On the Rio Mayo Page 4

sounds idiotic. I’d much rather you called me Dad.” After setting the bucket with the fish on the dry sand, he waded in again.

  “Okay.” Frank shrugged. “Dad it is.”

  “And, if you’re going to continue working with me and fishing with me, I want you please to stop damning everything that crosses your path. It bothers me. I don’t do that. I don’t have people who work with me who do that. If you’re going to continue with me, I want you to stop.”

  “Okay. No more damning, Dad.”

  “I’m counting on it.” Harry patted his son’s shoulder.

  That was it, Frank realized. That was some kind of breakthrough he’d wanted.

  Harry forged out into the surf again, not turning back to see his son. His knees drove ahead through the sparkling water. With the pith helmet on his head, the khaki uniform and his big rubber boots, Frank thought he resembled an explorer, forcefully storming out of the cold depths where he’d hidden for a century. Or was he just a father, coming from cold obscurity, coming warmly into Frank’s life? Frank strode into the surf behind his father.

  “The world isn’t so bad that it deserves to be cursed constantly,” called Harry to his son when Frank had reached a fishing spot roughly parallel to his father.

  Sunlight sparkled on the water. The sea around them folded into foam. An icy swell came and caught Frank at his knees, tugging his boots, hugging him snugly.

  “No,” Frank said, “You’re right, Dad. It isn’t.”

  ###

  THE END

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