Royce Tillman had fished the Ozark Lake Classic for forty years without winning it, and the bass in his live well would win it by a pound.
He knew it the moment he got her in the boat. He'd been fishing the same rocky point on the north arm of Bull Shoals Lake since five that morning, working a green pumpkin jig slow along the bottom, the way his daddy had taught him in 1949.
At 1:40 in the afternoon, the line went tight and heavy and alive. Ten minutes later, he lifted a largemouth bass over the side of his old Ranger boat with both hands, and he sat down hard on the deck and just looked at her.
She was big and thick, green and bronze, with a mouth you could put a softball in. Seven pounds if she was an ounce.
Royce eased her into the live well, gently, with his hands wet so he wouldn't hurt her. Then he leaned back against the console and laughed out loud, alone on the water, like a fool.
Forty years. Forty years he'd been coming in third, and fifth, and eleventh. Forty years his wife, June, had been telling him that next year was the year.
This was the year.
Royce was seventy-eight. He'd been a wildlife officer for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission for thirty-four years, working the lakes and hollows of Marion and Baxter counties.
He'd pulled drunk boaters out of the water and chased deer poachers through the woods at midnight and given more lectures about life jackets than any man alive. He'd retired in 2002 and spent most days since then fishing.
He and June lived in a little house above the lake near Lakeview, with a dock and a porch swing and a cat named Bass, which June thought was hilarious.
The Classic was held every June out of the marina at the south end of the lake. It was a one-day open tournament, a hundred and forty boats, five-fish limit.
Your five best bass, alive, in a bag, on the scale at three o'clock. First place paid five thousand dollars and a trophy shaped like a jumping bass that Royce had wanted since he was thirty-eight years old.
With the big female, his five fish would go about nineteen and a half pounds. That would win most years. He'd heard on the radio what the other leaders were bringing in.
He ran back to the marina wide open, with the spray flying and the old Ranger slapping the waves, grinning the whole way.
The weigh-in was set up on the marina parking lot under a white tent, with a big digital scale and a leaderboard and a man named Bert Collier on the microphone, calling out names and weights. Bert had run the Classic for twenty years. He'd been a deputy sheriff in Mountain Home when Royce was a warden, and they'd worked a hundred cases together.
When Royce walked up with his weigh bag, Bert raised his eyebrows.
"Royce," he said, off the microphone. "That looks heavy."
"Might be," Royce said, and couldn't stop smiling.
He got in line. There were about twenty anglers ahead of him, men mostly, a few women, holding their mesh bags of fish in tubs of lake water.
On the leaderboard, in second place, a young bass pro from Springfield had 18 pounds, 9 ounces. In first place, with 18 pounds, 12 ounces, was a name Royce didn't recognize.
J. Coombs.
He looked around for whoever that was, and found him a few spots ahead in the line.
It was a boy. Fifteen at the most, skinny and sunburned, in a faded camouflage cap and jeans with holes in both knees.
He was standing with a tub of fish at his feet beside a big rough-looking man in a sleeveless shirt, his uncle, Royce guessed, who'd probably driven the boat. A little girl of about eight was holding on to the boy's arm with both hands, the way little sisters do.
Royce knew the name now. He'd written a Coombs a ticket for no fishing license in 1994.
A different Coombs, older. The family had a place up a gravel road past Midway, and they'd had a hard time of it for as long as Royce could remember.
The boy had already weighed in. He was waiting to see if he'd hold on.
The line moved slowly. Angler after angler stepped up to the scale and came in short. The boy stayed in first.
Royce was eight anglers back when he heard the little girl's voice. She didn't mean for anybody to hear. She was whispering, the way children whisper, which is to say anybody within ten feet could hear every word.
"Jesse, are we going to win?"
"I don't know, Lacey. I'm in first right now. But there's still people to weigh."
"What if somebody beats you?"
"Then it's second. Two thousand."
"Is that enough?"
The boy didn't answer right away. Royce kept his eyes on the leaderboard and listened.
"No," the boy said finally, very quietly. "Mama said the electric company sent the last notice. They're going to cut it off Friday. And she still owes on the truck." He let out a breath. "If I win, it's five thousand. That would keep the lights on. And pay Daddy's medicine for a while."
"I hope you win," Lacey said.
"Me too."
The uncle put his big hand on the boy's shoulder and didn't say anything.
The line moved. Royce didn't notice it moving. He was doing arithmetic he didn't want to do.
With the big female, his bag was nineteen and a half. The boy's was eighteen and three quarters. Without her, Royce wasn't even close.
Royce stood there in the line with his heavy bag in his tub of water, and looked down at the big female bass, nineteen and a half pounds of first place, turning slowly in the mesh.
"Royce," Bert Collier called over the microphone. "You're up next, buddy. Let's see what you've got."