of your cabins,” I said. “And a boat, for a couple days’ fishing. How’s it been?”

“So-so.” He shrugged indifferently. “You never been out here before, have you?”

“Once or twice,” I said. “Duck hunting. It was before you bought the place.”

“So you decided to try the fishing, huh?”

“That’s right,” I said. He didn’t appear to be the gushing type that fell all over a new customer, but I wasn’t paying much attention to him. I was trying to figure out where they kept their cash and made change. There was no register in sight.

“Anything else you want?” he asked.

I turned back to him. The harsh angularity of his face was broken into planes of highlights and shadow by the overhead light. From the waist up he wore nothing but a sweaty undershirt, and his arms and shoulders looked like a muscle chart from an anatomy textbook. There wasn’t enough subcutaneous fat to smooth the contours; he was as functional and uncluttered as an axe blade. The stare said nothing at all.

”How’s that?” I asked.

“Motor? Bait? Guide? You need anything besides a boat?”

“No,” I said. Maybe if I didn’t ask for too much he’d let me stay.

“Take the cabin on this end,” he said. “It’s not locked.”

I still had to get a look inside their cash-box, wherever it was. I hadn’t driven this far just to sleep. “How about a sandwich and a cup of coffee?” I asked.

“It’s pretty late.”

“I know it is,” I said. “But I haven’t had any dinner. I drove out here right after work.”

“You must have been in a hurry. Really like to fish, huh?”

“Yes,” I said. I was beginning to like him even less.

Without turning his head toward the door behind him, he called out, “Jewel!”

There was no answer. The room was silent except for the hiss of the lantern and the faint spatting sounds of the insects bumping against it. He started to turn, as if to call out again. She came through the doorway, dressed in a man’s blue shirt and a pair of dungarees. She gave an almost imperceptible start when she saw me, but then the surprise or whatever it had been was gone and her face closed up like a drawn Venetian blind.

“Fix Mister Godwin a hamburger,” he said curtly, without turning his head.

“At this time of night?”

“Never mind what time it is; I got a watch. He come off without his supper.”

She stared silently at the back of his head for an instant, and then walked over in front of the icebox. I sat down on one of the stools. She lighted the burner under the grill and slapped down the meat patty she had taken from the icebox. He watched her flatly for a moment and then turned away. A bug banged into the lantern overhead and fell to the counter where he lay on his back, buzzing his wings. The meat began to sizzle after a minute or two and she turned it with the spatula, leaning forward slightly with the tawny mane of hair swinging downward across her cheek. A cockroach came up from somewhere and walked along the edge of the counter. It looked shiny in the white, hot light. She stared at it, and then pushed the hair back from her face with her hand.

“Grease,” she said, almost in a whisper.

His eyes turned, but he made no other movement. “What?”

“I said grease. G-r-e-a-s-e.”

“What about it?”

“Nothing. I love the smell of it in my hair.”

“You sure as hell have a hard time,” he said.

“What gave you that idea?” she asked. “Not many women can go around smelling like they slept with their head on a rancid hamburger.”

Something made her look up then, and she caught his eyes on her. She stopped abruptly. The room was caught up in that taut silence again. Then it was broken by the sound of the telephone—two long and two short rings.

He came around the end of the counter and lifted the receiver off the hook of the instrument mounted on the wall near the door. It was an old type, with a hand crank.

“Hello,” he said. “Yeah, this is Nunn . . . Sure . . . Sure . . . Okay . . . Around daylight . . . Okay, I’ll be ready. Good-bye.”

Then, before he replaced the receiver, he spoke into the mouthpiece again. “Jest in case some of you old busybodies missed part of it, that was a man in Woodside. He wants to go fishin’ tomorrow, and