When Louis reached the bottom of the stairs, he saw a large fish some distance from the boat. The fish swam closer to the boat; Louis darted into the boiler room, grabbed his cane fishing pole and his jar of stinking pig liver. He started creeping back to the rail as Nick and Tobias came down the stairs. Louis wheeled around with his finger to his lips to alert them of their need to be quiet.
The boys tippy toed to the railing beside Louis. They gasped air from their lungs in shock when they saw the huge fish. “What is it? I’ve never seen a fish like that; he’s as big as a log,” whispered Tobias.
Louis pulled out a large piece of liver from the jar and started to thread the hook through the rotten meat. The smell caused Nick to start to vomit. Louis tried to whisper, forcing the words from his mouth as his eyes watered and his nose curled up. “What’s wrong with you? Are you a girl? It doesn’t smell that bad.”
Louis slowly lowered the line over the edge and dropped the hook with the rotten meat right in front of the fish’s nose. The boys stood like little statues, trepidation running through their bodies.
Suddenly the fish opened his mouth and swallowed the liver. Tobias screamed, “Set the hook, Louis!”
The fish took off as the cane pole bent over; Louis grunted and yelled, “Help me, Tobias.” Both boys wrestled with the pole, trying to keep from having it jerked from their hand.
Nick blurted out, “Let’s try to drag him up to the shore.” All three boys started working their way toward the shore as they fought to hold onto the pole.
Once the boys had worked their way up to the bow of the boat, they realized they had to walk across the plank to get to the shore. Louis asked, “How are we going to get this pole over to the shore? Only one of us can walk that plank at a time.”
Tobias said, “Louis, it’s your pole; you hold onto it. Nick and I will get to the land and you can hand the pole to us when you get to the end of the plank.”
“I have a better idea; how ’bout we wrap the line around that chalk, and when you get on the land with the pole I will unwrap it,” said Nick.
Tobias smiled and said, “Good idea for a boy from–where did you say you come from, Nick?”
“I come from Switzerland,” said Nick.
Louis said, “That’s a bad idea; where is the slack in the line going to come from?”
“I can hold the pole for you boys,” said Abelard, who had come down the ladder and had been watching the boys trying to pull the fish in.
The boys scurried across the plank as Abelard walked across the plank behind them, holding the pole. He gave control of the fish back to the boys.
Abelard said, “Nick, I’m going to walk back to the Belle Vue to get some money and come back and pay Captain Jessie for the family’s passage on the Julia to Alton. Do you want to stay and help get that fish in, or are you coming with me?”
“You know the answer to that,” said Nick.
“Okay, I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
Nick, Tobias, and Louis managed to get whatever was on Louis’s line up to shallow water. The fish was flopping around in the muddy water so much they couldn’t tell what it was.
Louis said, “Nick, go find a big rock or stick and get down there and kill that thing, whatever it is.”
Nick jumped up and started looking around for a rock or stick. Tobias said, “Louis, you know there aren’t two rocks in all of New Orleans, let alone one big enough to kill that monster.”
“I know,” said Louis, “there is a great big wrench in the boiler room. You two hold onto this pole and don’t let go, because that fish has the only hook I own.”
Louis ran down the plank onto the boat and into the boiler room. He came out carrying a big wrench. The voice of Captain Jessie boomed out above him, “You better not lose my wrench in the river, Louis, or you’ll find yourself filling the wood box on the slowest boat on the river.”
“Yes, sir, Captain Jessie.” Louis mumbled under his breath, “If I can get this fish out of the water, I won’t have to fill any wood box or eat burnt cornbread every day. I’ll be charging two bits just to peek at this fish, and I’ll be rich.”
Louis slowly walked down the plank carrying the wrench. He carried it over to where Tobias and Nick were straining to keep the line tight to keep the fish in the shallow water.
Louis asked, “Okay, who’s going down there and start clubbing that big guy on the head with this wrench?”
Nick calmly said, in between his grunting and groaning, as he did his best to keep holding onto the pole, “Your wrench, your idea, Louis.”
Louis, with fear in his eyes, slowly slid off the bank and into the shallow water. The fish stopped flopping around as Louis came closer. Then it opened its mouth and revealed a cave of sharp teeth. Louis began to scream, “I have no shoes on; he going to tear me to shreds!”
Tobias yelled, “Hit him with the wrench, Louis!”
Louis leaned forward and swung the wrench, smacking the fish on the head, then jumped back. The big fish started slashing back and forth in the shallow water, making a strange, high-pitched noise.
Louis threw the wrench up on the bank and clawed his way back up the bank. “Okay, who is next? I hit him once,” said Louis. “Which one of you chickens is going to step up and club the fish next?”
Tobias looked at Nick and said, “Okay, Swissie, show us what you got.”
Nick stood up and took off his shirt and threw it on the ground, reached down, picked up the wrench and said, “My name is Nick and I’m an American.”
Louis and Tobias watched Nick slide down the bank and into the water. He slowly approached the big monster. When he was within striking distance he raised the wrench, and with two quick swings struck the fish on the head twice. The blood from the blows sprayed up all over the boys. The big fish ceased to move anymore and the boys started yelling, “Yes, yes,” as they danced around.
Nick handed the wrench to Louis and crawled up the bank and out of the river. Then with a little swagger, he asked, “What do you think, boys;? Is he dead?”
