“Not Willis’s,” said Telford Hudpeth. “And not mine either particularly. No, he means
“And what’s your walk?” I asked him.
“Oh, I’m one of those independent fishermen the other pier owners grumble about.”
I’d already picked up on their “hoi toide” accent, yet it wasn’t just their measured views that intrigued me. Maybe I was stumbling over stereotypes again, but Telford and Willis Hudpeth in their well-cut jackets, oxford cotton shirts, and tailored slacks seemed a far cry from a Harkers Islander like Mahlon Davis.
“So fishing really can compete with a shore job?”
He nodded. “Beats flipping hamburgers by a fair bit.”
His brother laughed. “Buys a brand new car every few years, takes his boys to Europe every summer—yeah, it’s a fair bit.”
“But how can you make money when so many others complain that sportsmen are running them off the water?”
“I treat it like a business and I fish the whole cycle,” he answered matter-of-factly. “I shrimp in the spring, long-haul in summer, sink-net in the fall, scallop in the winter.”
Willis Hudpeth nodded approvingly. “Most islanders, they’ll wait on a shrimp set and wait and wait till they get the gold mine and maybe they’ll bring in two or three hundred pounds. Set out there two or three nights, sometimes longer, and make four or five hundred dollars in just one good night.”
“So?”
“So then they won’t go back out again for maybe a week or ten days. Not till their money’s all gone again. Telford here’ll channel-net every night. Maybe only get forty or fifty pounds some nights, but he’s averaging a hundred and fifty, two hundred dollars every night, five nights a week during shrimping season. His hours are just as regular as mine. Just as regular as yours maybe.”
Telford looked a little embarrassed by his brother’s bragging. “Willis works just as hard. Nobody gave him that pier. It’s how we were raised. And we’re not the only ones living on Harkers Island that have something to show at the end of the year. It’s just that Down Easters have always been sort of independent and—”
“Independent?” I snorted. “Bunch of anarchists is what I’ve heard.”
He smiled. “Well, it’s true we don’t like anybody telling us what to do—not a boss man, not the government, and sometimes not even our own good sense. That’s mainly why a lot of Islanders won’t work as regularly as they could. They say they’d as soon punch a time clock over to Cherry Point if they can’t fish when they want to and lay out when they don’t want to.”
Some people nearby vacated a set of white canvas lawn chairs and we claimed them. The ice was starting to melt in my Bloody Mary, but I was too interested in this different view of the water to go looking for a fresh drink. Besides, their words had triggered Mahlon’s.
“Where do you sell your catch?”
“Might be any one of several places,” Telford Hudpeth said. “Whoever’s giving top dollar.”
“Bynum’s?”
“That’s right,” Willis remembered. “You were the first out to Andy, weren’t you? Wonder if they’ll ever catch who did it?”
“Why would a fisherman call him the man?”
“Depends on who he is,” said Telford. “Everybody that runs a fish house gets called that at one time or another. See, a fish house can’t survive if it doesn’t have people out there fishing for it, so some of ‘em might weight the nets a little in their favor—stake a man to new nets, give him gas on credit, maybe even help him buy a boat and let him fish on shares.”
Willis Hudpeth agreed. “‘I’ll just take ten percent till you work out the boat,’ he’ll say.”
“Only you’ve got to sell your ninety percent to him at his price,” said Telford Hudpeth.
“And his price is lower than what other fish houses might be paying?”
“Some people owe the man all their lives,” Telford answered soberly. “I don’t want to live like that myself.”
Micah Smith paused with a tray of hot crab puffs and we all three took a couple. “May I get you another one of those, Judge?” he asked, pointing to my glass.
I shook my head. “But I sure could use a big glass of ice water.”
“Coming right up. Gentlemen?”
Both indicated that they would nurse the drinks they had.
I bit into the luscious morsel of creamy crabmeat and delicate crust.
“One thing my brother didn’t mention,” said Telford as he downed his crab puff in one mouthful, “is if the man’s a flat-out cheat and his scales are off. In his favor, of course. Because half the time you don’t know what you’ve made till he pulls up on Saturday morning with your money. He tells you what your catch weighed out to. What you get depends on the price the wholesaler pays him and some weeks there’s such a glut of fish you don’t even make your gas money back if you’re working for the man.”
“Was Andy Bynum dishonest?”
Willis looked uncertain, but Telford shook his head. “Never did wrong by me that I know of, but I didn’t have to sell my fish to him, see? A lot of people did.” He paused and added cryptically, “And a lot of people always think it’s the man’s fault when things don’t shake out the way they think it ought to.”
