Swimming with the Angels

by Colin Kersey

  She considered for a second before returning to the kitchen. I heard her emptying the entire ice maker tray into the bag.

  “Whatcha doing, darlin’?” Virgil called from the living room.

  “Just cleaning out the refrigerator,” she replied.

  She handed me the bag a moment later. “Hold on. I’m coming, too.”

  I wanted to tell her no but could not risk a disturbance that would attract Stu or Virgil’s curiosity.

  She reappeared seconds later with Patsy on her harness. “It’s Moses isn’t it?”

  “I think so. He’s still hooked.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  I hesitated. “I’m going to try and capture him.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then I’m going to let him loose in the Skagit River where he can be free from everyone trying to kill him.”

  “I’m going with you,” she said. “So is Patsy.”

  “Listen, Valerie, I don’t want to get you in trouble, nor do I have time for arguments or explanations.”

  “You don’t have to worry. We can keep a secret, can’t we Patsy?” At the mention of her name, the dog licked her hand.

  “You promise not to tell or do anything crazy?”

  She held up two fingers. “I promise.”

  My intuition warned me that I was taking a dangerous risk, but perhaps a Moses rescue mission would help to lift Valerie’s spirits. It might also give me an opportunity to tell her I was leaving as I had promised during the so-called “blood-brother ceremony.”

  After filling a large plastic trashcan halfway with water from a hose, I dumped in the ice cubes and then backed the Toyota up to the eastern edge of the pond. I used an eyedropper to add several drops of the sodium amytal to the water as Nathan had coached me. Forgetting my weariness for the moment, I worked quickly and as silently as possible so as not to alert the rest of the family.

  Perhaps Moses knew we were there to help him. More likely, he had used up the last of his strength fighting the tree root that had become snarled in the heavy fishing line. I grabbed the line and pulled him to shore where he lay still except for the machine-like pumping of his gills and the opening and closing of his hooked jaw.

  “Jesus, what a monster,” I said. Patsy whined in agreement.

  “Help me see,” Valerie said.

  “Here.” I handed her a pair of latex gloves. “Put these on. And hurry. We don’t have much time.”

  Once she had the gloves on, I placed one hand on Moses’ tail and the other near his nose.

  “Wow,” she said. “He’s really something isn’t he?”

  “The biggest fish I’ve ever seen.”

  I used a pair of needle-nosed pliers to snip the barb of the large hook, then backed the hook out of the corner of Moses’ jaw. A second hook hung beneath the first. Someone had used heavy monofilament line and dual hooks of the type used to catch large salmon and halibut. Their efforts had very nearly succeeded.

  It took both hands to lift the heavy trout into the garbage can in the pickup truck. Even curled up, Moses took up the entire space. I held him upright for several seconds, but each time I let go, the exhausted fish would immediately roll onto his side. I began to worry that we were too late to save him, and the great fish might die before we could get him to the river.

  “What now?” Valerie asked.

  “Now we drive him to the river.” I tried to sound confident. “If everything goes right, it will be all over in less than an hour.” I fastened the top of the garbage can to keep water and fish inside and then roped the handles to the fittings on the truck bed to keep the can from overturning.

  “Patsy and I are going, too.”

  “What I’m about to do isn’t exactly legal. We could both end up in jail,” I warned.

  “If Stu or Daddy finds out you stole Moses, the law will be the least of your problems,” Valerie said. She was already climbing into the passenger seat.

  “C’mon, girl,” she coaxed, and Patsy leapt in to join her.

  I drove as fast as I could without overturning the trash can or getting a ticket. The last thing I needed now was to explain to a cop what a lunker trout was doing in the back of my truck.

  We had been driving for ten minutes, and I had slowed to turn onto the highway when Valerie and I both heard a hollow thump from the rear of the truck. After stopping, I hurried back to the garbage can to remove the lid. Moses was lying on his side and not moving. “I’m afraid he’s dying,” I said when I returned to the cab.

  “Hang in there, Moses,” Valerie coached. I noticed she had clenched both her fists.

  A few minutes later, I spotted a turnout near the river and drove down it as far as the truck could go. The walk from the truck to the river carrying a few gallons of water and an enormous fish in an industrial-strength Hefty Bag slung over my shoulder was grueling. Valerie followed with Patsy. Twice, I stumbled over rocks and nearly fell. By the time we reached the river’s edge, my arms and back ached and my shirt was soaked with sweat. I untied the knot in the bag and peered in at the huge fish lying on his side.

  “Is he okay?” Valerie asked.

  “Doesn’t look very good,” I admitted.

  “It’s like you said, Gray. At least he’ll have a chance instead of no chance at all.”

  Her words could as well have been for me, I realized.

  “My advice,” I said to the fish, “is to find a deep pool with some shade and a few big rocks to hide behind. And, if you’re lucky, find yourself a Mrs. Moses, too.”

  “So they can make a bunch of little Moses,” Valerie added.

  Dark and sinuous, the river coiled among the rocks. I laid the mouth of the bag in the river water, then slowly lifted the other end of the bag. Moses emerged like something dead. He hung suspended in the shallow water. Nothing moved. Not the hooked jaw or the tiny pectoral fins. Not even his gills.

  “C’mon, you son-of-a-bitch,” I said as I stroked the fish’s side with latex-gloved hands. “This is it. Freedom!” The current began carrying the tail of the fish away from me. One glassy eye stared accusingly as he drifted backward.

  “No!” I struck the river with my palm. “Don’t you dare die on me, you lazy fucking bastard!”

  Valerie began to cry.

  I scrambled downstream after the lifeless, drifting fish. “No, no, no,” I yelled.

  Patsy waded into the river barking loudly, as if encouraging Moses. Then, I thought I saw Moses’ lower jaw move. Had I imagined it? I had to wipe the sweat from my eyes to be sure. What I saw next took little more than an instant but would remain engraved in my mind forever as with a powerful flick of his tail, Moses righted himself and moved off down the river into a pool beneath a fallen tree.

  “Whooie!” I screamed.

  Valerie stumbled forward over the river rocks and grabbed my arm. “Tell me. What happened?”

  “He’s alive!” I swung her off her feet.

  If someone had been watching, they might have seen a man, a woman, and a dog dancing insanely among the smooth boulders and bleached driftwood on the riverbank. Doubtless they would not have heard their whoops of joy and barking over the deafening rush of the cataract or seen their tears in the moonlight.

  ***

  The drive back to the trout farm started out quiet, but celebratory. Or so I thought. I was giddy after setting the big fish free. Tired as I was, an electric current coursed through my muscles and veins, and I found myself smiling like an idiot.

  “Damn, that was good,” I said.

  Then I looked over at Patsy sitting next to the door with her head out the window and noticed Valerie holding her hands to her face, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed silently.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You,” she whispered. “You ruined it. That should have been you and me making love, not Vonda!”

  Oops.

  Valerie had obviously overheard Vonda’s caterwauling during our lovemaking. I could think of n
othing now to say that would help matters. I slowed, worried that she might do something foolish, like jump from the truck. When her crying continued unabated, I found a place to pull off the road and turned off the engine. The occasional passing car or truck illuminated us as we sat, shoulders slumped, in the dark cab of the truck. Patsy huddled on the floor.

  Valerie’s crying gradually subsided to loud sniffles. I restarted the engine and eased back onto the road.

  “Why did—? Oh my God, Gray, how could you fuck my sister? She’s married!”

  “I don’t know!” I sounded exasperated because I was out of excuses.

  After listening to her renewed weeping, I added, “Listen to me, Valerie. If you are looking for signs of intelligence from me, you are out of luck. I left my brains back in Southern California—though my father would say I never had any to begin with.”

  “Momma said you would come.”

  “What?” I stared at her.

  “She said I had to be patient, but a man would come to take me away and be my husband.” She swiveled to face me. “She meant you, Gray! You’re the man who came.”

  I sighed. “Your momma knew a lot of things, but she didn’t know about me.”

  “She even described you.”

  In the faint glow from the pickup’s dashboard, I could see Valerie’s eyes moving behind her eyelids as if seeing something projected there.

  “I know your secret, Gray,” she said. “You’re running from something. But it doesn’t matter. We can hide together.”

  I had gone from giddy to guilty to unmasked in a few short minutes, and my head was about to fall off my shoulders. For someone who could not see, Valerie was amazingly clairvoyant. The only thing I could do was to tell her the truth which she clearly deserved.

  “I lied, Valerie. My wife did not die in an accident. She was murdered. Now there are people trying to find me and kill me for what my wife did.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She helped someone where she worked steal a great deal of money from some very bad people. People who would just as soon murder me and you and your family as read the paper or watch TV. Killing means nothing to them.”

  She seemed to think this over. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet. “You don’t know if they’ll ever find you. It might never happen, and then you will have ruined not only your life, but mine, too.”

  “You’re forgetting the phone calls,” I said. “Plus, someone came to the farm two days ago.”

  “Who?”

  “An FBI agent.”

  “Why? What does that mean?”

  “He said if he could find me, it meant the drug cartel could find me, too.”

  “The money your wife stole, do you know where it is?”

  “Even if I did, I wouldn’t know how to retrieve it, or how to hide it.”

  “Why would they try to find you if you don’t know where the money is?”

  “They don’t care, Valerie.” I sighed in frustration. “They’re just making a point.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Killing someone is ‘just making a point?’”

  “That’s what they do.” I sighed. “Entire families. Police departments. A busload of school kids. Even entire villages. They’re worse than animals.”

  We hit a bump in the road that jolted us and caused the truck’s springs to scream their indignation.

  Valerie shivered. “Did you tell Vonda?”

  “Nobody knows but you.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Valerie was no longer crying, and I began to hope the day’s trials were finally nearing an end. Exhaustion had crept into my shoulders and back and made its home there. “The only thing I can do is leave. Tomorrow.”

  “Take me with you.” She faced me. “You’re everything I ever wanted just like Momma said.” Those amazing blind eyes that saw everything were now open wide. “I love you, Gray. Even though I hate what you did.”

  “You can’t love somebody you don’t even know! I am a washout. A fucking failure just like Stu said.”

  She punched my shoulder. “Don’t say that. Did you know your wife when you fell in love with her? Did you know she was going to steal money?”

  She had me there. I wondered what dangerous narrative was playing behind her eyelids as she stared at me.

  “We’ll go on the run together,” she said, her voice urgent. “If they show up, we’ll fight. Kill ‘em if we have to.”

  “Jesus, Valerie.” I was thrilled by her bravery, but appalled, too. “There’s too many. Besides, they are trained killers. We wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  “You have no idea what I’m capable of,” she said.

  “What’s that mean?” I stared at her. The intersection for returning to the farm was just ahead. “We’re almost home. Promise me you will not say anything to the others until I am gone. And that you’ll stop crying over some misplaced fantasy about me.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said after a very long pause. “I won’t say anything.”

  I glanced over at her. A moment ago, she had suggested killing people, as if that were a perfectly reasonable alternative. So why would I believe anything she said now? Because I was tired, because I was running out of arguments, and because all I wanted to do was lay my head on my pillow and sleep.

  I turned the truck from the highway onto the country road. Later, I would regret not asking Valerie again about what happened to her canaries.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Before going to bed, I parked the truck in its customary location behind the barn and stored the ropes and trashcan, so there would be no telltale evidence of my piscine rescue mission. Either I had forgotten to leave the porch light on, or it had burned out because the cabin was as black as the bottom of a coal shaft on the dark side of the moon.

  I smelled Stu—the anger rolling off him like garlic—a half second before the bat landed, or it might have killed me.

  At first, I could only wrap my arms around my head as the blows landed against my face, ribs, and shoulders. Then I flicked out a hand and snatched the bat and then used both hands and all my weight to force Stu backwards until I had his neck pinned against the cedar wall. Only after he had stopped breathing and his blue eyes were the size of balloons did I let him go. He slumped to the floor.

  “Get the fuck out.” I pointed the Louisville Slugger, now smeared with my blood, at his face.

  Stu said nothing for several minutes while the two of us regarded each other. One of my eyes was nearly swollen shut and my ribs were on fire, but he did not look ready to test me again. At least not while I held the bat.

  “Where have you been the last two hours?” he said at last. “What evil have you been up to?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “I thought about killing you,” he said. “The only reason I didn’t is because I was afraid your bones might somehow turn up when they dig this place up for water, sewer, and the other infrastructure needed for a housing development. In a funny way, you owe your life to Bob Halonen.”

  With a grunt I sat down on the cot, my back propped against the wall. My breath came in painful wheezes. I held one hand to my eye. I was afraid it might fall out.

  “I told you to get out,” I said.

  “I’m leaving now,” Stu said. “But, in case you have not figured it out, you’re done here. I don’t want to see your face at breakfast. In fact, I do not want to see your face again. Ever.” He stood in the open doorway. “You’ve got about four or five hours left before daylight. I recommend making good use of them. Next time, I’ll be bringing more firepower than the bat.”

  After he left, I limped to the bathroom. My face was a mess. One eye was swollen shut, the left side of my face now twice the size of the right. My lip was busted, and my teeth felt loose. I turned on the shower in the tiny bathroom and sat on the toilet as the water drenched me in its spray.

  ***

  The pain prevented sleep. As the sun began to rise, I
was struggling to put on pants when there was a hard knock on the door. Virgil entered. He stared at me, then looked at the blood speckled floor.

  “Stu do this?”

  I had pulled a clean, folded shirt from the bookcase over the bed, but could not get it on over my bruised arm and shoulder.

  Virgil studied me. “You going to make it?”

  I tried moving my jaw before nodding.

  “I should probably take you to the nearest hospital or clinic to get cleaned up, but there’s something else happened,” Virgil said. “I need your help.”

  I stared at him with one eye in disbelief. He had to be kidding.

  “Valerie is gone. Disappeared sometime during the night.”

  My first thought was maybe Stu had kidnapped her. But why would he unless Valerie confronted him, and Stu had lost his mind?

  “She’s nowhere to be found,” Virgil added. “I don’t know where she would have gone. Didn’t take Patsy with her. That’s a first.”

  “I know this could be better timing,” he continued, “but I need your help finding her, or at least helping me figure out where she might have gone.” He sat on the chair. It creaked with his weight and I worried it might break. “You’re the only help I have left. I have not seen Vonda in a day and a half. Hasn’t come out of the bedroom. Stu left for town early, but I don’t think he’d be any help if he’d stayed.”

  He wiped his face with his handkerchief.

  “She’s my baby girl,” he said, his voice breaking.

  Virgil put an arm around my shoulder and helped me stand. When he saw me struggling, he lifted each arm and slipped it into a sleeve, then buttoned my shirt.

  “I don’t know what happened between you and Stu,” Virgil said. “I’m guessing Vonda had something to do with it. Her momma used to say when Vonda got an idea in her head, she was like a train that jumped the track. No telling where she might end up.”

  He paused, looked around the small cabin. “Valerie was always the one who seemed like she had it all together. Like she could take care of herself and all of us, too.”

  Virgil was silent for a minute as if thinking. “Maybe you were right, about her needing professional help. She is more complicated than anyone I have ever known. Even more than her mother, Louise.” He paused again. “I can’t make sense of this, Gray, and it scares me.”