He would untie the line when the moment came to do so, and gather in the duck.
With a little bit of practice you can pick the duck you want and entice it to the chosen spot, an inlet or a bend or a reed bed, for example, away from prying eyes.
He’d just thrown in the bait. It was comical the way the duck first swallowed down the piece of bread before it stood up straight in the water and, with big, astonished eyes, it stopped and looked at you, perplexed by what had happened. The line trailed from the bird’s beak like a worm or something similar, and looked both very funny and horrific all at once. But he gave the line a pull, and the kind of death the duck must face, down under the water, and how long it would take to die, didn’t cross his mind.
He did this once. And then once again on the Brazo de la Tinta, when he managed to hook the duck that he’d selected. But the third time that he did it, on the Sagastume Chico, things didn’t turn out well.
It wasn’t a Pekin duck, but a Muscovy this time. Perhaps this had its influence, one never really knows. He saw the ducks, he found the house, he worked out where to lure them to and then prepared the bait. He rowed in front of the house very close against the bank, which is the best way to stay hidden, having put a little bit of water on the rowlocks, so they wouldn’t make their squealing. He carried on a way before he waited in an inlet for the ducks to come along.
Then the ducks arrived and he threw the bits of bread. Next he threw the line in and he hooked his chosen duck. It took a bit of tempting, but at last he had his bird. He gave the line a pull and the duck disappeared through the surface. He tied the line in place and gathered up the oars.
And that was when the air around him shattered, or it seemed to, and he felt a furious burning in his left arm, near the shoulder. He didn’t understand what had happened at the time, but an instinct made him dive into the bottom of the boat.
He stayed there, pressed against the planks, panting hard and swearing, while the burning grew more angry, then impossible to bear. He felt his hand grow wet where it was lying on the wound, and then he saw the blood, leaking thick and dark beside his face, and dropping little splashes on the dirty bottom planks. He looked up at the clear blue sky, framed inside the gunwale, as if out from a well.
What would he do now, the bastard who had shot him?
He strained his ears to listen, but the silence grew still thicker, and then he started listening to the humming of the summer. He noticed that the boat went sliding on atop the water, bumping several times against what must have been the bank. If it would only move out from the bank! Perhaps it would be better if he jumped onto the bank and disappeared among the trees? No. He’d wait here for the son of a bitch. He wasn’t going to kill him for a common Muscovy duck.
He waited in the boat for an excruciating time, until at length events took on an air of unreality.
The sun had risen high. He was being baked alive there in the bottom of the boat. And this burning in his arm, the very devil.
The boat still made its way along. At length his senses dulled and he fell into a stupor, and the pain drifted off a while, or else it took a form that he could reasonably bear.
The sun had disappeared from its frame when he awoke. But the heat was just the same. He’d lost all track of time. The pain was there again, now strong and well defined. His sleeve was soaking wet and the blood flowed underneath it, and out across his hand, but thicker now, and more slowly.
Was the man still out there? Why didn’t he check the boat? Perhaps the man was frightened, imagining he’d killed him. He’d be hiding on the riverbank, spying on the boat and trying to work out what to do with the body.
It would have been much better for the man and for himself if the boat had been dragged far off by the current, but, as a rule, these boats don’t drift far, unless there’s a freakish surge.
It could also be the case that the man had washed his hands of the matter. This dead bloke in a boat would at some point be discovered, but time would pass before the coast guard came to be informed. People don’t want trouble. A few days would go by and the man would see their launch appear, the rowing boat behind it with its pestilential smell. An officer would ask him, without a lot of interest:
‘Do you know this chap?’
‘No. Don’t think I do. Can’t be absolutely sure, considering the state of him. What a fucking smell!’
‘Do you have a shotgun?’
‘Yes, a 1916 double-barrel… like we all do round these parts.’
The officer would speak in a small, sarcastic way.
‘Nobody knows anything.’
‘Someone roaming round, then.’
And they’d take him off curled up inside the boat, beneath a canvas.
The man might also come at night and drag the boat a long way off, or, more likely, he’d bury him in the middle of one or other of these islands, where not a soul is seen. Then he’d smash the boat to bits and burn the pieces one by one, in daylight.
The boat bumped into something soft and then it seemed to halt.
He’d wait for nightfall anyway, to raise himself and row as far as possible from here. What could he do in any case, suffering this pain? Nothing much, for now. How close was the house now? He held his breath and listened. No, not a sign. Not dogs, nor voices, nothing. But the man could have tracked him from the bank, and in the trees. And things were even worse now, for now the man would fear him. No one in these parts wants a dead man on their hands, and even less, in this state. And if that man’s just wounded he can think of coming back. It’s an outrage, after all, to kill a man for nothing but a common Muscovy duck. A man who’s spent a whole day in the bottom of a boat, suffering in the sun in the middle of the summer, and then is dragged off in the night — as long as there’s blood left in his veins that man cannot take such a thing calmly.
What a bastard pain! And now, when he tried to, he couldn’t move his arm. It seemed he had ten thousand needles buried in his flesh. He was going to try to rip his sleeve off, have a look beneath it.
The boat still wasn’t moving. There were branches or some grasses brushing gently on one side. He must be at the bank.
He was tugging at his sleeve when he heard the sound of someone in the grass, coming closer. It’s a noise you can’t mistake. Impossible to advance through pampas grass without making this kind of noise, and much less on a quiet day. Not even little birds can do it. The noise was not continuous, as when a man moves easily and doesn’t think of safeguards. The man took several steps and stopped. The place was wild, without a doubt. If there’d been some kind of path he wouldn’t have made this noise.
The man had stopped some time ago, and seemingly close by. He held on to his breath. How long could he hold his breath and how well could he hide it?
At last the man moved on again, and now he was beside the boat, and watching him, the shotgun surely on him. He felt the dreadful presence of the other man above him, he didn’t need to look.