Free Little Red Lies by Julie Johnston

her shrewd seeing-through-disguises look. “I’d have pegged you as more of a city boy.”
    “A man can change.” He stresses
man
.
    She purses her lips “Touché. However,” she adds, “I’ve already hired a man to help me this spring. He’s just back from overseas, too. By midsummer, though, I’ll need more help, if you can afford to wait a few months.” Jamie’s shoulders slump. “But since you’re here, and since I’ve had a great hankering for pickerel lately, and since I hear they’re running, how about taking a couple of Grandpa’s rods and trying your luck?”
    Jamie shrugs, I grin, and soon we’re trudging through the pasture, with rods and tackle box, to where the river separates the farm from the forest.
    “I’m feeling lucky,” I say.
    “Bully for you.” He shifts the tackle box to his other hand.
    “This is just what you need, a good day’s fishing. Back to nature and all that.”
    “No, what I need is a job.”
    We squelch through the ruts in the pasture. Not far away, cattle bend their necks over the new hay. Some raise their heads to scowl at us.
    “To think I used to be afraid of those stinkers when I was a kid,” Jamie says.
    “I wasn’t. Only thing I was afraid of was stepping in a fresh cow pie. Yikes! I just did.” I scrape my heel through the grass trying to get rid of the mess. “What a staunch!”
    “I gather you mean stench.”
    “Remember coming down here when the whole herd would come right for us?” I say.
    “Not really.”
    “You used to stop dead. You couldn’t move.”
    “I don’t remember.”
    Looking up now, the cattle take it into their heads to investigate at closer range and plod toward us. Jamie sticks out his chest, waves his fishing rod, and says, “Out of my way, cows, I’m coming through!” They back right up, and he grins.
    “They’re steers,” I say.
    Our favorite place on the riverbank is an outcropping of rock, a shelf of limestone slabs overlooking the widest part of the river. From the hunk of unsliced bacon Granny gave us for bait, Jamie cuts us each a couple of pieces with the fish-skinning knife. We bait our hooks and cast our lines.
    “Give your wrist more of a flick when you cast,” he says, showing me how.
    Reeling in, I think I feel a nibble, but I’m mistaken. It’s a perfect morning—sun for warmth, clouds for shade, swallows flitting and diving. A breeze blows off the river, keeping the blackflies at bay.
    “This is like old times,” I say.
    “This is like heaven,” Jamie says. “Maybe I could get a job selling fresh fish to people in town.”
    “First, you have to catch some.”
    I sit on the rock, dangling my feet above the water, reeling in slowly, thinking about the way the river has about six shades of color in it.
    Jamie’s the first to get a bite. He pulls in a small fellow, not quite big enough to keep. Then I do the same. Probably the same fish. About fifteen minutes later, Jamie’s line bends almost double.
    “Maybe you’re caught on a log,” I say.
    “No, there’s something there, all right. It feels like a whale.”
    Once it surfaces, we see that he has a good-sized pickerel on his line—a keeper for sure—and it’s putting up a pretty good fight. I get ready to scoop it up in the net as soon as Jamie reels it in close enough. In it comes, tail flipping, body writhing in a last battle against the inevitable.
    “Granny’s going to love this,” Jamie says. He gets the hook out, bonks the fish on the head with the small club Grandpa used to use, and cuts off its head and tail.
    “Maybe she’ll invite us to stay.”
    Jamie’s busy gutting the fish and doesn’t answer, but then he yelps. He’s cut himself on the fish knife and is bleeding more than the fish. I whip a handkerchief from my pocket and offer to bandage the gash.
    He pulls away as blood runs up his wrist and arm. “Is it clean?”
    “Of course it’s clean.” Quickly, I wrap up his hand asbest I can. Once the makeshift