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to
follow. But that didn't really matter. Ned just enjoyed being with
Peeler. They had met only a few weeks earlier, shortly after the
Covingtons had moved to Lynnhaven. On one of his first rambles
around the place, Ned came across a long, low shed on the spot
where a street ended and an open field began. He could just make
out the word BAITS in faded paint on the gray boarding. Curious,
Ned walked through the thick and tangled grass to the open doorway.
Inside, all was darkness and the faint sound of running water. Ned
almost turned and left, but he noticed a little light coming in
through two small windows in the middle of the shed. He stepped
through the doorway and let his eyes adjust from the bright sun
outside to the gloomy interior. The air was cool and had a rich,
sweet smell, like freshly turned soil. Ned could see why. There was
no floor, just bare earth. The shed was full of wooden tables with
boxes built on top. In each box was a layer of dirt several inches
deep, home for hundreds of writhing worms. A perfect place for a
vampire, Ned thought. A little further into the shed he found two
chipped and battered bathtubs holding dozens of crayfish. It was
the first time Ned had ever seen one, although he knew what they
were from pictures in books. A hose had been rigged up to run a
thin stream of fresh water through both tubs. Other tables held
large metal washtubs full of what looked like clumps of weeds in
water, and boxes of sand and moss. Ned couldn't see any sign of
animal life in these containers, but he wasn't about to stick his
hand in and poke around. The two windows were so fly-specked and
dirty they provided only the barest illumination.
    When Ned turned to leave he saw the figure
of a tall, heavy man standing in the doorway. In one hand the man
held a wire basket full of live crabs, clicking and crawling over
each other. Ned jumped in fright. But then the man was laughing
good-naturedly and he came and introduced himself as Peeler and
made the boy welcome. Ned ended up staying more than an hour,
talking and watching Peeler dismember the crabs.
    "So you just moved here from Washington,
D.C.?"
    "Yes."
    "Lot different here, ain't it?" Peeler
reached into the tub full of weeds and came up with a can of cold
beer.
    "It sure is," Ned agreed.
    "Your father work in Washington?"
    "Yes, he does."
    "He drives back and forth all that way every
day?"
    "Sure."
    "He must love his car."
    "It's brown, with a white vinyl top."
    ''I'll be damned."
    Peeler was a tall, solid man who had to walk
slightly stooped in the baithouse. His face was as rough and
weathered as the sign outside, but it was not without a measure of
warmth and friendliness. When he smiled, which he did almost every
time Ned said something, it came entirely from his eyes. To the
boy, Peeler might have been a hundred years old, but he was an
immediate, natural friend. His hands were like those of a giant,
huge and leathery, but surprisingly nimble as they took apart a
crab or tied a complicated knot.
    Ned also met Cloudy, an elderly black man
with a shiny moon face, gold teeth and a silver halo of hair.
Cloudy was Peeler's "partner at baitin' and crabbin' and so
on."
    "He tell you how he caught them crabs?"
Cloudy asked.
    “ No."
    "I didn't think so. Well, I'll tell you. He
goes down to where the water's shallow and he knows there's some
crabs, and he sticks his big white toes in."
    "His toes?" Ned wasn't sure whether to
believe it or not. "That's right, and when he feels the clappers
latch on, he knows he got a crab."
    "I'd like to meet the crab who'd touch your
toe," Peeler said.
    In the days that followed Ned stopped by to
visit Peeler and Cloudy as often as he could. They were always the
same, joking, telling stories, glad to see him. And they always
wore the same clothes. Peeler's outfit was a flannel shirt, green
work pants and heavy shoes. Cloudy had on a suit and sneakers. In
each case the clothes were wrinkled and torn in places, and
appeared to be