“I thought I was flying you out one at a time, Wy said, standing with the shotgun hanging from the crook of her arm, muzzle down.

He looked at her. “Yeah. Right. Of course. Sorry. He looked at Teddy. “You go in first.

“No, you go in first.

“Goddamn it, Teddy, I said you go in first!

“And I say you do!

They went toe to toe, glaring at each other, and it was a moment before Wy, watching stupefied from the sidelines, stepped forward to pull them apart. “Guys. Relax. Toss a coin or something. Whoever gets left behind is only going to get left behind for ninety minutes.

They continued to glare. Teddy Engebretsen and John Kvichak had never been known to raise a hand or even a voice to the other. They stood shoulder to shoulder against all comers, but never against themselves. And now here they were fighting over who should go into town first?

Teddy broke the stalemate eventually. “Okay, John.

Everyone heaved a sigh of relief.

“Good, John said gruffly. “Help me load up. He caught Teddys eye. “Its okay, Teddy. Ill be all right.

“Whats going on? Wy said.

“Lend me a hand with this line, will you, Wy? Teddy said.

Old Man Creek, September 2

They ate salmon fresh out of the creek, sticky rice with generous helpings of soy sauce and steamed wild celery, the latter gathered by Amelia, who had finally gotten back out of bed. After dinner they got out the cards and played single-deck pinochle, girls against boys. Bill had to carry Amelia, but Moses told Tim, “Jesus, boy, you think youre some kind of card shark, dont you? Tim, still sore from the second practice of the daythis one had lasted two hourstrumped Bills ace of diamonds and shot the moon. Bill sighed and subtracted thirty-three points from their score, which put them at minus ninety-seven. “Another fifty-three points and we can go out the back door, she told Amelia.

Amelia blinked at her. “What am I doing here? It was the first time shed spoken all day.

She didnt look good, Bill thought, surveying the girl with a critical eye. Her eyes had deep dark shadows beneath them, the natural warm brown of her skin had turned a pasty kind of yellow in between the big blue and purple bruises, and she kept pulling at her hair.

Bill looked at Moses. “Because youre a damn fool, is why, he said. “Shuffle the goddamn cards.

The girl focused on him as if she were seeing him for the first time. “Uncle.

“Yeah, what of it?

“Wheres my husband? I want my husband.

He looked at her, at the bruises blooming beneath her skin, at the swelling of her eye only now going down. Darren Gearhart had a mean right; short, stiff, packed a lot of power. Amelia wasnt a pygmy but she wasnt his equal in size. Moses remembered Joe Gould, the Newenham ambulances emergency medical technician, describe a head injury once over a lot of beer at Bills bar. Joe had just lost a patient to head trauma suffered when a fight at the small-boat harbor led to a fall between boats. “One of the guys told me you could hear the crack all the way up to the harbormasters office when the guy went in. Like breaking an egg. He went on to explain, with a delivery that became more didactic as the drink in his glass dwindled, that the human brain floated inside the skull like a cork bobbing in the water. When something hit the front of the skull, the brain inside was knocked against the back of the skull, which was why so many blows delivered by fists caused injury to the back of the cerebrum, not the front.