It was daybreak, and Jim Hart, standing just off the house's small porch, wanted to know who it was that was watching him from shore. He called over his shoulder, "Marie?"
She called back, from the other side of the house, "Yes?"
"There's somebody watching us."
"What?"
"I said there's . . ." And he stopped. Because whoever it had been was gone now. Just like that. As if the forest had swallowed him up. Or as if—which, Jim thought, was more likely—the morning sun, just rising, had momentarily blinded him, and the man on shore had merely walked away.
Jim heard Marie coming toward him through the tall grass that surrounded the house. He turned his head. "It's nothing, Marie. I thought I saw someone." He nodded toward shore.
"A hunter?" Marie asked.
He shrugged. "I don't know. It could have been a hunter, I guess." He paused briefly, then went on, "It could have been the Fuller Brush Man, for all I know."
Fred appeared from the western side of the island. He had a makeshift fishing pole in hand and a good length of nylon line attached to it. He grinned; "Hey, Jimbo, wanta do a little fishing? I thought we'd take the boat out. You afraid of boats, Jimbo?" He hesitated only briefly. "My little sister says you're afraid of spiders, so I figure you've got to be afraid of boats."
Jim glanced at Marie and tried to conjure up a look of betrayal. Marie looked away quickly, as if embarrassed. "Sure," Jim said. "I'll come with you."
Fred still was grinning. "You know how to swim, Jimbo?"
"I know how to swim, Fred."
"Okay then, let's go." And he turned and started back to the western side of the island. Jim followed, several paces behind. As he walked, he busied himself with figuring out the best way to sit in the boat. It was a small, three-seated wooden rowboat, and he thought it would be nice if he could find a way to face away from Fred. Then Fred wouldn't have to see that he had no idea how to bait a hook, or how to cast, or how to pull a fish in—should he catch one—because his body would block the view of all that. And then he realized, in the middle of these thoughts, that he was desperate and tense, and that this little hiking expedition had turned very sour.
Fred, keeping his eyes straight ahead, said, "You're not having a good time, are you, Jim?" There was only the very faintest trace of sarcasm in his voice. Jim decided that the question had been rhetorical; he stayed quiet. Fred kept his eyes straight ahead; the weeds here were waist-high, and the soil, spongy from the recent, heavy rains, squeaked under foot, making walking precarious. He went on, "Think of it as a learning experience, Jim." Now the sarcasm seemed to have vanished altogether. Abruptly, Fred stopped walking; Jim reacted a second too late; the front of his foot connected with Fred's heel. Fred looked around at him. "Where's your pole, Jim?"
Jim grimaced. He thought a moment, his eyes focused on Fred's hand, loosely gripping his own makeshift pole. He said, "I assumed you had one for me, Fred. In the boat."
Fred started walking again, a little faster. "No, I don't, Jim. Did I tell you I did? You'll have to make one." He moved his hand slightly to indicate several thin birch trees a dozen yards to the right. "That's a good bet," he went on, and quickened his pace even more. Jim stopped. Fred called back, "I'll wait for you in the boat, Jimbo." Jim watched him lope off. He thought he heard him giggle—a high, quick, grating sound, a child's giggle—then grimaced again. That giggle sounded ludicrous from a man like Fred Williams.
Jim moved slowly and carefully to his right, toward the cluster of birches.
Fred Williams would admit freely that he was a chauvinist and a bully. He would also go on to explain that because of this "self-honesty," he was "infinitely more at peace with himself" than other men.
He pushed his way through life like a bear, and anyone standing in his way usually got eaten. Slowly.
Like Jim Hart.
Fred mused that now he was probably just chewing on Jim Hart. In a day or so—when the hike ended—he would finish with him. It was what Jim needed. If Jim could be made to see himself as the candy-ass that everyone knew he was, then he'd be well on his way to becoming a much happier man.
So, Fred thought, there was therapy and goodness in chewing Jim up. Which was not to deny, of course, that it was also lots of fun. It was a man's right—and duty—to dominate other men if he could. The strong survived. The strong had to survive.
He stopped walking, leaned over, and set his pole in the little rowboat. He glanced around. Jim was nowhere in sight. He pushed the boat into the water, jumped in, and grabbed the oars. "Hey, Jimbo!" he called, and he rowed mightily toward the middle of the lake, where the water was deepest, and the chances for catching breakfast for all of them the best. "Hey Jimbo, it's okay!" He heard himself chuckle low in his throat.
He had seated himself in the middle of the boat; the bow was behind him. He saw Jim appear on shore, now about fifty yards away. He had a six-foot length of birch branch in hand, and a look of puzzlement on his face. It was a look that made Fred feel good. "Sorry, Jimbo," he called.
He noticed that the boat was moving very sluggishly, and that it was riding much lower in the water than it should have been. He saw Jim point at the boat. He heard Jim call, "Who's . . ." and a sudden breeze carried the rest of the sentence away.
"What'd you say, Jimbo?" Fred called. He saw Jim's mouth move, but because the breeze had sustained itself, and the distance to shore had increased to nearly a hundred yards, he heard nothing.
"Goddammit!" Fred swore, because the boat was moving so sluggishly—as if the water had suddenly become much more dense than water ought to be—and he had no good explanation for it.
"Fred!" he heard, very faintly, from shore. He looked. Marie was standing next to Jim; she had her hands cupped around her mouth. "Fred!" he heard again. And he saw her point frantically. At him, he thought. Then he corrected himself. No—not at him, at the front of the boat. She was pointing at something in the front of the boat.
He turned his head a little. He noticed first that the boat was angled slightly downward, toward the bow. He turned his head some more. He felt a chill go down his spine, and grinned as if in denial of it.
He saw the man in the bow seat for only an instant. He was tall, dark-skinned, dark-haired, blue-eyed, and he was naked.
"Welcome," the man said, "to my island."
And he leaped from the boat before Fred could get a word out. "What in the . . ." Fred murmured, then peered over the side of the boat. He lifted the oars from the water; a few bubbles undulated to the surface, where the man had jumped in. "What in the Christ–" Fred said. And the water grew still.