“Who says Hazel was to be caught?” asked Doc. “She wasn’t in there. Girls don’t like the water—remember that. Girls don’t just haul off and go jumping in the river to get back at their husbands. They got other ways.”

“Didn’t you ever think she was in there?” asked William Wallace. “The whole time?”

“Nary once,” said Doc.

“He’s just smart,” said Virgil, putting his hand on William Wallace’s arm. “It’s only because we didn’t find her that he wasn’t looking for her.”

“I’m beholden to you for the net, anyway,” said William Wallace.

“You’re welcome to borry it again,” said Doc.

On the way home Virgil kept saying, “Calm down, calm down, William Wallace.”

“If he wasn’t such an old skinny man I’d have wrung his neck for him,” said William Wallace. “He had no business coming.”

“He’s too big for his britches,” said Virgil. “Don’t nobody know everything. And just because it’s his net. Why does it have to be his net?”

“If it wasn’t for being polite to old men, I’d have skinned him alive,” said William Wallace.

“I guess he don’t really know nothing about wives at all, his wife’s so deaf,” said Virgil.

“He don’t know Hazel,” said William Wallace. “I’m the only man alive knows Hazel: would she jump in the river or not, and I say she would. She jumped in because I was sitting on the back of my neck in a ditch singing, and that’s just what she ought to done. Doc ain’t got no right to say one word about it.”

“Calm down, calm down, William Wallace,” said Virgil.

“If it had been you that talked like that, I’d have broke every bone in your body,” said William Wallace. “Just let you talk like that. You’re my age and size.”

“But I ain’t going to talk like that,” said Virgil. “What have I done the whole time but keep this river-dragging going straight and running even, without no hitches? You couldn’t have drug the river a foot without me.”

“What are you talking about! Without who!” cried William Wallace. “This wasn’t your river-dragging! It wasn’t your wife!” He jumped on Virgil and they began to fight.

“Let me up.” Virgil was breathing heavily.

“Say it was my wife. Say it was my river-dragging.”

“Yours!” Virgil was on the ground with William Wallace’s hand putting dirt in his mouth.

“Say it was my net.”

“Your net!”

“Get up then.”