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Show Blue Run/49 "Shit," he said. Black water came to his chest. Daddy got in, drew the call from the string around his neck and sounded. Bursts squawked up through the tree tops. One man started wading and the other followed. O.W.'s shotgun lay over his right shoulder, he'd never duckhunted a day in his life. They caught a slough rut that ran out catty-corner to the east where light was coming now. "Tell me what happened, sugar. With Buddy." Daddy'd given Joey a Yentzen caller, and he was fooling around up in the bow, moving, trying not to freeze Ruby'd brought coffee in a thermos, but we had only the cap for a cup, and so took turns sipping and pouring. The sun was rising "He tried to kill me." The words came out a whisper. "No " "Yea." Ruby tilted her head. She was sweet and had been pretty once, I could tell. Joey's eyes were off in the clouds, maybe he wasn't listening, maybe he couldn't hear. "How come?" Three gunshots-loud, then a muffled echo. "What are they doing?" Two ducks winged up the corridor-the wings going tu-tu-tu. A fox squirrel barked up an oak. Something splashed, then a woodpecker, the huge Pileated kind, went off. Joey hung off the front of the boat, making faces in the water-in his zone, his place. Gunshots followed gunshots And then some wild thing would appear like a bat out of hell, gone as quick as it came "In a quarry." "They have those in Tucson?" "A spring," I was whispering, looking at Joey, my son, how he looked like Buddy and me |