The cabin was small and cozy and smelled of pine and cedar and fish. I sat on one of the bunks and pawed through a suit-case while Fred moved around and lighted kerosene lamps and played boy scout with the fire place. I found what I was looking for and then discovered a glass on the window sill. I wiped it out, thinking all the time about detective stories where the private eye took his straight—in a dirty glass.
Fred didn't approve of drinking on fishing trips and his plump face showed it.
"You look scared, Charley."
"I am."
"Something to do with going into the woods back there?"
"That's right. A lot to do with it."
He sat on the bunk opposite me and concentrated on tamping tobacco into his pipe. "You wouldn't care to tell me about it, would you?"
"Sure, I'll tell you," I said. "I'll tell anybody. I'll tell the whole world." I tilted the glass to my lips and let the liquid burn its way down. "It started with a damned good friend of mine named Kelley." And I told Fred the same story that Kelley had told me. And I told him what I had discovered back in the woods.