Free Guns [John Hardin 01] by Phil Bowie

fly right over that school and wag your wings.” He illustrated by wiggling a meaty hand in the air above the salt shaker. “We get close enough to see ‘em from my tower and then circle ‘em with the net. You go off and gas up or whatever. Drink a beer. Give us no more’n thirty minutes to get ‘em in the boat, ice ‘em down in boxes, and re-rig the gear. Then we do her all over again. We get all our boxes full to the top, we hightail it for the fish house over to Hobucken. We meet right here tomorrow night and you get paid cash money. I’d say a fair share of the take, but you got no way to know how much that will be, so let’s just say a straight fifty an hour, from the time you crank her up until you shut her down.”
    “Even if you don’t catch anything?”
    Bo turned up the wattage on his dimpled grin. “Now, there’s about no chance of that at all, with you spotting and us netting. I’m flat the best there is around here. You just ask my old gray-haired momma. I figure we could use you regular for the next two weeks. Maybe longer. We all make us some money. What do you think?”
    Sam’s kitty was getting skinny. The Cessna was coming up for its annual inspection in a month, and needed new tires. His rent would soon be due and he was running up a fuel tab at the village station. With fall coming on there were fewer tourists on the island so his sightseeing business had dropped to almost nothing. The motels were filling up with anglers drawn by the excellent seasonal surf fishing, but they seldom booked a charter other than an occasional emergency sortie to bring in a load of fresh bait. He’d been working on the new rental cottage for Brad Meekins but had been waiting for two days now for Brad to take his pickup over to the mainland on the ferry and bring back sheet rock, paint, wallpaper, and moldings that were needed.
    “I think you could talk the varnish right off of this table,” Sam said. “The best thing would be for me to give you GPS coordinates, but that’s out because any bureaucrats listening would be able to home in on the spot, and so would any of your competitors who figure out what’s going on. There’s a way it could work fairly well, though. You could get one of those day-glow-orange ball caps. They’ve got some over at the General Store. I’ve got a cheap old square radio at home that has four bands on it, including the aviation band. You can’t transmit but you won’t have to. I’ll give you a frequency to monitor. That way, if anybody asks you can just say you’ve been listening to George Strait on the FM band; nobody can say you’ve been in touch with an airplane. We meet at some location like you said. I fly over you and say something. If you hear me you put on the cap. Also, when you’re wearing the cap it means you haven’t seen, or heard about, over your marine radio, any kind of law boat nearby. I may have trouble sorting out one kind of small boat from another up there. I’ll go look for the fish. If I seem to be moving too far away you start up and follow along. If I spot a school I won’t circle. I’ll climb up where I can see both you and the spot where the school is. Then I’ll say ‘downwind for one-nine’ or some other number. That means you steer a compass heading of one-ninety. When you get within a hundred feet or so of the school I’ll say ‘final for one-nine.’ These are common phrases that could be coming from anywhere in the eastern part of the state. Except I won’t be giving my aircraft number, of course. I want to sound like some farmer who’s lazy about his radio procedures, maybe flying near some dirt strip. You take your hat off when you want to quit for the day. If I disappear it will probably be just to get fuel at Manteo or somewhere. Stay where you are until I come back. If I don’t show in, say, an hour and a half you know you’re on your own. Tomorrow night you come here, but I won’t be around. Talk to Tony, the bartender.