Nobody's Fool

ahead, but rather from above and behind. There was now enough light for Sully to see that Peter was no longer with them. His voice came to them from above, where they’d left the vehicles. “That help?”
    â€œHey,” Toby said. “A Sullivan with a brain.” In truth, the headlights helped only marginally, illuminating the trees and the camp’s roof but not the path. “Wait, okay?” she whispered.
    Sully decided he would. A moment later Peter joined him, watching dubiously as Sully flexed his knee.
    â€œYou okay?”
    â€œFine,” Sully said. “Terrific.”
    â€œListen,” Peter said, his voice low and confidential. “Let me do the unloading.”
    â€œI’m fine,” Sully insisted. “I’ll go slow.”
    Several lights came on inside the camp and they could see Toby Roebuck moving swiftly from room to room, her hair bouncing.
    â€œWhy not just let me?” Peter said.
    â€œBecause.”
    â€œOh,” Peter said. “Well. As long as you have a reason.”
    â€œLook,” Sully said. “When I can’t work any more, I’ll quit, okay. Is that all right with you?”
    â€œAnything you say, boss.”
    Neither said anything for a moment then, and there was just the sound of the wind high in the trees and the tiny waves lapping against the shore and Toby Roebuck returning through the camp, all of its windows now streaming yellow and illuminating the treacherous footing between where they stood and the camp’s back porch.
    â€œWell, I guess it’s true,” Peter observed. “Life is full of surprises. Who’d have thought you and I would ever argue over a woman?”
    Sully stared at his son, whose eyes gleamed in the darkness like a cat’s. “Is
that
what you think we’re doing?”
    Toby bounced back out onto the porch then and peered up the embankment toward her two male companions, who remained invisible in the dark midground between the light from above and that from below. She could see neither of them, though when Peter spoke, his voice was close enough to touch. “That’s what I think we’re doing,” she heard him say.
    The job took about an hour, and in the end Sully let Peter and Toby Roebuck do most of the hauling up and down the bank. Even with the camp’s back door light on, the slope remained dark, the footing treacherous, and so Sully stayed with the truck, pulling the now tangled boards free and leaning them against the tailgate so Toby and his son could grab a convenient armful. Watching them work together, he decided that Peter had been right. They
were
arguing about a woman. He also had to admit that he was jealous of his son’s two good legs. Of course, Peter himself had to be a good ten years older than Toby Roebuck, and he too seemed slightly in awe of her energy going up and down the bank with an armful of hardwood. Peter went slower, carrying a far larger load over his shoulder.
    They’d decided the best place to stack the wood was on the screened-in porch that wrapped around the camp, and once when Toby, who was making two bouncing trips to Peter’s one, caught up with him there on the porch, they took a short break. Sully could hear their voices borne up from the lake on the frigid wind, and once he heard Toby Roebuck laugh, a sound that made him wish Rub had come along. Rub would have been full of angry wishes. He’d have wanted to know how come guys like Peter and Carl had all the luck with women while they never had any. He’d have wished all this running up and down the hill would make ole Toby hot and sweaty so she’d take off her jacket and let them watch her tits jiggle. When Sully pointed out it was December and about ten degrees above zero, Rub would just wish it was summer. Rub’s wishes, when you totaled them up, meant simply that he’d have preferred a different sort of world, one where he got his share—of money, pussy, food, warmth, ease. Sully’s job, as he perceived it, was to defend the world they were stuck with, a task made infinitely easier by Rub’s presence.
    In his absence, Sully, sitting on the tailgate of the pickup waiting forhis son and the prettiest girl in Bath to climb the bank for the last few armloads of wood, found himself alone with a few wishes of his own. He didn’t waste much time on the big ones—that he was younger, less stubborn, more flexible,