Howard would be the judge of any violation of the rules, Taylor suggested.

Moody agreed.

Peavo agreed.

Taylor wanted to double the wager.

Moody and Peavo chose to keep it at five dollars.

They were still arguing as Noah went to the river and kneeled and put his palm on the water. From the look of him, he seemed to be praying.

“What’s he doing?” Moody whispered suspiciously, lighting a cigarette.

“Washing the worm slime off his hand,” Taylor said.

“Lorda’mighty,” Moody mumbled. “I never saw nobody do that.”

“He likes to keep clean,” Taylor told him, thinking the explanation sounded good enough. Two days before, readying to fish for the supper at Eleanor Cunningham’s home, he had noticed Noah touching the water in the same manner and he, too, had wondered about it, but had said nothing. Every fisherman on earth had some quirky superstition.

He added to Peavo and Moody, “Maybe that’s something you boys ought to do once in a while—wash up a little bit. From the looks of the two of you, last time you got near any water was when you was baptized.”

The first catch was taken in less than a minute after Noah made his first cast.

A catfish, ten inches long by Howard’s estimation.

“Goda’mighty,” Moody whispered in awe.

“How about making it twenty dollars?” Taylor said boastfully to Moody and Peavo.

“That ain’t but one,” Peavo muttered, watching the fish thrash about on the stringer as Noah dropped it back into the water.

“I tell you one thing,” Taylor said in a languid voice. “That sun’s sure bright. Almost blinding, it’s so bright. Looks like it’s just hanging up there, don’t it, boys? Yes, it does.” He laughed easily.

In thirty minutes, Noah had six catfish, all keepers. Moody and Peavo sat on the bank of the river, smoking and shaking their heads in disbelief, giving each other puzzled looks, trying to find some way to wiggle out of the bet. They muttered about Noah finding a catfish hole none of them knew anything about, wondered aloud why he did not hook a crappie or a bream or a trout. Howard’s grandson pranced about near Noah, excited, saying to Howard that he wanted to fish also.

“We will, later on,” Howard said gently. “Right now, we just watching. You keep a good look. See what you can learn. Next time we go fishing, you can try it out.”

The explanation seemed to satisfy the boy. He squatted down, turned his face to Noah, peered intensely at Noah through the thick lenses of his glasses.

“That’s right,” Howard said. “You keep a good look. You watching a real fisherman, now. You keep a good look and see what you learn from it.”

The sunlight began to slide up the side of the hemlock chosen as the sundown tree.

Peavo and Moody began to smile.

Five minutes passed before Noah caught another fish. A large one. Three pounds, Taylor guessed.

“Looks like they about to quit biting,” Peavo said.