The Truth of the Matter by John Lutz

ones,” Hobey said as he climbed into the jeep and gunned the engine. They watched him bump away in the squat vehicle down the uneven road that serviced the cabin.
    “It looks nice,” Ellie said, turning and surveying the cabin, “better than a motel.”
    “You won’t get an argument out of me,” Roebuck said. “Let’s get our stuff from the car.”
    “Do you want to use the fireplace tonight?” Ellie asked as they were opening the back of the station wagon.
    “Too hot for a fire.”
    “I know, but I’ve always liked to watch the flames dance in a fireplace. My mother’s house had a real fireplace.”
    Roebuck reached into the back of the car for the fishing equipment. “We’ll see,” he said.
    After they had moved their things into the cabin, Roebuck turned the station wagon around so the stolen license plate faced the thick woods. He filled a bucket with water from the outside tap of the cabin, then he returned to the car, poured the water on some bare ground and stooped for a handful of mud. Carefully, he smeared the mud on the license plate to obscure the numbers, then he splattered the back of the station wagon with mud so the plate itself wouldn’t be too conspicuous.
    The voice behind him startled him.
    “We forgot to buy some fishing clothes for you,” Ellie said.
    Roebuck stood slowly, in relief. “I’ll wear what I have on today. Tomorrow morning we can drive to the nearest town and buy what clothes we need.”
    “I’ll go myself,” Ellie said. “That way you won’t even have to be seen.”
    Roebuck walked with his hands cupped, idly squishing mud between his fingers as they returned to the cabin.
    They spent the rest of the day getting used to their new surroundings. Ellie put things away in the cabin while Roebuck tried to relax by puttering with the new fishing equipment. He sat outside the cabin in a small webbed folding chair, stringing fishing line, attaching sinkers, looking up now and then to note with satisfaction that the lake was large and unsymmetrical, so that the cabin was quite secluded.
    Just before noon Ellie made some coffee and opened a can of chili for lunch. They decided while they ate that they should do some fishing for appearance’s sake even if they caught nothing. So after lunch they carried rods and tackle box to the bank and set themselves adrift in the small wooden rowboat.
    Roebuck rowed the boat to near the middle of the lake, where the sun-shot water was greenest. He looked the fisherman, with his pants rolled to the knees and his upper body bare. He wore his new hat with the mosquito net hanging from the brim, but he soon found that the net was rubbing a sore spot on the tip of his nose, so he ripped it off and wore the hat without it.
    “I’ve never done much fishing,” Ellie said, and for the next twenty minutes Roebuck showed her how to cast and reel the fly in slowly and unevenly. He showed her how to flip her wrist to get the maximum whip in the rod, and soon she was casting as far as he was.
    For a half hour they sat quietly in the gently rocking boat, casting and reeling without success, Roebuck with the Wonder Worm, Ellie with the spotted dragonfly. Then Roebuck wedged his casting rod beneath a wooden seat and let his line play in the water. He slouched down on the dry, sun-warmed bottom of the boat and rested his head on the old cushion he’d been sitting on. Gazing up at the afternoon sky, he watched the clouds rock in perfect unison with the lazy waves of the lake waters.
    “Looks like dinner will be out of a can,” Ellie said, wiping the sweat from her forehead with her sleeve.
    “You have to be patient with fish,” Roebuck answered, and that’s when the bass hit the Wonder Worm and jerked Roebuck’s rod and reel into the lake.
    Roebuck yelled and jumped up just in time to close his fingers about the handle of the rod six inches under water. He kneeled in the bottom of the boat and began to reel. “He’s hooked! He’s