Mr. Gentry lowered the camera and began waving his arms. “What the hell’s wrong with that idiot? Hey… Hey, we’ve got a fish on!” he shouted as if that might do some good.
It did not, so I hefted the push pole to get his attention. The driver watched me, still grinning. I used the pole to point at the fish we were fighting; the fish fifty yards out, and enough blades of grass fouled on the fly line to make that visible, too.
I shook the pole in an aggressive way, then pointed again. Only then did the driver alter his course a few degrees, but not enough to miss our fly line unless I did something fast. I jumped down onto the deck, yelling, “Grab your wife’s belt. Hold on, Mrs. Gentry, we’ve got to move.”
In a rush, I fired the engine before the propeller was submerged and slammed it into gear. My skiff shot forward. This provided a shield for our line, and the fish attached to it, but also put us directly in the path of the boat. The grin vanished from the driver’s face; he spun the wheel so violently, he nearly flew off the tower, but held on and glared through his bizarre mustache. This wasn’t punishment enough, so he swung the wheel in retaliation and swamped a wall of water over my skiff as he flew past, the roar of his twin outboard engines and stereo deafening.
An instant later, Mrs. Gentry’s voice pierced the din. “The boat… it snagged my line… He’s got my line! What should I do?” She was fighting to hang on to the rod as line peeled away while her husband clung to her belt, all attached to the stern of the speeding boat and its wake of mud and turtle grass.
The drama didn’t last. The line snapped-or so we believed until my skiff settled in the bucking waves. Only then was I calm enough to suggest that Mrs. Gentry reel in.
“I’m snagged on something else,” she said.
I had busied myself drying seats to hide the fact that I was furious. “Maybe it got tangled around a branch of something. Want me to try?”
“Deadweight, it feels like.” She lifted the rod, applied pressure, and gained a few feet of line. Over and over she did this until the object was too close to lift. It was Mr. Gentry, the taller of the two, who saw it first from the casting deck. “My god… they ran over your fish, Sher. It’s your snook! It is… but I think it’s dead.”
No, the fish was still alive. Barely. I went over the side into the water, scooped it up, and removed the hook. A single silver gash behind the eye told us the snook had been hit by the propeller. The color of the gills was good. They were still pumping water, yet the fish lay immobile in my arms, a great, dense weight.
“Any chance it’ll come around?” the husband asked.
“We can’t count this as a catch,” I replied. “Wish we could, but we can’t. That’s a shame. You did a great job, Mrs. Gentry. I can see from here it’s over forty inches long.”
I floated the fish closer to the IGFA measuring sticker on the gunnel of my skiff. “Forty-two inches, looks like, but I don’t want to lift her out-”
“I don’t give a tiddly bit about records,” the woman said. “Can you revive the poor thing?”
Unlikely, but I had to choose my words with care. I was still furious, and aware that anger is contagious. A successful charter has less to do with landing fish than keeping clients happy. Admitting the fish would die might ruin the rest of the trip. “I’m willing to try, but wouldn’t you rather move to another spot? Either way, we have to leave the fish here no matter what. Snook are out of season, and it’s over the slot, size-wise, anyway. Take all the pictures you want, of course.”
“Isn’t there someone you can call?”
I assumed she meant the police, so shook my head and lied to keep the day cheerful. “The guy driving didn’t mean us any harm. Particularly on weekends, it’s the sort of thing you have to just shrug and smile. Or”-I realized I’d misunderstood-“did you mean to help us revive this fish?”
“Yosemite Sam, and people like him,” she said, referring to the driver’s cartoon mustache, “find ways to punish themselves. Isn’t there a wildlife rescue organization of some kind?”
I smiled for the first time in a while. “Not for fish, but I like the way you think. Sure, we can keep trying. Why not give it shot?”
A nice couple, the Gentrys. An hour later, they were wading along beside me, taking turns babying water through the great fish’s gills. By then, my drifting skiff had led us to the back side of Patricia Key, an island that had once been farmed by early homesteaders.
“Are those grapefruit?” the woman asked.
I had failed to notice, or even think about, the wild citrus trees I had described to Kermit Bigalow last night. Near shore, where pilings had outlasted a dock, was a cluster of heavy yellow fruit amid a wall of green.
“They’re not as sweet as modern Duncan grapefruit,” I replied, “but they’re pretty good. I can pick some, if you like. The chef on Useppa might fix them in a salad-don’t forget, lunch is on me.”
“So typically thoughtful of you, Hannah. Can we stay with the boat while you forage ashore?”
Her tentative manner told me Mrs. Gentry didn’t want to give up on the fish. The snook’s gills were still working, the color good, but otherwise the fish behaved as if it was in a coma.
I didn’t have much hope, so grabbed a bag and slogged to the island. As I returned, my mood brightened. In a slick area near the couple, water rippled with a splashing swirl. A huge gold-tinged tail breached the surface. The tail lashed, then vanished beneath a tunneling wake. Husband and wife hooted and embraced.
“My world record just swam off!” Mrs. Gentry hollered to me. She was dancing around, both fists raised.
This was a phrase she repeated several times while we celebrated over lunch, then drinks by the pool on Useppa Island.
No alcohol for me, not on a charter. Even so, we had fun, and, as it turned out, more than that. We got to talking about the orange trees, and their biotech background sparked a lot of questions and comments from them-so many that, by the time we were done, I’d filled up a napkin with scribbled thoughts.
My thoughts of the previous evening were again displaced until I could no longer ignore the time. It was nearly three. I was still obligated to meet Kermit and his daughter at four despite what had happened last night aboard my boat.
“Like this never happened,” the grove manager had said to me before leaving. His exact words.
It was almost true.
NINE
Aboard the boat that is my home, alone with the married man, what happened wasn’t much, at first, but enough to cause me to say, “I’d like you to leave before we both do something stupid.”
It was too late for that. I’d already made the error of inviting him into the cozy privacy of my cabin, where stars sparkled outside the windows and the lighting inside was dim.
“Us being here is my fault, Kermit. Let’s call it a night and start over tomorrow. Usually, I’m more careful about, uh… getting into situations like this.”
At first, he feigned confusion. Finally, though, he proved he was an honest man by saying, “Okay, okay… I like you too much to lie. I know exactly what you mean. And you’re right, I should leave.”
This was after I’d moved from the captain’s chair to the little booth, which, truth be told, I seldom use because I prefer to eat, or read, outside, and I almost always dine alone. I sat across from him. We discussed citrus, and his life in California, and Lonnie Chatham, then more trivial matters. Mostly, we laughed. I enjoyed our laughter, particular after the day we’d shared. I liked the sun lines in his face when he smiled. The recollections we exchanged about how we’d met-him in the river, me at the rail where he’d hung his clothes-added a scent of bawdiness to the air.