Seconds passed, and no Bock. Tanny was becoming desperate. Bock had been under longer than humanly possible. Had he hit a submerged tree? Was he unconscious, floating beneath the surface of the swampy lake?

Tanny pulled at his resrtraints, and he lunged forward. The seedling bent forward and then elastically sprang back, pulling Tanny with it. Tanny turned and attacked the tree with his feet. He jumped on it and bent it to the ground. It was resilient, and it did not break, but it leaned at an extreme angle.

Seconds passed, and Tanny straddled the tree. He bent double and attacked the necktie with his teeth. He was flooded with urgency, even if he did not know what he could do. He had to help Bock. He had to save Bock, but seconds passed.

Soft silk yielded to his canines, and the knot slipped free. Tanny sprang away from the tree, and he ran to the shore with the tail of the neck tie flapping behind him.

"Bock!" Tanny screamed, with desperation tingeing the single syllable. "Bock!"

The silent water was still. Cypress trees stood mute. The rope on the tree limb hung straight down.

Get help! rang through Tanny's mind, and it became action. Tanny fled along the path they had taken.

The boy under the diving platform laughed. He had not imagined that his cousin's response would be to leave! He shifted to the other side of the platform and watched until Tanny was lost among the pines.

Tanny's toes tangled in straw, and he shed his flip-flops. He could run better without them, even if his feet were tender. Small limbs whipped at his face. Ground cover brushed his flashing knees. His breath was audible to him as he ran. He was tiring, but he thought of his tan cousin entombed in brownish water, and his feet flew.

He covered the distance in a fraction of the time it had taken the boys to go to the swimming hole. He burst from the pine trees into the sandy yard, shouting, "Help! Help!"

The dog regarded him from underneath the chicken coop, but no adults were outside. Tanny screamed for help, and he mounted the concrete-block porch. With his hands tied, the best he could do was kick at the door with his feet.

"What in tarnation...?" said his father at the door.

"Bock jumped off the rope swing, and he didn't come up!" Tanny got the complete sentence out with only two mid-sentence gasps.

"Bock?" said Rufus, from the table. He stood so rapidly that his chair pitched over.

Tanny thought his dad smelled like beer and smoke.

Toller came down the steps. Rufus erupted from the house and took Tanny by his shoulders.

"Tell us where!" said Rufus.

"At the swimmin' hole," Tanny gasped out. "He didn't come up!"

"Why are you tied up like that?" asked Toller.

Trace and Tanny's mom appeared. "What's going on?" asked Trace.

"I know where it's at," said Rufus. He twisted free of Trace's concerned hand on his upper arm. Rufus turned toward the piney woods, and he began to run.

"Bock? What's wrong with Bock?" cried Trace.

"The boys was swimmin'," said Toller, "and Bock went under and didn't come up." He looked at Tanny. "That right?"

Tanny nodded. He was still winded.

"We better get out there, then," said Toller. "You better show me where."

"Untie me," rasped Tanny. He turned and held his wrists out to his father.

"Why are your hands tied, anyway?" said his father, but he tugged at the neck tie and it fell to the ground.

"It was a game, I guess," said Tanny. "Come on!"

Toller was still in his dress shoes. He started after his slender son.

Trace whimpered. She had a cigarette in her hand.

"You watch your little brother," Trace ordered a stricken Taylor, and she took off after the men.

"I, I'll stay, too," said Sarah. Her right hand was on her belly, where she suspected, although she had not mentioned it to her husband or child, that a new life resided inside her.

"Bock? Bock?" cried the toddler, and Taylor scooped him up onto her hip. "There, there, Bonner," said Taylor. "There, there..."

Tanny was drawing on reserves that he did not know he had. He had gotten his second wind, and it was like pulling laps in the far lane of the YMCA's pool. His father ran behind him, making two strides for Tanny's three. He heard his father stumble and cough, and he thought about the pack of filter Camels in his daddy's pocket. Tanny ran, thinking that at least his dad smoked Camels. He had friends whose dads smoked pot.

Tanny ran by the turnoff and he skidded to a stop on the pine needles and sandy loam. "That way, dad!" he cried. He had twisted sideways while still sliding

The surface was slick under Toller's dress shoes, and it was all he could do to avoid colliding with his son.

"Not... much... further," said Tanny. His hands were swinging at his sides, and he thought about how pleasant the sensation of freedom was. Then he remembered his cousin trapped under the brownish water, and he was shocked and ashamed of himself.

"Bock! Bock!"

Tanny heard Rufus calling, and a few seconds later, he saw him. They rounded the bend and came to the oak tree.

"Where'd he go in?" shouted Rufus.

Tanny pointed along the direction of the rope, and then he saw his cousin Rufus, the decorated Viet Nam war veteran, tear off his shirt, kick off his shoes, and plunge into the water. Rufus made strong, large strokes toward the diving platform.

"There!" called Tanny, pointing. "He went down right there!"

Rufus took a big gulp of air, and he dived into the water. Tanny saw his feet break the surface and submerge.

Toller went to the edge of the water, and he walked out into it to his knees. Toller was not a strong swimmer.

Rufus came explosively up, and he panted, gulped, and went down again.

"What was you boys doin'?" asked Toller, looking at his son.

Reddened with exertion, Tanny's pale chest was hitching in and out, in and out. His gaze was beyond his father, out on the surface of the calm lake. "He wanted to tie me up, and then I was gonna tie him up on the way back. He tied me to that little tree over there, and he was swingin' back and forth on the rope over the water. He'd already done it once and come up, but the second time he didn't come up."

Rufus broke the surface, gulping air. He looked at the boy on the shore. "Is this right where he went in?" he called.

"Yes, sir!" said Tanny promptly.

Rufus folded downward, and Tanny saw his feet kick upward.

Trace arrived. Like her husband, she was a strong swimmer. She went right to the edge of the water, splashing beside Toller. She bent and pulled her shoes off one-handedly, and threw them to the shore. One shoe missed, and Tanny retrieved it from the water.

"Bock? Bock?" called Trace, and she waded into the water.

Rufus surfaced, panting. "I been on the bottom," he rasped. "I ain't seen no sign of him."

"I'll look toward this side," cried Trace, and she plunged in. Her tan legs flashed in the sun.

Rufus was treading water. "I'll look further this way." He twisted in the water and went down.

Tanny thought that his cousin Trace looked like a natural in the water, like a mermaid with her liquid smooth strokes and her lean, long body.

Trace dived and reached the lake bottom. She felt soft, ropelike saw grass. She could barely see her hand before her face in the silty water, but she twisted her body, feeling along the bottom. A part of her wondered how long Bock had been down there, but she was not willing to think about that, and she pushed it from her mind.

Toller felt helpless on the shore. Too many Camels, too many Budweisers, and not enough exercise. He'd be helping them search, he thought, but he'd probably need rescuing, too.

Tanny could not watch anymore. A feeling of hopelessness had arisen in his soul. His young, tan cousin Bock that he had just met for the first time that day was dead, undoubtedly dead.

Tanny shed tears for his cousin, but he tore his eyes away from the lake. He turned his back on the lake, not wanting to hear more, not wanting to see more, and not wanting to expose himself to Bock's parents anguish.

He had been helpless. What could he have done? What more could anyone in his situation have done?

Tanny's eyes went to the trail. He thought about leaving, abandoning the searchers, but he felt that it would not be right. Tanny spotted a flip-flop laying upside-down on the pine straw, and he padded over to it. It flipped over when he put his foot under it. Tanny grasped it between his big toe and second digit, and he half-flip-flopped and half-padded to find its sibling. It was a half-dozen paces away. He heard the adults behind him splashing and calling with raised voices, and he went to get his other flip-flop. His hands pushed into his pockets.

Tanny lingered as long as his conscience would allow him to, and then he flip-flopped back to the oak tree. He saw Rufus, exhausted at last, hanging onto the side of the diving platform. Trace was still diving, searching the bottom.

The thought occurred to Tanny that Bock's body might never be found. It might be stuck inside some submerged, hollow tree, or inside an abandoned old car that the flooding lake had claimed for its own. Bock's body might never rise to float, bloated and streaming and pickled, atop the brown surface.

The cypress trees drooping in the heat bore mute witness.

Tanny balled his fists up in his pockets, making them bulge.

Toller shook out a cigarette and lit it.

Trace joined Rufus at the diving platform. With one hand on the edge of the wooden platform and one hand on her husband's cool shoulder, she began to cry. The veteran pulled the woman close, and their heads touched.

Toller twisted away from the lake with a small, distressed cry. He was horribly touched by the couple's consoling each other. He could not imagine losing Tanny. Tears of abject sympathy and anguish clouded Toller's vision. He could not imagine what the Florida couple were going through and what would ensue. Another funeral, thought Toller, who felt assuredly that the small body would eventually be surrendered by the lake.

Tanny's family was not given to public scenes of affection. The sight of the two people clutching each other in grief at the diving platform came as a shock to him, and it forced him to examine his feelings. He wondered how he would feel if he suddenly lost his dad or mom. Tanny shuddered. It would be horrible.

Tanny leaned back against the oak tree. His body folded, and he grasped his knees. His eyes went to where Bock's cutoffs had been discarded on the ground.

They were not there. Tanny blinked, and he wondered what that little fact could mean.

Trace and Rufus were tiredly stroking back to the shore. Toller shifted his cigarette from one hand to another, and he reached a hand to Trace.

"I guess we'll have to have the lake dragged," said Rufus, stepping onto the shore. His eyes went to the young boy. He wanted to console him, and tell him that it wasn't his fault. It wasn't anybody's fault.

Rufus wished he believed that. He had not believed it in Viet Nam when his buddies got cut down on the rice paddies, and he could not quite believe it now.

He had lost a son, and it was somebody's fault.

Tanny got up and went to where he thought the cutoffs had been. His eyes scanned the ground. He turned full-circle, looking. He kicked at the leaves and intermixed pine straw. He felt wildness arising in him.

"Wha'cha doin', son?" asked Toller.

Tanny spun around, surprised, and part of his newly-acquired wildness left him. "Bock's shorts," said Tanny. "They were right here. He pulled 'em off before he started swinging on the rope."

"Y'all were skinny-dipping'?" said Toller. His eyebrows rose and met in the middle.

"He was." Tanny's voice was becoming giddy. "I was tied to a tree."

"What's this?" asked Rufus. Trace was leaning against his side, clutching him.

"Bock left his shorts here when he went in, and they ain't here no more," said Tanny. He pointed at the ground.

Tanny heard a rustling down the trail, and he looked up to see his mother and Taylor enter the clearing. Bonner was on Sarah's hip.

"We couldn't stand not knowing," explained Sarah. She pushed a clump of sweat-matted hair away from her eyes.

Trace looked at Tanny. Her eyes searched his face. Her face was contracted in concentration. Hope unfolded silken wings within her, poised to spring skyward.

Tanny saw the woman's eyes widen in sudden, desperate hope, and that frightened him. What if he was wrong?

"You sayin' he come back out and got his clothes?" asked Toller. "Is that what you're sayin', son?"

"Yes, sir," said Tanny, nodding.

"I'll be a god-damn," said Toller.

Trace turned away and raked the woods with her eyes.

"I'll kill the boy," said Rufus, but he did not mean that.

"I'll nail his ass so bad he won't sit down for a week," added Rufus, and he did mean that.

Trace's hope was a-wing. She ran barefoot toward the woods, calling her son's name. Rufus followed, a step behind.

Toller clasped his hand on Tanny's shoulder. He was feeling enormously relieved. He moved his son's shoulder back and forth.

Tanny's head swiveled upward. A grin was playing about his lips. He knew that he had been the brunt of a horrible prank.

"Let's fan out," called Rufus, "and find the boy. If he's been watching us, he's probably too scared to come out by himself."

Bock crouched low in the brush at the edge of the woods, half-way around the lake from the swinging rope and the searchers. He was considering running away from home. He could circle the lake, grab his good jeans, and those sandwiches his dad had mentioned, and he could be on the road before they made it half-way around the lake.

He'd screwed up before, he thought, but this one was a boner, even for him.

Bock crouched, awash in self-pity. The voices of the searchers came to him over the lake surface, and Bock cried softly to himself. He'd really screwed up this time.

They spotted him as he was sneaking up to the back door. He had swam, snake-like, up to the house and was reaching for the door knob when he heard his sister scream his name.

"I found him! I found him!" screamed Taylor.

"Where?" came a call from across the lake.

"He's at the house!"

"Tell him to stay there!" It was the voice of his father, and it was the voice of command. Bock started trembling. He slogged dejectedly around the house, discovering that he no longer had it within him to drip on his momma's floors.

During the interval between discovery and confrontation, he used the hose to rinse himself off. His trembling had not subsided, but he held the hose for the old hound, and the dog lapped at the flow.

"You're gonna get it now," said Taylor, entering the yard. She stood, one hand cocked on her hip, and she eyed her brother.

"It got away from me," Bock defended himself. "I never meant for it to go on, but Tanny didn't stay and look for me. He run off! What could I do?"

"You coulda drowned!" said Taylor. "And save daddy the trouble of beating you."

"I still could run off," suggested Bock.

"You ain't never run off before when you knowed you deserved it."

"And I guess I won't run off this time, either."

Rufus was carrying his shoes when he came out of the pine woods. He put them atop the chicken coop, and he pulled his belt free of its loops. He looked at his tan, trembling son.

Trace rushed past Rufus. She ran calling her son's name, and she embraced him. When she straightened, his toes dangled to her shins.

Bock's anxiety ran to embarrassment. He was being smothered by his mother's breasts and her lake-smelling hair.

"I was so worried," said his mother. "I thought we'd lost you." She was furiously brushing at his hair.

" When you get done with that," said Rufus, in a low voice, "I want him."

Bock felt his guts turn into jello. He was not proud. He clutched his mother's shoulders and begged. "Please, no! Don't beat me! Please!"

"There, there," soothed Trace. "I'm not going to beat you. Your father is." She put her son down.

Tanny, the victim, felt sympathy for Bock, the perpetrator. He looked at his stricken, shaking cousin. A grin was tugging at his face, but he wished it away.

"Y'all stay out here a while," said Rufus, addressing everyone in his low voice. "This is between me and my boy." He looked at Bock. "You, boy, in the house."

Fear dogged Bock's steps. His head hanging, he mounted the concrete-block steps and turned the doorknob. Inside, he looked at the framed picture of Jesus, and he heard his father come inside behind him.

"You know you had your momma searching the bottom of the lake?" said Rufus.

"I'm sorry," said Bock. "Really, I am." He turned his head away from Jesus's stern gaze to his father's stern gaze. "It was just a joke, but it got away from me. I didn't know he'd go runnin' to tell everybody!"

"You're gettin' too big for a chair," said his father, "so I guess you can lean over the kitchen table. This won't take long."

Bock rediscovered his courage and pride. He would not beg anymore. He padded over to the table, and he lowered his cutoffs to his knees. He leaned and grasped the table's edge, and he waited.

Retribution was slow in coming. Bock waited, and he waited to see if his dad would say, "This is gonna hurt me more than it hurts you." Bock had always thought that that was a dubious proposition right before a whipping.

The belt whistled downward, and Bock gasped.

"Sounds like they're done," said Trace.

"I forgot to count 'em," said Taylor.

The door opened, and a tear-stained, shame-faced Bock trooped down the steps. He saw everyone looking at him, and he offered a brave, crooked smile for their benefit.

His mother ruffled his hair in passing. Cousin Sarah was holding her belly, and she gave him an enigmatic smile that he could not begin to fathom.

"At least you were a man about it," sniffed Taylor. She had Bonner on her hip. "I didn't hear you hollerin' too much!"

Bock's chest puffed out at being praised, and then it was just him and Tanny.

"Want a coke?" asked Tanny.

Bock grinned. "Sure!"

Standing at the trunk of the Buick, Tanny clapped his cousin on his posterior, and the slender, tanned boy jumped and exclaimed. Then Tanny asked Bock if he still wanted to get tied up. Tanny pulled Bock's neck tie out of his back pocket.

Bock said, "I guess I owe you that, hunh?"

Tanny took the tie. "Face me," he said. Then he looped the tie around his cousin's neck and tied a perfect knot.

"Hunh, that's all you want to do?" asked Bock, confused.

"Un-huh," said Tanny. "And I want you to wear that all day and all night and until we leave for granny's tomorrow." Tanny grinned. "Then, you can reckon I been paid back."

Bock shrugged. He had expected a greater penance.

Tanny thought he could improve on the tie's appearance, and he reached out to adjust it.

Bock lifted his chin, and he stood in his faded cutoffs with his hands by his sides.

"I ain't been swimmin' yet," pointed out Tanny.

"Do I gotta wear it in the water?" asked Bock.

"Deal's a deal," said Tanny. "And I wanna see what your rear end looks like, too."

Bock walked around to the far side of the Buick, and he exposed his buttocks to his cousin.

"Day-um!" said Tanny in admiration.

"Let's grab some sandwiches before we go," suggested Bock, as he buttoned up his shorts. "Will you go in there and get 'em? I don't want daddy looking' at me again just yet."

"All right," agreed Tanny. "He'd probably want to say somethin' about that tie."