He was impressed by Skink’s energy, after the savage beating he’d taken. The wooden boat cut the water in strong bolts, Skink pulling at the oars with a fervor that bordered on jubilation. Truly he was a different man than the bloodied heap wheezing in the back seat of Garcia’s car. If the pain still bothered him, Skink didn’t show it. He was plainly overjoyed to be home, and on the water.
After twenty minutes Skink guided the rowboat into a cove on the northern shore, but he didn’t break his pace. With his good eye he checked over his shoulder and kept a course for the mouth of a small creek that emptied into the lake between two prehistoric live oaks. To Garcia the creek seemed too narrow even for the little skiff, yet it swallowed them easily. For fifty yards it snaked through mossy bottomland, beneath lightning-splintered cypress and eerie tangled beards of Spanish moss. Garcia was awestruck by the primordial beauty of the swamp but said nothing, afraid to disturb the silence. Skink had long stopped singing.
Eventually the creek opened to a blackwater pond rimmed by lily pads and mined with rotting stumps.
Skink removed his sunglasses and tucked them into the pocket of his weathersuit. He turned from the oars and motioned for the cast-net. Awkwardly Garcia handed it to him; the lead weights were heavy and unwieldly. Standing wide-legged, Skink clenched the string in his teeth and hurled the net in a smooth low arc; it opened perfectly and settled to the water like a gossamer umbrella. When he dragged the net back into the boat, it was spangled with fish, flashing in the mesh like pieces of a shattered mirror. Skink filled the tin bucket with water and emptied the fish into it. Then he refolded the net and sat down, facing Al Garcia.
“Golden shiners,” he announced. Skink plucked one out of the bucket and swallowed it alive.
Garcia stared at him. “What do they taste like?” he asked.
“Like shiners.” Skink took another fish from the bucket and thwacked it lightly against the gunwale, killing it instantly. “Watch here,” he said to Garcia.
Leaning over the side of the skiff, Skink slapped the palm of his hand on the water, causing a loud concussion. He repeated this action several times until suddenly he pulled his hand from the pond and said, “Whooo, baby!” He dropped the dead shiner and beneath it the black water erupted—a massive fish, as bronze and broad as a cannon, engulfed the little fish where it floated.
“Cristo!” gasped Al Garcia.
Skink stared at the now-silken surface and grinned proudly. “Yeah, she’s a big old momma.” He tossed another shiner, with the same volcanic result.
“That’s a bass?” Garcia asked. ^
“Hawg,” Skink said. “The fucking monster-beastie of all time. Guess her weight, Sergeant.”
“I’ve got no idea.” In the fickle light of the lantern Garcia looked hard for the fish but saw nothing; the water was impenetrable, the color of crude oil.
“Name’s Queenie,” Skink said, “and she weighs twenty-nine pounds, easy.”
Skink tossed three more shiners, and the bass devoured them, soaking the men in her frenzy.
“So this is your pet,” Garcia said.
“Hell, no,” Skink said, “she’s my partner.” He handed the bucket to Al Garcia. “You try,” he said, “but watch your pinkies.”
Garcia crippled a shiner and tossed it into the pond. Nothing happened, not a ripple.
“Spank the water,” Skink instructed.
Garcia tried, timidly, making more bubbles than noise.
“Louder, dammit!” Skink said. “That’s it. Quick, now, drop a shiner.”
No sooner had the tiny fish landed—still wriggling, this one—than the monster-beastie slurped it down. The noise was obscene.
“She likes you,” Skink said. “Do it again.”
Garcia tossed another baitfish and watched it disappear. “You learn this shit from Marlin Perkins?” he said.
Skink ignored him. “Give me the bucket,” he said. He fed the big fish the rest of the dying shiners, save one. Skink held it between his thumb and forefinger, tickling the water. He used the fish as a silvery wand, tracing figure-eights by the side of the rowboat. From its unseen lair deep in the pond, the big fish rose slowly until its black dorsal punctured the velvet surface. As the fish hung motionless, Garcia for the first time could see its true size, and appreciate the awesome capacity of its underslung jaw. The bass glided slowly toward Skink’s teasing shiner; frenzy had been replaced by a delicate deliberation. Skink’s fingers released the baitfish, which disappeared instantly into the white maw—yet the fish did not swim away, nor did Skink withdraw his hand. Amazingly, he took the bass by its lower lip, hoisted it from the pond, and laid it carefully across his lap. “There now, momma,” Skink said. Dripping in the boat, the fish flared its gills and snapped at air, but did not struggle. It was, Garcia thought, a magnificent gaping brute—nearly thirty pounds of iridescent muscle.