SHERIFF BEHIND the wheel trained his swivel spotlight on the fish and upon Leon and Falk, crouching there like thieves of the sea. They straightened in this spotlight beam and held their hands up to block the glare, seemed to be saluting.
Sheriff John Littledog uncoiled his magnificent form from the car and approached in no great hurry, his boots crunching the oyster-shell grit between shoulder and shoreline, his radio crackling in the background. He was quarter-blood Kiowa, the tallest man in Mustang County, and wore a black eyepatch over his left eye.
He’d lost the eye over a woman. It was one thing known by most every citizen in Mustang County.
He had a face you got a good look at it you knew he’d seen some good and bad times, enough to weary of steering the mistaken back to the path of righteousness. He’d been a high school basketball star years ago and still got credit for that.
Sheriff Littledog’s tallness in the headlights cast a wicked shadow. He stopped near the fish, took off his hat, and rubbed his grizzled gray head. His six-feet-seven-inch frame was not without a certain grace. People told him he could have been in the movies but he frankly didn’t give a shit. He put his hat back in place and said, The fuck is this?
Leon stepped forward and shook the sheriff’s hand. One bigass fish is what I’d say.
Falk only nodded, crouched down, and tugged at the tarp. When he’d been caught with a knife in school, he’d been arrested and charged with carrying a weapon on school grounds to teach him a lesson. It worked. After spending an afternoon in the sheriff’s jail, he didn’t want anything more to do with him.
Leon spoke up. The gist of it. Big fish beached and a curious thing it was.
Sheriff nodded. That is a fact. What kind is it?
Leon shrugged. Beats me. None I ever seen or heard tell of.
Ain’t that the hell. Sheriff Littledog walked around it, squatted low to get a close-up view. With the spotlight behind him his tallness cast a long shadow over the waves of Red Moon Bay.
That Oscar Martinez’s truck you’re driving?
Leon said yes, it was. He’d let Gusef borrow it, and Gusef had given them the keys.
Must be a special occasion, said Sheriff Littledog. Martinez treats that truck like his woman. Sheriff Littledog grinned. Or maybe his muchacho.
Leon said they had quite a find. He showed Littledog the horse’s head wedged in its throat, the blond mane and hoof.
Well I’ll be goddamned on a Sunday, said the sheriff. He shook his head. Whatever this is, it ain’t right.
Can I claim it? asked Falk.
Claim what?
The fish.
Sheriff Littledog put his hands on his hips. An odd gesture, almost girlish, one hip cocked to the side. Never heard of a boy claiming a dead fish washed in on the tide before. But whatever. No skin off my ass.
You don’t need it for evidence?
Evidence of what?
I don’t know. The horse in its mouth?
You mean I should fingerprint the fish?
You tell me.
What we got here looks like a swallowing to me. Last I checked that ain’t a crime rightly in the books.
He told them to turn their hazard lights on so some drunken fool didn’t hit them while they were pulled over on the shoulder. Martinez would beat them bloody if they so much as scratched his truck. But as far as them claiming a dead fish, it was fine with him.
Leon said, Won’t be stinking up the Sea Horse now will it?
You be doing the county a service, said the sheriff. With that he walked off and gave them a lazy wave. He made a U-turn on Shoreline and headed back toward town. It wasn’t till the sheriff was gone that Falk noticed how fast and hard his heart was beating.
They tied a rope around the tail of the beached fish and managed to use the winch to haul it out of the water. When they got the thing scooted onto the tarp it appeared somewhat smaller. By then moonlight spangled the bay surface and lapped in silver ghost tongues at their feet. They folded the drop cloth over the fish and tied it on both ends. It was wet and slimy and smelled horrible. They wrestled one end onto the hydraulic tongue and heaved, grunted, lifted the other slumped, soggy end, and pushed it into position. Leon loosed the steel cable of the winch and wrapped it around the middle of the fish where the crushed fins created a small dent in its belly, then fastened the hook at the end of the cable to make fast a large loop.
They raised the hydraulic tongue and hauled in the winch cable until the giant fish sat in the middle of the flatbed of the tow truck. There it resembled an enormous bloated zebra wrapped in plastic.
They drove to Falk’s aunt’s house. He was living there now, his parents killed in a bridge collapse the summer before. In the backyard was an old plastic kiddy pool that had been hauled out of a house somewhere and left behind the garage where it collected rain. No one ever used it. In the shadows of a security light mounted on the garage, Falk dumped the pool on its side, stepped back as the rainwater whooshed into the sandy yard thinly covered with grass, then realized it was too small.
He went to look for his uncle.
The backyard was Uncle Ed’s territory. He was a thin, bald man, somewhat vague and underwhelmed by the routine of his life.
The fishermen of Goodnight said Falk’s uncle had once been a hellraiser, forearms big as Popeye’s, that in his day Uncle Ed had hauled enough shrimp out of the Gulf of Mexico to feed half of San Antonio. But his day was over. An accident had seen to that: He’d been filling his bay shrimpboat at the dockside pump on Rattlesnake Point when something had gone wrong. The pump nozzle slipped out of the tank and failed to shut off, gushing diesel across the deck and catching fire from a spark.
Now the roughs called him a gimp, good for nothing more than hauling crab traps out of Humosa Bay. A bottom-feeder of bottom-feeders. Falk stood up for him when he could, but that wasn’t often. Goodnight was a town that could be mean if you listened to the wrong people.
Three squares of yellow light cast their glow on the cement outside the windowed garage door. Inside Ed was mending a wire crab trap. Falk told him what had happened and asked if it was okay if he parked it in the garage for the night.
They walked to the back end of the tow truck. The white legs of the small pony were just visible in the bluish glow of the backyard security lights. Ed leaned against the tow truck, staring at the hooves dangling out. He picked up a stick and poked at it. He shook his head. Well I be dog.
Ed dropped the stick and brushed his hands on his pants. By God it does smell don’t it? Maybe you ought not to let Vicky see it. Get rid of it soon. If she sees it, she’ll raise hell. I know that sure as shootin’.
Falk and Leon drove back to the Black Tooth. Gusef was eating dinner at a booth in the front room, near which a trophy marlin was mounted on the wall. He said, Where is sea monster? Tell me coyotes will not eat only fish in sea for dinner.
Falk assured him it was safe and sound. He suggested Gusef should have it stuffed and mounted, make it a roadside attraction. You can put up billboards for it on Highway 35, drum up some business.
Gusef nodded. Maybe we make money off big ugly thing. Maybe godforsaken bays are filled with it. I will show lazy worthless drunken fishermen what they cannot catch. That will make them feel good I am sure. And myself become Mr. Popular. Perhaps they vote me mayor. He took a sip of his drink. Or toss me in water with anchor for necklace.
I’m thinking more like a curiosity thing.
Gusef made a shrewd face. Yes well I should display it in Black Tooth. I will mount it above front door for all to see.
Falk rubbed the fuzz of his sunbleached hair. I was thinking something like that. Maybe after some negotiations though.
Gusef