Russell took a piece of ice out of the cooler. He rubbed it across the swelling eye and then tossed it into the pond. A mouth opened and closed around it and sank below.
“Were they at the house?” Mitchell asked.
“Better than that. In the parking lot when the bus rolled in.”
“I thought that eye looked like today’s business. Anything else?”
“Nah.”
“What else you reckon they gonna do?” Mitchell asked.
“I’m not sure.”
Mitchell sat his can on the ground and he picked up the rod and reel and he took a cricket from the bucket. “Come on out here and stay,” he said as he stuck the hook through the cricket. “Long road. It’s easier to see somebody coming.”
“I’m not bringing this out here to you. It’ll be okay.”
Mitchell tossed the rod lightly this time, dropping the hook in the shallow water of the pond. The men watched the line until it ran and then Mitchell brought in a five-pounder.
“That’s another good one,” Russell said.
“Won’t take long like this,” Mitchell said. Russell opened the cooler and took out the whiskey bottle and two more Cokes. Mitchell took the hook from its mouth and laid it next to the other fish on top of the ice. The fish waved its body in its last attempts to be and then it fell still and Russell put the top back on the cooler.
The men returned to their chairs and they sat for a while. The sun falling. They kept the line in the water, holding on to a couple more fish, drinking from the bottle in small sips, talking in small bits about nothing. They got up and walked to the house where Mitchell sat on the back porch with a bucket and gutted the fish while Russell milled around in the shed and looked for the things he’d need to paint a house. Figured that was as good a task as any. It was all there. The ladders. Drop cloths. Brushes and scrapers. In the same spots he remembered them being in. He came out of the shed and over to the porch. Mitchell shook his head with his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth. Focused on the fish and his hands bloodied to the wrists.
“I’m gonna run on back to town,” Russell said. “Feel weird being still.”
“That sounds right.”
“Seems I saw a café downtown. It any good?”
“Mostly. If you hit it right.”
“Well. I’m gonna try to hit it right.”
“And tomorrow night we’ll fill you full of fish. Get some pounds back on you.”
“I’ll come out tomorrow afternoon then.”
Mitchell looked up at Russell and nodded then said hold on a second. He wiped his hands on a towel and then he walked in the back door and closed it behind him. Russell stood and waited and looked around the place. Just like he had done in a thousand dreams of home. He would go inside but he was saving that for later, not ready to see it all the same save for his mother in her apron with flour on her hands. The door opened again and his father came out with a shotgun tucked under his arm. He held a box of shells and he wiped the barrel of the gun with the end of his shirt and he walked over to his son and he held the shotgun out to him. Russell recognized it as his own 20-gauge, the one he used to walk the woods with looking for something to kill.
“What’s that for?” Russell said and he hesitated to take the gun from his father.
“You know what it’s for,” Mitchell said. “Take it.”
Russell took the gun by the barrel and then he took the box of shells.
“I’m breaking about two dozen laws by having it.”
“I know it. I can’t force it on you.”
“You’re trying.”
“No. I ain’t. But there’s choices you gotta make.”
“It’s not gonna be this bad,” Russell said and he tucked the barrel under his arm.
“You don’t know how it’s gonna be. I hope it ain’t bad but you don’t know.”
Russell nodded. Mitchell nodded. Then Russell said again that he’d be back tomorrow and he walked to the truck and drove off as Consuela watched from the kitchen window, standing at the sink where his mother used to be.
10