Out in the car, I let the motor idle for a minute. Up the road for about three miles, the old man had said. My stomach felt funny and the palms of my hands were oozing dampness. But I had to take a look, I had to go.
"What's the matter?" Fred asked.
"Nothing," I said. I put the car in gear and went straight ahead. I took the right fork.
"Where you going?"
"Just up the road a bit. I want to check on something."
He looked sour. "It's after six now. We don't have much time."
"It'll only take a couple of minutes."
He turned indifferent. "Suit yourself. I was thinking we might get some fishing in." He let it hang there and I almost changed my mind. You know how it is with fishing. If there's any daylight at all, you want to at least trail a hook in the water before hitting the sack.
The asphalt changed to loose gravel and I ground my teeth every time I thought of what the gravel and the dust were doing to the finish of the car. It took ten minutes to make those three miles. Then the gravel thinned out and we came to the end of the road in a small clearing rimmed with pine trees and other scrub timber.