Bitch Creek Read Free

pushed himself up from his chair and went outside. Kate had backed her boat into its slot and was bent over the trailer hitch, cursing softly.
    â€œLet me take a whack at it,” said Calhoun.
    Kate straightened up, put her hands on her hips, and arched her back. “Damn thing keeps jamming on me.”
    Calhoun gave the crank a few more turns, thumped it with the heel of his hand, then lifted the trailer off the truck’s hitch. “You’ve got to hold your mouth right,” he said.
    â€œYou’ve just got a way with machines,” she said. “Too bad you’re not so good with people. Hold it up here for me.”
    Calhoun lifted up the front of the trailer while Kate slipped a plank under its front wheel. Then he went to the side of the shop, turned on the outside spigot, uncoiled the hose, and brought it over to the boat. Kate opened the plugs and Calhoun hosed it down, first the inside and then the outside.
    She scrubbed at some blood stains with the big boat sponge. “We had us a day,” she said.
    â€œBet you did.”
    â€œThey were on sand eels all over the mudflats the entire last two hours of the outgoing and well into the incoming. My folks couldn’t throw much beyond the tip of their rod, but we dropped anchor there and they were sloshing and churning all around us for three solid hours.”
    â€œSchoolies?” said Calhoun.
    â€œMostly. But we had some fun.”
    â€œAny keepers?” Keep-ahs.
    â€œI think Charlie had one on earlier, but she came unbuttoned before we got a real good look. You know that rip off the tip of the island?” 
    â€œWhere the black dog always comes out on the dock to bark at you?” 
    â€œThat one. This fish was lying there with her nose pointing at the rocks, and Charlie threw one of your bunker flies up into the wash. That old cow sucked it in, and Charlie hit her, and she hightailed it for Boston. He panicked, tried to snub her down, and—”
    â€œPing!” said Calhoun.
    â€œBusted that ten-pound leader like it was a trout tippet. I think it must’ve got nicked on a mussel shell.” Kate grinned. “I thought the poor man was gonna have a heart attack.”
    Calhoun always marveled at Kate’s undiminished enthusiasm. She had owned Kate’s Bait and Tackle for eight years and had been guiding for nearly five. Every day was still an adventure for Kate, and every client was a new friend. For a while, the first-time sports had tended to look at the ground and shuffle their feet and mumble when they realized they’d hired a woman to guide them. But it didn’t take long for the word to get around: Kate Balaban had a nose for fish, a limitless repertoire of shaggy dog stories, and twice the stamina of any man. She could repair a dead outboard in the rain while her customized Boston Whaler bounced on heavy chop, she could cast a sink-tip line eighty feet into a ten-naut breeze, and she fixed an old-fashioned Maine shore lunch—an ice chest full of beer and fruit juice and soft drinks, fresh bluefish fillets (if they’d caught any, sirloin steaks if they hadn’t) grilled over an open fire, with smoked oysters for appetizers, a big tossed green salad, slabs of extra-sharp Maine cheddar, fresh-baked bread from Sally’s next door to the shop, and a wedge of Sally’s apple pie for dessert.
    Besides, Kate was a spectacular woman who didn’t mind the fact that men liked looking at her. She usually wore her black hair in a long braid that reached almost down to her waist, and she knew how to apply subtle touches of makeup to emphasize her high cheekbones, her big black flashing eyes, and her wide mouth. Kate usually wore walking shorts, T-shirts, and sneakers when she guided, and after a few weeks in the sun her Irish half disappeared and she looked like a full-blooded Penobscot Indian.
    She was an inch shy of six feet, most of it in her legs. In shorts, she