Joyce twisted her body in the chair, leaned toward Eleanor. “You sound like you got an interest in him. Is that it? You got yourself all caught up in that rough-edged look he’s got?”

“What are you talking about?” Eleanor said.

“You know damn well what I’m talking about, Eleanor,” Joyce replied. “Some men got a look about them that gets inside a woman like a fever. I’d guess he’s one of them. You get to feeling feverish when you’re around him?”

“Not at all,” Eleanor said quickly, feeling the rise of a blush. “I just don’t believe in running somebody down because it’s the easy thing to do.”

Joyce settled back in her chair. Few people ever argued with her. She liked the spunk Eleanor was offering. “You’re right,” she said after a moment. “I guess I’m just looking to put the blame on somebody, and he’s got that look of being a blame-taker.” She paused, looked at Eleanor. “You still sound like you got an interest in him.”

Taylor had caught only three fish the entire day—two catfish and a bream—and he had again surrendered any chance of winning the twenty-dollar prize to the report that Littleberry Davis had caught twelve, all having some weight to them. It was a shame that Noah had stayed away, he said to Moody Deal and Peavo Teasley.

“You can’t hardly blame him,” Moody said, sitting between Taylor and Peavo, watching his bobber floating on a small back-turn of water that cupped behind a sandbar, leaving the water still, as though it had decided to pause for a rest in the river. Moody had caught four fish, judging their total weight to be five pounds. Peavo had caught five, but none of any size.

“I guess not,” Peavo said. “Not after finding that fish the boy left hanging there for him.”

“Yeah,” Moody mumbled. He made a little up-and-down motion with his cane fishing pole, causing the line to skim across the water and the bobber to jiggle.

“That a bite?” asked Peavo.

“Naw.”

“You still got some bait?”

Moody raised his line from the water. “Yeah,” he answered.

“I swear this is the last year I’m doing this,” Peavo grumbled.

“What you said last year,” Taylor said.

“Well, this time I mean it.”

“And the year before that,” Moody added.

“What you talking about?” Peavo said irritably.

“Best I can remember, you been saying this was the last year for ten years now, maybe longer,” Moody told him.

“Kiss my butt, Moody.”

“Would, if it didn’t bear such a strong resemblance to your face,” Moody said dryly, lighting a cigarette.

Taylor laughed easily at the familiar exchange between the two of them and made a lazy swipe at a gnat that buzzed near his face. He looked across the river at the line of fishermen who had rooted themselves to the bank, most sitting in chairs from throwaway furniture they had repaired for the occasion. Peavo was there year after year for the same reason everyone else was there, he thought: because it was the thing to do. Along the river, on both sides, men and boys defended their wisdom, or their stupidity, in the fishing spot they had staked, and they were all close enough to spend as much time talking to one another as fishing.