and Keefe up along the headwaters. Perhaps an occasional pair of day hikers or particularly ardent bird-watchers, only once that she could recall, another fisherman willing to trek up the rugged slopes for such small fish. No practical place to park outside the fire-road gate. The fire road itself, steep and badly rutted. The trail along the river, little more than an old game trail, snarled with exposed tree roots and stone outcroppings. Forbidding terrain for the casual visitor. Margie was closer to the truth than she might have imagined.
“It’s not a wilderness and you know it,” Sandy said.
“Pretty close. Plus it can get a little weird out there in places. Some spaced-out back-to-nature hippie commune or these toothless fucks out there in their so-called hunting camps.” Margie formed quotation marks in the air with her fingers. “J.D.’s told me about coming across that sort of kooky shit from time to time.”
“Nothing like that up near us.” Sandy startled herself by speaking of her and Keefe in the first person plural. She wondered if Margie had noticed and quickly moved the conversation on to cover her odd phrasing. “You afraid to go fishing up there in the wilds today?”
“Wild horses couldn’t keep me from it, honey.”
“How is J.D. these days?”
“Bless his heart, what an insufferable grouch he’s been lately.” Margie caught the eye of their waitress and pointed to her empty coffee cup. “Budget cuts are just giving him fits. Laid off a bunch of people, so there aren’t enough wardens in the field. Poor baby, now he’s responsible for the better part of three counties. And if that isn’t enough, they’re expecting him to be on the lookout for that guy that went missing a couple weeks ago. You hear about that?”
“Yeah, I heard about it. God, that’s really too much to ask of one person.” Sandy smeared a glob of the diner’s homemade blueberry jam on her last bite of toast.
“No shit.” Apparently caught off guard by Margie’s language, the waitress paused abruptly before filling her coffee cup. “Thanks so much,” Margie said to the waitress. “We can have the check now.”
Margie took a sip from her fresh coffee and continued.
“So he’s overworked, worn out, and cranky. Not that I can blame the poor guy, but he’s been a royal pain to live with lately.”
“I’m sorry he’s in such a state,” Sandy said. “He’s such a good man. Doesn’t deserve that.”
“Oh, he’s a sweetheart. Don’t I know it,” Margie said. “But sometimes lately, let me tell you, it can test a person. And now he’s all worked up about bear poachers or some such.”
“Bear poachers?” Sandy knit her brows and leaned back in the booth.
“Yeah. About a week ago someone found a dead bear. Guts cut open and its paws cut off. That just flat out made him furious. Says poachers sell the gall bladders and paws to Asia, for aphrodisiacs, of all things. That’s about put him over the edge. The boy has an unnatural love for bears.”
The waitress stopped at their booth and laid their checks face down on the tabletop, one in front of each of them. “Thank you. And have a blessed day,” she said, and turned to another booth.
Margie leaned across the table, motioning Sandy closer, and whispered behind her cupped hand. “‘Blessed,’ my ass. I swear, these religious kooks work my last nerve. Surely not living in the same world I am. But I have to admit the food’s good. Then again,” Margie said, resuming a normal tone of voice, “my children are in school, wreaking their havoc on their teachers for the day, my loving but cranky husband is off doing his game warden thing, and I get to hang out all day in your wilderness with you. Maybe I am having a ‘blessed’ day after all.”
After they each paid for their breakfasts, Margie laid a large tip on their table and followed Sandy out to the parking lot. Stink pushed himself up on all fours, and his tail thumped against the seat back in the truck cab as Sandy and Margie approached. Sandy had waited for close to two months before Stink finally accepted her presence and warmed to her. He had taken to Margie immediately and continued to be partial to her.
“How’s the old skunk-killer doing today?” Margie’s voice was high-pitched and cajoling as she opened the passenger side door and laid her hands to each side of the dog’s face and scratched and petted him vigorously. His tail whacked against the seat faster as he extended his head and licked his pink and purple tongue across Margie’s face. She indulged him a moment, then pulled her face out of his range and wiped her face on her sleeve.
“I’m touched, Stink. But believe it or not, I’ve already had a bath today.”
Sandy handed her the greasy paper napkin containing the bacon. “Here, give him this. Ought to keep him off you for a while.”
“Look what your mother brought you, you old thing,” Margie cooed as she fed him the strips of bacon, which he gulped down instantly, hardly chewing at all. She dug in her purse for a wet wipe and cleaned her hands and face. “I’ll ride with you, okay?” she said. “We can keep yakking.”
Sandy would have liked nothing more. While Stink’s eyes followed Margie, she stepped to her minivan, retrieved her waders from the back, and tossed them into the bed of Sandy’s truck. Margie Callander was no angler. Fishing was not a passion, but rather something to do, only on rare occasions and only with Sandy, as an excuse to get away from it all for the day. A sort of girls’ day out. About the only sort of girls’ day out she could have with a woman like Sandy Holston. Margie had her own waders because, as she said, she had to have “something to fit over this ass of mine.” Beyond that, she used Sandy’s gear and didn’t care one lick whether she caught a fish or not. When Vernon came for Sandy, it was Margie who was with her, Margie who had stuck by her, Margie who had actually taken a shot at Vernon with the little pistol she carried in her purse. It was into Margie’s arms that Sandy had collapsed when it was over and Vernon’s body was drifting downstream. Other than Keefe, Margie was the only other person Sandy would fish with.
Stink looked back and forth at Sandy and Margie, panting happily between them in the truck cab.
“Okay to leave my van here?” Margie asked.
“I’d think so,” Sandy said.
“Suppose we’ll have to trust to their Christian charity, eh?”
Both women grinned as Sandy pulled the truck out of the lot and headed south.
“So,” Margie said, “I’ve been blabbing away about my life all morning so far. What’s up with you and yours? How’s James these days?”
“Oh, he’s fine.” A rote response, but Sandy paused involuntarily before saying it, and now she could feel her jaw muscles tense, could feel her fingers clutch more tightly around the steering wheel. She knew, at least in part, that this was why she had invited Margie to go fishing today, that this was the question she hoped Margie would ask. A simple question with a difficult answer that she didn’t quite know how to begin to give. But she knew Margie would be the one to tease the first thread loose from the knot.
Margie turned toward Sandy and leaned her back against the cab door. Her hand rested on Stink’s back, scratching at his spine. A glint shone in her eye and an irrepressible grin spread over her face. “Uh-hunh. Hell, girl, the dog didn’t even believe that one. Now spill it. What gives?”
“Really,
