The shape glided closer and closer to Luke and Corley, and then suddenly the net bowed backward and the water between them was alive with fish, frothing the surface as they thrashed against the net. The two men pushed their poles together and lifted the net out of the water. A coupla dozen or more good-size mollies and even a few bass wiggled in the mesh.

“Fish fry tonight!” Luke cried.

“She touched me!” Corley said, looking this way and that. If his neck would’ve allowed it, it’d be swivelin’ round in circles. “She tried to bite me!”

“That was just her flipper,” Luke said.

“I don’t care! Let’s get these things ashore!”

“Don’t forget to leave me some,” Semelee said. “Dora’ll be very unhappy if you don’t.”

“Oh, right! Right!” Corley said. He reached into the net and pulled out a wriggling six-inch molly. “The usual?”

“A couple should do.”

He flipped one and then another onto the deck, then headed for shore.

Semelee picked up one of the flopping, gasping fish and held it by its slick, slippery tail over the water.

“Dora,” she sing-songed. “Dora, dear. Where are you, baby?”

Dora must have been waitin’ on the bottom because she popped to the surface right away. The snapping turtle’s mountainous shell with its algae-and grass-covered peaks and valleys appeared first, runnin’ a good three-four feet stem to stern. Then her heads broke the surface, all four beady little eyes fixed on her, both hooked jaws open and waitin’. Semelee could see the little wormlike growth on each of her tongues that Dora used like fishin’ lures when she sat on the bottom during the daytime and waited for lunch. Finally the long tail broke the surface and floated behind her like a big fat water moccasin.

Semelee was sure scientists would give anything for a look at Dora, the biggest, damnedest, weirdest-looking alligator snapper anyone had ever seen, but she was Semelee’s, and no one else was gettin’ near her.

She tossed a fish at the left head. The sharp, powerful jaws snapped closed across the center, severing the head and tail. The right head snatched those up as they hit the water. A pair of convulsive swallows and the mouths were open again.

Semelee gave the right head first crack at the second fish, with similar results, then she stretched her hands out over the water. Dora reared up so that her heads came in reach.

“Good girl, Dora,” she cooed, stroking the tops of the heads. Dora’s long tail thrashed back and forth with pleasure. “Thanks for your help. Better get outta sight now before the dredgers come.”

Dora gave her one last look before sinkin’ from sight.