To Breeze, the boat seemed very narrow and the seat scarcely able to hold two. He knew he couldn’t swim if he fell out, but he said nothing, and soon Uncle Bill swung them out into the middle of the deep clear stream.
Instead of being brown-black like the river, this arm of that stream was filled with the blue of the sky. But its dark depths looked bottomless and dangerous, and Breeze sat mute, with his eyes staring down in it until Sherry nudged him and made him look up. “You got to learn how to swim, son, den you won’ be scared o’ water! You get dis straight in you’ head now too; when a man starts out huntin’, e mustn’t never let no ’oman put her hand on him. If e do, his luck is gone. Uncle Bill is even scared for my right hand to touch you, for you ain’ no more’n a li’l’ gal. But I’ll risk it. My luck kin stand a lot. It don’ fail me.”
Breeze listened and answered, “Yes suh,” but he did not altogether understand, and Sherry’s eyes glanced over the water’s surface.
“Lawd! Looka de creek, how blue e is dis mornin’! Winter or summer, e stays blue. Dat is what gives de plantation de name, Blue Brook. Cun Big Sue ain’ told you dat yet?”
Behind them Uncle Bill hissed, “Sh-sh,” and Sherry leaned to whisper, “We mustn’ talk. De ducks’ll hear an’ we won’t git a shot. Is you know how to load you’ gun?”
In his excitement Breeze had forgotten, but Sherry took it and showed him again how to slip two neat yellow, brass-trimmed shells into place in the clean steel barrels, how to make the gun “safe” and “ready.” Then he took up his own gun and with quick slidings and clickings slipped half a dozen shells into its snug chamber. Breeze noticed that Sherry had purple shells and wondered what the different colors meant, but before he could ask, a sharp “sh-sh” from Uncle Bill hissed behind them again.
“Go easy,” Sherry’s big mouth buzzed back in a whisper. To Breeze he mumbled, “Git you’ gun ready, son.”
The tide must have been going with them for they flowed along without a sound. Breeze saw no ducks until suddenly dark wings flashed everywhere in front of them. The gun in Sherry’s hands fired, again and again. It was all quickly over. Echoes banged back and forth at one another, then died, and everything was still. On the water in front of them three limp bundles of feathers were floating, not caring at all where they went.
Uncle Bill’s laughter cackled out. “Sherry, you can’ be beated! Son, you’s a shot-man, fo’ true! Yes, Jedus! You don’ never miss!”
He shot the boat forward and Sherry leaned far out to pick up the lifeless bodies of the ducks he had killed. How strong he was! And as much at home in this cramped-up boat as on the ground.