Where I'm Calling From

matter with you, Dummy?” Dad said. “This your pond, ain’t it?”
    Dummy looked down and picked an ant off his coveralls.
    “Well, hell,” Dad said, letting out his breath. He took out his watch. “If it’s still all right with you, we’ll get to it before it gets too dark.”
    Dummy stuck his hands in his pockets and turned back to the pond. He started walking again. We trailed along behind. We could see the whole pond now, the water dimpled with rising fish. Every so often a bass would leap clear and come down in a splash.
    “Great God,” I heard my father say.
    We came up to the pond at an open place, a gravel beach kind of.
    Dad motioned to me and dropped into a crouch. I dropped too. He was peering into the water in front of us, and when I looked, I saw what had taken him so.
    “Honest to God,” he whispered.
    A school of bass was cruising, twenty, thirty, not one of them under two pounds. They veered off, and then they shifted and came back, so densely spaced they looked like they were bumping up against each other. I could see their big, heavy-lidded eyes watching us as they went by. They flashed away again, and again they came back.
    They were asking for it. It didn’t make any difference if we stayed squatted or stood up. The fish just didn’t think a thing about us. I tell you, it was a sight to behold.
    We sat there for quite a while, watching that school of bass go so innocently about their business, Dummy the whole time pulling at his fingers and looking around as if he expected someone to show up.
    All over the pond the bass were coming up to nuzzle the water, or jumping clear and falling back, or coming up to the surface to swim along with their dorsals sticking out.
    Dad signaled, and we got up to cast.
    I tell you, I was shaky with excitement. I could hardly get the plug loose from the cork handle of my pole. It was while I was trying to get the hooks out that I felt Dummy seize my shoulder with his big fingers. I looked, and in answer Dummy worked his chin in Dad’s direction. What he wanted was clear enough, no more than one pole.
    Dad took off his hat and then put it back on and then he moved over to where I stood.
    “You go on, Jack,” he said. “That’s all right, son—you do it now.”
    I looked at Dummy just before I laid out my cast. His face had gone rigid, and there was a thin line of drool on his chin.
    “Come back stout on the sucker when he strikes,” Dad said. “Sons of bitches got mouths hard as doorknobs.”
    I flipped off the drag lever and threw back my arm. I sent her out a good forty feet. The water was boiling even before I had time to take up the slack.
    “Hit him!” Dad yelled. “Hit the son of a bitch! Hit him good!”
    I came back hard, twice. I had him, all right. The rod bowed over and jerked back and forth. Dad kept yelling what to do.
    “Let him go, let him go! Let him run! Give him more line! Now wind in! Wind in! No, let him run! Wooee! Will you look at that!”
    The bass danced around the pond. Every time it came up out of the water, it shook its head so hard you could hear the plug rattle. And then he’d take off again. But by and by I wore him out and had him in up close. He looked enormous, six or seven pounds maybe. He lay on his side, whipped, mouth open, gills working. My knees felt so weak I could hardly stand. But I held the rod up, the line tight.
    Dad waded out over his shoes. But when he reached for the fish, Dummy started sputtering, shaking his head, waving his arms.
    “Now what the hell’s the matter with you, Dummy? The boy’s got hold of the biggest bass I ever seen, and he ain’t going to throw him back, by God!”
    Dummy kept carrying on and gesturing toward the pond.
    “I ain’t about to let this boy’s fish go. You hear me, Dummy? You got another think coming if you think I’m going to do that.”
    Dummy reached for my line. Meanwhile, the bass had gained some strength back. He turned himself over and started swimming again. I yelled and then I lost my head and slammed down the brake on the reel and started winding. The bass made a last, furious run.
    That was that. The line broke. I almost fell over on my back.
    “Come on, Jack,” Dad said, and I saw him grabbing up his pole. “Come on, goddamn the fool, before I knock the man down.”
    That February the river flooded.
    It had snowed pretty heavy the first weeks of December, and turned real cold before Christmas. The ground froze. The snow stayed where it