Dead Game

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Raburn climbed back up the muddy bank, shielding his eyes from the headlights as he looked at Marquez. He smiled and scraped mud from his boots. He was happy about what he’d found.

“She’s still alive,” he said. “We’re okay.”

He went to his pickup, started the winch, and Marquez stood near the edge of the levee road looking down at the dark water of the slough as the steel cable tightened and the sturgeon’s head broke the surface. With the pickup’s pale headlights shining from behind him, he could just make out the gray-white shape as it was dragged toward the bank. He heard Raburn calling to him over the pickup engine and winch.

“Is she out of the water yet?”

“Almost.”

“Tell me when.”

As the cable pulled the heavy fish from the water, the sturgeon rolled onto its back, and spiny scutes, the armor on the sturgeon’s back, dug into the bank mud. It plowed through the low brush, began climbing, and was every bit as big as Raburn had claimed, probably close to eight feet, as big as any Marquez had seen poached in the delta in the years he’d run California Fish and Game’s undercover team. It was hard to watch but, without turning, he held his left hand out, thumbs-up to signal Raburn that it was on its way up.

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