She had chosen to stay near Taylor for the starting, though she had kept a watch for Noah, hoping he would appear at the last moment, yet sensing he would not. She had known it the night before, being with him. Not by anything he had said, for he had said little, but by the look he had carried on his face, and by the way his face had felt when she touched it. She had wondered if that was the reason he had stayed away—the touch. Wondered if it had frightened him. Probably. It had frightened her. Not when she did it, but later, walking home, remembering it. The touch had been natural, something offered without thinking, a woman’s touch of a man. Yet, she had gone too far with it. Women did not do such things with men they barely knew, and she had spent much of the night awake, regretting what she had done, wondering if it had happened because of the place—the lake, the shack. There was something strangely physical about the place. Once she had made love to Boyd on the same cot she had rested on the night before, with Noah sitting near her. On a clear, warm night, with moonlight skating across the lake on sharp blades of a blowing summer wind, she had made love with such power it had left her trembling with awe.

Being with Noah had caused the memory of that night to flame, burn brightly, die away, yet she believed the memory was one of the reasons she watched for Noah at the fishing.

Or maybe it was nothing more than hearing his name said so often, by so many. Everyone who had appeared at the registration place—a tent at a picnic spot near the river—had asked about him.

“Haven’t seen him, yet,” Lamar had said in a cheerful voice, letting his answer hold some hope that Noah would arrive in time.

“Sure hope he does,” Peavo Teasley had muttered.

“Me, too,” Moody Deal had added.

The men had gone to Taylor, asking if Taylor had seen him, and Taylor had answered, “Not this morning. I halfway expected him to be at the store, getting in a couple of hours of painting, but he wasn’t there when I drove by. Tell you the truth, I don’t think he’ll be here. He was pretty upset about Howard’s grandboy. Thinks it wouldn’t of happened if he hadn’t shown up.”

“Not his fault,” the men had said, sounding slightly put off, sounding as though something had been taken out of the day for them. Yet, each knew the death of Matthew would have weighed heavily on them also, given the same circumstance of finding the boy’s body that Noah had experienced, and the talk among them had carried forgiveness: “Maybe I would of done the same thing.”

The first fish caught was by Littleberry Davis, eight minutes into the contest.

“Damn,” Moody mumbled, watching Littleberry wrestle the catfish to the bank. A large one. Two pounds or more by the look of it.