"I'm not getting anything." Carl said softly, holding onto a net that swayed in the water of the lake at the quarry.
I looked up from my book, using my finger as a book mark, looking at Carl's seldom face. We had come down to catch frogs with Shane like we had talked about the other day and had been at it for quite a while, but didn't have much luck. Well, the boys were the one's trying to catch frogs, I was there to read and hopefully congratulate Carl whenever he caught something.
"Yeah." Shane kneeled beside the water, looking out at the water. "Being all wily, staying submerged. Little suckers, they know something's up. That's what's going on." He stood up, clutching a metal bucket in his hands as he waded out into the water. "Just going to have to do this the old-fashioned way."
I was now interested. I leaned my back on the rock behind me, a small grin on my face, getting ready for what was about to happen.
"Alright little man, look." Shane began. "You are the...you are the key in all this, okay? All I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go after one of them, alright, scare the rest of them off. They're all gonna scatter. I'm gonna drive 'em your way, okay?" Carl replied with a firm nod and an 'alright'. "What you need to do is you need to round up every bad boy you see, alright? Are you with me?"
"Yeah." Carl nodded with a wide smile on his face.
"Hells yeah." Shane hyped him up.
"Yeah!" Carl replied even louder.
"Give me your mean face." Shane barred his teeth, growling, Carl doing the same as I giggled. "Yes sir, are you ready?"
"Yeah!" Carl beamed.
"Are you ready, here we go boy." Shane locked eyes with Carl, holding up the bucket in a ready position before plunging into the water, splashing all over, shoveling bucketsful of water Carl's way, shouting encouraging messages as Carl and I laughed at the hilarious scene.
"What have you got, bad boy?" Shane yelled as his splashing ceased. "What do you got?"
Carl lifted the net from the water, his smile faltering. "Dirt."
"Oh, boy." Shane stood with his hands on his hips, absolutely drenched. "Alright, we've got to start over. Let's find this bucket." The three of us began laughing as Shane found the bucket, making his way out of the water. "Let's take a quick frog-catching break."
They sat down on the rock next to me, Carl knocking my arm lightly with his. "Sure you don't wanna come help us?"
I looked over at Shane who was totally wet and then down at Carl's muddy shoes, then back up at Carl's smile. "Yeah, I'm good."
"Hey Carl?" A familiar voice called as all three of us looked up to see Lori walking towards us with her arms swinging by her sides, a glare on her face. "What'd I tell you about not leaving Dale's sight?"
"But Shane said we could catch frogs, remember?" Carl argued, looking from Shane back to her.
"It doesn't matter what Shane says. It matters what I say. Go on back to camp." She motioned with her head towards the trail back to the tents. "You too Delilah, go on. I'm right behind you."
Carl sighed, standing from the rock, me following after him. He stomped away, evidently very annoyed at the abrupt end to our fun and I frowned, catching up to walk beside him. "I'm sorry you didn't catch any frogs today Carl, if we had more time I'm sure you would've caught so many."
"It's okay, I'll get them one day." He shrugged, smiling over at me. "And then you can eat all the frog legs you want."
I giggled, crinkling up my nose in disgust. "Ew."
"Yeah." Carl laughed along with me.
. . .
"Hey, check it out!" Morales called, causing me to look up, my eyes widening at what I was seeing.
Amy and Andrea walked back to camp, carrying tons of fish hooked to a chain that they had been off catching. I smiled wide as I realized how much food we would have to eat tonight. They held the fish out for Morales to take as Carl knocked my arm with his, gawking at the fish.
"Ladies..." Morales began, taking the fish from Andrea as Lori clapped. "Because of you, my children will eat tonight. Thank you."
"Thank Dale." Andrea turned toward him with a smile. "It's his canoe and gear."
"Mom, Lilah, look! Look at all the fish!" Carl said excitedly, to which I nodded back with his same energy.
Morales walked over to Lori, swinging the fish in Lori's face. She dodged them quickly, laughing with wide eyes. "Thank you."
"Woah." Carl reached out to poke one of the fish.
"Yeah, woah." Lori stared, still amazed. "Where did you two learn to do that?"
"Our dad." Amy replied, taking a sip of a water.
"Can you teach me?" Carl asked.
"And me!" I cut in, grabbing his arm excitedly.
"Sure!" Amy answered enthusiastically. "I'll teach you all about nail knots and stuff." She chuckled, glancing over at her sister before turning to Lori and my mom. "If that's okay."
"You won't catch me arguing." Lori shrugged, while my mom replied with a small 'for sure'.
"Hey, Dale." Andrea called, turning my attention to the man who owned all the fishing gear walking towards the group. "When's the last time you oiled those line reels? They are a disgrace."
"I uh..." Dale spoke quickly and urgently as he approached us. "I don't wanna alarm anyone, but we may have a bit of a problem."
He turned, pointing up toward a hill where a man named Jim from our group stood. I squinted, looking through the harsh sunlight and just over the trees, Jim was for some reason digging in the dirt with a shovel. I furrowed my brows, wondering what he could be doing, the same question that was probably on everyone's minds in that moment. We all decided it would probably be a good idea to go up there and see what was going on, so we grouped up and walked up the hill, Shane taking the lead.
As we approached, Jim stabbed at the ground with his shovel, paying us no mind and continuing on with this digging. Shane finally spoke up after a moment of us standing there, having had no acknowledgement from Jim. "Hey, Jim. Jim, why don't you hold up all right? Just give me a second here, please."
Finally, Jim stood straight up, stopping his digging and plunging his shovel into the ground aggressively. "What do you want?"
"We're all just a little concerned, that's all." Shane replied as I squeezed my mom's hand tightly, causing her to wrap her other arm around me and pull me close to her side.
"Dale says you've been out here for hours." Morales added.
"So?" Jim looked at all of us with an almost annoyed look, as if this was totally normal and we shouldn't have been questioning him, when in fact, this was not normal. Who would want to sit there and dig holes in the blistering heat? Jim looked exhausted.
"So why are you digging?" Shane asked matter of factly. Jim shook his head, rubbing his hand over his face. "Are you heading to China Jim?"
"What does it matter?" Jim threw his arms up, shrugging before getting right back to digging. "I'm not hurting anyone."
"Yeah, except maybe yourself." Dale exclaimed, stepping forward slightly. "It's 100 degrees today. You can't keep this up."
"Sure I can. Watch me." He just continued on.
I watched as Lori took a few steps forward, her arms crossed over her chest. "Jim, they're not gonna say it so I will. You're scaring people. You're scaring my son. And Carol and Jan's daughters."
He stopped, looking over at us as my face twisted into a worried look. The truth was, I wasn't exactly scared. Just confused and unsure of what was going on.
"They got nothing to be scared of." He just stared at us as my mother tightened her grip on my hand. "I mean, what the hell people. I'm out here by myself. Why don't you all just go and leave me the hell alone." He went back to digging.
"We think that you need to take a break, okay?" Shane said, trying to sound as nice as he could. "Why don't you go and get yourself in the shade? Some food maybe. I'll tell you what, maybe in a little bit I'll come out here. I'll help you myself. Jim, just tell me what it's about. Why don't you just go ahead and give me that shovel?"
"Or what?" Jim stood up to face Shane.
Shane's eyes widened at the challenge. "There is no or what. I'm asking you. I'm coming to you and I'm asking you, please. I don't wanna have to take it from you."
"And if I don't, then what?" Jim asked. "Then you're gonna beat my face in like Ed Peletier, aren't you? Y'all seen his face, huh? What's left of it." I was instantly taken aback by his words. Yes, Shane did beat Ed up, but it wasn't unwarranted. I had heard the adults talking, and they explained that Ed had hit his wife in the middle of a heated argument between him and some of the ladies. Shane saw this and immediately went to defend the girls. While that may not have been the right thing to do, I didn't blame Shane for doing it. "See, now that's what happens when someone crosses you."
"That was different, Jim." Shane stared at Jim with a look of contained rage.
"You weren't there." Amy began to speak up in Shane's defense. "Ed was out of control. He was hurting his wife."
"That is their marriage. That is not his." Jim raised his voice, sending my mom into a small panic. She wrapped both of her arms around me, pulling me close. "He is not judge and jury. Who voted you king boss, huh?"
"Jim, I'm not here to argue with you, alright?" He began to walk towards Jim, holding out his hand to take the shovel. "Just give me the shovel, okay?"
Jim didn't cooperate and instead shoved Shane back before taking a swing at him with the shovel. Shane ducked quickly, lunging at Jim and tackling him to the ground. I practically jumped out of my skin at the sudden action.
"You got no right!" Jim shouted as I clung to my mother tightly.
"Jim, just stop it!" Shane told him, grabbing his arms and holding them behind his back, making me remember he was a cop before all of this. "Hey, hey, hey, hey. Jim. Jim, nobody's gonna hurt you. You hear me? Nobody is gonna hurt you, okay?"
"That's a lie." Jim replied after he had finally stopped fighting against Shane's force. "That's the biggest lie there is." Shane began putting handcuffs on Jim as he continued to speak. "I told that to my wife and my two boys. I said it 100 times. It didn't matter. They came out of nowhere. There were dozens of 'em. Just pulled 'em right out of my hands."
I began to tear up at the story he was telling, glancing up at my mom who looked absolutely devastated about what she was hearing. I know she was thinking about my dad and brother. Pain shot through my heart like a bullet as I remembered the bloodcurdling scream my father let out as my mother was starting the car and slamming on the pedal, her sobs filling the car as I sat in the backseat, staring out the back window, watching our house slowly fade out of view. 'Don't look back, baby' was what my mother kept repeating until we were all the way out of the neighborhood. I tried desperately to shake those memories from my mind.
"You know, the only reason I got away was 'cause the dead were too busy eating my family." He said before letting out a big breath and closing his eyes.
And with that, I ran back down the hill before anyone could see me cry.