The Dogs of Winter by Kem Nunn

before an ancient house trailer. At length, Fletcher killed his engine and got out of the van. Robbie and Sonny got out with him.
    “Shit,” Robbie said. “I thought this guy was supposed to be somebody.”
    “Look at it this way,” Fletcher told him. He felt compelled to defend the man, though, in fact, he supposed his disappointment even keener than that of his companions. “It hadn’t of been for guys like him, guys like you wouldn’t be making squat.”
    Robbie Jones said nothing.
    Fletcher continued to look at the trailer. Clearly there would be nothing here to place alongside Michael Peter’s Biarritz tale. No fur coats and no Mercedes.
    “So what now?” Sonny asked.
    The shack showed no signs of occupancy. Above the trees an outdoor light burned at the door of the old trailer.
    “I guess we try that,” Fletcher said. He nodded toward the light.
    “Jesus.”
    They had stumbled along the darkened path and come to the base of the stairs when Drew Harmon called to them. Fletcher could not say where he had come from. When he looked, the man had simply appeared on the trail behind them. He held a flashlight in one hand and a grocery bag in the other.
    “That ain’t the way,” Drew told them. “It’s down here.”
    He turned and started back down the path from which they had come.
    Fletcher, who had been in the lead, was now in the rear. He looked once more toward the flight of stairs. It was longer and steeper than he would have imagined. He was about to follow the others when it suddenly occurred to him there was someone standing on the deck.
    He saw that it was a woman, or so it appeared in the gloom. She was near the door. He believed her arms were folded about her chest. She seemed to be looking toward the river. He was still staring when a voice came to him from among the trees.
    “I said, that ain’t the way,” the voice said.
    Fletcher turned. Drew Harmon was standing on the path with his flashlight and bag. Martin and Jones were somewhere behind him in the shadows.
    “That your place?” Fletcher gestured toward the stairs with his head.
    “That’s my place,” Drew said. “But we’re staying down here.” He waited until Fletcher showed signs of following him before turning to the path once more.
    Fletcher stole a final look at the trailer. His angle had changed and he saw the woman was still there. He could see the yellow light upon her hair. But he did not look for long, as Drew Harmon was waiting, and soon she was lost among the trees.
    •  •  •
    The shack was one room, maybe twenty feet square. There was a wood-burning stove against one wall, an ancient circular thing made of cast iron with ornate iron doors. It rested, in violation of all building codes Fletcher was familiar with, on a rough wooden floor. The room was lit by a single bulb attached to a cord wrapped about a rafter.
    “You want to piss,” Drew told them, “do it in the river. You want to do anything else there’s an outhouse in the trees. You can use one of these to find your way.” He pointed to a pair of flashlights by the door.
    “That’s cool,” Sonny said, to no one in particular.
    In the center of the room was a surf board Fletcher had not seenthe likes of in many a year, or perhaps not at all, for the materials were of another era, redwood and balsa, yet the lines were those of a modern gun. It rested on a pair of sawhorses, sleek and shining in the light of the naked bulb.
    There were other boards in various stages of development propped against walls or placed standing, tail down, in racks which had been made of two-by-fours nailed hastily together. Other racks held planks of wood. Balsa. Redwood. Other woods Fletcher could not name.
    “This was my grandmother’s place,” Drew said. “Built in 1894. I been using it to shape in. Someday I’m gonna build my own place up there above where the trailer is. I got the site all picked out. You can see the river mouth from there. Right now we’re