“He wanted to be friends with his father and feel the same closeness there had been between his father and Jamie. Jamie would have been a big man. He had gone on the boat that last summer, and Mark had listened enviously as Jamie and his father discussed fishing and boating problems in man-to-man fashion.”
“Mark’s heart had begun hammering at his father’s first words. The mention of shooting Ben was too much. But he hardly realized he had spoken aloud the thought that flooded his mind until he heard his father’s incredulous voice, ‘Buy the bear for you? You want him?‘”
″‘You’d have me believe you just walked right up to him, picked up the chain, led him back, and tied him up! A five-year old brownie, half grown, maybe more.’
‘Well, I petted him some first, and scratched his ears, and rubbed him under the chin. He likes being scratched under the chin.‘”