Sweet Song by Terry Persun Page B

turned all their attention to fishing. They pulled thread from their own blankets, found long sticks, bent the pins. Leon searched around the edges of the river, where the water stopped, or slowed way down, where it pooled. There were trout and American shad, big ones, lying wait in shallow places, close enough to reach out and touch.
    Leon had caught fish with his bare hands before. In late spring after the swell receded, Pine Creek suckers, pike, trout, all slapped their way either upstream to spawn or downstream through the ripples. Leon used to stand in the rocky ripples with his feet planted between a few big rocks, the cool water rushing around his legs and the fish flapping and slapping the water. He’d grab the slippery fellows as they flipped and flopped between his legs. At other times several men would net the fish using burlap or old cotton linen the Carpenters had thrown out. And that’s when he thought of his burlap sack.
    Leon emptied his knife, book, and revolver, and placed them under some brush, then went back to the river determined to feed the six of them that night. In the distance, fish gulped up the mosquitoes, clump, clump, clump. The sound continued as background music. There were so many fish in the river, they had to be able to catch them.
    Near a shallow still pool, Leon stood letting his eyes adjust to the glare beyond the reflection of the river and into its depths. Shad rested near shore.
    Leon used two twigs, crossed in the middle, to hold the bag open, then lowered everything into the water. He kneeled on the rocks, which pushed into the bones of his knees. He let his arm enter the water, his fist clasped to one twig and the burlap. He leaned out beyond comfort. Mosquitoes plagued his face, entered his ears, but he rested much of his weight on his other arm and could not brushthem away. He blew air up along the front of his face by letting his lower lip push out. That action kept mosquitoes out of his eyes, at least. His head was hot under the hat, and sweat ran down his cheeks.
    He waited. Still. The shad, after first swimming off when the burlap penetrated the surface of the river, were back now, and curious. One of them poked around at the front of the sack, one time touching its nose to a crossed twig. But Leon waited. Fish are fast.
    The mosquitoes tortured his face with activity, except where he blew with each exhale over the front of his face. He squinted to keep his eyes safe. A breeze rolling blessedly down over the embankment renewed his faith every time it came, providing the needed break in insect activity.
    The rocks hurt the bones in his hand as well as his knees, and he shook. He would have to move soon, or fall, face first into the shallows.
    The fish were curious. Two others had joined in the exploration of the mouth of the burlap.
    Leon barely heard Bob come up next to him. He did not see him, for at the moment his eyes were closed, one wrinkled edge crushing a mosquito that had stepped too close to the corner of Leon’s right eye.
    As Leon opened his eyes back to a narrow squint, he saw Bob’s torn and scarred boots next to him. Suddenly a long stick came down with the smooth and directed motion of a spear. Two shad were forced, nose first, into the sack, recognizing, too late, that it was already moving toward them. Leon pulled his arm from the water, which caused him to pitch forward. Bob grabbed the sack at the mouth to retrieve it. Leon released the sack to recover from his fall.
    “Slip-slam, bam, we got ‘em.”
    Once he sat back onto the ground, Leon rubbed his hand, then his knees. He wiped sweat from his face and could feel the poison-filled bumps from mosquito bites under his fingertips. He splashed river water over his face.
    “We a team,” Bob told him.
    The sack pumped like a heart at the bottom end as the two shad fought for breath.
    “We done it!” Bob held the sack up so the others could see. Jesse, Cracker-Jack, Big Josh, and Buddy all stared, their