Carnal Innocence

touch of a hand. Instead, he nodded at the boy, and though his voice was stiff, the words were sincere. “You did everything that was right, Cy. There’s nothing more any man can do. You remember that.”
    Tucker laid his hands on the boy’s shoulders and watched Burns walk away. For the first time since he’d set eyes on the FBI agent, Tucker felt a tug of respect.
    “I’m going to get us a couple of poles, Cy. We’re taking the rest of the day off.”
    “Now, fishing,” Tucker said as he balanced his pole between his knees and settled back against a cypress stump, “is the thinking man’s sport.”
    “I never used this kind of stuff for bait before.” Cy sniffed again at the foil-wrapped package in Tucker’s bait box. “What’s it called again?”
    “Pâté.” Tucker grinned and pulled his cap farther down over his eyes. “Duck liver in this case.” And wasn’t Della going to raise holy hell when she saw it was gone.
    “Duck liver.” Cy screwed up his face and looked exactly the way a fourteen-year-old boy should. “That’s gross.”
    “An acquired taste, my man. The cats’re crazy for it.” Tucker smeared some on a cracker for himself, popped it into his mouth, and washed it down with lemonade.
    They had settled on the far side of Sweetwater Pond, under the dappled shade of a willow Tucker’s mother had planted before he’d been born.
    “The cotton looks fine, Mr. Tucker.”
    “Hmmm.” From under the shadow of his cap, Tucker looked at the fields. He spotted his overseer and several hands checking the rows for growth, for weevils. “We’ve got a good crop this year. The cotton runs this place.” He sighed a little. “And running cotton’s what spoiled this water here, so we’ll have to toss back whatever fish we catch. I’ve been thinking about getting some of those bugs.”
    “Bugs, Mr. Tucker?”
    “They got these bugs—scientists figured it out. They eat poison and pollution and the God-knows-what that seeps into water and ruins it.”
    “Poison eating bugs?” Cy gave a snort of laughter. “You’re joaning on me, Mr. Tucker.”
    The boy’s chuckle, however weak, lightened Tucker’s heart. “It’s the God’s truth. They put those bugs intothe Potomac River and they ate it clean.” He looked wistfully out over the dark, deadly water of the lake. “I’ll tell you, Cy, it sure would mean something to me to see this water sweet again. My mama used to talk about having a bridge built over it. You know, one of those pretty arching things like they have in Japan. We never got around to it. I’m sorry for that, ’cause she’d’ve liked it.”
    Cy didn’t know about Japan or arching bridges, but he liked listening to Tucker talk. As far as Cy could tell, he could talk about just anything and make it seem fine.
    They fished for a while, drowsily, with Tucker’s voice soothing the air like breeze. Cy caught a fish, whooped over it, then tossed it back in.
    “I always wanted to go off to places,” Tucker said while Cy baited his hook with Della’s prize pâté. “I had a scrapbook when I was your age, filled it with pictures out of magazines. Places like Rome and Paris and Moscow. I’m thinking it was a shame I never worked up the energy to go see them for myself.” He waited a moment. “You got yourself a wish, Cy? Something you thought about doing?”
    “I wish I could go to college.” He turned red, waiting for the laughter. When it didn’t come, he let the rest out in a flood. “I like school. I’m good at it and all. Mr. Baker, that’s my history teacher, he says I got a curious brain and good study habits.”
    “That so?”
    “It’s kind of embarrassing when he says it in front of the class and all. But it feels good, too. He even said how maybe I could apply for a scholarship to the state university, but Daddy said I had to quit as soon as the law allowed and work on the farm. He said they taught godlessness in those colleges, and that I wasn’t …” He trailed off, remembering his father was gone.
    In silence, Tucker yanked a fish out of the water. He held it there a moment, watching it flop and struggle against the inevitable. A boy could feel like that as well, he thought, bringing the catch in, gently removing the hook. He tossed it back in the pond with a splash. It wasn’t often that a fish, or a young boy, was given asecond chance. It wasn’t often that a man was given the opportunity to offer that chance.
    Cy was going to