Summer of Pearls (9 page)

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Authors: Mike Blakely

BOOK: Summer of Pearls
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“Who's your friend, Mr. Treat?” someone asked, before Billy could turn into the kitchen.
“Captain Trevor Price Brigginshaw,” the big Australian said, letting Billy go with a wave.
“Staying with us tonight, Mr. Brigginshaw?” Widow Humphry asked.
“I would be pleased to, Madam. I was hoping you would have accommodations available.”
“Oh, yes. We haven't filled up since before the war. Shall I have the boy take your suitcase up?”
“No, thank you, my good woman. It never leaves my side. It's because of this bloody case that I have never married. It's a terrible burden in bed.”
Some of the men laughed, a couple of ladies giggled, and the others gasped. Widow Humphry urged the owner of the case in question to sign the register.
“Whatever you've got in there, it must be important for you to take it to bed with you,” said Robert Timmons.
“It is filled with things of great value and beauty,” Brigginshaw said. “Things that I am bound to protect with my life.”
“Your accent is delightful,” said an infatuated young woman. “Do you mind our asking … ?”
“Not at all. I've heard that you Texans are a great deal like us Australians—never pass up an opportunity to boast whence you hail. Sydney, Australia, is my home, though I keep residences in New York and London as well.”
“Put the name of your firm here, if you wish,” Widow Humphry said. She made knowing faces at the locals over the big man's back as he bent to write in the space she had indicated. “Your room will be upstairs. First on the left. Supper at six.”
“Thank you, my good woman. Now, if someone will direct me to the local newspaper office …”
Several volunteers rendered the directions and the pearl-buyer left, tipping his panama as he stepped out. There was a general rush to read the register when he was gone.
 
 
In two minutes, Trevor Brigginshaw had found the offices of the
Port Caddo Steam Whistle.
John Crowell knew about him already, and had been receiving reports from news-gathering spies all afternoon. He was busy setting type, however, and couldn't get out of the office to do any snooping on his own. He was happy to see the news come to him for a change.
“It's my pleasure to meet you,” Crowell said, shaking the stranger's powerful hand. “I've been saving a place for you at the bottom of page one. My instincts tell me some import accompanies your visit.”
“God bless a bloke who follows his instincts. Mine have kept me alive for many years. Getting an issue together soon, are you?”
“Going to press tonight, as a matter of fact. Your timing is very good.”
“Between my timing and your instincts, we may just benefit each other, Mr. Crowell. We very well may.” He sat down in front of the editor's desk, holding his satchel in his lap. “I'm here to buy pearls. I've already made one confidential purchase this afternoon, and I'd like to advertise for more in your paper. What are you laughing at, mate?”
“I'm sorry,” Crowell said, wiping his inky hands on his apron. “It's just that everybody in town already knows about your ‘confidential' purchase.”
“That I gathered. But the details will have to remain confidential. I can say only that the local collector had many pearls valued at about ten thousand dollars.” .
The smile slid from John Crowell's face. “Did you say ten thousand?”
“Roughly. Don't press for details, Mr. Crowell. I can't tell you any more than that. The collector insisted.”
“Ten thousand dollars! How many pearls did she have? She couldn't have had more than twenty or twenty-five.”
“I'm not at liberty to say.”
“Ten thousand dollars!” The editor got up to look at the hole in his front-page plate. “I had no idea those pearls would bring such high prices.”
“I wish I could give you more details of the sale for your front-page
story, Mr. Crowell, but the collector wants to avoid publicity. I, on the other hand, want to feed it. I wonder if a quarter-page advertisement might make a good start.”
“It might,” Crowell said. “But a half-page—and a story at the top of page one instead of the bottom—might attract a good deal more publicity. Yes, a good deal more.”
Trevor Brigginshaw smiled as he opened his money case. “A sensible newspaper man is more difficult to come by than the finest paragon of pearls. You, mate, are a gem!”
YOU KNOW WHEN I GOT RELIGION? WHEN I FOUND OUT JESUS WAS A FISHERMAN.
I have lived within casting distance of water all my life, and I guess I've caught fish every which way known to man. I've sailed the Gulf of Mexico and hooked tarpon bigger than calves. I've climbed the Rocky Mountains to fly-cast for rainbow trout in waters barely ankle-deep. I've waded the mouths of big rivers and speared flounder by lantern light with a pointed stick.
But the best fishing waters I know of in the world are right here at Caddo Lake. If you could take all the fish I've caught here in my life and put them together at one time, they would fill up the lake they came from. I'm mainly a sport fisherman now, and just plug some for bass around the lily pads. Bass are good fighting fish and not bad eating. I also enjoy fishing with live minnows on cane poles for white perch. And I once made pretty good money catching those spoonbill catfish around spawning time to pass their eggs off as caviar.
But back in my younger days is when I really caught fish. I would load them in barrels to ship to Marshall, Jefferson, or Dallas. That and
duck-hunting and hogs and boat-building have gotten me through some lean years when the sawmills and railroads weren't hiring.
I used to set gill nets and trammel nets in the Big Water and up Jeem's Bayou to catch carp and buffalo by the hundreds every night. Old Esau showed me how to shoot them with a bow and arrow, tying a stout cord to the arrow. I once shot a hundred-and-twenty-pound alligator gar that fought for over an hour before I clubbed it senseless with an oar.
After Billy Treat taught us how to hold our breath for a good long time, Adam Owens and I became famous around here for hand-grabbling those big opelousas cats out of hollow logs and out from under washed-out banks.
But of all the fishing I have ever done, trotlining gives me the biggest thrill. I like it even better than those hooking those huge tarpon in salt water or catching those rising trout from the mountain streams. People who consider themselves sport fishermen scoff at the trotline, but I know of no finer tool for recreation or livelihood, and it all started for me that summer back in 1874, when me and Cecil Peavy and Adam Owens were catching cats for Billy Treat's kitchen.
We were on the lake at sunrise the day the Great Caddo Lake Pearl Rush began. It looked like any other summer day to us as we launched old Esau's skiff and started paddling toward our trotline over near Mossy Brake. We were talking about Captain Trevor Price Brigginshaw, who had come to town the day before.
“He's big as ol' Colored Bob over at the sawmill,” Adam claimed.
“He's not that big,” Cecil argued. “Colored Bob has to duck to go under doors.”
“well, he talks funnier than Colored Bob.” Adam had his own strange way of winning arguments.
As they paddled and contradicted each other, I opened mussels to bait the trotline with, and of course I checked them all for pearls.
“Ben,” Cecil said, “what are you gonna do if you really find a shell berry in there? Are you gonna trade it in for ten thousand dollars, or a hump with Pearl Cobb?”
“One pearl ain't worth ten thousand dollars,” I said, avoiding the more interesting half of the question.
“I thought you said today's paper was gonna talk about Pearl Cobb selling a pearl for ten thousand dollars.”
“It doesn't say it was Carol Anne, and it doesn't say it was just one pearl. Don't you ever listen?”
“I guess she probably sold that Captain Brigginshaw a couple of hundred pearls to get that much money. Lord knows, she's got a thousand of 'em.”
“Shut up, Cecil,” I said.
“You like her, don't you?” Adam asked.
Before I could think of an answer, Cecil said, “Like her? He's in love with her, boy, can't you tell? If Ben found a ten-thousand-dollar shell berry right now, he'd give it to Pearl Cobb for one hump, when he could get a couple of thousand humps for it over at the nigger whorehouse.”
“How would you know, Cecil?”
We aggravated one another like that until we saw our trotline floats bobbing. The second-biggest thrill in trotlining is seeing those floats bob. When you see that, you know you've caught something. We had good-sized cork floats on our trotline, and we hadn't yet caught anything big enough to pull one all the way under. But that morning, as we approached, we saw the cork stay under for five seconds, and we knew we had hooked a monster.
Cecil was businesslike, as usual. While Adam and I were almost falling overboard with excitement, he said, “Take it easy! We'll run it from the north end, like we always do. Whatever it is that's on there, it won't go anywhere. Probably just a big snappin' turtle or an alligator gar, anyway.”
We had been using mussels to bait the line and had been catching mostly willow cats, because they don't mind eating dead bait. Billy had been very pleased with our catches. They were mainly in the three-and four-pound class. A fresh willow cat of that size—skinned, filleted, and fried—is the best-eating fish in the world. The biggest we. had caught was maybe ten pounds. We all knew that if we wanted to catch a huge opelousas catfish, we needed to put something live on the hook.
We had also caught a few carp, which we gave to some colored folks we knew, but I didn't think a carp would get big enough to hold the cork float down that long.
Figuring Cecil was probably right, I got a little nervous. An alligator gar big enough to pull that cork under like that would have a snout a foot long, lined with razor teeth. A snapping turtle of the same size could take your fingers off with one snap, quicker than you could blink.
But whatever it was, it wouldn't get
my
fingers. It was Adam's job to take the critters off the hooks. He had a knack for handling thrashing catfish without getting barbed, and I figured he could handle a gar or a snapper, too. Maybe he would just cut the line and let the monster go, the hook still in its mouth.
I figured it was a gar. We hadn't yet taken any turtles off the line - on the morning runs. Turtles usually won't bother a trotline at night. Yes, I was pretty sure it was a gar, but that was part of the lure of trotlining. When you see those floats bobbing, you never really know what you've got until you hoist it up from the deep.
We paddled to a big cypress standing in the water at the edge of Mossy Brake. We had one end of our line tied to a cypress knee next to the tree. From there it ran down into a channel where those willow cats liked to prowl. Some people, as a matter of fact, call them channel cats for just that reason.
Adam sat in the front of the skiff. He would grab the line, pull the boat along, and take the fish off the hooks. I was in the back of the boat. I kept the boat straight, helped pull on the line, and put fresh bait on the hooks. Cecil was useless except as a counterweight. With Adam and me hanging over the right side of the skiff, it was helpful to have Cecil sit on the left side, to keep the boat as level as possible. As long as I knew Cecil, he always preferred to let other people do the work for him while he sat back and counted money.
The sun and the rich, rotten smell of the lake were hitting us when Adam began working the line. We pulled the skiff along, passing the rock we had tied on to pull the line to the right depth and keep it tight. Along the main line were lighter cords, about a foot and a half long, tied at six-foot intervals, and on these lighter cords were our hooks. The
first few were empty. I untangled the twisted cords and baited their hooks with fresh mussels. Then I felt the first tug, despite Adam's hold on the line.
The biggest thrill in trotlining is feeling the fish tug from down deep. Even a little catfish can pull the line pretty hard. As we approached the next hook, I saw the flash of gray down in the brown, muddy water. Adam was smiling. He lived for simple pleasures like that. He pulled a three-pound willow cat to the surface. It splashed us pretty good before he got it unhooked and into the boat.
Catfish have bony barbs on their pectoral fins, and one on their dorsal fin, too. If they stick you, it aches something fierce for a long time. The skin has some kind of poison in it, I've heard. But Adam Owens wasn't afraid of anything you could pull out of the water, and he knew how to grab a catfish around those bony barbs where it couldn't jab him. He knew how to grab alligators, water moccasins, wild hogs, and snapping turtles, too.
He carried a pair of pliers in his pocket and had the hook out of the fish's mouth in no time. He threw it between the bulkheads at Cecil's bare feet.
“Hey, watch it!” Cecil said as the cat flipped and flopped around. “That thing will stick me!”
“Oh, shut up, Cecil,” I said, still put out over what he had said about Carol Anne. “Just keep the boat steady.”
We worked down the line, me and Adam feeling anxiously for the tug of every fish we had hooked, and getting more excited as we came closer to the place where something big was pulling the cork float under.
“All right, here it comes!” Adam said. We were only a couple of hooks away. “Hold the line tight, Ben. Don't let it pull a hook through your finger.”
“Can you see it yet?”
“No, not yet. But, by gosh, I can sure feel it!”
The plunges of the creature on our line were rocking the boat like crazy.
“Just cut it loose as soon as you can,” Cecil said, calmly. “Don't let
it tear up our whole line. Hey, maybe it's a little gator. Watch your hand, Adam!”
“I'm watchin'! Gosh, it pulls hard!”
We worked the skiff forward and Adam grit his teeth lifting the catch. Then I saw it. A huge, flat head rose in the muddy water, then turned for the deep as if the light hurt its beady eyes. A broad tail flipped and splashed a wall of water toward me, even though the fish was still completely submerged.
“What is it?” Cecil demanded.
“It's the biggest damn opelousas cat I ever seen!” Adam's muscles were popping from his thin arms like twisted steel cables as he fought to pull the fish up. The line was all but cutting through his hand.
“Hold on tight, Adam!” I said.
He gave a loud grunt and hoisted the monster from the deep. It looked like a dinosaur coming up from Caddo Lake. Its broad, flat head told us it was an opelousas cat. Its mouth looked like the opening to Captain Brigginshaw's money satchel, with a jutting lower lip.
When it broke the surface, I saw its three bayonet-sized barbs, then lost them behind a spray of brown froth. The boat almost pitched Cecil off of the high side. Adam hollered for joy as he reached into the gill under the monster's head and took a firm hold.
“It must weigh seventy-five pounds!”
“Get it in here, then!” Cecil said. “It's worth two bits to each of us!”
The catfish lunged, beat its head against the boat, and splashed bucketfuls all over the place, but Adam hung on. He didn't fool with the hook. He just cut the line that the hook was tied to. He almost fell over backward pulling the fish into the boat, and still wouldn't turn loose of the gills for fear the biggest fish he had ever seen would jump out of the skiff. The thing was fat and grotesque out of the water, beating itself stupidly against the bottom of the skiff and slapping the smaller fish with its tail.
“I guess you were wrong!” Cecil said triumphantly to Adam. “I guess you
can
catch an opelousas cat using dead mussels for bait!”
“No, I was right all along!” Adam said, panting. “Look!”
He pulled the lower jaw of that monster catfish open and we saw a smaller fish in the big one's mouth. About a seven-pound willow cat had taken our mussel bait and hooked itself. Then that giant opelousas cat had risen from its dark hole somewhere to eat the willow cat that had eaten the mussel. The hook alone probably wouldn't have held a fish that big. It probably could have bent it straight getting away. But when it swallowed that willow cat, the smaller fish set its barbs in the big cat's throat, and died holding it on our trotline for us.
Cecil had to take Adam's place running the rest of the line because Adam didn't trust him to hold onto the big fish. We baited as quick as we could, collected a few more normal-sized fish, and paddled back toward old Esau's saloon.
On the way, the
Lizzie Hopkins II
steamed within forty yards of us, en route to Port Caddo. The pilot rang his bell and blew his steam whistle when we showed him the fish. The passengers all crowded the rail to see. We felt like decorated heroes. Lucky ones, at that. We hadn't expected any steamers. The lake was getting almost too low to handle them. The
Lizzie
would be the last one of the summer, until the rains came back.
When we came around Pine Island and caught sight of Esau's place, we saw a big crowd of people standing on the shore, others wading, and some floating in boats. It was as if the news of our tremendous catch had preceded us and people had come out to see it. We didn't know what was going on, but we were thrilled.

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