“How come you grow your own tomatoes but not your own pot?”
“Because I’m a low-risk kind of guy. Since they’ve started using the planes and helicopters, it’s gotten too chancy unless you have a place way back in some hollow.”
One of the Dobermans growled from beneath the trailer but did not show its face.
“Where’s your partner?”
“I don’t need no partner,” Lanny said. He lifted the sacks from the truck bed and emptied them onto the ground between him and Leonard.
“That’s one hundred and twenty dollars’ worth,” Lanny said.
Leonard stepped closer and studied the plants.
“Fair is fair,” he said and pulled the money clip from his pocket. He handed Lanny five twenty-dollar bills and four fives.
Lanny crumpled the bills in his fist and stuffed them into his pocket, but he did not get back in the truck.
“What?” Leonard finally said.
“I figured you to ask me in for a beer.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t much want to play host this afternoon.”
“You don’t think I’m good enough to set foot in that roachy old trailer of yours.”
Leonard looked at Lanny and smiled.
“Boy, you remind me of a banty rooster, strutting around not afraid of anything, puffing your feathers out anytime anyone looks at you wrong. You think you’re a genuine, hard-core badass, don’t you?”
“I ain’t afraid of you, if that’s what you’re getting at. If your own woman ain’t scared of you, why should I be?”
Leonard looked at the money clip. He tilted it in his hand until the sun caught the metal and a bright flash hit Lanny in the face. Lanny jerked his head away from the glare.
Leonard laughed and put the money clip back in his pocket.
“After the world has its way with you a few years, it’ll knock some of the strut out of you. If you live that long.”
“I ain’t wanting your advice,” Lanny said. “I just want some beer.”
Leonard went into the trailer and brought out a six-pack.
“Here,” he said. “A farewell present. Don’t bother to come around here anymore.”
“What if I get you some more plants?”
“I don’t think you better try to do that. Whoever’s pot that is will be harvesting in the next few days. You best not be anywhere near when they’re doing it either.”
“What if I do get more?”
“Same price, but if you want any beer you best be willing to pay bootleg price like your buddies.”
THE NEXT DAY, soon as Sunday lunch was finished, Lanny put on jeans and a T-shirt and tennis shoes and headed toward the French Broad. The day was hot and humid, and the only people on the river were a man and two boys swimming near the far bank. By the time he reached the creek his T-shirt was soaked and sweat stung his eyes.
Upstream the trees blocked out most of the sun and the cold water he waded through cooled him. At the waterfall, an otter slid into the pool. Lanny watched its body surge through the water, straight and sleek as a torpedo, before disappearing under the far bank. He wondered how much an otter pelt was worth and figured come winter it might be worth finding out. He kneeled and cupped his hand, the pool’s water so cold it hurt his teeth.
He climbed the left side of the falls, then made his way upstream until he got to the No Trespassing sign. If someone waited for him, Lanny believed that by now the person would have figured out he’d come up the creek, so he stepped up on the right bank and climbed the ridge into the woods. He followed the sound of water until he figured he’d gone far enough and came down the slope slow and quiet, stopping every few yards to listen. When he got to the creek, he looked upstream and down before crossing.
The plants were still there. He pulled the sacks from his belt and walked toward the first plant, his eyes on the trees across the field.
The ground gave slightly beneath his right foot. He did not hear the spring click. What he heard was metal striking against bone. Pain flamed up Lanny’s leg to consume his whole body.
When he came to, he was on the ground, his face inches from a pot plant. This ain’t nothing but a bad dream, he told himself, thinking that if he believed it hard enough it might become true. He used his forearm to lift his head enough to look at the leg and the leg twisted slightly and the pain hit him like a fist. The world turned deep blue and he thought he was going to pass out again, but in a few moments the pain eased a little.
He looked at his foot and immediately wished he hadn’t. The trap’s jaws clenched around his leg just above the ankle. Blood soaked the tennis shoe red and he could see bone. Bile surged up from his stomach. Don’t look at it any more until you have to, he told himself and lay his head back on the ground.
His face turned toward the sun now, and he guessed it was still early afternoon. Maybe it ain’t that bad, he told himself. Maybe if I just lay here awhile it’ll ease up some and I can get the trap off. He lay still as possible, breathing long, shallow breaths, trying to think about something else. He remembered what Old Man Jenkins had said about how one man could pretty much fish out a stream of speckled trout by himself if he took a notion to. Lanny wondered how many speckled trout he’d be able to catch out of Caney Creek before they were all gone. He wondered if after he did he’d be able to find another way-back trickle of water that held them.
He must have passed out again, because when he opened his eyes the sun hovered just above the tree line. When he tested the leg, it caught fire every bit as fierce as before. He wondered how late it would be tonight before his parents got worried and how long it would take after that before someone found his truck and people started searching. Tomorrow at the earliest, he told himself, and even then they’d search the river before looking anywhere else.
He lifted his head a few inches and shouted toward the woods. No one called back, and he imagined Linwood Toomey and his son passed-out drunk in their farmhouse. Being so close to the ground muffled his voice, so he used a forearm to raise himself a little higher and called again.
I’m going to have to sit up, he told himself, and just the thought of doing so made the bile rise again in his throat. He took deep breaths and used both arms to lift himself into a sitting position. The pain smashed against his body but just as quickly eased. The world began draining itself of color until everything around him seemed shaded with gray. He leaned back on the ground, sweat popping out on his face and arms like blisters. Everything seemed farther away, the sky and trees and plants, as though he were being lowered into a well. He shivered and wondered why he hadn’t brought a sweatshirt with him.
Two men came out of the woods. They walked toward him with no more hurry than men come to check their tobacco for cutworms. Lanny knew the big man in front was Linwood Toomey and the man trailing him his son. He could not remember the son’s name but had seen him in town a few times. What he remembered was that the son had been away from the county for nearly a decade and that some said he’d been in the marines and others said prison. The younger man wore a dirty white T-shirt and jeans, the older blue coveralls with no shirt underneath. Grease coated their hands and arms.
They stood above him but did not speak. Linwood Toomey took a rag from his back pocket and rubbed his hands and wrists. Lanny wondered if they weren’t there at all, were nothing but some imagining the hurting caused.
“My leg’s broke,” Lanny said, figuring if they replied they must be real.
“It may well be,” Linwood Toomey said. “I reckon it’s near about cut clear off.”