Choo Wilson wasn't in the mood for a party. He wasn't wearing sackcloth and ashes, but he had lost a friend when Old Dave Jefferson put down his paint scraper and sat down on the shady side of the house on the Tsooyan and allowed his tired old heart to stop beating. You don't have to tear your hair and beat your breast to miss a friend, and Choo missed Old Dave very much.

Choo's boat, the Touchdown, was in the slip next to the older Tsooyan. He had been sitting in one of the fighting chairs, his feet cocked on the gunwale, watching Old Dave chip-flaking paint slowly and with painstaking care, glancing now and then toward the cloud buildup over the Gulf, wondering if he should undertake the fairly simple job of replacing the hinges on the cabin hatch before the afternoon shower came.

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