Chapters (78)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Sixty-Six
- Sixty-Seven
- Sixty-Eight
- Acknowledgments
- Discover More
- About the Author
- Also by Owen Laukkanen
“How much you’re talking, I don’t have it on me,” the man said. “You want it right away, we gotta take a little ride.”
“All right,” Mason said. He opened the passenger door and climbed into the truck. The man slid behind the wheel, turned the engine over.
“You got a name?” he asked Mason.
“Burke,” Mason replied.
“Yancy,” the man said, pulling away from the bar. “You come looking for work, you said?”
“That’s right. Thought I might try fishing.”
“Sounds like timing just ain’t your strong suit,” Yancy said. “Ain’t been much fishing for years now. This whole town’s dried up.”
“Used to be, though?”
“Sure,” Yancy said. “Used to be you couldn’t throw a stone on Main Street without putting a dent in a brand-new Corvette. You had a boat and a salmon permit, you had a license to print money. But the bottom fell out; the granola types and the Indians saw to that, and now…” He gestured around. “Shit.”
He’d driven east, away from Main Street, past a collection of ramshackle houses and down a narrow road winding through the forest, the ocean somewhere nearby out the driver’s-side window.
“You ever fish?” Mason asked him.
“With my dad, yeah,” Yancy said. “He was supposed to give me his boat, his license. Then the license got worthless all of a sudden, and the boat was worth more in insurance money. As luck would have it, that boat had a fire.”
“As luck would have it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Yancy drove a few miles, drove in silence, the only sound the Ford’s engine and the squeak of the wipers, the tires on uneven pavement underneath.
“Ty didn’t fish, though?” Mason asked after a while.
Yancy slowed the truck, pulled over; it looked like the middle of nowhere. At the last minute Mason saw a dirt road coming up out of the rain forest, mostly mud and washed-out gravel, and that’s where Yancy pointed the tires.
“He tried,” Yancy said. “Ty’s dad was about the biggest highliner the town ever saw, back in his younger years. Supposed to run in the family, but Ty never had the knack. He’d go out on that boat of his every now and then, try and catch something to sell to Tim down at Spinnaker’s, a nice king salmon or a halibut, whatever, but it wasn’t his game. It ain’t anyone’s game.”