Noah could feel heat on his face, knew his skin was coloring. He looked down.

“Two days in a row?” Taylor asked. The question had tease in it.

“He was a great help to me yesterday,” Eleanor said, and she told of the cow’s death and burial—a quick story, knowing Noah was uncomfortable with the praise.

“Well, he talks a lot, as you probably know,” Taylor said lightly. “Hard to get a word in edgewise, the way he goes on, but somehow he failed to mention anything about that.” He smiled, looked at Noah. “You’re a good man, my friend. I knew that about you the minute I saw you.” Then, to Eleanor: “You got a deal. We’ll bring the fish, you get the supper.”

NINE

His father had taught that fish would not bite if they heard fishermen talking, and Noah believed there was truth in the warning. He had always made it a practice not to talk, or to talk only in whispers, while seriously fishing. If Taylor Bowers knew of the not-talking theory, he ignored it. In his tug of war between fishing and talking, talking easily yanked fishing off its feet. To Taylor, words were tastier than fish, and more filling. He talked constantly, his voice skipping like flat stones over the tumbling water of the river, and if the fish heard him, they were not bothered by the noise, for the catch made by Noah was an abundant one—four fish in an hour, nine by the end of the second hour.

Maybe it had to do with the talker and not the listener, Noah reasoned. Maybe the fish only heard voices through the line of the talker, like words going over a telephone wire. Taylor’s catch was laughable, though laughing would have been unkind. Two fish, only one large enough to keep, both barely lip-hooked. Noah knew the catches were by accident, probably made by fish trying to get away from the noisy hook of the talking man.

Still, it was good having Taylor Bowers with him. There was something childish about Taylor’s fishing efforts—his jittery way of casting, his impatience, his exuberance in watching the cork float on his line tremble in water swirls, thinking each bob of the cork was a nibble. It was easy to tell he had not fished in a long time, and had never been good at it.

It was also entertaining to hear the stories that Taylor told with a historian’s passion for events and a gossip’s flair for spice. Noah was certain no one knew the Valley of Light as well as Taylor. He made a map of roads with his words, gave the roads landmark descriptions that took on images as revealing as photographs, placed people in the homes that were attached to them. The people, too, took on images. Old to young. The sick, the vigorous, the good, the mean, the suspicious, the caring, the dawdlers. The same people Noah had known as a boy. Only their names were different. The way Taylor told it, almost everyone in the valley was related in one fashion or another, by blood or by marriage, with enough suspicion to muddy the water on which relationship went with which relationship.