Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 125, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 763 & 764, March/April 2005
- Автор: Dean David, Dempsey Timothy F.
- Год: 2005
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: ISSN 1054-8122
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 125, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 763 & 764, March/April 2005». Краткое содержание книги:
He rolled over again. Mom and Dad. They were asleep, no doubt about it. And he was awake. And if he was very, very quiet, he could probably sneak out and get at least ninety minutes of fishing in... And if he timed it right, well, okay, he’d be breaking the rules a little bit, but nobody would know. He could go out to one of the other coves for at least an hour, try fishing someplace else, and maybe he’d stop getting skunked.
Who would know?
Nobody, that’s who.
He got slowly out of bed, and dressed as quietly as possible.
A few minutes later, he was down at the dock, yawning, but feeling a little bit excited about what he was doing. He put his fishing pole and tackle box in the canoe, got in, and shrugged on a life jacket. He undid the two lines that held the canoe to the dock, and then gently pushed away from the dock with his paddle. He smiled. He had been bugging Mom and Dad for over a year now to get him a small boat with an outboard motor, and this morning, he was glad they hadn’t come through for him. It would have been hard to sneak out with an outboard churning along.
He dug in the paddle, looked out at the lake water, which was flat and still. Glass water, Dad always called it. He paddled slowly, making hardly any noise, as he slowly made his way out onto the main lake. It was cool, and he had on shorts, T-shirt, and a thick gray sweatshirt. He checked his wrist watch. Just before five A.M. When he got to the cove he was heading to — Walker’s Cove — he’d stay there just an hour. Sixty minutes, and then he’d make his way back.
Pat looked around at the shoreline of the lake, at the homes and docks and moored boats. He shivered. It looked as if he was the only one out at this hour, and he was glad. The Fourth of July weekend was just two weeks away, and by then, the lake got busier, the waters got crowded with other boats. Now it seemed that the lake belonged to him, and him only.
He rounded the point of land that jutted out into the lake, saw his own house and dock disappear from view, and thought about Mom and Dad, safe and warm in their bed, and he shivered again, feeling that tingly feeling that came when he knew he was doing something he shouldn’t. Just sixty minutes, he thought. Just one hour.
He checked his watch. A half-hour, and already he had caught two trout! They had struck his line in the very first minutes of fishing, and he almost laughed out loud, it felt so good to have the fish take the lure so hard and fast. He had cast out his line, had slowly drawn it back in on the reel, and then came the sudden tug. He fell into his tactic of waiting a few seconds, and then pulling the line taut, setting the hook into the fish. Then came the tension, the tip of the rod bending over, as he reeled in the fish. He had grown used to the feel of the line, being able to sense how heavy the fish was before he brought it into his canoe. And this time was no different; he had figured each trout would be about three pounds. He could actually see each of the trout emerge from the darkness of the lake water, wiggling furiously, trying to get away. And each time, he went through the motions of wrapping it up: scooping the fish up with a small hand-held net, removing the hook — these two times were relatively easy, just pushing the hook out — and then releasing the trout back into the lake water. The second time he had done it this morning, he wondered if the trout could talk to each other, and if maybe they told stories about being brought up into the place of no water, where it was so hard to breathe and strange creatures captured and released you.
Pat checked his watch. Just a few minutes more, and that was all. He didn’t want to risk getting caught out here in this cove, or the channel. If he cast out his line one more time, he’d have plenty of time to paddle back to his home cove without any problem. This cove was studded with boulders and there were only two cottages on the shoreline, and it didn’t look like either of them was open yet.
He flicked the fishing rod, saw the tiny plop in the water as the lure went in. He slowly reeled in the line, the faint sound of the click-click-click almost a comfort as the line came in. Out on the main lake came the faint, mournful call of a loon. He wanted to see if he could make out the familiar shape riding out there on the smooth water, and as he turned to look, there was — a tug. That’s all. A tug. He pulled the line in and it held, and the front of his rod bent over. He started reeling in and man, did the fishing pole bend over! It felt like he had the biggest trout ever at the end of his line, and he kept on reeling the line in, and then he noticed suddenly that it was wrong.
Everything was wrong.
He stopped, his hands suddenly shaking. Pulling in a fish like this, especially one that seemed really big, the line would tense and relax, tense and relax, as the fish fought to get free. But he didn’t get that feeling here, not at all. He took a breath, suddenly wished that Dad was coming around the point of land in the powerboat, looking for him. For he knew right away that he didn’t have a fish on the end of his line, and he knew that he hadn’t gotten caught up on a snag or piece of branch.
He took a deep breath. He knew what he had caught, what was there at the other end of the line.
What now?
What if he started screaming, or dragged in what was at the end of the line? What then, if people found out? He’d be grounded for the rest of his life.
He kept ahold of the pole with one hand and fumbled around in his tackle box with the other. There. His knife. Using his teeth, he unsnapped the top of the leather scabbard and managed to get the knife out by shaking it to the bottom of the canoe, where it made a heck of a rattle. His hand shaking again, he picked up the knife and nearly broke a thumbnail getting it open. He took the knife and brought it up the strained, taut fishing line, and—
Waited. His legs were now trembling and a scared little voice inside of him was yelling, Cut the line! Cut the line! What are you waiting for?
He leaned over the side a bit to look into the dark, cold waters of the cove. Nothing. The line just extended into the darkness. He could cut the line now and go home, but he would never know. Never know exactly what it was he had caught. Oh, he had a good idea, but he remembered something his Dad had said about being scared. Yeah, that’s it. It wasn’t the things we knew that scared us, Dad had said, but the things we didn’t know. The unknown was always scarier than the known. He took another deep breath, wondering if that would make his chest stop hurting.
Dad always knew. Always. He balanced the open knife on his knees as he continued drawing the line in, reeling it in slowly now, not with the happy and triumphant feeling he got from nailing a perch or a bass or a trout. He wanted to look away and he couldn’t, and he did all right, he really did all right, until the shape came into focus, too quickly into focus, and before he could take the open knife to the fishing line, a man’s old and puffy face was looking up at him through the lake water, the hook from his line caught on a T-shirt. The sight of it scared him so that he almost forgot to cut the line, but cut it he did. He then pulled his pole back, dropped the knife onto the bottom of the canoe, and waited.
Would the body float up? Would it sink back down?
There was the softest, gentlest thud as something bumped into the side of the canoe, near his legs, and the nausea came through so fast, he thought he would throw up.
The loon hooted again.
He couldn’t look at the water. He lowered his pole, picked up the paddle, and slowly started paddling away. The cold water was flat and still, but it no longer looked inviting. It looked slick, slimy, polluted.
He paddled home as fast as he could, stopping a couple of times to wipe the tears away, his slick hands now slippery on the canoe paddle, refusing to look back at where he had been.