The Gulf of Good Fishing

The moon appeared to be sliding out from behind drifting silver clouds, its light illuminating a wavering strip on the surface of the Gulf, a glowing path leading to a glowing treasure, thought Jeremy, as he stood at the helm of the old fishing boat. The low hum of the engines could be heard purring softly below, pushing the sixty-year-old craft smoothly across the calm waters. The boat was outfitted with a wheelhouse for protection against inclement weather, and a wide open stern deck for pulling in crab pots or setting nets or, occasionally, lining up lost tourists who wandered into the obscure fishing outpost along the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, hoping to catch red snapper or grouper. Below deck, a small, spartan salon, kitchenette, head and v-berth. A tiny captain’s quarters. I could live on this boat, thought Jeremy. After tonight, though, I could live anywhere.

He had to hand it to the old fishhead - that guy was tough. Jeremy wasn’t certain if it was because the old man just came from that hard upraising so common in coastal fishing folk of the Deep South, or if it was because the man was so permeated with alcohol he couldn’t even feel the injuries he was sustaining. Though any sod who had personally wrenched a dozen or more fish hooks from his flesh over the history of his life, or set his own broken leg, or yanked his own infected tooth from his head was no easy breaker. No, he imagined he was somewhere in between - just an old man so accustomed to perpetual pain and hardship that the only anesthetic capable of numbing it was excessive amounts of home-brewed moonshine from his own backwoods. God, he could have lit him with a wet match if need be.

But he needn’t. No, Jeremy hadn’t reckoned with the old man’s fortitude. But he hadn’t reckoned with his crazy soft heart, either. If he had just pointed his damn pistol at that sooner, he could have saved himself a lot of time and trouble. Jade, he’d called her, through blood and spittle and broken teeth. A smallish black lab bitch who bounded around the side of the weathered cypress cabin nestled in the nether reaches of Deadman’s Bay. It sat on a spit of land just high enough and laid just so that a flood or hurricane tide could never quite reach it, across the bay on the untamed side. Although, truth be told, the whole region was rather untamed. Dealing with the old man had brought rivulets of sweat to Jeremy’s brow, his hair plastered along the edges of his face from his exertions, despite the cool weather.

After a couple of hours, Jeremy had squatted in front of the old man - Ferris? Ferron? That was it, Ferron - his wiry old body leaning back against the siding of his cabin, dirt mixed with so much blood on the ground it became mud. Ferron’s gray beard had turned crimson, a broken tooth like a pearl nestled in it. “You don’t need that gold, old man. Look at you…” Jeremy gestured around them both. “Living out here in the likes of nowhere. Just tell me where it is, mister. We’ll both be done here.”

Ferron had looked up at him, his gray irises so pale they appeared almost white, his brushy brows and mustache streaked with sweat, blood and mud. He was listing, his breathing raspy. Probably a punctured lung, among other things. He had stared Jeremy direct in the eye, then mustered enough strength to draw his lips together and spit on the ground at him.

“Gawddang, old man, jus’ tell me. I’ll be gone outta here. You can have the rest’o yo days…” Though by the looks of it, that might not amount to much. It was then the dog had bounced around the cabin, startling Jeremy, and he reactively swung his pistol toward her and pulled the trigger, but not before the man reached out with surprising speed and knocked his aim sideways just as the gun went off, grunting, “No.” Firmly, yet strangely with a plea.

As the shot rang out, the dog stopped abruptly, ears cocked, golden eyes eager. She was accustomed to firearms. They meant food. Reward. She practically sprang 180 degrees searching toward the swampy wood, then sprang back again, her eyes asking for direction. Jeremy looked at the man, then the dog. He stood and stepped back, aiming his gun at her.

The man weakly shook his head. “No. Leave the dog be. I’ll tell ya. Just give me a minute... an’ that jar over there.” He nodded toward a mason jar of clear liquid sitting on an old weathered wood box set on its side as a table. Hm, was the only thing Jeremy thought as he strode over and retrieved the jar. Hm.

The man’s fishing boat was moored miles away at a dilapidated wharf on the bay. Jeremy had left the old man with his moonshine and his cabin. He took the dog and the old man’s jon boat. When Jeremy had twisted the cap off the jar and handed it to him, the dog had laid down next to the old man, licking the blood off his hand, then settled with her muzzle resting on her paws. She lay very still, though her glowing eyes would flicker between Ferron as he spoke and Jeremy when he asked a question.

After five minutes of this, the old man had grunted irritably, “It’s in the GPS. Keys are in the jon boat. Take it and be gone with ya.”

Now Jade was on the bow, perched like a hood ornament, coat sparkling like obsidian in the moonlight. She’d ridden there since he unmoored the boat. Jeremy glanced down and checked the nav. Not far now. Three miles, maybe. They were heading SSW, the air cool and salty, not much breeze except for their forward motion. The moon glowed like a lantern when it would shimmy out from behind the scattered clouds, then slowly dim like a shade drawing over it when it slipped behind one. Jeremy was anxious with anticipation, a sense of excitement beneath his intent exterior. At 38, he’d been through a couple divorces, a few worse relationships. Bad ideas or people landed him in a slammer or two. He never felt he could get ahead, between child support he was supposed to pay and living expenses he could barely afford. His latest job had been with this traveling crew renovating old motels, and he had heard about the old man one evening at a lopsided drinking hole in the middle of nowhere their first week in the area. An old man and a Spanish treasure. The gold-laden, moonshining fisherman.

Over the next month Jeremy’d borrow the boss’s truck and hit the tavern after work, have a few beers and listen. He’d been invited to a bonfire one weekend at a fish camp, and learned there the old man lived out on the water at a place they called High Point. One of the young bucks spoke of a time a few of them went out and ransacked the place looking for his supposed treasure. Nothing there but mason jars and hard biscuits and fish guts. Jeremy was beginning to figure it was just a local legend, some old man with a trove of galleon bullion, and so had resigned himself it would be on to the next crappy motel remodel in the next crappy town and maybe he’d earn enough by the end of that to get his car out of impound when he settled up child support. Just maybe, with luck, he could get his license reinstated. Then he’d hit the oil fields. He’d heard North Dakota was popping.

But as fortune sometimes goes, on their last weekend before leaving this little piece of paradox, he went out with the crew to a local turkey shoot. Maybe win a ham. While everyone was drinking and buying shells and blowing the crap out of targets, he was sent on a beer run before the only store in twenty miles closed. When he got there, an old man came out of the shop, silver hair and beard, a large bag of dog food tucked under one arm, bent over from the weight of it. Jeremy went in, grabbed two cases of beer and set them on the counter. The older woman had smiled at him, rang up the sale, and when the door to the register popped open, a glint of gold flashed at him. She was pulling change as he stared at the gold ingot in the drawer. Obviously old, about the size of his little finger. Well, I’ll be, he thought. He took his change, grabbed the beer and never went back to the turkey shoot.

The moon had slipped back behind the clouds, and the night became like worn velvet, dark and shimmering. In the far distance he could just make out the lights of the buoy. Well, at least that’s where he’d said it would be. The lights danced above the water with each undulation of the gulf, and the closer he got, the harder his heart beat. The old man could’ve been lying. In that case, he had the boat. But he didn’t think so. It was a sense. It was the dog. As if she knew he was thinking of her, Jade turned and glanced up at him from the bow, then returned her attention to the buoy. He throttled back the engines as they drew near, then cut them off. Dashed down the ladder and grabbed a gaff, drawing the buoy to the side of the boat. The buoy bell was dinging, annoyed, as Jeremy grabbed a rope and lashed it to a cleat. Jade had come around from the bow and was sitting, regal and almost sphynx-like, watching him. He leaned over the hull and probed the water with the gaff, searching the inky blue for a line to snag. The old man said the line was on the clear side of the buoy, an inch thick nylon rope. You have to feel around for it. But three quarters of the thing was clear, so he probed some more. After a few more tries, and two snags of the buoy’s anchor line, he finally got it.

He started pulling in the line, quickly at first. Almost thirty feet of loose rope before he felt the weight of his catch. Fairly heavy, even with the saltwater’s buoyancy. He tied off the line, grabbed some gloves, then resumed reeling in the mystery. The black nylon line pooled at his feet as, hand over hand, he slowly hauled up the object. His thoughts danced - of reeling in a marlin off the North Drop, of traveling to Spain to see the bull fights, of lying on a Thailand beach. He thought of a new truck, and a house with a bedroom for each of his kids when they’d visit. He even thought about getting back with their mother, then thought better of that. He was breaking a sweat, the second time that night, and his arms burned. He awkwardly tied off the line to a cleat and peered into the water. A blue luminescent sheen reflected the surface, obscuring below. He was thinking of a spotlight when the moon slipped out again, and the light diffused through the water enough that he could make out the phosphorus lighting up around a vague shape. Not much farther. He unhitched the line and felt the weight pull against him. He leaned back from it, crossing the deck, using his body weight to help haul it through the last two fathoms. His muscles were screaming, arms, legs, back - as it slowly rose closer to the surface. Damn, it was heavy. Certainly this boat had to have a winch. He decided it’d be best to tie off and go look for one. One hand over the other, he agonizingly walked up the tight line and was almost to the hull cleat when he stepped on the rope piled on the deck. In an instant, the rope rolled, his leg flew up and one hand let go of the line. His other hand reflexively tightened grip, yanking his arm. The weight pulled him hard, slamming him into the transom, and his grip broke. The object sank fast, and the rope slithered rapidly after it, entangling his leg and arm. His eyes met with Jade’s golden gaze as she sat placidly, curiously watching as his desire abruptly snatched him overboard. The line played out until it snapped taut when it reached the cleat he had first tied fast to. The boat dipped briefly, the buoy bell dinged, and the moon slipped again from behind its curtain of clouds, and the water shone like mercury.

******

The gulf was slick like glass as the sun worked its way to the horizon, casting a hue across the watery vastness the color of ambrosia. “Sir, isn’t that Ferron Young’s boat?” Ensign Rogers passed the binoculars over. It was a beautifully calm morning, and the small Coast Guard patrol boat moved across the surface as though riding on air.

The captain peered through the binoculars. “Mmm. Sure looks like it. Hey, Sparky,” he called to the pilot. “Head us to the buoy.”

“Aye, captain.”

“Sir, if you don’t mind? Haven’t we asked Ferron not to moor on the buoy?”

The captain handed the binoculars to Rogers, “He’s an old man, Ensign. Says the fishing’s good there.”

“Sir. You suppose he’s there this time? I mean, it’s been like three times since I’ve been stationed here it was just his dog and boat. We had to tow it back.“

“No, idea,” the Captain glanced at the young, earnest guardian of the coast. “Perhaps we should check, Ensign?”

“Aye, Captain, sir. Perhaps we should.”