The boy and the man—the boy’s stepfather—came every year when the ice was thick enough to hold them. “Let’s walk on water,” the man would say. And he’d grin at his own joke and reach out and give the boy’s hair a tousle. And the boy would roll his eyes and resist, but he would smile, too. It was usually January. The owner of the fish house rental knew them. He was a barrel of a man with chapped cheeks and a purple, cratered nose carved from the wine-soaked end of a cork. A white mesh cap with a yellow band of sweat squeezed his head. Red letters screamed BIG MIKE’S FISHIN’ SERVICE, LAKE MILLE LACS, MN across the front. “Got you a twelve-by…