I think for just a second about asking Lee to shut off the motor while I tie up—figuring he’d grab that live plug like old Henry does at least once a week and shock the shit out of himself—but I decide against that too. I’m deciding against things right and left, it looks like. Because for one thing I’m thinking more and more that there is some kind of truly big strain on the kid. He’s quit talking and is looking around at the place. His eyes are kind of glassy. And there’s a silence stretched between us like barbed wire. But for all of that I feel pretty good. He did come back; by god he did come back. I cough and spit in the water and look out to where the sun’s tumbling toward the bay like a big dusty red rose. In the fall when they burn the stubble off the fields the sun gets this dusty hazy color, and the mare’s-tail clouds whipping along near Wakonda Head look like goldenrod bent over by the wind. It’s always real pretty. You can almost hear it ring in the sky. “Look yonder,” I say, pointing at the sunset. He turns slow, batting his eyes like he’s in a daze. “What?” he says. “There. Look there. There where the sun is.” “There what?” WATCH OUT. “Where?” I start to tell him but I see he just can’t see it, it’s clear he can’t. No more than a color-blind man can see color. Something is really haywire with him. So I say, “Nothing, nothing. A salmon jumped is all. You missed it.” “Oh yeah?” Lee keeps his gaze turned from his brother, but is alert to his every move: WATCH OUT NOW . . . I keep telling myself to go shake his hand and tell him how glad I am that he’s come, but I know it’s something I can’t pull off. I couldn’t do that no more than I could kiss the old man’s whiskery chin and tell him how bad I feel about him getting busted up. Or no more than the old man could pat my back and tell me what a goddamn good job I been doing since he got busted up and I been handling the work of two. It just ain’t our style. So the kid and me just kind of stand there sucking on our teeth until the whole crew of hounds wakes up to the fact that there’s folks about and all come loping out to see if maybe we can’t use their wonderful assistance in some way or other. They grin and grovel and wag their worthless tails and put on just about the finest display of whining and yowling and carrying on that I’ve seen since the last time somebody got out of a boat a whole hour ago. “Christ, look at ’em. One of these days I’ll drown the whole smelly lot of ’em. Ain’t they a mess?” A couple jump up on my bare leg while I’m trying to pull my pants back on and they’re just so unbearable happy to see me that nothing’ll do but to rake my leg clean to the bone. I go to whipping at them with my pants. “Get back, you sonsabitches! Get the hell down from me! You got to jump on somebody, jump up on Leland Stanford here; he’s got pants on. Go welcome him, you got to welcome somebody.” Lee reaches out his hand: But watch it; be careful . . . And for the first time in his brainless life one of the fools minds what somebody tells him. One old deaf, half-blind red-bone with mange on his rump, he gets down from me and limps over and licks at Lee’s hand. Lee stands there a second... the colors about Lee and his half-brother strike against the ringing air; sky-blue, cloud-white, ringing, and that sparkling patch of yellow. Lee watches. Where is this place? ...and then the kid puts his jacket on the boathouse and squats down, and you’d think that damned dog hadn’t had anybody to scratch his ear in a century, the way he responds. I finish pulling my pants on and pick up my sweat shirt and stand and wait for Lee to finish. He stands up and the dog rears up and puts both paws on his chest. I start to holler him down but Lee says no, wait a minute: Wait; wait, please. ...“Hank ...is this Plover? Is this old Plover? I mean, Plover was old even when I was a kid...Could he still—” “Why, by god, that is old Plover, Lee. How did you know? Is he that old? Lord, I guess he must be if he was around when you was. By god, look there; he acts like he recollects who you are!” Lee grins at me, then pulls the dog’s muzzle right up next to his face. “Plover? Hi, Plover, hi . . .” he keeps saying over and over. “. . . hi there old Plover, hi . . .” he says. . . . blue and white and yellow, and red, where that flag swings in the breeze. The trees shimmer behind an invisible veil of lupine smoke. The old house rears soundless and gigantic against the distant mountains and leans down over the dock: What house is this? I stand there watching the kid and that old hound, shaking my head. “Boy and his dog,” I say, “And don’t that beat the band: just look at the old buzzard carry on; I believe he does remember who you are, bub. Look at him. He’s tickled to have you back, you know that?” I shake my head again, then pick up my boots and walk on up the planks toward the house, leaving Lee back there overcome with the hello he was getting from that............