Skink stripped down to his underwear and began fitting his considerable bulk into a wetsuit.
“I was afraid of this,” Decker said. Pitch black, fifty degrees, and this madman was going in. Decker couldn’t wait to see the look on the game warden’s face.
“Can you drive the boat?” Skink asked.
“I think I can handle it.”
“Take me along the pilings, the same way our buddies went.”
Decker said, “I wouldn’t dive in this soup.”
“Who’s asking you to? Come on, let’s move.”
They motored down the lake to the poachers’ bass hole. Skink strapped on a yellow scuba tank, adjusted his headlamp, and slipped over the side. He fitted a nylon rope around his waist and tied it to the transom of the boat. One sharp tug was a signal to stop, two meant reverse, and three tugs meant trouble. “In that case do your best to haul me in,” Skink advised. “If you can’t manage, then get the hell out of here, I’m gator chow.”
Decker steered the boat anxiously, monitoring Skink’s progress by the bubbles surfacing in the foamy wake. He wondered what the fish and turtles must think, confronted in their inky element by such a hoary gurgling beast. The engine’s throttle was set as low as it would go, so the johnboat moved at a crawl; Skink was a heavy load to tow.
When he found what he was searching for, Skink tugged so hard that the rope nearly pulled the stern under. Immediately Decker shifted to neutral so the propeller wouldn’t be spinning perilously when Skink came up.
He burst to the surface like a happy porpoise. He held a wire cage, three feet by three. Inside the trap were four healthy largemouth bass, which flapped helplessly against the mesh as Skink hoisted their manmade cell into the bow. He turned off the regulator, spit out the mouthpiece, and tore off his mask.
“Jackpot!” he said breathlessly. “Lookit here.”
Hanging from the fish cage was an eight-foot length of heavy monofilament line, transparent from more than a few feet away. Skink had cut one end with his dive knife. ‘They tied it to a willow branch—you’d never see it unless you knew where to look,” he said. “Get the wirecutters, Miami.”
Decker clipped the hinges off the fish cage. Skink reached in and took out the bass one by one, gently releasing each fish back into the lake. It was an oddly tender moment; Skink’s grin was as warm as the glow from the lantern. After the bass were freed, he returned the empty cage to the water and tied it to the same dry bough.
Decker had to admit that it was an ingenious cheat. Salt the lake with pre-caught fish and scoop them out on tournament day. Dennis Gault was right: these boys would do anything to win. The more he thought about it, the more disgusted Decker got. The poachers had corrupted this beautiful place, polluted its smoky mystery. He couldn’t wait to see their faces when they discovered what had happened, couldn’t wait to take their pictures.
Probing the waters around the highway pilings, Decker and Skink located three more submerged cages, each stocked with the freshly caught bass. They counted eleven fish in all, four in the final trap; lifting the largest by its lower lip, Skink estimated its weight at nine and a half pounds. “This bruiser would have bought dirty Dickie first place,” he gloated. “Adifa, old girl.” And he let the fish go.
That left two smaller bass flopping in the mesh, their underslung jaws snapping in mute protest while starved burgundy gills flared in agitation.
“Sorry, fellas,” Skink said. “You’re the bait.” With a pair of blunt-nosed pliers he carefully clipped the first two spines of the dorsal fin on each bass.
“What’re you doing?” R. J. Decker asked.
“Marking them,” Skink replied, “that’s all.”
With the fish still trapped, he securely rewired the door of the cage and eased it below the surface. He made sure it was tied securely to the concrete beam where Dickie Lockhart would be looking for it. By that time, of course, the bass champion would be in a state of desperate panic, wondering not only who was sabotaging his secret fish cages but also how in the world he would ever win the tournament now.