He still had the gun pointed at me. “I do,” he said.
I said, “Honestly, Bob, I don’t know what to do. I could tell them what I know, but I don’t think you’d ever spend a day in jail. You could deny telling me this story. You could stick with your original version. Maybe there really is a bear out there with a clipped ear. How would they prove there isn’t? There are no witnesses. And it’s only my word about what Timmy Wickens said, and he’s dead. I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t even file charges. They’d realize, from the get-go, that they’d never get a conviction.”
“So then what’s the point of telling them?” he asked, resting the arm that was holding the gun on his knee, but still keeping me in his sights.
“Because that’s what you did,” I said.
“So you’re going to tell them.”
I sighed. It should have been an easy question. I knew Bob Spooner had killed a man. But it had started out as an accident. I knew Bob Spooner was basically a good person. A good man on the verge of being what’s known as an “old man.” I am not what you’d call a moral absolutist. There are a lot of shades in my world.
And yet.
“I don’t know, Bob,” I said, being honest. “If you’re worried about what will happen if I do, then you’ll have to shoot me. Now.”
I could see he was thinking about it. Thinking about it pretty hard.
Bob’s line started to go out.
“What the…” he said, looking down at his reel, the spool of white filament spinning away.
Twenty feet off our port side, a fish broke the surface, briefly. A muskie, a big one at that. The fish disappeared, then came up again, its head poking out of the water, trying to shake the lure from its mouth. Its cold black eye caught a brief glimpse of us before it went back under.
“Oh no,” Bob said, staring at the ripples where the fish had gone back under.
“What?” I said.
“It’s Audrey,” he said. “I saw the scar.” The scar under the eye. The scar that marked the fish that had been toying with Bob for years.
He didn’t have a chance of reeling her in, however. Not with one hand holding a gun on me.
“You’re going to need both hands,” I said. “And me holding the net, if you can get her close enough to the boat.”
More and more line was being fed out. Audrey was getting farther and farther away.
It was a hell of a choice for Bob. Take a chance at finally getting the fish he’d been trying to catch for so many summers, and risk spending the rest of his life in jail. Or take care of me, make sure I never told my story to anyone, and lose any chance of landing Audrey.
“Take this,” Bob said, handing me the gun.
I took it from him carefully, then laid it on the bottom of the boat, ahead of the middle seat, where I was perched.
The moment he’d given up the gun, Bob went into action, reeling in, bending the pole back toward him, horsing it, then easing it forward and reeling in the slack.
I grabbed the net, got ready to scoop Audrey.
“The hook’s really into her,” I said. “Way more than when she hit my line.”
“Looks like it,” Bob said. “But she’s spit it out before when I was sure I had her.” He glanced at me, just for a second, and said, “I couldn’t have done it.”
“I know,” I said.
He reeled in Audrey a bit more. “Are you going to tell?” he asked, watching where the line vanished into the black.
I kept watching for the fish. “I don’t know.”
Bob nodded. “Maybe, if you tell, and they do convict me, they’d let me hang Audrey on the wall of my cell.”
I smiled at that. The metal handle of the net was cold in my hands. I could see a shape in the water, something moving under the surface, darting left and then right. I leaned over the edge of the boat, let the net slip into the water. My hands dipped below the surface.
“Are you ready?” Bob said.
“I think so. Just lead her this way.”
When the fish was almost into the net, Bob said, “I’m not a bad man, Zack.”
“I know, Bob,” I said. “I’ve met bad men, and you’re not one of them.”
40
IT WAS A LONG DRIVE HOME.
I got in the car after saying my farewells to Dad.
“Thanks,” he said, leaning up against my Virtue’s fender. The ankle was bugging him a bit, and he was using his crutches. “For a lot of things.”
“It’s okay.”
“Bob’s pretty excited, coming in with Audrey. I’m gonna take some pictures.”
“E-mail me one,” I said.
“He seemed kind of troubled,” Dad said.
I nodded. “He’s got a lot on his mind,” I said. “He’s been through a lot this week, like all of us.” I thought for a moment. “Tell him not to worry. Tell him I said not to worry.”
Dad nodded. “Listen, promise me you won’t think less of your mother.”
“I won’t.”
“People make mistakes, but they often have help. I helped her make hers. Remember that, with you and Sarah. You be good to her.”