“How you doin’, Daddy?”
“Better, Justin. Much better. A little weak is all.”
“Man, you scared us there for a while.”
Wilson Pitre looked up wanly at his son from a hospital bed. A tray holding breakfast leftovers—a half-empty bowl of oatmeal and a half-eaten banana—sat on a nearby table.
“I scared myself,” Wilson said. “I thought for a minute I was gone. What day is it?”
“Thursday.”
“I've lost two whole days.”
“It's okay. You probably needed the rest. Anyway, the doc says you were lucky. What you had doesn't even technically qualify as a heart attack. You had what they call an arrhythmia, probably brought on by stress, and you should recover completely. Hell, he says you've got the blood pressure of a teenager, so you should live to be a hundred.”
Wilson smiled weakly. “Son, I don't think I want to get that old. Ninety and frisky might be okay. Of course, when I think about it, I haven't been frisky for a while. Maybe I never was.”
Justin laughed. “Well, Pop, there's always time to start.”
“Do you think I'm a milquetoast, Justin?”
The question caught Justin off guard. In fact, he did sometimes think his father was too mild-mannered for his own good, but he would never have said such a thing. It had only occurred to Justin in recent years what a good and shrewd thing his father had done in ceding the taming of his son's wilder impulses to Papa Jack, whose temperament matched Justin's far more than his father's. Wilson might be mild-mannered, but he had proven himself quite wise.
“No, Pop, that's silly.”
Wilson nodded. “Hmm, well, I don't know. Maybe I should've just given Alphonse Patin the back of my hand instead of letting him browbeat me. Anyway, how's your mother? The worst of this was scaring her so badly. You know how she fusses over me as it is.”
“Momma's fine, Pop. She's tougher than you think. You shoulda heard her out there with the doc, givin’ him the third degree. She wanted answers and she wanted 'em yesterday.”
This time Wilson laughed. “Well, there you go, son. I'm gonna get frisky and your mother's gonna start raising Cain. We'll be hell on wheels going into our dotage.”
Justin grinned. “Well, I hope so. We're countin’ on it.”
An easy silence followed, and then Wilson spoke again. “Listen, Justin, there's something I want to tell you. I've decided to quit the Assessor's Office.”
“Quit?”
“Yes, quit. Lying up here like this I've realized what a complete jackass Patin is and what a jackass I was to give in to their little scheme. I should've never even told you about it.”
“Pop, it's okay, really. Don't beat yourself up about it. What's done is done.”
“No, it's not. If I quit voluntarily, they can't touch me, or you, either.”
“But what about those papers you signed that Patin threatened you with?”
“I've thought about that, and here's the thing. He can't pull that on me without exposing himself. I might've signed a few papers, but he's signed hundreds. Trust me, he doesn't want me going in and cooperating with the law. I know where all the bodies are buried.”
Justin nodded. “Well, that's good to know. But I've already signed the right-of-way papers.”
“So unsign them.”
“I'm not sure I can do that.”
“Well, anyway, I'm sorry. Your momma's already made a few calls for me and, hell, I can get another job—probably a better one than I had. And if Patin tries to monkey with me, he'll get to meet the new frisky Wilson Pitre. We'll be fine, Justin. I'd just gotten scared and lazy.”
Justin looked at his father, wishing for a moment that this frisky Wilson had emerged earlier. But he brushed the thought aside—that his dad was on the mend and in good spirits was all that mattered.
“Well, Pop, there's no sin in wantin’ to live a comfortable life. God knows you and Momma both have worked hard for what you have.”
Wilson smiled. “Yes, and look where it got me. No, I'm quitting and it's for the best. We'll see how Alphonse makes out with Ginger Olivier in charge. I predict extreme chaos within a month, and it'll serve him right. And I'll help you any way I can to get that right-of-way back from those crooks.”
“Pop, all I want you to do is take it easy and get better. I can handle the rest of it. Don't worry about it.”
“They haven't dug yet, have they?”
Justin looked at his father evenly. The last thing he wanted to do was to stir him to anger or anxiety. The doctor's diagnosis, of a random cardiac “episode” perhaps brought on by stress, exhaustion, anxiety, too much coffee, or a combination of them all, didn't comfort Justin. Wilson, in Justin's diagnosis, had suffered a severe attack of Tom Huffitis. To fight Huff would mean dragging his father back into the middle of the mess.
As for the dragline, he'd learned last night that the monster would be in place this very morning. Surveyors were coming in to check the route—only because Charpentier took seriously Justin's threat to disable either the operator or the dragline if the machine ventured outside of the right-of-way. But surely they would be dredging in a day or two. So, he simply said, “No, they haven't dug yet.”
“Well, there's still hope.”
“Maybe.”
“Then, if you want my advice, give 'em hell. Go find a lawyer and sue them if you have to.”
Justin for the first time allowed himself a smile. “I'll keep that in mind, Pop. Now, you just rest and get yourself outta this hospital.”
“Are you kidding, Justin? If I'm not discharged soon, man, the food in here will kill me.”
Justin laughed. “Well, when you're better, we'll have a big party out at the camp. If you're up for it.”
“That would be nice, son. Real nice. Momma and I haven't been out to the camp in quite a while.”
“Well, you know you've got an open invitation.”
“I know that. Hell, maybe it's time I started getting serious about my fishing. Maybe that's been one of my problems. I was never serious enough about my fishing.”
“Great, Pop. Come on out. The reds are biting and Grace will give us both a lesson.”
Father and son had a nice laugh at this family joke.
Justin shook his father's hand and walked from the hospital room, filled for the first time with a small amount of hope to go with his despair and rage. But the flicker of hope dimmed quickly as he realized he was about out of time.
What the hell to do?