The Dark of Summer

again.

“Hello,” he said when she was only twenty feet away.

“Hi.”

He was older than her, though most likely younger than Ben Groves, a blond whose hair had been bleached white by the sun. He was deeply tanned, wearing ragged jeans, dirty white sneakers without socks, and no shirt. He was lean, but his arms were corded with stringy muscle that gave evidence of a good deal of manual labor of some sort.

“My name's Jack Younger,” he said. “My father's name is also Jack Younger, though I wasn't saddled with a 'junior' on my name. Can you just hear how that would have sounded—'Jack Younger, Junior'?”

She laughed, liking him at once, His face was freckled, his nose pug, his ears a bit too large, and he had about him the look of one who enjoyed life immensely.

“On the other hand,” he said, “when I'm with my father and must introduce myself to strangers, I often have to say—'Hi. I'm Jack Younger, the younger.'”

“Can I just call you Jack?” Gwyn asked.

“I wish you would.”

“Good. My name's Gwyn Keller.”

“A lovely name,” he said.

“It's not uncommon,” she said. “But I spell it with a Y instead of an E, which gives me a little distinction.”

“Oh, you misunderstand,” he said, with mock surprise. Then, in an exaggerated tone, he said, “I didn't mean your first name — but your last.”

“Keller?”

“Ah,” he said, gripping his heart, “what a musical sound, how full of lilting melody.”

She laughed and sat down on the sand. “Tell me, Jack, did you come all the way into shore just to make jokes with me?”

“I must admit it's true,” he said.

“And were you following me, when you held your boat parallel to my path, back there?”

“Yes, that too.”

She smiled, enormously pleased, and she blushed a bit, though she hoped he wouldn't be able to see that. She had turned a slight reddish-brown from the sun, good camouflage for a blush. “What do you do that you can take time off to follow unsuspecting women?”

“You weren't unsuspecting,” he said. “You suspected me from the very start, as you've just said.” He gripped the edge of the aluminum boat and leaned back, swinging his feet off the sand.

“And you just avoided the question,” she said.

“I tend lobsters,” he said.

“Sure you do.”

“I really do. Or, rather, I tend the lobster traps. The lobsters themselves would be just as happy without my attention.”

“You're a fisherman.”

“As was my grandfather — and as is my father,” he said. He was clearly proud of his vocation, and yet he had the look and sound of someone educated to be much more than a tender of lobster traps.

“What would they think of you if they knew you were dallying around as you are now?” she asked, teasingly.

“They'd say I was a fine, red-blooded boy, an honor to the Younger family, and with a great deal of taste.”

She blushed again, but was sure her sunburn hid it. He had a talent for making her blush more so than anyone she'd ever met, including Ben Groves.

“Besides,” he said, “I've been setting traps all day, and I'd just finished when I saw you walking here. I've been up and about since five this morning, and if I haven't earned the right to dally a bit, then I guess I'm not strong enough for this lifestyle.”

“Do you catch much?” she asked.

“Tons!” he said. “Those lobsters virtually clamber over one another to get in the cages I send down for them. I do believe they battle, claw to claw, for the right to be caught by Jack Younger.”

“The younger.”

“Exactly.” This time, he laughed. When he was finished, he said, “'Have you just moved in somewhere here?”

“No,” she said. “Well, maybe, in a way. I'm staying the summer with my aunt and uncle.”

“Who are?”

“The Barnabys,” she said.

The change in Jack Younger's demeanor was sudden, complete and quite surprising. He had been all smiles a moment earlier, his blue eyes adance, full of nervous energy. Now, at the mention of the Barnabys, his eyes grew slitted and cautious. His smile metamorphosed quickly into a frown, almost into a scowl. His nervous energy, directed first at humor, seemed now to give birth to anger.

'Is something wrong?” she asked.

“I'm no friend of theirs,” he said.

“Whyever not?”

“I'm sure you know.”

“Don't be so sure, because I don't know.”

He got off the edge of the boat and stepped back into the frothy edge of the sea, his dampened trousers growing ever wetter, grabbing hold of the edge of the boat as if to pull it loose of the sand.

“You're not going are you?” she asked.

“I see no need to stay.”

“Because my uncle's Will Barnaby?”

He said nothing but looked at her with just a touch of disgust in his eyes.

“That's stupid,” she said.

“You wouldn't know.”

“You may not want to be friends with my uncle,” she said, “but why shouldn't you be friends with me? For heaven's sake, I'd never bring myself to touch a creepy old lobster — but I'm not about to shun you just because you make your living handling them!”

He laughed again, though not fully in good humor; half of that laugh was sour. He said, “Are you implying that your uncle is a creepy old lobster?”

She grinned, glad to have the joking back. “Not at all,” she said. “He may be a tiny bit of a cold fish, but basically I love him.”

His laughter had died away, and no smile came to his face now — though he did not frown, either.

“What have you against Uncle Will?” she asked, sitting on the sand again, tucking her legs under her in Indian fashion.

He hesitated, then let go of the boat and sat down on the edge of it once more. “He's just about ruined commercial fishing in this area,” he said. “He's just about finished us off.”

“How so?”

“You really don't know?” he asked, incredulous.

“No.” She shifted her legs, drew them in tighter, getting more comfortable, and she said, “I've only been here a day, and I haven't seen either Will or Elaine for years.”

He gave her one last searching look, then apparently decided that he would believe her. He said, “For years, your uncle's been buying up beachfront property and the beaches themselves. He must own the beaches from the manor to a point more than three miles south.”

“Is this a crime?”

“Not of itself,” he said. “But you see, all the lobster men, and many of the other fishermen, used to use Lamplight Cove for a base of operation. We had docks there, and we kept facilities to repair our traps. We also had a keeping tank to hold the catch — the better specimens, at least — until the expensive restaurants' buyers could