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cast on the water was enough to bring a bevy of huge full-grown trout out of hiding.
    "Look at that!" Esme's words were whispered in stunned amazement.
    "They're coming to be fed," Cleav answered cheerfully. Squatting down beside the water, Esme saw him dip his hand in the pail of coarsely ground, rotten meat. Retrieving a fistful, he put his hand just under the surface of the water and to Esme's awestruck surprise the big proud trout hurried up to get a bite.
    "They eat right out of your hand!" Her eyes were wide with amazement. She looked at Cleav as if he'd just accomplished a great miracle.
    Her exuberant enthusiasm over his fish delighted Cleav, but honesty compelled him to explain more fully. "It's not me," he told her. "These are my brooders. I've been feeding them at this same time from this same spot for two years."
    "So they know you." Esme's eyes were bright with approval.
    "They're just fish," Cleav protested good-naturedly. "They don't know anything but eating and breeding."
    "That's pretty much life anyway." Esme glanced into the water. "Do they have names? What do you call that kind of grayish looking one with the black mole on her cheek?"
    "I don't call them anything," he said.
    "You could call her Pearly, after Miz Beachum," Esme told him. "Miz Beachum's got a big mole just like that."
    Cleav gave a little chuckle. "You're absolutely right. She does look a bit like Mrs. Beachum."
    Esme sighed loudly. "I'm just so proud of you," she said. "I never knew a living soul that could call the fish to come to them."
     Grabbing another handful of the vile-smelling fish food, he offered it to the still hungry swimmers. "When they see a shadow across the water, they just know that there's food here, and it's safe to come and eat it."
    "Oh, but it's wonderful," Esme insisted. "The fish know you and trust you."
    "No, you're thinking that these trout are like hunting dogs. And they are not."
    "Of course not." Esme shook her head with agreement. "The master tames the dog and then trains him. You've got the fish a-coming to you, and they're not trained or tamed. They're still fish. It's like you talk to wild things."
    Cleav laughed out loud at that. The sight of his wide, white smile made something catch in Esme's chest. The gentle afternoon breeze had mussed his curls, and his tangled brown hair accented the depth of his pale blue eyes.
    "I do not
talk
to fish, young lady," he declared with a mock severity that would have made Esme giggle had her heart not been pounding like a tom-tom. How had she not realized before yesterday how handsome he was? And so smart? And so gentle even the fish weren't afraid of him.
    "It's you that feeds the fish and no one else," she told him softly.
    There was a fleeting curiosity in his glance, and then he motioned to her. "Come here and you can feed them."
    "Me?"
    "Sure. It's just the shadow that they see. They don't know the hand that feeds them."
    Esme hesitated. "I'm not sure."
    For some reason he wanted badly for her to do it. Intuitively he knew she couldn't resist a dare. Glancing down into the food pail, he said, "You have to be willing to put your hand in that bucket of muck." There was more than a hint of challenge to his voice.
    She quickly waved away her former objections to the putrid fish food. "A little muck ain't nothing to me," she boasted. "I've limed the outhouse plenty of times, and that's a lot worse than this."
    Cleav had the good manners to ignore her indelicate comment.
    "I'd wash in this stuff if it suited the fish," she told him.
    Cleav smiled. "I don't believe that will be necessary, Miss Esme."
    Hearing him speak her given name pleased her. She wanted very much to feed the fish now. She wanted to show him that she could do whatever he asked.
    "Here, come sit in front of me," he said. "We need to make the fish think that you're just another part of me."
    Esme hesitated just an instant. Then she scooted closer to him. Still squatting, he spread his legs a little wider