It was so hot even the birds quit singing. I sat in front of the window fan drinking iced ginger ale and watching the bubbles rise while my dear Doyle thrashed around his old trunk in the spare room. Ugly, God, he was ugly. He ranted about Alan being the liar supreme and cursed Alan so bad I knew he feared him. “I hate that bastard, Annie,” Doyle said. “I hate everything about him from his pointy toed boots to his goddamned hat.” I set my glass on the maple table, heedless of the water ring it would leave and went to Doyle and closed his trunk. “The shotgun’s not in there,” I said. “You’ve got yourself all worked up.” I lay a quiet hand on his, but with his other he yanked open the trunk. “Why isn’t it?” he yelled. Alan and his big hat barged in and yelled just as loud as Doyle. “Thief!” He brandished a bayonet. I slipped through the doorway to the porch and peeked through the window above the …

I’m going to tell you right now, chasing women’s clothing around the dooryard is what it’s come down to. All on account of four turtle eggs. I work for Leon because social security ’ll only go so far, plus Leon’s seventy-five years old with more money than brains and fingers itching to get into every hole they can find, even when there ain’t a hole. That’s what his girlfriend Janey told him just before she drove her RV off to California. Leon set himself up to the cabin for a couple of beers and aggravation. Thinking about Janey leaving him in Maine gets him hot and miserable until he spies this mother turtle dig a hole and bury a sprawl of eggs. Then he’s huffing and blowing for me. “We got to fence them eggs. These guys,” he means his son and grandson that also live on the place and benefit from his money without working, “they get to drinking and running the four-wheel gators around, they’ll trample the eggs.” I put thirty-five dollars worth …