Jason and Elihu. Shelley Fraser Mickle
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was parted and combed and held down with something stronger than water.
“Sure like to have you along,” Grampy Luke tried again. He took off his fishing hat and held it in his hand. “Plenty of room.”
“Naw. You all go ahead.” Jason’s father swirled the computer mouse on his desk. “I’ve got too much to do. But fishing is just what Jason needs.”
“Maybe next time, then.” Grampy Luke put his hat back on. He adjusted the brim over his brow like an awning.
“Here.” Jason’s father pulled out his wallet and handed Jason two dollars. “Buy your grandfather a cold drink. And one for yourself.” Then he teased, “Don’t fall out of the boat now, I hear they got giant gators out there.”
Yeah right. As Jason walked back to Grampy Luke’s pickup, he thought he knew what his father meant: Wiggle in a boat and you can fall out and drown. Mess around in a boat and you can get hooked by your own bait and die from the pain.
On the highway, Grampy Luke drove slowly because of traffic. They crept along, and when Grampy Luke asked Jason about school that week, he answered, “Nothing special.” Then asked, “Grampy Luke, do you think Elihu knows we’re coming?”
“I’m sure he does. Reach back there and read us a passage.”
Jason leaned into the truck’s short back seat and picked up the book that he and Grampy Luke had found in a used book store. They called it their bass bible.
Grampy Luke had fished in Michigan for many years. He was a master at catching trout. He could throw a fly rod as if conducting an orchestra, and he even made his own flies–fancy lures that looked like bugs with wings. But Grampy Luke had never caught a largemouth bass. He knew next to nothing about Florida fishing.
“Read that.” Grampy Luke’s finger pointed on a page.
“Largemouth bass resemble cats in their predatory habits. What’s predatory, Grampy Luke?”
“Keep reading.”
Jason held down the page. “The fish moves directly toward the quarry. It pauses like a cat stalking a mouse, then strikes. Wow!” Jason laughed. “I never knew a bass could plan an attack.”
Grampy Luke laughed, too. “I’m getting a feel for this largemouth bass, even though I’ve been here only a month. I’m as ignorant as an old stump about how to catch them. But I also know this Florida bass is wild. He reminds me of a cowboy, while the trout I’ve been catching is like a gentleman in a tuxedo. Oh yes, the largemouth bass whispers of wildness.”
“And Elihu is the wildest. I wonder what kind of bait will catch him? A jig like the one used in California? Or a Pintail Shiner, like the one used in Georgia?”
“Oh, I think Elihu’s going to take a special lure. It’ll be fun learning that.”
Jason reached down and opened Grampy Luke’s tackle box. Lures, bought at the Tackle Shop, were filling up the box. Some lures were divers or dippers, darters or skippers. Already the names of them sang in Jason’s mind: Culprit, Spinner Bait, Weedless Sally, Rattle Trap, Rooster Tail, Plastic Worm. Some of the worms wore skirts that hid their hooks. These would sit just below the surface of the water when you worked them in. Others were deep-water plugs, designed to sink. All these fishing lessons he and Grampy Luke learned in the Tackle Shop. Other fishermen were the best teachers. Already, he and Grampy Luke knew that you could put ground crawfish, or other fish juice, on a worm, and the smell would attract bass.
Their bass bible said all fish had keen senses of smell. But a bass wouldn’t take dead bait unless it was fished as if it were alive.
It was the bass’s eyesight that made them special. With muscles that pulled the lens in their eye back, they were like a person squinting. And with no pupil and no lid, a bass’s eyes were sensitive to changes in light. They felt safest in dark water and hated bright sunlight.
Even Elihu, with only one eye, could see plenty well in dark water.
“Says here,” Jason read, “Fish have rods and cones.” He laughed. “That sure sounds funny.”
Grampy Luke chuckled, too. “Yes. Rods and cones–receptors in their eyes. Each is used depending on the light. We even have them. It’s sure fun learning all this. Think of it this way: for fish, the cones come into play when the light rises in the morning. The cones are part of the eye that can see color. Then toward evening, the rods take over. They’re about thirty times more sensitive than the cones, but can’t see color. All fish have that. Changing over from cones to rods comes at sunset. But a bass makes the change quicker than most fish. They start switching over from day to night vision at dusk. So even in dark water, bass can see the little fish to eat. That’s why they can grow so big.”
“And Elihu is the biggest. Wonder if he’d go for a jig and pig?” Jason almost giggled, thinking about the bait Skeeter Nelson loved to talk about. A jig and pig was a way of putting pickled pork in the shape of a frog on a hook and throwing it up near cypress roots. Oh, how there was so much to learn!
When Grampy Luke pulled up to the Tackle Shop, Jason saw a slick new bass boat tied to the dock. It was dark red with a white stripe. On the front was an electric trolling motor, so it could go almost silently into shallow water near weeds where fish liked to feed. Jason hurried down to the dock to see it more closely. Painted on the side was the name The Jig’s Up.
“That’s Dooey Murdock’s boat.”
Jason turned to find the voice.
A boy stood on the bank. “He don’t know a thing about fishing. But he likes looking like he does. He’s going after Elihu tonight.”
The boy was fishing with a cane pole and bobber, throwing his line in weeds near a cypress tree.
The boy’s hair was the color of dried bamboo. He looked to be about thirteen. His jean shorts were torn, and he was barefooted. Grampy Luke was walking toward them with a bait bucket. The boy’s eyes were cold gray, and his skin looked sun-blistered. He grinned in a mean, sour way.
Grampy Luke walked onto the dock. “What you fishing for, son?”
But the boy only glanced at Grampy Luke and then again at Jason. He threw his line out farther and would not answer. He turned his back to them, and his silence was as hard as a plank of wood.
Above them, Jason heard tapping on the bridge. The sound reminded him of fingers drumming on a tabletop, and when he and Grampy Luke looked up, they saw a pony trotting on the bridge pavement.
A small girl, with flopping hair almost as white as rice, was riding the pony that was no bigger than a big dog. The girl herself seemed not much larger than a Raggedy-Ann doll. She wore blue shorts and was so skinny that her knees looked like upside-down tea cups. Her T-shirt, way too short, stopped before her waist. She was barefooted too, and the heels of her dirty feet tapped the pony’s sides with every trot-step.
“Bean!” the boy on the bank yelled up. “I’m down here!”
The pony, a golden color with a thick mane that blew up with every step, turned to come down the bank. The girl rode it without either a saddle or a bridle. Only a rope was tied around its nose and over its ears that the girl held in a loop of reins.
The pony trotted down the slope from the road and stopped beside the bigger boy. The girl held out her hand, palm up.
“Now, don’t you get nothing but peanuts.” The big boy pulled coins out of his pocket and put them in the small girl’s hand. “You hear? One package. That’s all.”
With the boy’s last word, the pony began pawing in the dirt. One, two, three strokes of its hoof on the ground, then it stopped and nudged the boy. The pony then did it again: one, two, three, then stopped. The girl kicked at the boy. Her bare foot tapped his chest. She hummed a sound that was high-pitched and pleading.
“Okay.” The boy pulled another coin from his pocket and gave it to her. “Get him some