THE PERCOLATING COFFEE ROUSED JONAH IN HIS SLEEPING BAG. He got up and sat on the couch with his elbows on his knees and waited for his mind to galvanize out of slumber. While Bill was deployed, Jonah used to stare at his shoes and see the duck-blind floor beneath them, or the boards of their back porch, or the grass, or the gravel. And he’d wonder what kind of ground was beneath Bill’s boots in Afghanistan—he’d always imagined sand for some reason, but there was snow in the videos he’d looked up. He couldn’t know. He thought he’d feel better if he could know, but there was a wall there he’d never be able to see through, and it made him want to scream. Now he thought of Luz, and what did she see beneath her sneakers? He pressed his thumbs into his eyes until he saw stars, and then he went to Dex’s bedroom door and knocked.
Dex was slipping a shirt on over his tattooed chest. Jonah hadn’t known that his brother had tattoos. Dex looked at him and pulled on his baseball cap. “Up early.”
“Heard the coffee.”
“Was trying to be quiet.”
“I was wondering if we could go out with you today.”
Dex sat and pulled on socks. “Huh?”
“Like, could we help and maybe you could give us a few bucks?”
“Oh.” Dex stood and opened his palms. “Okay. Wake up your buddy. He lazy?”
“He’s all right.”
Jonah poured coffee and kicked Colby gently in his sleeping bag. Colby grunted and Jonah said, “Get up, dude. We’re working today.”
“I don’t drink this shit,” Colby said when Jonah handed him the mug.
“You’ll do shots of mouthwash but won’t touch this, that right?”
“Fuck you,” Colby grunted and sipped the coffee.
They dressed and followed Dex and Donald the dog down the path. The mosquitoes could be felt but not seen this early. Dex carried the .22 in its case, and a satchel of other supplies. He had a cigarette in his mouth trailing smoke. A structure materialized in the shadow ahead. Jonah halted.
“Dex. Where’s the dock.”
Where the dock used to be—long and rickety, a tin overhang—stood a sheltered, narrow wharf and half a dozen plank jetties. Moored flatboats and pirogues.
“Washed away in Hurricane Gustav, year and a half back,” Dex said. “All of us with camps out here ponied up the cash for this. Now they call it a landing.” Dex sighed and flicked the cigarette into the water. “A landing.”
Dex clomped to the family flatboat and Colby followed, but Jonah was rooted to the spot: Wake up, Little Dude. What Bill always called him. They raced down to the dock. Bill carried the fishing gear and he let Jonah win the race, and at the end of the dock Jonah came face-to-beak with a blue heron. Thing’s taller than me, standing there. Small, fierce eyes. Bill came up and the heron turned and lurched over the water, rising through the fog with prehistoric wing strokes. Never seen a bird do something like that, Bill said. Like it wanted to be friends—Bill smiled—or maybe eat you.