The engine had been replaced twice and there was a patch in the right side. It was a Weld-Craft model and was only one step up from the aluminum deals that every sucker on the lake had stored in their garage. Through its many years spent on Clarkton Lake, it had taken Wayne Crosby and Al Crabtree on nearly two hundred fishing trips. Neither of the men was sure who the boat belonged to. It had been swapped back and forth between countless games of poker and lost sports bets. It typically stayed anchored at the small dock behind Al’s house but had also spent a few drunken weekends anchored to a rock on the bank behind Wayne’s house. One week, after snooping around in George Galworth’s back yard under the cover of night, Wayne and Al loaded the boat up with their fishing supplies: two rods, a small Styrofoam container of night crawlers, an old battered tackle box, a cooler loaded down with a case of beer, and Wayne’s little handgun—something Wayne never went fishing without ever since a copperhead snake had struck at him on a bank over twenty years ago.
