Fiction
Crockett’s Pondby John M. Floyd
It was a rural-America snapshot. Pale-blue sky, dark-blue water, a wildflowered meadow, and two middle-aged men on a pond bank with cane fishing poles. One had on a widebrimmed straw hat, the other a baseball cap. Both wore loose-fitting work shirts with the sleeves rolled up.
“How far you think they’ll get, them two?” Cap Man said.
Hat Man slapped at a bug on his pale neck and studied the cork on the end of his fishing line. In the late morning sun, the surface of the pond was as still as a painting. “Don’t know.”
“When you think the calvary’ll show up?”
“Cavalry.”
“That’s what I said. When’ll they get here?”
“Not long,” Hat Man said.
He was right. Five minutes later they heard the growl of an engine somewhere behind them, then the slamming
