Spring Tide (18 page)

“Business plan?” asked Jackie in disbelief.

Ida laid her index finger against her temple. “Out of the box, Jackie. Out of the box.”

“Okay, Mom.”

“Don’t you tell anybody what’s in it. Give them a chance to try it first. I’m thinking I can charge half price while we’re in beta testing mode.”

“Mom,” Jackie commanded, “you’re not charging these people.”

Ida frowned. “All right, but if they like it and want to order some, I can take an order, can’t I?”

Jackie shrugged, her mouth full of chips. When Adam returned with the bag, Ida took out a jar of jerky. “Watch Adam for a minute,” she said. “I’m gonna pass these around.”

“While you’re doing that,” Jackie called after her, “tell everybody there’s food.”

“Grandma said there’s dinosaur fish,” Adam said, looking up at Jackie with wide eyes.

“No wonder you wanted to come along.”

“Where are they?”

“Out there.” Jackie pointed to the muddy pond.

Just then Stef came stumbling up, soaking wet, her hair dripping down the sides of her face. She collapsed on the grass, lying on her back. Jackie came and sat beside her.

“This is so cool!” Stef said. “Those incredible fish! They’re all muscle. It’s such a rush. But, man, I’m exhausted.”

Jackie reached for a bottle of water and unscrewed the top, handing it to Stef. “We’ve got some sandwiches. Take a break and get your strength back.”

“I’ve done some crazy shit in my day, but this beats most of it. Catching giant fish with my bare hands.” Stef lifted herself onto her side and chugged some water. “How are you doing?”

“My job isn’t nearly as exhausting as yours. I think we’ve had fourteen so far, which is a large percentage of the total that come up this river to spawn each spring. This is important. We couldn’t just leave them to die. There aren’t enough of them to ignore any of them. Like Gail said, Fish and Game emergency.”

Stef rolled on her back again. “I’ve got to say, I never considered
there was such a thing as a Fish and Game emergency.”

“Gail’s always complaining people don’t take her job seriously. They don’t realize all the things game wardens do. She gets so steamed when people call her fish cop.”

“Fish cop?” Stef smiled. “That’s not so bad. Regular cops get a lot worse.”

She’d said that like she was speaking from experience, Jackie thought, tucking away a mental note. “Do you want a sandwich?”

Stef nodded.

“How about some jerky? My mom’s giving out samples of her new flavor.”

“Your mom?” Stef sat up.

Jackie realized Stef had no idea who her mother was. “Sorry. I sometimes buy into my mother’s own delusions of grandeur and figure everybody knows who she is.” Jackie pointed to her mother a few yards away where she was chatting with the volunteers and passing around her jar.

Stef looked startled. “Ida’s World-Famous Beef Jerky?  That’s your mother?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’ll be damned! You know I never heard of that jerky before I came here.”

“You wouldn’t. The ‘world’ in ‘world-famous’ means Stillwater Bay. It’s a goal, not a fact. This is the only place she markets to…so far.” Jackie grabbed a sandwich from the box and handed it to Stef.

“That’s funny. Had me fooled.” Stef unwrapped the sandwich and took an oversized bite. Then she looked up with an inquisitive expression. “So that means Rudy in the bait shop is your dad?”

Jackie nodded. “That’s right. I heard you met him.”

“Yeah. You and your parents live in the same town then.”

“We do. And my paternal grandparents as well.”

“Oh, right. Your grandfather was in the bait shop that day too.”

“And my sister Rebecca and her husband. And my brother Ben and his wife. Ben and Rosa operate a food truck in town. It’s a Brazilian charruscaria. That’s a place that serves grilled meats. Maybe you’ve seen it. Parrots and flowers and lots of color.”

Stef nodded, her mouth full. “I have seen it. That’s your brother’s? Wow. Your whole family lives here.”

Jackie was about to answer when Adam came running up to her and whined, “I can’t see any!”

“Stef, this is my nephew Adam. My sister’s son.”

“Hi, Adam,” Stef said. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t see the dinosaur fish,” he complained, his forehead furrowed in frustration.

“Jacks!” called Gail from the water’s edge, “they’re bringing in another one.”

“Gotta go,” she said, patting Stef’s knee. To Adam, she said, “Where’s Grandma? I need her to get back here to watch you.”

“I can watch him for a few minutes while I eat,” Stef offered.

Jackie nodded and ran down to the tagging station just as another stretcher was brought up with an angry white sturgeon in it. As Gail clipped the tag on, Jackie heard a loud squeal from Adam. She quickly scanned the water’s edge and located him riding atop Stef’s shoulders. He’s got a good view now, Jackie thought, making a small incision in the fish.

“I see one!” Adam yelled, pointing toward the water.

Stef held a sandwich in one hand and had the other firmly on Adam’s leg, keeping him anchored. Further down the bank, her mother was peddling her jerky to the volunteers. Jackie turned her attention back to her patient, sewing him up with rapid stitches. A moment later, he was on his way to the river.

“Hey,” Gail said quietly, jerking her head toward Stef. “Is that the lesbian lope?”

Jackie laughed. “That’s it!”

Gail nodded. “Okay. I get it now. I walk like that?”

“Everyone has her own version, but, basically, yes.”

Gail looked pleased with herself. She apparently approved of the lesbian lope.

“What’s going on with her anyway?” she asked. “Last I heard, you thought she was an asshole. A few days later, you’re on a date.”

“You call this a date?”

“No, the crawdad thing. You were going to take her out to Disappointment Slough, right?”

“Right.”

“So how’d you get from you’re an asshole to let me show you my special fishing hole?”

“As you might expect, it had to do with a dog.”

Gail laughed shortly, then glanced back at Stef. “She seems okay to me.”

“Today, yes,” Jackie said thoughtfully, “she does. She seems great.”

She watched Stef carry Adam along the bank to a prime view of volunteers engaged in a vigorous wrestling match with a fish. Adam bounced up and down on her shoulders, squealing with delight. Jackie felt a sudden surge of fond feeling take her over as she watched Stef tilt her head back so she could look into Adam’s face and grin at him. Jackie had never seen Stef so carefree and playful. She was caught up in the moment, simply enjoying herself. She’d forgotten herself for a while, forgotten whatever it was that seemed to weigh so heavily on her mind most of the time.

In that instant, amid the cries of fish wranglers and a young boy’s laughter, under a hot afternoon sun, sweaty, dirty, tired and hungry, Jackie fell in love.

As the last couple of fish were being rounded up in the overflow channel, Stef and another of the women volunteered to walk the bank in either direction to look for signs of any more pockets of stranded sturgeon.

It had been a long day and everyone was tired, but Stef was invigorated by the change of pace. It felt good to be helping, to be active and involved in a community project, working alongside the others, especially Jackie. Though it was serious business, it was also fun. Maybe not so much for the fish. It had been even more fun when Jackie’s nephew Adam had shown up. He had been so thrilled with everything that was happening. She smiled, remembering how he’d begged to ride one of the fish. Cute kid.

“Take some jerky with you,” insisted Ida Townsend, shoving a nearly empty jar under her nose.

“Thanks,” Stef had said, taking a piece. She chewed on it as she walked on a dirt road past muddy flats where small puddles of water stood, looking for deeper pools where the big fish could have retreated.

Ida Townsend was a funny woman. Intense and outgoing. She was also very short. It would be a surprise if she was even five feet tall. She had strong facial features—pointy nose and high forehead, a puckery mouth and narrow chin. Jackie didn’t resemble her much except in personality. Both women were friendly and unabashedly familiar in manner. Jackie seemed a little more reserved and serious, but neither of them would ever be hugging the shadows in any social situation. Jackie’s father, Rudy, Junior, was no wallflower either. Brash and opinionated, but likable. They both seemed like good-hearted people.

The jerky was good. A little sweet. A little tangy. She finished it and looked back to see the party of volunteers in the distance.

The Sacramento River lay to the north, edged by a tangled line of trees and bushes. To the south was farmland crisscrossed by streams and sloughs. She’d walked almost a mile when she decided to turn south on a dirt road, following a rivulet draining out of what looked to be a larger body of water further on, large enough to accommodate sturgeon.

As she walked, her mind kept returning to Jackie. A remarkable woman, really. The more Stef got to know her, the more remarkable she seemed. She was so together. She seemed to know what she wanted in every facet of life.

Stef briefly let herself consider the possibility of hanging around a while longer than planned. She had to move her boat by the end of July. That was the agreement, but she could rent a slip at the marina. She wondered if it would be possible to make a place for herself in Jackie’s life. Was that such a crazy idea?

Maybe she could be a fish cop, she thought, amusing herself. But then she remembered the gun problem. Even a fish cop carried a gun and might have to use it once in a while. Just thinking about it made her go cold. Suddenly feeling frustrated, she shook the thought off and kept walking.

As she neared the pond she had spied, she could see a young man in the water. He wore a cowboy hat, cargo shorts and no shirt, and moved slowly through the water away from her, carrying a long pole. The water hit him mid-thigh. He paused and raised his pole, then slammed it hard into the water in front of him. Whatever he was aiming at, he must have missed because he pulled the spear out empty and continued to peer into the water.

Stef stopped walking, a chill running down her back. She pulled out her cell phone and called Jackie. “I may have found a poacher,” she reported.

“Where?”

“I’m about a mile and a quarter southeast. Straight down the weir for a mile, then south. I think we need a fish cop over here.”

“Okay. I’ll send her right away. You stay away from him. Just wait for Gail.”

Stef continued walking. She noticed as she neared that the man was large and well muscled. She dropped down next to the water as he turned her way, revealing a close-cropped full beard. He looked alarmed to see someone. She saw a sharp piece of metal tied to the end of his pole. Her gaze was diverted by the back ridge of a sturgeon breaking the surface a few yards away, the white body of a seven foot long fish gliding silently through the brown water.
The thing is, Jackie
, she thought,
if I stay away from him, he’s going to kill a fish.

“What’re you after?” she asked casually.

“Frogs,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her. “Frog giggin’.”

“Are there frogs in this mud puddle?” She approached the edge of the pond.

“Biggest damned frogs you’ve ever seen,” he replied, laughing.

“Catch any?” Stef asked.

“One so far.”

It was then she spotted a Ford pickup on a dirt road at the edge of a cornfield about a hundred feet farther south.

“Is that your truck?” she asked.

He pushed the brim of his hat higher to get a better look at her. “What’s it to ya?”

“I thought I’d go take a peek at that frog. I’d like to see a giant frog.”

She started walking toward the pickup, which prompted the man to wade quickly over to the shore to cut her off. She stopped, facing his resolute expression. Now that he was closer, she could see the cold insolence in his eyes. She was thoroughly accustomed to creeps like this. For the first time in a while, she felt like she was back on home turf.