“I’ve got a little white alley up there. I took four aspirin for the headache.”

“How much of the money did they take at the hospital?”

She laughed. “You should have seen Gladys Fontenot’s face when I told her I couldn’t pay. I thought she was gonna shit on herself.”

“You got it all?”

“Yeah. And we gonna get some more, because there’re two days left to this free season.”

He looked at her left eye, which was bloodshot, then at her dry skin. “Why you doing this?”

She widened her eyes and looked straight into his. “This is the only way to make decent money. I’m surprised that you, of all people, should have to ask. You love hard work. Even though you’re sick, you love it.”

“Are you paying me a compliment?”

Her mouth fell open, but nothing came out. In the skiff, Abadie was laughing as he poured gas into the fuel tank.

*   *   *

At quarter to four Colette poled the skiff away from the shallows, the featherlight johnboat drifting behind like an afterthought. Abadie stood on the spongy bank, hands cupped around his mouth, shouting to Paul how to coax more speed out of the engine, the flat a’s of his words spangling the water as he called, “Take the gas out another notch, yeah, and make Colette sit in the middle bench so the bateau runs flat.” He pulled off his khaki cap and waved it. Paul turned the flywheel and the engine popped alive. Soon Abadie was a small stooped figure picking his way back up the levee.

They did make better time. Soon he was listening to the crack of Colette’s rifle fill the canal as she fired over and over from the front seat, and the bilge rolled with the brassy gravel of her spent casings. By nine-fifteen they were crossing the river back to town with a skiffload of seventy-four carcasses.

The next afternoon, they had competition on the canal from a young trapper, but they still managed to take seventy animals, including one albino, for which the fish dock paid a bonus. Overall, they cleared right at four hundred dollars.

After unloading the rats, Paul had run the skiff back to Abadie’s while Colette settled up with the buyer. She walked the batture to Paul’s house and saw that the old boat was not tied in the shallows but run up all the way to the water’s edge. It was still filthy inside. She plucked her rifle out of the bow and crossed the levee in time to see an ambulance pull out of the Thibodeauxs’ driveway with its flashers going. Paul’s mother met her at the back door.

“Nan’s coming to bring us to the hospital.”

She put the gun inside the door frame. “What happened?”