Phantom

by Thomas Tessier

  "What're you lookin' at?" he asked good-naturedly.

  Ned smiled. "Nothing."

  The old man peered closely at the boy's rig. "What're you tryin' to do, catch a shark?"

  "What's the matter with it?"

  "Bobber's too big, for one thing," Peeler said. "Use the littlest one you got, so it don't drag like an anchor when the fish wants to turn and run with your bait."

  "Oh. Okay."

  "And what're you usin' for bait anyhow?"

  "A night crawler."

  "A whole one?"

  "Yes."

  Peeler shook his head in amazement. "Damn thing looks like an Italian meatball," he said. "Fish'll have a feast on that without even gettin' the hook in their mouth. What size hook you got there?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "Well ... See what happens."

  Peeler was still smiling to himself as he slid a tiny pink angle worm on his hook. They cast out, and within a couple of minutes they each pulled in a red-breasted sunfish less than five inches in length.

  "Junk," Peeler muttered, tossing his fish into the brush. He walked over to Ned. "Let's see now .... Yeah, look at that. Ain't nothin' left of your worm. This guy and all his kin just nibbled it away, and you were lucky to hook one. If you're gonna use night crawlers, just use a piece about an inch long—all you need to do is cover the hook, no more." Peeler deftly unhooked Ned's fish and flung it toward the trees. "I'd put a smaller hook on too, if I was you."

  "How come you don't put the fish back in the water, if they're too small?" Ned asked.

  ''Too many of 'em in there as it is," Peeler answered. "They need thinnin' out. Gives the others a better chance of growin' to a decent size."

  Ned changed hooks and tried Peeler's suggestion of using a small section of night crawler. It worked fine. An hour later they had caught about a half-dozen sunnies each, a couple of which were large enough to keep. Peeler set his rod down and popped open another can of beer. He took a gulp and some of the cold brew slopped over his lips, trickling down his chin and neck. It felt good.

  "Hey, Peeler."

  "Yeah?"

  "You don't ever watch TV, do you?"

  "Nope."

  "Why not?"

  "I used to." Peeler broke a piece of tall grass and chewed on the stem.

  "You did? What did you watch?"

  "I used to go down to Rudy's Bar and watch the baseball games. It was quite a while ago. Then I give up, and I ain't never seen a bit of television since."

  "How come?"

  "Well ... because some pissant son of a biscuit went and moved the Washington Senators to Minnesota and they weren't on the TV no more."

  Ned almost laughed. "That's why you gave up TV?"

  "Sure. Only thing I ever did was watch Senators' games."

  "But ... "

  "I heard a story once," Peeler said. "Don't know if it's true or not, but I like to think it is. They say there was this young fella, maybe twenty or so, and he was in love with a beautiful young girl. And he courted her and courted her, till finally they got engaged to be married. He was the happiest fella in the world then, but a little while later she changed her mind and called it off. Now, you know what that poor boy went and did?"

  "What?"

  "He stopped goin' to work, just give up his job. And he stopped talkin' too, and he went into the poorhouse. They say he spent the rest of his life there, forty-four years, I believe, without sayin' a single word to anybody."

  "Not even one word?" Ned didn't believe it. Nobody could do that for four years, let alone forty-four.

  "Nope," Peeler said. "Not even one word."

  "That's—silly."

  "Maybe." Peeler spat out the last of the grass stem and smiled. "To tell you the truth, I sometimes do listen in on a game, on the radio in my car at night. It's better'n seein' it on TV too, but don't ask me why."

  "I don't like baseball much," Ned admitted.

  "Nobody's perfect."

  Peeler finished his beer and stood up to resume fishing. Suddenly be froze, looking like a cartoon character who has just been struck with a bright idea.

  "What's the matter?" Ned asked.

  "Ssssh. "

  Peeler bent low and then snatched at something with his hand. "Got him," he announced, straightening up. "Yessir, he's a real beauty."

  Ned put down his rod and went over to take a look. Peeler delicately held a black-winged grasshopper by its long legs.

  "Are you going to use that for bait?" the boy asked.

  "Sure am. Watch how I do it now, and you'll learn something." Peeler brought the barb of the hook to a spot just under the hopper's head. "Right down his throat ... all the way ... nice and easy ... like so."

  The hopper's jaws worked futilely on the shaft of the hook. Its legs kicked and its wings flapped, but it was well hooked, with the barb curling out low to its belly. The hopper's weight gave Peeler better distance on his cast. He and Ned watched the insect make a fuss on the surface of the water for a few seconds, and then there was a large splash. Peeler gave a short, quick tug to set the hook, and the tip of his rod bent pleasingly. The fish ran briefly, then gave up. Peeler had no trouble horsing it out of the water.

  "Hey, what is it?" Ned was excited because he had never seen this kind of fish before. It was about seven inches long and shaped like a sunfish. But its sides sparkled with iridescent blue and purple coloring, and the dark spot on its gill flap was less pronounced.

  "Rock bass,” Peeler said. "Good size, too. They don't come much more'n eight inches or so, except at the liar's club."

  "That's a bass?"

  "Rock bass, that's his name," Peeler said. "But freshwater fish names are kinda screwy. Try to remember this: a white perch is not a true perch, it's a bass, a member of the bass family; and a rock bass is not a true bass, it's in the sunfish family. One of the bigger ones, and good eatin' too."

  Ned put one hand on his hip. "Why do they call a bass a perch, and a sunfish a bass, if they aren't?"

  "That's their names, is all I know." Peeler grinned. "Like I told you, names ain't a whole lot of use when you come right down to it. All you got to know is which one is worth cookin' and which one ain't." Peeler put the rock bass on the stringer.

  "Pretty fish."

  "Sure is," the old man agreed. "Tell you what. Where there's one of these guys there's usually a whole tribe of 'em. Put a couple of split shot on your line, halfway between the bobber and the hook. That'll get your cast out farther, where I caught this one."

  Peeler went back to using worms, but Ned spent a quarter of an hour trying to catch one of those black grasshoppers. Whenever he got close to one and started to reach out, it flew away. Finally he quit, and cut up another night crawler.

  "Got to get 'em early,” Peeler said. "When they're still half asleep and heavy with dew. I was lucky with the one I grabbed."

  By mid-afternoon they had thirteen worthy rock bass, gill to gill on the stringer, and they had thrown away more than two dozen small sunnies.

  "I guess we got enough," Peeler said, dismantling his gear and packing it away. "The raccoons'll have a party tonight with all we left in the bushes."

  They had set out on this fishing trip with brisk, eager strides, but now Peeler and Ned ambled lazily back toward the baithouse. Peeler let Ned carry the fish, and they slapped rhythmically against the boy's leg as he walked. There was a good feeling between them that came from going out to do something enjoyable and then having enjoyed doing it. No hitches, no bother about it, just a good day that was going the way it was supposed to. The mood was so right that Ned didn't think twice about bringing up the subject.

  "You know what you were telling me yesterday about the old Farley family?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well ... The Sherwoods, who owned the boats .. ."

  "Yeah, what about 'em?"

  "Didn't they own the spa too?"

  "Oh, later, yeah. They built the spa, but it wasn't till many years later that they got aroun
d to that. When the Farley boy was lost, the Sherwoods was just in the fishin' business, I believe. So, their children, or grandchildren, I don't know who, was the ones who built the spa."

  Ned was nodding to himself as he listened. "That's what I thought. I just wanted to make sure." It felt so much easier to talk about it today, perhaps because they were walking side by side, faces forward.

  "Why?" Peeler asked casually.

  "I think the ghost of that Farley woman is still hanging around our house." The way it came out sounding so inconsequential it nearly made Ned laugh at himself, but then he added earnestly: "I do, I really do."

  Peeler surprised them both. "I been thinkin' about that too," he said. Well, why not? He hadn't slept easy the night before, and maybe it was time to be a little more frank with the boy.

  "Really?" Ned kept walking, staring straight ahead, but his pulse quickened.

  "Yeah, the thing is, there's always been a kind of local story about her, you see. A lot of nonsense—her supposed to be waitin' eternally for her lost boy to come back, or be found, or what have you."

  "Do you think she is?"

  "Nah;' Peeler scoffed. "Folks just make up stuff like that to give 'em somethin' to talk about, that's all."

  "But you said you were thinking about it too."

  "Yeah .... Yeah, I was. And maybe I even began to take it serious, just a smidgen. Shows you how stupid an old fool can get. Don't help if he has another stupid old fool for a partner too."

  "You're not stupid, Peeler;' Ned argued. "I think you're the smartest person I ever met."

  Peeler kept walking and didn't speak. Of course the boy was wrong, and he'd grow up to learn better. But his sincerity, his utter lack of guile, touched the old man deeply.

  "Sometimes, when I think of that Farley woman,” Ned went on, "I get scared."

  "Only natural. She was kinda worryin' me too. Ain't that the darndest thing? A woman dead and buried eighty or a hundred years. But that's the beauty part of fishin', y'see."

  "What?" Ned couldn't follow the apparent leap in Peeler's thinking.

  "Fishin' has a way of clearin' the head," Peeler continued.

  "Even one as thick as mine. What I'm sayin' is, she's dead, and it don't make pig-sense to worry about the dead."

  "Then why do I feel scared sometimes—and you too?"

  Peeler stopped and turned to face Ned. His eyes were warm and assuring, but there was also a look of seriousness in them that Ned had never seen before. He held a finger under the boy's chin.

  "You don't have to be scared, Nedly."

  That was all. They started walking again.

  "You mean you don't really believe in ghosts," Ned said after a few moments. "Or anything like that?"

  Peeler smiled.

  ''I'll tell you a funny thing about ghosts. When you're a youngster, you can't help but believe in 'em. Then you get a little older, and it seems like you can't help but not believe in 'em. And when you get to the point where you're an old fart like me, why, son of a gun if you don't start wonderin' about 'em all over again, and maybe you even want to believe."

  "Like a second childhood?"

  Peeler stopped again. His body began to shake and then he broke up and roared with laughter.

  "You're right, Nedly, so help me, you're right."

  They walked on.

  "Well, then, you do believe."

  "No. To be honest, I don't. There's a part of me that'd like to, I guess, a part of most folks. Then we'd know somethin' about the other side, or at least that there is an other side. But that ain't good enough, so the answer is: no."

  Ned didn't say anything for a while.

  "What about you?" Peeler asked.

  "No .... I guess not,” Ned replied, although his voice still sounded uncertain.

  "Just remember what I told you. You don't have to be ascared of anything. Y'understand? There ain't no Farley woman no more."

  When they got back, they found Cloudy dozing in the cool of the baithouse. They cleaned the rock bass and buried the scraps in the garden: Cloudy built a fire out in the yard and then sizzled up the small strips of fish meat with butter in a large frying pan. Ned thought it was delicious. Not a morsel was left at the end of the meal.

  "I think he liked it."

  "Looked that way to me."

  They sat around and relaxed for an hour or so, talking about fish and fishing. Peeler and Cloudy competed with each other to see which one could come up with the most outlandish anecdote. Cloudy won. He told about a young man he had known many years ago, in the Deep South. This person used to tie a dead eel to his leg, under his pants, before he went to the ice-cream parlor every Saturday night. But on one occasion the eel wasn't quite dead and it actually started twitching and jumping in the fellow's pants as he stood around socializing in the crowded ice-cream parlor. It caused quite a stir. The man dashed out of the place and was never seen again. Ned couldn't understand why anyone would want to tie an eel to his leg in the first place, but Peeler and Cloudy laughed longest and hardest at that story.

  Peeler pulled himself up out of the armchair. He turned to a small wooden cabinet, took a few things from it and put them in his canvas sack.

  "Come on, let's go."

  "Where?"

  "Stony Point."

  ''I'm too tired," Ned protested.

  "Me too," Cloudy said.

  Peeler stared at his partner. "How can you be tired? You ain't done nothin' all day." Then, to Ned: "And as for you, I guess if I can make it on my old bones, then a young man like you will have no trouble."

  "Aw, Peeler;' Ned pleaded. But he started to get to his feet. After such a good day, it seemed ungrateful not to go along with the old man.

  "It's perfect out," Peeler said. "Come on now."

  "Perfect here too," Cloudy groused. "Don't know how perfect it is out at Stony Point." But he fell into stride with the other two and wisecracked all the way.

  When they reached the high ground at Stony Point they sat down wearily. The air was quite clear and the western horizon unusually sharp. Peeler produced a can of beer for himself, and a soda for Ned.

  "Lemme have one of them beers too;' Cloudy said. When he saw the astonished looks this caused, he explained: "I must be out of my mind already just to be here, so a little beer can't make it any worse."

  Peeler handed him a can without comment. And they sat and waited.

  "Ooh, that tastes strange," Cloudy said, studying the beer can as if it were some curious new invention. "Would you mind tellin' me just what it is I'm supposed to be lookin' for?"

  "Yeah, come on, Peeler;' Ned joined in. "We've been coming here enough so you should tell us."

  Peeler wouldn't budge. "Just keep lookin'," he said quietly.

  "At what?"

  "The sunset."

  "I seen enough of them," Cloudy said, but he watched dutifully. "Bet he thinks he might see a flyin' saucer someday, that's what."

  The sun was easy to look at, an immense bead of blood lowering itself behind the black rim of the earth. Its movement was so slow as to be stately, but its diminishing surface grew a deeper, more explosive red. The sun's exit was powerful and humbling, the only way it could be. When there was nothing left but a curl of brilliance, Peeler jumped forward in a low crouch.

  "Now, now," he whispered. "Watch it now."

  The. fierce red vanished from sight, replaced instantly by a diffuse orange-yellow glow. Then it happened. An awesome shaft of rich, vibrant green shot up from the horizon, high into the sky, feathered there, lingered for a long second or two, then scattered like smoke. Gone.

  They didn't move.

  They could scarcely believe what they had just seen. Or even that they had, really, seen it. The green flash. They knew they had been privileged to witness one of nature's rare and most beautiful phenomena, and yet it was almost too amazing to accept. Peeler was the first to come out of the spell.

  "That's it,” he said, as if telling himself. Then he leapt up, thrust
a fist in the air and screamed joyously as loud as he could.

  Then the three of them were dancing around in a circle, all jabbering excitedly at the same time. Ned saw tears shining in Peeler's eyes, but he looked like the happiest man in the world, and he exclaimed several times: "I never thought I'd see it, I heard of it but never thought I'd see it." He rummaged around in the canvas sack and came up with a pint bottle of sour mash.

  "I had a feelin’ it was tonight," he said. "That's why I brung this along."

  Peeler unscrewed the cap and took a long drink, his head right back, his face to the sky. Then he passed the bottle to Cloudy, who winced when the fiery whiskey hit his throat but swallowed a mouthful. Peeler was about to put the cap back on, but Ned stopped him and took the bottle. The two old men didn't speak, but their eyes were saying, Just a taste. Ned put the bottle to his lips and tilted his head back, but he only let a little liquor come into his mouth. He swallowed it quickly and handed the bottle back to Peeler. Ned's cheeks flushed, his mouth burned, his stomach felt as if molten lead had fallen into it, and the sprinkler system in his eyes was turned on. But he was grinning proudly. Then Peeler and Cloudy cheered and slapped him on the back. They set off for home.

  "You better get in the middle, Mr. Tadpole," Cloudy joshed.

  "In case we got to hold you up."

  "Yessir," Peeler said. ''I'm gonna sleep like a baby tonight."

  They all did.

  For the last time.

  * * *

  25. The Vigil Begins

  Linda was making a pitcher of lemonade when she heard the sound. It was a small thump, not particularly disturbing but odd. Not heavy enough to be Ned, who was in the living room, reading. That was it. He had been looking through the large Wilderness U.S.A. book Michael had ordered from National Geographic a while ago. The sound she heard must have been Ned tossing the volume onto the coffee table.