“I didn’t see that,” Marcus agreed. “Did I?”
“Charlie, don’t tug on him quite so hard, else he’ll break your line. Marcus, you unleash us and start that engine.” Deacon never turned from watching the line and the water. “This old man knows his water, sure enough. He’s down there hunting himself a root where he can tie you up good.”
Marcus hauled up the anchor, moved to the wheel, hit the starter, then turned to follow Deacon’s hand signals. The man kept two fingers resting on Charlie’s line as he held his other hand overhead and directed Marcus. Slow and steady, hard right, hold there, reverse again-his only words directed to Charlie in the chair. “Pull in steady like, wind up that slack, ease off now, let him have his head here, that’s it, okay, he’s breathing easy now. Wind in steady, keep the line taut. He’s hunting still.”
Charlie was huffing so hard Marcus could hear the bitter phlegm catch and break over the motor’s rumble. But he was winding steady, in tune with Deacon’s words, anticipating the directions even before they were spoken. Which was why Deacon stopped talking at all, doing nothing now but directing Marcus at the wheel, leaning over the rear transom, squinting at the line and the water.
The fish broke a third time, but it was a feeble effort, for he was tiring. So was Charlie. The old man’s khaki shorts and T-shirt were drenched two shades darker. His breathing was one step away from a constant coughing fit. His arms trembled so from the effort of handling the pole and the fish that his upper body shivered in harmony. But there was no question now. This was his fight. His fish.
Marcus heard a change to Charlie’s labored breathing, and knew with a friend’s wisdom that he was about to give in. Soon he would have to go back and take the pole, which would break the old man’s heart. He could not decide which would be harder on Charlie, to lose the fish or have somebody else land it. Deacon glanced his way, the same question there on his face.
Then the pastor turned back and cried, “Hold on, Charlie! He’s coming in now! Marcus, you cut that motor and get back here with the net! Yeah, here he comes, wind hard, Charlie! Wind hard, man! You got him!”
Marcus gripped the net handle and leaned over the stern next to Deacon. The preacher was hand-feeding the line now, helping Charlie haul in the almost dead weight. The fish came up through the dark waters almost motionless, a flicker of gills and rear fin his only signs of life. “You just watch out, he might break. This is one wily old fish.”
But the fish waited in weary resignation as Marcus dipped the net. He slipped under the bass, settled him in, and drew him out of the water.
The bass was so large he filled the net and spilled out both ends. Marcus needed both hands to heft his load over the transom and lay him down on the deck.
Deacon’s hand slipped back over his mouth as he hummed his deep-throated laugh. Charlie sat in his chair, heaving hard, trembling so that when he tried to set his pole on the deck he dropped it with a clatter. He took three tries to shove his glasses back up his nose. When he reached for a Coke, Marcus needed to unpry the hands and flip the top himself. Charlie took a snorting gulp, choked slightly, drank again. Then he leaned over and stared at the fish. He asked hoarsely, “How big do you reckon?”
“Got to be near on fifteen pounds,” Deacon said, shaking his head in wonder. “That there is an emperor fish if ever I saw one.”
Charlie took another swallow, stared at the fish a moment longer, then said, “Slip him back, son.”
“I don’t have a camera,” Marcus pointed out. “Nobody is going to believe we caught this thing.”
“Don’t matter a bit, does it, Deacon?”
The preacher was already bent over the fish, prying loose the hook. “Ain’t no need to say a word about this to a soul. This here’s our tale. Ours and ours alone.”
As they threaded their way back through sun-dappled waters, Marcus found the day darkened by Kirsten’s absence and his own lack of answers. Charlie must have caught the smoldering drift, for as they approached the Steadman manor he pushed himself out of the rear seat. With Deacon’s help he shifted over to the one directly beside Marcus. “All right, son. Now tell me what’s troubling you so.”
Enclosed within sunlight and sea breeze and the concern of good friends, Marcus found the ability to say, “I’m afraid Kirsten is going to leave me.”
Charlie and Deacon exchanged a single look. Charlie said, “She’s always struck me as a fine young lady.”
“She’s a good woman who doesn’t always do good things. She’s pushed by storms I can only guess at. Which makes knowing what to do here very tough.”
“Maybe you can’t do a thing, son,” Charlie said. “Except survive her passage.”
“Listen to you with your doom and gloom. That ain’t what the boy needs to hear.” Deacon reached into the cooler and plucked out one of the cans bobbing in the melted ice. “The question is, are you man enough to love her hard enough? Can you accept your need for wisdom that ain’t yours and never will be? And then can you use it when it’s given?” Deacon said to Charlie, “Now you just tell me I ain’t right.”
Charlie took the can from Deacon’s hand and raised his face to the sun, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he drank.
Deacon asked Marcus, “You know why she seems intent on going?”
“The closer we get, the more frightened she becomes. From some few things she’s said, I gather she’s chased by something in her past. Something bad.”
“So you haven’t done anything to bring this on?”
“I asked her to marry me. Does that count?”
“You’re not hearing what the man is saying.” Charlie leaned forward and poked Marcus in the ribs with the hand holding the can. “Do us all a favor here, son. Try and set the lawyer in your head to one side.”
Deacon chuckled low in his throat and took a step back, so as to study the two of them.
“Just for a moment,” Charlie went on, “I want you to put aside the portion that says, I’m going to think this through and come up with the right course of action, on account of how I’m in control here. Listen to the love in your heart. Don’t even ask for logic. Just listen. See if there’s a different answer waiting for you.”
The answer sprang up fast and unwelcome. Marcus shook his head, not to Charlie’s words, but to his own internal response. “That’s no help at all.”
Charlie settled back in his seat, his features clamped tight in the vise of exhaustion and ill health. “Sometimes love is a gift that’s got to be dug from the pit of old woes. When we first fasten on it, what a burden that gift can appear to be.”
Marcus said nothing more as he slowed and turned into Dale Steadman’s dock. Beyond the emerald lawn, Dale watched through the kitchen’s rear window as Deacon stepped onto the dock and tied them up fore and aft. All Marcus’ present fears seemed crouched beyond the smoke-stained corners, feeding off the mysteries and doubts.
Marcus cut the engines and handed the first load of equipment to Deacon. He piled the remaining poles and the cooler on the pier, brought a plastic bucket and rag up from the galley, and began sluicing the deck. Charlie remained seated in the white leather chair, his back to the house, sipping occasionally from the soda. As Marcus worked, he found himself recalling a time when he had spent three hours watching the reflections of an afternoon rain form colorless trails down his kitchen wall. There had been a certain comfort in the ephemeral scroll and knowing there was no message to be discerned, no further tragedy to savage him. He let the old man be.
Marcus drained the bucket over the rear transom. He stepped onto the dock just as Deacon disappeared around the house with the final load of poles. Marcus headed down to where Charlie’s wheelchair waited at the foot of the dock. He knew his current melancholy was partly due to the day now ending and the prospect of summers where Charlie Hayes played no querulous part. But there was more that troubled him, much as he might desperately wish otherwise.