The pond behind the Harris place had always been dark, even in daylight. Gail walked the bank with a length of rope over his shoulder and a hook fixed to the end. He had seen the thing three times now. The first time it had risen under his boat, and the shell had scraped the hull hard enough to tip him. The second time, he had watched it from the high bank while it took a duck that had landed too close. The third time it had surfaced twenty feet from the shore and stayed long enough for him to see the head. The head was the size of a man’s.
The mouth was open. Water ran from it. He had not gone into the boat again after that. He set the hook in the shallows where the bottom dropped, and walked the rope back to a tree. He tied it off and sat on the bank with the shotgun across his knees. The water did not move.
Late in the afternoon, the rope jerked once, hard, and went slack. The hook came up empty. He did not cast again. He walked back to the house and told his wife he would drain the pond in the morning. In the morning three men from town came with shovels and a pump. They cut a ditch from the low end of the pond to the creek. The water dropped slowly.
By noon the bottom showed in patches of black mud. Gail walked the edge with a pole and prodded the deeper places. The pole struck something solid. He pushed. The thing did not move. He called the others. They came with ropes. They looped the ropes under what they could reach and pulled. The shell rose. It was wider than a man’s arms could stretch, moss hung from the ridges in long green strands. The head stayed under. They pulled harder. The shell tilted. The head came free. The mouth opened. One of the men stepped too close. The jaws closed on his leg above the knee. The sound was wet and short.
The man went down. The others dropped the ropes and grabbed him under the arms. They pulled. The jaws held. Blood ran into the mud. The turtle’s front foot came up and the claws sank into the man’s thigh. The men pulled again. The leg tore. The man screamed once and then stopped. They dragged him clear. The turtle sank back into the shell until only the ridges showed. The men carried the injured one to the truck. Gail stayed. He looked at the place where the turtle had gone under. The mud was already closing over the shell. He walked to the truck and did not look back. They took the man to the doctor in town.
The doctor cut what was left of the leg and said the man would live if the bleeding stopped. The men from the pond did not go back that day. In the evening, Gail returned alone. The ditch had filled again. The water was higher than it had been at noon. He stood on the bank with the shotgun and waited until dark. Nothing rose. He went home and locked the doors.
In the night he heard the water moving against the bank. He did not go out. In the morning the ditch was full and the pond looked the same as it had before they cut it. The tracks of the truck were still in the mud at the high end. There were no other tracks. Gail walked the bank once and then went back to the house. He did not tell the men what he had heard in the night, he did not ask them to come again.
Three days later, the man who had lost the leg died in the hospital. The doctor said the blood had not stopped. Gail went to the funeral and stood at the back. After the service he drove to the pond and sat in the truck until the light fell. He did not get out. When he started the engine the headlights caught the water. Something large moved just under the surface and the light broke across the shell. He turned the truck around and drove home. He did not go back to the pond. The men who had helped him drain it did not speak of it. When the wind came off the water at night, it sometimes carried a low, wet sound that stopped as soon as anyone stepped outside to listen.
The pond stayed dark even in daylight. No one fished it again.
