Double Whammy

At the fish camp the mood was solemn and businesslike as the sleek boats were backed off galvanized trailers into the milky-green water. The anglers all wore caps, vests, and jumpsuits plastered with colorful patches advertising their sponsors' products; everything from bug spray to chewing tobacco to worms was smiled in this manner. Most of the fishermen wore Lucite goggles to protect their faces during the breakneck race to the bass hole. This innovation had recently been introduced to the bassing world after one unlucky angler died hitting a swarm of junebugs at fifty knots; one of the brittle beetles had gone through his left eyeball like a bullet and tunneled straight into his brain.

R. J. Decker sipped coffee from a Styrofoam cup and stood among a throng of wives, girlfriends, and mechanics waiting for the tournament to begin. A tall chalk scoreboard posted outside the Sportsman's Hideout displayed the roster of forty entrants, which included some of the most famous bass fishermen of all time: Jimmy Houston of Oklahoma, Larry Nixon of Texas, Orlando Wilson of Georgia, and of course the legendary Roland Martin of Florida. Revered in the world of fishing, these names meant absolutely nothing to R. J. Decker, who recognized only one entry on the Cajun Invitational chalkboard: Dickie Lockhart.

But where was the sonofabitch? As the headlights of the trucks sporadically played across the water, Decker scrutinized the faces of the anglers, now hunkered behind the consoles of their boats. They looked virtually identical with their goggles and their caps and their puffed ruddy cheeks. Dickie's boat was out there somewhere, Decker knew, but he'd have to wait until the weigh-in to see him.

At precisely five-thirty a bearded man in khaki trousers, a flannel shirt, and a string tie strode to the end of the dock and announced through a megaphone: "Bass anglers, prepare for the blast-off!" In unison the fishermen turned their ignitions, and Lake Maurepas boiled and rumbled and swelled. Blue smoke from the big outboards curled skyward and collected in an acrid foreign cloud over the marsh. The boats inched away from the crowded ramp and crept out toward where the pass opened its mouth to the lake. The procession came to a stop at a lighted buoy.

"Now the fun starts," said a young woman standing next to R. J. Decker. She was holding two sleeping babies.

The starter raised a pistol and fired into the air. Instantly a wall of noise rose off Maurepas: the race was on. The bass boats hiccuped and growled and then whined, pushing for more speed. With the throttles hammered down, the sterns dug ferociously and the bows popped up at such alarming angles that Decker was certain some of the boats would flip over in midair. Yet somehow they planed off perfectly, gliding flat and barely creasing the crystal texture of the lake. The song of the big engines was that of a million furious bees; it tore the dawn all to hell.

It was one of the most remarkable moments Decker had ever seen, almost military in its high-tech absurdity: forty boats rocketing the same direction at sixty miles per hour. In darkness.

Most of the spectators applauded heartily.

"Doesn't anyone ever get hurt?" Decker asked the woman with the two babies, who were now yowling.

"Hurt?" she said. "No, sir. At that speed you just flat-out die."

Skink was waiting outside the motel when Decker returned. "You got the cameras?" he asked.

"All ready," Decker said.

They drove back to the Sportsman's Hideout and rented the same johnboat from the night before. This time Decker asked for a paddle. The cashier said brightly to Skink: "Are you finding enough of those eels, Mr. Cousteau?"

"Si,"Skink replied.

"Oui!"Decker whispered.

"Oui!"Skink said. "Many many eels."

"I'm so glad," the cashier said.

Hastily they loaded the boat. Decker's camera gear was packed in waterproof aluminum carriers. Skink took special care to distribute the weight evenly, so the johnboat wouldn't list. After the morning's parade of lightning-fast bass rigs, the puny fifteen-horse outboard seemed slow and anemic to Decker. By the time they got to the secret spot, the sun had been up an hour.

Skink guided the johnboat deep into the bulrushes. The engine stalled when the prop snarled in the thick grass. Skink used his bare hands to pull them out of sight, away from the pass. Soon they seemed walled in by cattails, sawgrass, and hyacinth. Directly overhead was the elevated ramp of Interstate 55; Decker and Skink were hidden in its cool shadow. Wordlessly Skink shed the orange rainsuit and put on a full camouflage hunting outfit, the type deer hunters use. He threw one to R. J. Decker and told him to do the same. The mottled hunting suit was brand-new, still crinkled from the bag.

"Where'd you get this?" Decker asked.