Night Freight

My first published story dealt with salmon fishermen plying their trade along the northern California coast, individuals whom I admire for their courage and resilience. "Deathwatch" is also about salmon fishermen—and, even more prominently, about levels of light and dark. This may be the darkest of all my stories, in fact, in more ways than one; an existential nightmare that has left some readers depressed, others annoyed or repelled or both, and still others thoughtful and with a disinclination to turn out the lights.

Those in the last group are the ones for whom it was written.