The Poacher's Son (Mike Bowditch 1)

a hundred or so feet to one side of us. Maybe it rested on the shallow gravel bottom of the lake. A faded orange life jacket bobbed in the waves without a person in it.
    In my mind I saw Ora sitting in her wheelchair at the end of the dock as we had taken off this morning. She had waved at us, waved good-bye to her husband. She would never see him alive again.
    My father didn’t even give the plane a glance. He kept paddling.
    Brenda was smirking at me. My pain, apparently, amused her. A few hours earlier, I had felt sorry for this lonely girl raised by men, but now I just wanted to wipe that smirk off that cruel face. I had no other motivation, no other thought as I stood up in the canoe.
    The smirk vanished. Disbelief widened her eyes. My father started to speak, but no words came out of his open mouth. There was an instant when I stood above them, calm and perfectly balanced, and we were still gliding forward. Then, just like that, the canoe tipped over, and we were all in the water.
     
    I went in headfirst, upside down and unable to right myself without the use of my arms. I scissored my legs and twisted. I felt thrashing movements around me. Bodies in the water. My foot kicked something hard. For a split second, my head broke the surface, but I couldn’t stay afloat, and I slipped back under the chop. Water rushed up my nose and into my lungs. Water burned my sinuses like acid inhaled.
    Then my feet touched bottom. It was the gravel floor of the lake. I pushed off with both feet. Again my head broke the surface and again I slid back. But this time I didn’t slide completely under. The water was shallower. I felt rocks under me. I could stand.
    Behind me I heard splashing. I didn’t pause to look. I struggled into the shallows. The water felt like quicksand holding me back, pulling me down. My legs had no bones in them. All I could think about was making it to the trees.
    And I almost did.
    My father tackled me at the water’s edge. He lunged forward out of the shallows and got me around the knees and I went down, chest first, onto the rocks. My breath exploded out of me. I rolled onto my side. He was on his knees in the water, pawing at my legs. I drove my boot into his face. He’d lost his hat and his rifle, but the .44, I could see, was still somehow tucked in his belt. He spit blood into the lake and rose up onto his feet. He stood over me, red-faced, hair plastered in a weird way across his forehead, looking like someone I had never seen before. A complete stranger.
    Suddenly the Ruger was in his hand.
    I waited for it. There was nothing else I could do.
    Then the surf washed a canoe paddle past his legs. He must have seen the movement out of the corner of his eye because he paused and looked over his shoulder. Brenda was nowhere in sight. The canoe had drifted against the shore. It looked almost jaunty as it bounced along on the waves.
    “Brenda?” he called.
    There was no answer. Rain was coming down in sheets.
    “Brenda?”
    And, just like that, he forgot me. Calling her name, he waded back into the depths, trying to find her. He pushed at the water as if it were sand he could clear away with his hands, but it just flooded back. He dove beneath the surface and vanished for the longest time.
    I remained seated on the cold stones. My heart was galloping in my chest. It didn’t occur to me to run. I wanted to see him come up with her. In spite of everything, it was what I wanted.
    Finally he broke the surface.
    He had her in his arms, but her head was back and her mouth was open and she wasn’t moving.
    I watched him carry her out of the lake and lay her down on the hard stones. He knelt over her, with his back to me.
    There was a deep red gash on her forehead above her eye. Her skin looked bleached. Her black hair spread beneath her head like a dark tangle.
    He started kissing her open mouth, trying to make her breathe. Then he began pounding on her chest. I had never seen him frantic before. I had seen him angry and happy, drunk and sober, but never, visibly, afraid. Her body jerked, and her head lolled toward me, but I knew it was just the force of his hands making her move. His strength pushed water out of her lungs and up her throat, but she wouldn’t breathe. She hadn’t been underwater for more than a few minutes, but she was dead.
    I leaned my back against a boulder and used the leverage to get to my feet. Wind-driven rain smacked the surface of the lake. If he was crying, I couldn’t