He searched the scrolling green 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? Or were you all alone with the 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 of town at The Pit”

“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 like”

“No. It’s just awful.”

He laughed. “It’s 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. It 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’d 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, his toes fled the chill.

The two strangers tended to a kettle. There was no sign of her from his pillow up top, but the night was catching up. 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. The digits retracted, and auburn tumbled across the pillow. Laces cinched, he pushed out into the blinding gray.

Gravel, waves, the bay, the town front, framed under mountains and a monochrome sky. 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.

“My clothes are all damp, it’s freezing out there with the wind. Mmm.” There were no windows, but light bled through gaps. “Where are they?” Her hosts.

“They left for work.”

“Oh. Hatchery, right?”

“Mmhmm.”

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.

“Doesn’t look as crowded here.”

“No.”

They took their lattes up, and found a table. Others sat alone with laptops. He saw what lay in wait.