‘I thought you didn’t believe in hell.’
‘Are you crazy? I live it most days.’
Conrad smiled, stepping into the swathe of light thrown by the kerosene lamps inside.
Sam squinted at him. ‘You been brawlin’?’
‘I guess.’
‘Get yourself in here. I’ll fix you something to stop that eye closing up.’
‘Forget it, it’s okay.’
‘Easy for you to say, you don’t got to look at you.’
Half an hour later Conrad was sitting in a chair, a compress strapped to his eye, the pad smeared with some pulpy substance concocted by Sam from the strange herbs and weeds he always had to hand.
Conrad glanced around the single-room shack while Sam clattered away in the corner, clearing up the residue of his preparations, always clearing up. Little had changed in all the years Conrad had known the place. The old double-barreled ten-gauge with the rabbit-ear hammers still hung above the mantel on pegs, loaded, ready for action. The surface of the pine table was, as ever, scrubbed white with wood ash lye, clean enough for a surgical operation, the chairs neatly tucked in around it. A curtain embroidered by Sam’s wife just before her death shielded the sleeping area with its iron bed from the main body of the room.
The only notable additions in the past two decades were a good-quality battery radio set and a framed photo of Billy in military uniform, both on the side table next to the old captain’s chair where Sam spent a good deal of his time. Taken by some backstreet photographer in Manila, the grainy image had been posted home by Billy, along with a letter. They had arrived at Lazy Point, the letter partially censored, two weeks after the Western Union telegram announcing Billy’s death in combat.
Sam shuffled over with two glasses of clear liquid and thrust one into Conrad’s hand. ‘Potato grog. One of my best yet.’
It burned a streak down Conrad’s gullet. Sam lowered himself into his chair and set about packing his pipe.
‘How’s the hip?’ asked Conrad.
‘Better this time of year, I can stir around more, do a little net fishing. Sand dabs is running strong right now.’ Sam looked up. ‘If you knows where to look,’ he added mischievously.
Conrad stared at his old friend and felt an overwhelming sense of sadness: alone in the world, his wife and son gone, his body failing him, clinging to what little dignity his circumstances allowed him. He knew Sam was having difficulty making the payments on his lease to the Town Trustees, that there was talk of moving him out of the house.
As he lit the pipe, Sam glanced up, his drawn eyes reading Conrad’s look. ‘It ain’t so bad,’ he said.
‘I can help.’
‘I don’t want no charity from any man.’
‘I’m not just any man.’
Sam hesitated. ‘No.’
‘I’ll see you good with the Trustees till spring.’
‘Can’t do it.’
Conrad’s lone eye flicked over to the photo of Billy on the side table, drawing Sam’s gaze with it. ‘That last summer he fished on shares with my father,’ said Conrad. ‘You remember? Couldn’t put an oar in the water without striking a bluefish.’
Sam smiled. ‘Yeah, Billy done real good that year.’
‘Should have done a whole lot better.’
Sam looked at him long and hard, drawing on his pipe. He exhaled slowly. ‘It’s a fool bends a dead man’s name to his own ends, good or bad—a ten-fold fool if that man’s his father.’
‘Name me one Cap who didn’t split a catch his own way given half a chance, not when there’s more than enough to go round.’ Conrad paused briefly. ‘I fought him on it, would’ve done the right thing by Billy at the time if I could have.’
‘Would’ve if you could’ve,’ said Sam for no apparent reason.
‘Now I can.’
Sam didn’t say anything for a few moments. ‘Spring it is…when the swamp maples flower.’
Conrad nodded.
‘Now why don’t you tell me why you really come here.’
He should have known Sam would see it in him; the man missed nothing. He sneaked another sip of the home brew, stalling for time.
‘You’re hurtin’, that much is sure, and I don’t mean them bruises.’
Conrad knew that once he’d spoken there’d be no turning back, his course would be set.
‘They killed a friend of mine,’ he said.
Sam removed the pipe from between his teeth. ‘Who?’
‘I don’t know who.’
