And the rumrunners’ud bring down the whiskey from Canada and drop anchor just beyond the three-mile limit.” Spencer Durkee sat on a folding metal chair outside Nudd’s Bait & Tackle, his fishing cap pushed up high on his forehead and his gnarled fingers working to loosen a knot in a length of twine. A half dozen children lingered nearby, the braver ones crowding close, the more timid hanging back. But all eyes, and certainly all ears, were focused on the old man, who entertained the youngsters while their fathers milled about inside Nudd’s, waiting for the meeting to start. Seth Hazlitt had given me a lift into town. He was on his way to the hospital; one of his patients had stepped on the blade of a hoe, opening a sizable gash in her head when the handle rose up to smite her. Seth had dropped me at the dock, extracting a promise that I would call him if I couldn’t find a ride home from among the fishermen attending the meeting. I’d walked down to Nudd’s to find Spencer regaling the youngsters with stories of the days of rumrunners off the Maine coast.
