When he approached the car window, a knobby hand caught him in a rough-palmed vise. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am for that other day. I had no call speaking to your lady friend like I did.”
“Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t.”
“Well now.” Dark eyes penetrated deep enough to see he did not care to discuss that further. “I heard what you and that sheriff fellow did for my grandson.”
“Amos is a good man.”
“I just want to thank you both.” The hand gripped tighter. “You’re family, you hear what I’m saying? Near as any of my other kin.”
She rammed the car into gear and sprayed seashells into the sun-polished air. Deacon walked over, revealing an ability to appear dignified even in tattered khakis and a sweat-stained cap. “Fay felt a singular need to deliver her message personally.”
The stick figure in the wheelchair complained, “It’s not polite to keep a dying man waiting.”
Marcus hefted a load of gear and pointed with his chin. “The boat’s around back.”
“Worse than ill mannered, it’s downright risky. I might croak and load you down with guilt you can’t do a thing about.”
Deacon settled the cooler into Charlie’s lap, then gripped the chair handles. “Come on now. Be nice.”
“Can’t.” Charlie Hayes was a retired federal appellate judge and Marcus’ oldest friend. He was also two weeks away from his second round of chemo. “They’re about to load me up with more of that venom in a bag. All you got to do is look in the doctor’s eyes to know this chemo business is nothing but a painful waste of time.”
Deacon complained to Marcus, “He’s been like this for weeks now. Every other word out of that mouth is about dying.”
Charlie demanded, “Is your intention to let me and the fish both perish of old age?”
Deacon gripped the handles of Charlie’s chair and pushed it over the uneven surface. As they rounded the house, Dale Steadman appeared on his back patio. Marcus offered, “You’re welcome to join us.”
The man returned to his home without another word.
Marcus shrugged to his friends and said simply, “Client.”
Charlie cast a jaundiced eye about the home’s smoke-scarred southern half. “Looks like we got us a good tale in the making.”
The thirty-seven-foot cruiser drew murmurs of astonishment from both men. Marcus helped Charlie over the transom and into the white-leather starboard seat. The twin diesels rumbled soft as well-spent money as he cast off fore and aft. Marcus reversed down the slip and into the waterway, then turned north, standing tall and shirtless on the open bridge, for all the world just another rich playboy doing his summer thing. He accepted a cap from Deacon, lathered sunscreen on his shoulders, and pretended that his heart was not lurching to the absence of a lilac gaze.
The boat remained silent for quite a time, as the three men set some space between them and all they had left behind. Deacon’s face was a dark working of stone and deep-running emotions. Charlie watched the waters with the slow-blinking care of one who took everything in aged caution.
When they departed the crowded Sunday thoroughfare and began threading their way through marsh islands south of Wrightsville, Charlie asked, “Is this new case of yours as interesting as it looks?”
“Maybe.” Marcus outlined what he knew of Dale Steadman’s situation.
When he finished, Deacon hummed a deep note and said, “New Horizons. Hard to feel much sorrow for anybody messed up in that place.”
The boat was far too large for a day’s outing on the inland waters, but Marcus wanted the air-conditioned cabin in case Charlie needed a place to lie down and rest. This trip was much more about doing Charlie Hayes a service than about catching fish. Other fishermen in standard bass boats glared angrily, taking him for an outsider with more cash than sense.
Deacon helped Charlie settle into one of the padded rear seats. He set a can of live bait at his feet and a pole in the holder to his right. He pulled a Coke from the cooler and swept the ice off the can. From his place behind the wheel, Marcus could hear Charlie fussing at the pastor, telling him to stop pampering him so and go thread his own hook. Deacon took no notice of the man’s words, just kept on bustling about until Charlie had greased his face and cast his line and assured Deacon for the fifth time that he did not want a sandwich.
The Pamlico Sound was a wind-fractured mirror. The marsh islands weaved frantic little dances, singing wind-whispers as waves lapped in cymbal clarity about their edges. Marcus kept the motor down as close to idle as it would go, and weaved through the lily pads and the sawgrass. Deacon pointed out a kingfisher diving from fifty feet, a silver-gray bullet that made hardly a splash upon impact. Marcus crossed a patch of deep water and anchored in close to a larger island where a crop of dead trees rose bleached white as old bones. The scrub pine and wild dogwoods around the southern border offered them an overhang of shade. In the sudden silence a hoopoe chanted a waterborne greeting.
The boat had only two rear chairs, so Marcus made himself comfortable upon a life preserver on the side railing. He threaded a nightcrawler onto his hook and slung the line overboard. Charlie harrumphed a cough that tore at his gut. Marcus and Deacon exchanged a glance over the old man’s head, then went back to watching their lines. In the distance, crows cawed crossly at the day’s tragic imperfections.
The shaded waters about their boat were darkest green and utterly still. Which made the eruption even more startling. One moment the loudest sound was the buzzing insects, and the next a fish that looked a full ten feet long shot straight out of the water, rising so high Marcus feared the line was going to catch on the branches. He was so startled he fell off the railing and sprawled on the deck. He heard Charlie’s line zing from the reel and two old men shout with fishermen’s glee.
Charlie had his pole pointed straight out, just letting the fish whiz out every last inch of line. Marcus scrambled across the deck and came up hard against Charlie’s seat back. He reached over and tilted the pole skyward.
“What the … Get your hand off my pole!”
“You’re going to lose the fish!”
Charlie used one hand to swat frantically at Marcus’ arm. “I been fishing since before you drew your first breath. Let go of my pole!”
“Jam your thumb on the reel there, you’re down to your last ten feet of line!”
“You touch my pole again and you’re gonna be driving this rig without some fingers!” Charlie heaved on the pole, finally setting the hook. “Go on, stand back over there outta range!”
Deacon had one long-fingered hand across his mouth, from behind which bubbled a low humming laugh. His eyes were squeezed almost shut with pure pleasure. “Lay into him now, Charlie. You got him.”
“Doggoned right I do, if this little child here with milk dribbling off his chin’ll keep his distance.” Charlie reeled and pulled and reeled some more. “Was that fish as big as I thought?”
“Looked like a silver whale to me.” Deacon wiped his eyes. “My, my, I thought we were gonna have bloodshed there for a minute.”
“Lucky you didn’t leave the tackle box where I could grab the bait knife.” Charlie was puffing and red-faced but his hands moved with the fluidity of a lifetime’s experience. “ ’Bout to have laid me out in the box, when that thing leapt up.”
Deacon was up on his feet now, watching as the line angled up higher and higher. His voice rose to pulpit level as he sang out, “Look there, now! He’s coming up again! Hold him hard, Charlie!”
The large-mouth bass was impossibly huge. It did not leap so much as explode, tossing water across the forty feet separating him from the boat as he furiously sought to throw the hook.
There was a moment’s gasping silence, then Deacon breathed, “Lawdy mercy, Charlie, you done hooked yourself the granddaddy of them all.”