers down to Cambridge and
Scripps Institute. The former would allow me to visit my family on weekends;
the latter paid better. In truth, I was more enticed by the work at Scripps,
but the importance of being there for William – of being a better father to my
son than Angus had been to me overruled my own needs.

I was about to place a call to
Professor John Rudman, the director of Cambridge’s department of oceanography
when Brandy entered the restaurant, accompanied by four
strangers –
three men in their thirties and an exotic Asian woman dressed in a
tight-fitting black silk dress.

Women
remain a foreign species to me. For two months my wife had barely shown me an
ounce of interest, and yet in the presence of this Chinese beauty I could sense
the acidic jealousy churning in her belly as she escorted the ravishing woman
and her three male companions to my table.

“Zachary,
this woman is here tae speak with you. Are ye sober?”

I
stood. “Of course I’m sober. Zachary Wallace . . .”

“Dr.
Wallace, this is a great honor. My name is Ming Soto and I am a climatologist
working in East Antarctica. These are two of my colleagues; Dr. Rehan Ahmed
from Karachi, Pakistan and George McFarland, a marine engineer working at Arizona
State University. Mr. McFarland was recruited for this mission by NASA.”

“NASA?
Now you’ve got me curious.” I motioned for the four to sit. I was about to ask
the third gentleman his name when I noticed the Pakistani man was shivering.
“Dr. Ahmed, would you like something warm to drink? Coffee? Tea?”

“Tea
would be most appreciated.”

“For me
also,” smiled Ming, drawing my wife’s ire.

“Coke,”
said George McFarland.

I
turned to the man I had not yet met. While all four visitors were about my age,
this stranger carried a different aura – more military than academic. Rugged
looking, with a taut physique; his somber mood and sullen look spelled
depression.  

A
kindred soul?

He
looked up at me through bloodshot eyes. “Coke, only put a shot of rum in mine.”

I turned
to Brandy, foolishly hoping she’d volunteer to bring my guests their beverages
on her way out. Instead, she plopped down in the remaining chair. “Whit? Do
I look like the barmaid then?”

Red-faced,
I strode around behind the bar and filled two cups with bottled water. Placing
them in the microwave, I fished out a few tea bags, then grabbed a can of cola
from a stack of sodas and filled two glasses with ice, adding a splash of rum
to the second. Loading everything onto a tray, I returned to the table.

“Zachary,
did ye ken yer new scientist friends here are all single and in their thirties?
And here ye are – same age but married wit a bairn.”

I
handed out the beverages, refusing to be baited by my wife’s remark. “Guess
that makes me a lucky man. Brandy, would you mind giving me a few minutes alone
with Ms. Soto and her colleagues so we can talk?”

“Ms.
Soto and her colleagues are here tae recruit ye for something. Bein’ as I’m
still yer wife and the mother of yer child, I think I’ll give a listen. Is that
a problem, Ms. Soto?”

Ming
smiled. “No problem Mrs. Wallace, provided you abide by a non-disclosure
agreement like the one we are requesting your husband to sign.”

Brandy
smiled back, her blue eyes daggers. “Sure, I’ll sign. Whit ‘ve I got tae lose?
Willie’s crib?”

Her
response did not please Ming. “Dr. Wallace, we’ve come a long way at great
expense to speak with you. While I can assure you the subject matter will both
interest and astound you, it is not something we want exposed to the general
public.”

Seeking
unfiltered answers, I turned to the fourth stranger, the man who had not
bothered to introduce himself. “You were recruited for this mission?”

“Straight
out of a California psychiatric ward.”

“What’s
your role?”

“Submersible
pilot.”

“What’s
mine?”

“Money.
Your association with the expedition brings the sponsors that pay the bills.”

I
stared hard at the man’s face. “I’ve seen your photo before . . . it
was on the Scripps Institute website. You said you’re a submersible pilot?”