The Two Brothers and One Boat

Owen has the bowline half off the post when the truck hits the gravel behind him. He does not turn around, because only one truck lands in this lot like that.

"That's my line you're holding."

"It's a line." Owen keeps his hands moving. "There's four of them on her."

"It's my morning and I called it Tuesday."

"You typed it Tuesday, at eleven at night, to a man who's asleep at nine."

"It's called when I say it's called."

"It's called when somebody answers, and nobody answered."

Caleb comes down the ramp with the tackle box banging his knee, the latch rattling loose, and stops closer than he needs to be.

"So charge your phone and stop making it my problem."

"So knock on my door like a person. I've had the Hendersons on the book since,"

"Since when, since you found out I had a charter?"

"Since Sunday."

"Sunday." Caleb laughs at the water instead of at him. "Dad gave her to whoever needed her."

"Most." Owen has the rope in a coil and holds it. "Whoever needed her most, and you keep dropping the word."

"Because you keep standing on it like it's a plank."

"He said it at the kitchen table in November, and you weren't at the table."

"I was working."

"You were working."

"He's been gone since February and he never said which one of us, and he never said a lot of things."

The Marlin knocks the post between them, and somebody's radio starts up two slips down and quits.

"I've got the Hendersons at seven off this dock."

"I've got four guys out of Tallahassee at seven off this dock."

"Then one of us picks up a phone and starts apologising."

"Not me."

"Not me."

Neither of them looks at the boat.

"Mine drove four hours in the dark for this."

"Mine have been coming out with us since we were twelve."

"Since Dad took them out. Not us."

"Then we go out together and split the day between us."

"Six seats, your four and my four."

"So we're both going."

"There's one boat."

Neither one folds, so they both get in, Owen at the bow and Caleb at the stern.

"Let go of the line."

"You let go of yours."

"You're taking her over."

"You're taking her over."

Then Owen pulls for the channel and Caleb pulls for the flats, and the Marlin goes down on her rail on Caleb's side, and the bay comes in over the gunwale like a bucket poured from outside.

It comes cold and fast over Owen's boots before he has his mouth open, and the tackle box slides down the deck and goes in with a small round sound. The rail goes under and the bay keeps coming.

"Owen."

Owen lets go. He drops the bow line, throws himself at the low rail, and hangs his weight out over the water on the high side. "Bail," he says.

"Higher on that side."

"I'm as high as I go, so bail."

"It's coming in faster than I can throw it out."

"Then throw it faster."

Caleb bails, bucket and gunwale and bucket and gunwale, and the water sloshes back off the deck, and the Marlin comes up under them and rides.

They sit on the wet benches while the fog goes off the water, and Caleb looks at the place where his box was.

"Take the Hendersons." Caleb wrings out his cap. "I'll go after lunch."

Owen starts the motor, and there is water round their ankles all the way to the channel, going out through the bailer a foot at a time.

A shared thing halves; a fought-over thing sinks.