When the boat had settled enough, Ted stood up and leaned into the railing, slipped, and fell overboard. Patrick heard his quick yelp and the snap of his rod against the boat and the splash of him hitting the ocean. Ted reached his free hand over the gunwale but the next swell pried him loose and carried him toward the rocks. Patrick pushed his rod into the holder and got the gaff and scrambled fore. Ted was side-stroking toward Fatta the Lan’ with the broken rod and reel still in one hand but the swells pushing against him. He was already half sunk in his heavy clothes and coat. Patrick leaned far out with the handle end but Ted was out of reach. “It’s cold in here, Pat!”
Patrick stashed the gaff and got the rope from the bow compartment and hurled it to his brother. It slapped over him and the next swell lifted, then dropped the boat into a watery bowl. The same swell lifted Ted and carried him fast toward the rocks. He was riding lower in the water now and breathing fast. He found the rope with his free hand and tried to haul himself forward but the rope was long. “Drop the rod, Ted! Drop it and use both hands!”
But Ted held fast to the rod, grabbing short lengths of rope with his left hand while the surge moved him faster out. Patrick swayed greatly on the casting deck, stripping rope with both hands. A swell dropped him so steeply that his feet left the deck and for a moment he was midair, then the deck jumped up under him and he crashed to his knees, jaw crunching, but still hauling. When the rope was tight he stood again and put his back into the tug-of-war. The swells pushed Ted toward the rocks, then Patrick pulled him closer. Ted still held the rod butt and reel. After a long minute Patrick had him halfway back. Then the fly line flew off the stump of the broken rod and the reel screamed. “I’m hooked up, Pat! I’m hooked up!”
“Hang on! I’ve got you! I’ve got you!”
Patrick felt the swells lose some of their power as he pulled Ted into deeper water. Then Ted dropped the rope and tightened up the drag on the reel to better fight the fish. Patrick yelled to pick up the damn rope. Ted began to sink and a strong swell dragged him back toward the rocks until he took up the rope again. He was gasping deep and fast while Patrick pulled. A long minute later Ted was close to Fatta the Lan’, holding out the rod to his brother. Patrick took it and felt the heavy pull of the faraway fish. “Jeez, Ted, nice fish.”
“I told you. I’m thinking snapper. Rocks. Deep.”
“Me, too. Can you hold on? I’m going to back us out of here so we can get you aboard without the surge.”
“Amen, Pat!”
“Feels like ten pounds of fish down there.”
“Oh, at least.”
“Hang on, I’m going to weigh anchor and get us out of here.”
“I hope it’s a snapper! Mom’s favorite.”
“Just hold on, Ted.”
“Dad shouldn’t of yelled at me for taking the bark off the trees. That was a mistake anybody could make.”
“It’s over.”
“It’s never over! I scared a woman out by the stables a couple a nights ago. Dora. I like her a lot. I feel everything she feels, like a connection. I didn’t mean to scare her.”
Patrick reversed them further offshore, steering with his hips, one hand on the rope and the other on the rod. The fish had taken half of the backing but it was losing strength. When he felt less turbulence he put the motor in neutral. He drew Ted close and cut the engine and pulled his brother around to the stern where the gunwales were lowest. Ted was able to get both hands up onto the boat railings but he was too tired and too heavy to hoist himself up and over.
Patrick let go the rope and pulled on Ted’s jacket and felt his brother’s legs pumping and his feet flailing against the hull. Ted panted with this exertion and Patrick put his shoulder down and latched his free arm around Ted’s big neck and pulled. He felt Ted’s heavy exhales on his skin and he crouched for lifting power. There was a moment he thought he might go over, rather than Ted come in, but then Patrick felt his brother’s legs stop moving and a sudden lightness to him. Patrick pulled with all his strength and Ted came up. Patrick slipped and hit his butt hard as Ted surged in and flattened him. They screamed and cursed, fighting for breath, Patrick with the broken butt of the rod still up and the line tight to the fish, Ted crushing the breath out of him. Patrick was weak with suffocation and laughter by the time they got unraveled.
It took Ted another twenty minutes to get the fish in, a bruising red snapper from the rocky depths, twelve and a half pounds according to the Boga Grip that Patrick deployed from his tackle box. Patrick took a dozen pictures of Ted and the fish. Both men were still breathing hard when Patrick pushed the camera back into his shirt pocket and buttoned it.
“We gotta take this home for dinner,” said Ted.
“I’d say so.”
“You’ll make a good guide, Pat. Maybe I could be your first mate.”
Patrick muscled the spent fish into the cooler in the hold and closed the lid. He had put in a block of ice just in case. Patrick loved being prepared for things, as he was in Sangin, twenty-four hours a day, even on the burn shitter, even in his sleep. “I’d like that.”
“You don’t need a mate on this little boat, though.”
“I’ll have bigger ones someday.”
“I’d probably screw up.”
“No, you wouldn’t, brother. Look at that fish.”
“Okay, Pat — you and me on a boat, fishing and making money and having fun. Now I got something to look forward to. I’m cold.”
“Get that jacket and shirt off.”
Patrick worked off his jacket and handed it to Ted then started up the Mercury. “Hold on, big brother.”
The sun hung orange in the west as they rode back to the ramp. Ted sat on the aft bench and every time Patrick looked back he was shivering in the too small jacket but still chattering away. Patrick was used to him not speaking for days or weeks, then unleashing a river of words, and now the river came.
“But you know, Pat, there’s this other woman who’s a mystery and I really like her, too. Lucinda. She called Friendly Village Taxi like over two weeks ago and I got her. And she’s called other times — either Tuesdays and Thursdays. We’ve gone to the market, the pharmacy, the dry cleaner, Joe’s Hardware, and either Las Brisas or Rosa’s for takeout. She doesn’t hardly talk. Doesn’t take her sunglasses off, so maybe she’s hiding something. I think she’s troubled. I feel it but I’m not sure what it is. She lives in a condo with flowers on the balcony. She’s very pretty and healthy-looking but really unhappy. She has great sadness. I’m driving tomorrow just in case she calls. I can’t take much more of Dad. And I know he can’t take much more of me. I wonder if Mom will do that snapper Veracruz style.”
Chapter nineteen
Under a gray-bellied sky Evelyn Anders began her walk from the post office on Mission Road toward the largest shopping center in Fallbrook. She took long strides and counted each one. It was six on a Tuesday evening and the traffic was steady and swift. She paused to look at the burn marks left by the flares that had marked the place where George Hernandez was killed three weeks ago — right there in the first southbound lane — carbon-gray flowers scorched into the asphalt. She thought she saw a bloodstain, too. Was that even possible? Oil, she thought, surely. Or transmission fluid.