The Boat His Daddy Left Him

“Your dad was the most patient fisherman I ever saw,” he said. “Drove me crazy. I’d be on my fiftieth cast and he’d still be on his third, just inching it along. He said fish don’t care how bad you want them. He said they care how long you’ll wait.”

Owen grinned without looking up from his line. “He said that to me too,” he said. “Every single time.”

“I bet he did,” Clyde said, and for the first time all morning, he smiled.

Owen made maybe twenty casts. The sun got up over the hill and lit the bluff orange.

Elmer sat in the back and did not say anything, and I sat in my seat and prayed the plainest prayer I knew, which was please.

Then Owen’s line jumped. He felt it before I saw it, I think, because his whole body went still.

Then he reeled down and set the hook hard, the way Jimmy taught him, and the rod bent so far over the tip went in the water.

“That’s a good one,” Elmer said, very quietly, standing up. “Keep your tip up, son. Let her run if she wants to run. Don’t horse her.”

She wanted to run. She took line off the reel in a long, angry pull and headed for deep water, and Owen held on with both hands and his tongue between his teeth.

Clyde was down on his knees on the front deck with the net, leaning out over the water.

“Easy,” Clyde kept saying, over and over. “Easy, buddy. You’ve got her. Easy now. You’ve got all the time in the world.”

The fish came up once and jumped clean out of the water, shaking her head, and I saw how big she was and could not breathe.

Then she went back down and pulled some more, and Owen kept the tip up and kept reeling, slow, slower, the way his daddy did.

It took about two minutes. It felt like an hour.

Then she came up beside the boat, tired, rolling a little on her side, and Clyde slid the net under her in one smooth scoop and hauled her over the side.

Elmer got out his scale and hooked her gently by the lip and lifted. The numbers jumped around and then settled.

“Six pounds, three ounces,” he said. “That’s a largemouth, son. That is a real Table Rock largemouth. That’s bigger than anything in your daddy’s book.”

Owen made a noise I had never heard him make, half laugh and half something else.

Then he turned around and threw his arms around his uncle’s neck, and Clyde held onto him, and I watched that big bearded man cry into my boy’s hair in the middle of Table Rock Lake.

“Your daddy would have been so proud,” Clyde said into Owen’s shoulder. “He’d have been so proud of you, buddy. I’m proud of you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here.”

“It’s okay, Uncle Clyde,” Owen said, muffled against his shirt. “You’re here now. That’s what counts.”

Elmer took a picture on my phone, Owen holding the fish with both hands and Clyde behind him with his hand on his shoulder, both of them with wet faces and grinning like fools.

Then Owen lowered the fish into the water and held her there a minute till she kicked and swam off.

Back at the ramp, after the boat was on the trailer and the straps were tight, Clyde took an envelope out of his shirt pocket and held it out to Elmer.