Of Sea and Cloud by Jon Keller

held it before Julius. The orange rubber glove was covered with dark stinking mud and crushed shell.
    Do you see that?
    I see that, said Julius.
    You have got to understand the bottom you’re fishing.
    It’s mud.
    Osmond rubbed the mud around his palm with his thumb. It’s soft mud and shell. No clay in it.
    Julius nodded.
    Tell me what that means, Julius.
    Means if there’s bugs there and traps there you might catch one.
    We’re in sixty fathom of water so soft mud means summer and early fall fishing, Julius. That is what it means.
    Yeah, said Julius. ’Cept we fish this canyon year-round.
    Osmond grinned and held a gloved hand in the air as if to silence the wind while he said, That is our secret. Lobsters like it here, and I cannot tell you why. That is something only the Lord knows.
    Julius picked the traps and baited them and set them at the stern. Osmond watched his depth finder as he maneuvered over the narrow underwater canyon and he nodded to Julius and Julius pushed the first trap overboard as Osmond followed the canyon and one by one all ten traps pulled each other into the sea.
    They hauled nineteen more trawls then steamed north and the coast rose like a black nebula disconnected from anything below. They ran for an hour before Osmond spotted the red and black metal buoys marking the Leviathan. This had been Nicolas’s territory but Nicolas was gone now and here came fear riding the thought of Nicolas like a parasite and what had he done?
What had he done?
Osmond looked at his hands as if they alone had betrayed him but he knew they had not. He told himself that the death of Nicolas Graves did not belong to him any more than the life of Nicolas Graves had.
    He focused on the Leviathan Ground. His eyes scanned the water for buoys he could not find. Slowly the fact that they were gone penetrated his thoughts. He slowed his boat to a stop.
    What the fuck is this? Julius said. Where the fuck are our traps?
    Osmond did not hear the boy. He stared at the empty water.
    Dolly and Rhonda watched from their perches.
    They cut
our
traps? Those sonsofbitches cut our traps? Julius said. The voice to Osmond held sound but no meaning and Osmond stared and his fists pumped and flexed then released and again and again until his arms and shoulders and entire torso pumped and flexed.
    Julius saw this flexing and stepped backward.
    Ten minutes passed.
    Fifteen.
    Twenty and Dolly looked to Julius wondering if all would be all right but she did not dare ask and he gave her no sign because he himself did not know.
    Thirty minutes and the engine idled and Osmond reached down and lifted his gaff and in a single motion swung it like a baseball bat into the side of the wheelhouse. The wood shattered and the iron hook on the gaff’s end hurled across the bow of the boat and skipped over the water before sinking. Julius bent his knees to brace himself and to duck what might come. Rhonda screamed. Dolly pinched her eyes closed and shrank into the fish tray. Osmond beat the wooden gaff handle against the washrail until it was only a pile of splinters littering the boat and water alike. He tossed the piece that remained in his fist overboard and grabbed a length of rope and worked it like a bullwhip over his shoulder.
    With the first snap of the rope Julius moved to the open stern. One more step and he’d be in the sea. Rhonda screamed shrill until she was out of breath then began again. Osmond approached Julius with the line coiled around his fist like a boxing glove. Julius ducked and moved past him and tucked himself beside his sisters as Osmond stood alone at the open stern of the boat and uncoiled the rope. His hair fell in ravels. He braced his legs and paused for seconds then began to whip the tip of the rope against the surface of the sea until sweat rolled from his face and his frame slumped in exhaustion.
    Then slowly and without a word to his grandchildren he steered the boat for home.
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