He searched the scrolling green outside for anything of note. The shift had helped at first, but there loomed a point of no return; the whole summer to think of.
“Do you know the area the cabin’s in? From last time…” Yellow dashes on pavement. She’d worked there a couple of years before, he’d been told, something with counting fish.
“No.” She said. “We were down by the estuary. Our place’s in the hills.”
Our place. “Didn’t you get to town, though? It wasn’t all just salmon.”
“We’d carpool over to bars or whatever on weekends.”
“Salmon and drinking, then?”
“There’s karaoke and trivia at the Yukon, this awful place Tony’s, sometimes music out”
“What, why’s it awful?”
“Tony’s? Oh, it sucks. You’ll see. Maybe. I won’t be showing you.”
“A bad crowd? A least there’s no military there like”
“No. It’s just awful.”
He laughed. “Old then, another Pub situation?”
“No. Ask around when we’re there.”
“We’re going to Tony’s first thing after we get in tonight.”
“No.”
The signs and structures were already lit when they started to disrupt his forest view; it was early spring, though midnight sun would never touch this coast anyway. They pulled in for gas outside a Fred’s. He pointed across the way after she got back in, to green letters glowing in a window.
At the table they met eyes, for the first time since pick-up.
“Still good to drive? I’ll do the night shift.”
“No, I like driving.”
They finished burritos in silence.
The Subaru navigated vacant blocks, a break between highways. Past the city towered moonlit snow caps; their slopes pressed the road to a ledge over the ocean, until it finally relented and slipped inland down a valley.
Dark walls and stained wood. He sat on a stool beside a ceiling post, behind. A draw from a pint glass, a shot bummed on introduction. Short hair curled in at the nape.
She kept careful pace with the pickup down winding dirt roads. Waves crashed, and wind whipped across water, over from the street he’d stumbled out on. A tarp drew back to two double bunks. In the corner a camp stove burned blue; one penknife against it all. Knees curled beneath the covers, his toes fled the chill.
There weren’t any windows, but sunlight still bled in through gaps. The two strangers tended to a kettle. No sign of her from the pillow vantage. An undisclosed pet.
“’Morning.” His elbows scraped wood through the bedding.
They each gave a nod. On the floor the heel of his Solomon poked out from under a blanket; further up hung fingers.
“Tony’s.” One groaned. “Fuckin’ killed the whole night.”
He swung down and dug out the shoes. The digits retracted, and auburn tumbled above the sheets.
Gravel, waves, the bay, the town front, framed under mountains and a monochrome sky. Gray. The beach held nothing but the hut and bare trees. He urinated at a trunk, then strolled up the coast. Docks came into view, but not a sail in sight.
“We made some for you, too.” She sat alone with a mug, the blanket around her shoulders. The brave burner had been snuffed.
“It’s freezing out there with the wind. And my clothes are damp. Where are they?” Her hosts.
“They left for work.”
“Oh. Hatchery, right?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Mmm.” It was black with honey; British breakfast, he thought. “What’s the plan?”
“Want to go to the library?”
His thumb moved towards the ceiling. After a left-handed struggle with a jeans pocket, he lowered the cup. “It doesn’t open ’til eleven. We could just park and walk around. That street looked nice.”
Her turn for a gesture.
The aisles were visible through panes on the second-floor. Next came a coffee hut, with a long line from its window. A nautical cafe packed with fast-breakers. Thrift above a stairway. Crisp grass waved in the breeze, as did floral flags hung from each lamppost. Whitecaps washed the neat rock bank. Pavement swept clean. For a moment, her shadow.
At the terminal T a Victorian advertised espresso. Profiles sipped drinks in the upper windows. A picture in a brochure. He saw what lay in wait.
“Doesn’t look as crowded here.”
“No.”
They took their lattes up, and found a table.