Summer of Pearls by Mike Blakely

launched old Esau’s skiff and started paddling toward our trotline over near Mossy Brake. We were talking about Captain Trevor Price Brigginshaw, who had come to town the day before.
    â€œHe’s big as ol’ Colored Bob over at the sawmill,” Adam claimed.
    â€œHe’s not that big,” Cecil argued. “Colored Bob has to duck to go under doors.”
    â€œwell, he talks funnier than Colored Bob.” Adam had his own strange way of winning arguments.
    As they paddled and contradicted each other, I opened mussels to bait the trotline with, and of course I checked them all for pearls.
    â€œBen,” Cecil said, “what are you gonna do if you really find a shell berry in there? Are you gonna trade it in for ten thousand dollars, or a hump with Pearl Cobb?”

    â€œOne pearl ain’t worth ten thousand dollars,” I said, avoiding the more interesting half of the question.
    â€œI thought you said today’s paper was gonna talk about Pearl Cobb selling a pearl for ten thousand dollars.”
    â€œIt doesn’t say it was Carol Anne, and it doesn’t say it was just one pearl. Don’t you ever listen?”
    â€œI guess she probably sold that Captain Brigginshaw a couple of hundred pearls to get that much money. Lord knows, she’s got a thousand of ’em.”
    â€œShut up, Cecil,” I said.
    â€œYou like her, don’t you?” Adam asked.
    Before I could think of an answer, Cecil said, “Like her? He’s in love with her, boy, can’t you tell? If Ben found a ten-thousand-dollar shell berry right now, he’d give it to Pearl Cobb for one hump, when he could get a couple of thousand humps for it over at the nigger whorehouse.”
    â€œHow would you know, Cecil?”
    We aggravated one another like that until we saw our trotline floats bobbing. The second-biggest thrill in trotlining is seeing those floats bob. When you see that, you know you’ve caught something. We had good-sized cork floats on our trotline, and we hadn’t yet caught anything big enough to pull one all the way under. But that morning, as we approached, we saw the cork stay under for five seconds, and we knew we had hooked a monster.
    Cecil was businesslike, as usual. While Adam and I were almost falling overboard with excitement, he said, “Take it easy! We’ll run it from the north end, like we always do. Whatever it is that’s on there, it won’t go anywhere. Probably just a big snappin’ turtle or an alligator gar, anyway.”
    We had been using mussels to bait the line and had been catching mostly willow cats, because they don’t mind eating dead bait. Billy had been very pleased with our catches. They were mainly in the three-and four-pound class. A fresh willow cat of that size—skinned, filleted, and fried—is the best-eating fish in the world. The biggest we. had caught was maybe ten pounds. We all knew that if we wanted to catch a huge opelousas catfish, we needed to put something live on the hook.

    We had also caught a few carp, which we gave to some colored folks we knew, but I didn’t think a carp would get big enough to hold the cork float down that long.
    Figuring Cecil was probably right, I got a little nervous. An alligator gar big enough to pull that cork under like that would have a snout a foot long, lined with razor teeth. A snapping turtle of the same size could take your fingers off with one snap, quicker than you could blink.
    But whatever it was, it wouldn’t get my fingers. It was Adam’s job to take the critters off the hooks. He had a knack for handling thrashing catfish without getting barbed, and I figured he could handle a gar or a snapper, too. Maybe he would just cut the line and let the monster go, the hook still in its mouth.
    I figured it was a gar. We hadn’t yet taken any turtles off the line - on the morning runs. Turtles usually won’t bother a trotline at night.