The Fisherman
Todd Autry, Horse Branch (Ohio County)
When Sheriff Higg came looking for old man Nubbins, he found him out back in a jon boat. On dry land. The eighty-year-old wore cut-offs, muck boots, and a floppy, straw hat. No shirt.
“Hey, Sheriff! Jump in here. Fish are bitin’. Beer’s cold.” Nubbins opened an ice chest and pulled out a can.
“Better not.”
“Maybe this bottle suits you better then.” The old man reached in and brought out a pint of bourbon.
“I’m not here for that, Morris. “
“Suit yourself. But at least get in here and help catch some of these catfish. Nothin’ like Caney Creek, flathead catfish.”
The lawman indulged him and stepped in at the bow. The hull’s thin, olive drab aluminum complained when he sat. Nubbins had his rod-and-reels spread in all directions out over the sides of the small, twelve-foot craft. Monofilament line stretched from the rod tips to all points of the wide backyard.
“Bring that one in to your port side there, Sheriff. I think bait stealers robbed me clean.”
“Morris, I’m not much of a fisherman.”
“Why you call me ‘Morris?’ You know everybody calls me ‘Nubbins.’ ”
“I always call you ‘Morris.’ ”
“And I want to know why.”
“Just being polite, I guess. I know why they call you ‘Nubbins.’ Always thought it was disrespectful.”
The old fisherman tilted his head. “I know what you’re here for.”
“You do?”
“Miss Vincent sent you, didn’t she?”
“Morris …”
“I told her if she didn’t keep them cats away, I was goin’ a kill ’em, and by …”
Higg raised his voice. “Morris.”
Nubbins’ eyes widened, and his mouth opened to argue, but the sheriff went on.
“Morris, I’m here because your children are worried.”
“What?”
“Your children.”
Nubbins grunted, and his face turned red.
“I’m sorry, Morris. We’ll need to move you down to the home.” The sheriff paused. “It’s for your own good.”
The old man’s head slumped. He breathed hard. “My own good?”
“They think so.”
Nubbins raised his head. “What do you think, Mr. Higg?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“Don’t it?”
“No.”
“You’re the law. Of course it does.”
The sheriff stared at the bottom of the boat. “Morris, I don’t know what you want me to say. It’s awful what your kids are doing, but then there’s this.” Higg gestured with his hands. “You’re in a boat in your backyard fishing, Morris.”
“There’s fish to be caught everywhere, Sheriff. You know what my children are doin’? They’re killin’ me. How long you think I’ll last in that hole?”
Higg shrugged. “Maybe it won’t be as bad as you think.”
“Get out!” Nubbins shouted. “Get outta my boat!”
Sheriff Higg inhaled and shook his head. Slowly, he stood and stepped over the side. “Morris, it’s my job.”
“You like your job, Sheriff? You like roustin’ old folks off their property and throwin’ ‘em in jail?”
“You’re not going to jail.”
“Might as well.”
The sheriff reached in his pocket and brought out a paper. He unfolded it and offered it to the old man. Nubbins shook his head, so Higg laid it on the seat still warm. “I’ll be back in a couple days, Morris. I’m sorry.” He turned to leave.
“How much?” Nubbins spoke coldly.
The lawman stopped and turned back. “Excuse me?”
“They’ll sell this farm if they can get rid of me. They’d give you a share to help ’em.”
“Now, Morris, you can’t go accusing me like that.”
“I know my kids, Sheriff.”
“Now, listen here …”
“You denyin’ it?”
“Yes.”
“But they offered.”
“Morris …”
“Whatever they offered, I’ll double. A thousand. Ten-thousand. Twenty-thousand. This farm made me a rich man, Sheriff. I might not live like it, but I got mason jars buried all over.”
“Morris …”
“Thirty-thousand?”
Higg swallowed. His voiced shifted up an octave. “Morris.”
“Step back in here with me, Sheriff. One of these poles is gettin’ a bite, and it might be a big’un.”
The sheriff hesitated then deflated and gave in. He sat in the flatbottom jon again.
“Reel that one in and see what a whopper!” Nubbins pointed to one of the rods.
The lawman studied it, his eyes following the fishing line as it trailed through ankle-high grass and disappeared behind a leaning, weathered shed.
“Pick it up and start pullin’ before he gets away.”
The sheriff stared at it until Nubbins took it and jerked back on the rod, reeling until the line was taut.
“Here, Sheriff. You’ll have to fight for it.” The old fisherman nudged the handle between the sheriff’s hands until his fingers clasped around it and began winding the handle like a blank-faced sleepwalker.
The line tightened, the rod bent, and the sheriff heaved weakly. Whatever was on the end of the line refused to budge.
“That’s it, Sheriff! You got him now!” Nubbins gripped the gunnels and rocked the boat sideways, shaking the lawman from his sluggish manner.
Higg yanked three times, each with more vigor than the last. On the third tug, something gave way so abruptly the sheriff nearly flipped backwards out of the boat. He struggled to stay in the vessel, as if he couldn’t swim. Settled, he began reeling again, and from behind the shed came a shiny, glass object. A quart jar.
“Looky there! You got one!” Nubbins shouted.
The sheriff reeled faster. ”What is it, Morris?”
“You know what it is.”
Soon the jar had bounced and rolled right up to the boat. Higg stopped reeling and sat watching it. The jar’s glass was freckled with caked dirt but clear enough that rolls of cash were visible. He raised the rod tip until the jar swung from the end of the fishing line, left to right, right to left like a grandfather clock. His eyes followed. He saw twenties, wads of them.
Nubbins laughed. “Get ’im in the boat before you lose ’im.”
The lawman twice blinked fierce and maneuvered the rod and lowered the jar down onto the flat, scratched-up bottom of the jon boat.
“You’re pretty good at this fishin’ business, Sheriff. You need to come around more, maybe a couple days from now, see if you can’t catch another one.”
Sheriff Higg laid the rod-and-reel against the starboard bow and stood. He stepped out, his eyes on the jar. “I’ll see you in two days, Morr … two, Nubbins, two.”
Sniper's Nest
Terry Boehmker, Villa Hills
At the crest of the hill, the young man sat down to catch his breath as the first rays of sunrise peeked over the tree line. Resting his back against a broad oak tree, he placed the rifle across his lap and laid a large coil of knotted rope on the dewy grass beside him. His stomach growled; he had been too anxious to eat anything for days.
He could see the battle lines forming below him. Union soldiers in dark-blue uniforms assembled into companies at one end of the grassy field. They would soon march across the meadow and confront the gray-clad Confederate soldiers standing along a copse of pine trees.
The young man put the coil of rope over the rifle barrel and slipped his arm through the gun’s shoulder strap before standing. With both hands free, he jumped to grab a low-hanging branch and pulled himself up into the tree. He climbed no more than 6 feet before finding the perfect spot for his sniper’s nest.
A true marksman needs to be above the din of battle to carry out his mission, he thought to himself. Infantry units discharge their weapons in volleys with very few of them aiming at a specific target. Then they all scramble to reload as quickly as possible and do the same thing once again. It creates a melee of noise and smoke that he didn’t want any part of.
Scooting out a few feet on the sturdy branch, the young man tied one end of the rope around the thick limb and lowered the rest to the ground. He would use the knotted line to get out of the tree quickly after his mission was accomplished.
Easing himself back across the branch, he swung the rifle around and poked the barrel between the leaves of a thinner branch in front of him. As the Union soldiers were awaiting their marching orders, the hidden shooter spotted his target. An officer wearing a wide-brimmed hat with gold epaulets on both shoulders of his dark-blue jacket rode across the field on a majestic black horse.
To get a better look, the young man pulled a long-range scope from the inside pocket of his jacket and attached it to his rifle. When he looked through the scope at the horse’s rider, he saw the bearded face of the haughty college professor who had destroyed his career.
Dr. James Filmore had received one of the state’s highest literary awards for a book he published about Civil War battles in Kentucky. As a graduate assistant, the young man had done most of the early research for the book, but he had received no credit for his work.
He confronted the professor about being slighted and was told that glaring mistakes were discovered in his research that had to be corrected by others. When Dr. Filmore spread that lie among the education community, the young man knew his reputation as a historian was ruined. He dropped out of college and took a job stocking produce at a grocery store.
Several months later, a Facebook post stoked the young man’s dormant anger. He read that the “distinguished author” Dr. James Filmore would be taking part in a Civil War battle demonstration at a nearby municipal park.
That’s when he began plotting his revenge.
Now, the time had come to carry out his daring mission, like the celebrated soldiers he had been reading about ever since he was a boy.
The young man shoved a bullet into his bolt-action hunting rifle and scanned the weekend warriors dressed in blue with replicas of Civil War muskets resting against their shoulders. They were lined up and ready to perform for the spectators gathered behind yellow-tape boundaries set up along both sides of the pretend battlefield. He noticed that many of the men and women had a smart phone in hand to shoot video of the military demonstration.
Dr. Filmore guided his horse to the front of one company of Union soldiers. He drew a sword from the scabbard belted around his waist and tilted the gleaming blade forward to commence the march.
The young man in the tree pointed his rifle toward the bearded officer and looked through the scope to draw a bead on his despised target. As his index finger closed in on the trigger, however, he started having second thoughts.
He had been up all night wrestling with his conscience about taking the deceitful professor’s life. If he backed out now, he’d have to deal with the same shame that nagged the young soldier who deserted the battlefield in The Red Badge of Courage, the book that got him interested in Civil War history when he was just a boy.
With beads of anguished sweat coursing down his cheeks, a passage from that classic book suddenly crossed his mind:
“He now conceded it to be impossible that he should ever become a hero. He was a craven loon. Those pictures of glory were piteous things. He groaned from his heart and went staggering off.”
The young man closed his eyes and laid his forehead on the wooden stock of the hunting rifle. With tears in his eyes, he removed his finger from the trigger just before the sound of a yelping dog came from the battlefield below.
He looked down and saw a small white poodle racing toward Dr. Filmore’s big black horse. The frightened mount reared up and the rider tumbled backward out of the saddle. Without releasing his sword, Dr. Filmore landed face down on the field. The soldiers in his company broke ranks and gathered around their fallen leader, but the other companies continued marching.
The young man swung the rifle back onto his shoulder as the mock battle continued below him. He watched the other companies of Union soldiers come to a halt, raise their muskets, and fire at their enemies standing along the tree line. The Confederates responded with a volley of their own, and then both lines of soldiers charged forward, screaming loudly.
Both lines halted a few yards before crashing into each other. All the soldiers began cheering and waving their hats to end the demonstration. While the spectators clapped and cheered, the young man climbed down the knotted rope.
As he was rambling down the opposite side of the steep hill toward his car, the young man drew some satisfaction from witnessing Dr. Filmore’s embarrassing mishap on the battlefield. Then another line from Red Badge of Courage popped into the appeased avenger’s mind:
“So it came to pass that as he trudged from the place of blood and wrath, his soul changed.”