It was a sixteen-foot Tracker with a fifty-horsepower Mercury outboard that Nate had spent three winters rebuilding all the way down to the lower unit gears.

I stood behind the screen door of our back porch, holding a damp dish towel, watching them through the wire mesh.

I remembered when he hauled that hull back from the river bottom four years ago and worked past midnight trying to get the motor to turn over.

I had never asked him to sell that boat.

The buyer walked around the trailer twice, kicked the left tire, and took a white paper envelope out of his coat pocket.

“Does the trolling motor come with the rig?” the buyer asked.