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“Larry,” he says, holding out a thoroughly worn and very dirty hand.

I shake it. “Coen.”

“You be good to her now,” Larry says, turning to reel in his line. Looks like he’s been distracted, and the fish nibbled everything off. He doesn’t seem to mind. He just starts baiting the hook again.

“I plan on it,” I say.

I’m thinking he plans on going back to his fishing, but he reaches to his other side and picks up a pole, holding it out. Silent, I take it and sink down, hanging my legs off the side and baiting the hook.

“Good morning for it,” I say.

“Yep.”

I cast my line. He does the same. The early sunlight glints off the ripples, dappled and broken up by the shadows from the trees. Everything smells clean and sort of smoky.

“Where you headed, Coen?” he says.

He’s got a voice like the aftermath of sixty years of cigarettes, which is probably an accurate assessment.

“Nashville,” I say. “Got some work up there.”

“Road-tripping it?”

“Haven’t had a chance to see the US this up close and personal in a while. Usually, I’m in a hurry.”

He reels in, an empty hook again, and patiently baits it to cast back. “My great-grandparents went the opposite way during the Dust Bowl. It’s funny how things change up in a couple generations. They were suffering. Here I am, fishing.”

I’m quiet, thinking hard. “That’s where some of the greatest songs ever written came from,” I say finally. “And books. I think about what it was like sometimes.”

“A lot of folk and country came out of suffering,” he agrees. “Should make us think.”

He casts his line. My bobber hasn’t moved. My mind is far away, on the porch of that house in Wyoming. My mother worked a lot of different odd jobs, including at the gas station, which was her most stable source of income. At least once a week, she packed everything into her truck and drove to a house, sometimes an hour away, to clean. When I was old enough to sit on a horse upright, I was making a paycheck and handing it over.

She loved me, and we made it work, but there was a lot of uncertainty and suffering when it came to keeping food on the table.

And I always come back to that.

He’s right.

He reels his line back in, and it’s empty again, but without missing a beat, he baits it again and casts it out.

“Does that bother you?” I ask lightly.

“What? Not catching a damn thing?” He shakes his head. “Nah, I’m not in a big hurry. If you’re looking to get breakfast, I’d head right over there.”

He points back to the shore, to the left of the path leading to the campsite. A grove of trees spread their branches over the shore, providing shade for a rounded area where the water looks deep and cool. I open my mouth to ask why he’s not over there fishing and then close it.

He’s not in a hurry, like he said. After the last fifteen years, I forgot what that means.

He’s just…living.

That kicks me right in the chest.

“Why’re you in such a hurry, Coen Taylor?” he says abruptly.

My stomach sinks. “You know who I am?”

He laughs, deep and gravely. “They got a banner of you in Walmart, son.”