“Aren’t you planting this year?” Avery said.
“I have to get some money from the bank.”
“The oil company owes me some in back pay. They’ll send it in a couple of weeks.”
“That’s fine, son. Maybe we’ll have a good year.”
Batiste came over and shook hands with Avery. His hair had begun to turn white, and his shoulders were bent; he wore suspenders and a collarless shirt, and the leather was cut away from the toe of one of his shoes.
“He’s looking fine, ain’t he, Mr. Broussard?” he said.
“How’ve you been?” Avery said.
“Been waiting for you to come home. I didn’t have nobody to go hunting with.”
“We’ll go frogging tonight.”
“I reckon you grown into a man,” Batiste said. He was smiling with his hands on his sides.
“He looks older,” Mr. Broussard said.
Avery felt embarrassed.
“Yes sir, you grown into a man,” Batiste said. “It’s sure good to have you back. I ain’t had no fun hunting by myself.”
“We’ll get plenty of honkers this year,” Avery said. “Going to fix the blind up so we’ll be ready for them in the fall.”
Avery remembered when he and his father used to go hunting together. They would get up early in the morning and put on their waders and quilted hunting jackets. They used the outboard to cross the mouth of the river, and Avery would sit on the bow, letting the cold spray sting his face, and listen to the gulls that cry over the water before dawn. They would stand waist-deep in the freezing water, waiting for the ducks as they flew over the willow trees to feed in the rice field, then fire when the lead ducks dropped through the mist to land, he with the pump and his father with the double-barrel. The ducks would fold and fall heavily through the air, making a loud crack and splash when they broke through the thin sheet of ice. Avery would keep firing until his gun clicked empty, pumping the smoking shells into the water. The dogs would bark and jump off the levee into the reeds and swim towards the fallen birds. Then his father would break the double-barrel and wink at him as the empty shells plopped into the water. Keep shooting like that and we won’t have any birds for next season, he would say. They would wade to the levee and sit on the bank, drinking black coffee from thermos jugs, and listen to the geese honking in the marsh.
But that was then and not now. Mr. Broussard didn’t hunt anymore, and the double-barrel stayed over the fireplace. After his father quit hunting Avery went with Batiste, but it wasn’t the same.
“We’d better go in and have supper,” Mr. Broussard said.
“I’ll carry your duffle for you,” Batiste said.
Inside, Mr. Broussard and Avery ate at the kitchen table, which was covered with a red-and-white checkered oilcloth.
“How much do we owe the bank?” Avery said.
“There’s no need for you to worry about it, son.”
Why does he have to speak to me like that?
“How much is it?”
“Three hundred dollars,” he said.
“We can take another mortgage,” Avery said.
“Yes, we might be able to.”
“What do you say it like that for?”
“I’ll go see them about the mortgage tomorrow.”
“There’s something else, isn’t there?”
“I couldn’t meet the land taxes this year. The farm will go up at the sheriff’s tax sale unless I pay them soon.”