There had been two open positions. The one in the newspaper was for watching the shop. The other, which the old man had not posted, was helping him out on the river, searching for something. The one that was posted was 9.50 an hour. The one on the boat was 13.00 an hour under the table. Despite the warning in the pit of his stomach he accepted the job on the boat. With a promise to be at the dock at 7:30 the following morning he ducked out of the shop and made his way back across town to the little apartment above the old video store.

The old man wasn’t seedy, he kept telling himself. Or at least not seedy in the general sense but there was something about him that was a little off. Why did he want someone to help him search the river? What was he looking for? Why did he want this job to be paid under the table? It made more sense to just hire a person as a river hand than to be so secretive about it.

But when push came to shove and the whole situation taken into account, the simple fact was that he needed money more than he needed reasons right now. So come tomorrow morning he was going out on that boat.

He arrived at the dock at 7:15 and found the man already sitting in the boat sorting out equipment. The boat was larger than he had assumed it would be. It was easily over 20 feet long and more than double the width of any boat he had been on before.

Once he had hopped inside the old man pointed to a bag on a seat toward the stern of the craft. In the bag he found new work gloves, some nice pants and a good hat for keeping the sun out of his face. He quickly slipped into the pants, donned the hat and tucked the gloves into a back pocket.

Once they had cleared the dock and made their way out into the middle of the current the old man opened her up. They were flying further north on the river than he had ever been before and it wasn’t long until they veered onto a smaller tributary and the boat came drifting slowly to stand still.

The old man stood up and grabbed the rifle next to his chair and stared into the distance.

“I suppose its about time I told you what we’re doing out here.”