“Maybe I will,” he had said after a moment of thinking about it.

“What you ought to do,” Hoke Moore had urged. Had said again, “You a fisherman. Yes sir, you are. One thing I know about is fishing. Some people just born to it. Others can’t do nothing but drown worms. You born to it, boy. You born to it. Just like I was.”

“You going back over there someday?” he had asked, wanting to be friendly.

And Hoke Moore had turned slightly to look at him in an old man’s studying way before answering, “About all I ever think about, you want to know the truth of it, but it’s a long way off for old legs. If I go back, somebody’ll have to throw me over his shoulders and carry me. You take a mind to go on down there, I’ll consider I’m along for the ride.” And he had smiled and turned back to his fishing and to his low-voice way of talking.

He had listened with interest to Hoke Moore, had found something pleasing in the description of the valley and had made his turn in the direction of Hoke Moore’s pointed finger, walking toward the far-off mountains, so distant and pale gray on the horizon, they had the look of a lace hem on the blue skirt of the sky. Had made his journey at a languid pace, catching an occasional ride in a farmer’s truck, stopping often to fish. One river in Tennessee—the Ocoee—had held him for three days with its hypnotic run of water over rocks and with the satisfying look of the mountains around it. Good fishing, too. If Hoke Moore had not told such a happy story about the valley near the Chatuge, he would have liked staying longer on the Ocoee.

But maybe Hoke Moore had been right. The valley had a natural feel to it. Coming into it, he had got an idea of the people living in it by studying the washings hanging on clotheslines. Reading a clothesline had always been an easy thing for him to do—a trick taught to him by his mother. If you read it with some careful attention, you could tell if the house belonged to a couple just starting out, or if it had children, or old people, or whether they were fat or skinny people. Could come close to guessing how much money the people might have by the new or faded look of their clothing and bedsheets and towels.

The clotheslines of the valley left him believing it was a place fairly well off, with people more or less settled in, happy enough to be where they were and who they were.

It was little wonder that Hoke Moore had a yearning look when he pointed out the direction of the valley.

He saw the water behind the line heave and bubble, and he raised the tip of the rod. He knew what was about to happen.

“Take it,” he whispered.