“I guess you heard there’s no fish in it,” Taylor said.

“I did,” Noah answered.

“You ready to start?” Taylor asked.

“Anytime,” Noah said.

It was not a surprise to Noah to find Taylor Bowers as talkative as Marvin Linquist had been. Having made the connection of similarity between the two men, he could close his eyes and listen to Taylor and think that Marvin was with him. Yet, it was more than his voice, more than the stories made by the voice. Taylor had Marvin’s mannerisms—the lanky man’s casual way of moving about, his extra inches of arms and legs having a quaintly disjointed motion. Marvin had been ribbed about it, had taken the ribbing in stride, saying it was nothing but the dancer in him, and there may have been some truth to it. Clowning around on the battlefield, showing dance steps he claimed were from Kentucky, Marvin had been as graceful as a bird riding a wind-wave. Noah believed Taylor would also be a good dancer, the way he talked about his boxing days.

The scar over his eyebrow was earned in a boxing match, he explained as he helped Noah bring the paint out of storage. Took place in Hiawassee, where a traveling hawker was offering five dollars to any man who could stay two rounds with his boxer, twenty dollars to the man who could knock his fellow down. Some of his friends who knew of his boxing ability had made the trip to Bowerstown to get Taylor, saying there was considerable side money to be made on wagering.

The boxer had been a giant of a man. Fat. Mean-faced. Eyes that had the gaze of a rattlesnake. Hands the size of a stove skillet. Knuckles callused from his battles. Wore the tattoo of a Satan face on both upper arms.

“First lick he hit me opened up my eye,” Taylor said. “That put me to moving around like a dog snapping at a bull. He was strong—I give him that. Never been hit by nobody that strong. But I could tell he’d get winded pretty quick, so I kept going around him in a circle, sticking out my hand now and then, just to get a measure of how far I’d have to go to get in a couple of licks on my own, and that wasn’t easy, I can tell you, not with blood running down my face like somebody’d turned on a faucet.”

Noah knew the event of the fight had been polished by the exaggeration of many tellings; still he enjoyed hearing the story, understanding where it would lead since it was told as Marvin Linquist would have told it—the fighter becoming dizzy, sucking for breath, and then Taylor suddenly stopping his circling and leaping forward to land a blow that sent the fat, mean-faced, tattooed fighter reeling and collapsing to the sawdust fight pit as a chorus of cheers rose in a howl from onlookers, cheers that had stayed with Taylor as permanently as his scar.