“That’s the thing,” said Pete. “They out-heart you all the time. They do it first thing in the morning, when you feel like crap, they do it at night when you come home from work and feel like crap, they do it in their sleep, they do it eyes closed, back turned, watching TV, they do it blind, deaf and dumb.”
“It’s a good thing,” said Nick, in defense of the opposite sex. He was not an extremist like his two friends but rather a moderate, and a moderating influence. Burt and Pete counted on him for this, as a kind of counter-balance to their sarcasm and rabidity. They needed him the way a comic needed a straight man. He was known to have a decent marriage, but more than that, he was a decent guy. He did not go in for slander, smear or malice, which was a strike against him to be sure, though not a fatal one. He behaved and expressed himself with forethought and restraint, much, indeed, as their most excellent wives might have behaved and expressed themselves had they been men.
And if that wasn’t enough, he was also the fisherman among them. He’d fished his whole life, initially with live bait, then lures, and for the last fifteen years, strictly flies. If there was a hierarchy among fishermen (and there was), he was at the top. To Burt, a relative novice, he was above reproach. To Pete, more seasoned, he deserved the respect due veterans. Thus was he allowed to flirt with heresies where others would have been summarily condemned.
“A woman should have heart,” he said. “You want a heartless woman?”
“Cold beer and heartless women,” said Pete. “Now you’re talking. You’re playing my song.”
Carl had yet to speak on the subject and was not expected to. His experience with women, compared to his friends, was slight. His experience in general, outside of sports (the watching, not the playing), was limited. He was definitely not a fisherman, which left open the question of why he’d been invited on the trip. The guys had hung out as kids, but hardly at all as a group since then.
“When was the last time we got together like this?” he asked.
“Like this?” said Burt. “Never.”
“You always ask that question,” said Pete, an edge to his voice. “Why is that?”
There was a side to Carl, a rather broad side, that rubbed Pete the wrong way. Always had, though he’d forget about it, had no cause to remember, until they were together. Carl had a stiffness to him, an ineptitude, a kind of inborn, or inbred, awkwardness. He never seemed quite comfortable in his own skin. In public it was like he had two left feet.
Pete had little patience for this. As a boy it had made him uneasy; as a teen, more than uneasy: he felt personally offended, he and his budding sense of manhood, as though Carl’s uncoolness posed a threat to him.
Moreover, Carl had a tendency to focus on the past, which Pete mistook for nostalgia, a trait he had no use for. In fact, this was Carl’s way of coping with a present that at times seemed to unfold at random and at other times seemed utterly alien to him. He missed references and misread social cues. Commonly, he felt behind in the conversation, and rather than saying something stupid or embarrassing, which he was easily capable of doing, he took refuge in events that had already occurred. He had an exceptional, if restricted, memory. Given some of the things he had seen and lived through as a child, this restriction was not necessarily a bad thing. It protected him in a certain way, but at the same time it limited the range of his responses.
In this particular case he was at a loss on how to answer Pete, and Nick came to his rescue by supplying his own answer. “Pete’s marriage. His first one. That was the last time. At the bachelor party.”
“Ah,” said Burt. “The bachelor party.”
“Carl wasn’t there,” said Pete.
“How would you know?” asked Burt. “You were barely there yourself.”
“We all were there,” said Nick. “It was a great party. More than great. Exceptional.”
“Exceptional for me making a fool of myself,” said Pete.
“I wouldn’t disagree,” said Burt. “What would you say it was? The booze? The pot? The entertainment?”
“All of them,” said Pete. “And that one girl. God help me. I should have known better. But what can I say? I have a weakness for women.”
He might have said he had a weakness for water, for both quenched his thirst. He was capable of amazing feats of adoration and devotion towards the opposite sex, sometimes far beyond what was good for him. He had followed women all around the globe, both invited and uninvited, made love once for three days straight in Durango, Mexico, for two days in Ulan Bator. And then there was that glorious night on the beach at Waikiki with, who was it? Claudia? Yes, Claudia, the brilliant and boozy French expatriate, the two of them rutting in the sand like drunken turtles. No one believed his current marriage would last, no one but Pete himself, whose optimism and faith were matched only by his capacity for self-delusion and repeating his mistakes.
“I guess I did learn my lesson,” he said. “I’m a one woman man now. One’s enough.”
“Good for you,” said Nick.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Burt.
“Believe it,” said Pete. “At my age, one’s all I can handle.” He grinned. “What I mean is, one at a time.”
They made it through the Valley before the heat got stifling, flying free and easy up into the foothills where they had to shift gears as the road began to wind and climb. At Twin Pines they stopped for gas, food and fishing licenses. Burt talked up the woman at the counter and got an earful. The rivers were running high on account of the hot weather. Fishing was so-so. There’d been a burn at Five Mile Creek caused by lightning. Three mountain lion sightings on the Middle Fork, along with one near confrontation. The bridge at Lacey Falls was out, the one at Copper Creek should be okay. On the non-fishing newsfront, the Sturges boys had been busted again for meth. Chloe’s Grocery was up for sale, as Chloe was in the process of getting a divorce. Frank’s Video, on the other hand, was closed for good, and thank the Lord for that. The man had been arrested for pedophilia.
In short, it was business as usual in the foothills.
The plan was to fish that afternoon, spend the night at Burt’s cabin, fish the whole next day and return to the city either late that night or early the next morning. Burt had had some luck on a stretch of the Middle Fork called Mosquito Flat, and with Nick’s blessing, he took command. From Twin Pines they drove another twenty miles east, climbing steadily on good California blacktop, passing Gold Rush towns with names like Confidence, Hope Valley, Emigrant Rest and Indian Gap. At five thousand feet they turned off the highway, heading north on a graded gravel road that followed the crest of the ridge for a mile or so through mixed pine and fir forest before giving way to dirt and abruptly plunging downward. The Middle Fork was at the bottom of a twenty-five hundred foot canyon. On foot, with a pack on your back, going down would be a chore, but coming up would be a ball buster. In a vehicle it was the reverse. Burt engaged the four-wheel drive, rolled up the windows to keep the dust out, and slowed to a crawl. The dogwoods, with their creamy, cross-shaped blossoms, were in bloom; everything else was either green or brown. It was a bitch of a descent, but at length it was over. The four of them tumbled out and assembled their gear.
The water was not as high as they had feared. Boulders, completely submerged in Spring, were now visible. This was good news, as they made for plenty of eddies and pools, deep and cool this time of year, any one of which would be the perfect hiding place for a trout.
The daily limit was two per person, two fish caught and killed and eaten. There was no limit to the amount of trout that could be caught and released. For this reason, and to make it more of a sport, barbed hooks were illegal. Releasing a fish, a point of pride among the vets, required a complement of virtues: the skill to hook one, the patience to land one, and the mercy to set it free.
All the men but Carl wore fishing vests. All but Carl owned their own rods. Nick clipped a landing net into a ring on the back of his vest, and Burt, never one to b
e left standing at the station, did the same. Custom rods in hand, the two of them set off up the path that hugged the bank of the river. A few minutes later, after working out some kinks in his reel, Pete followed them. Carl, boasting a rented rod and tackle, waited until all three were well out of sight, then brought up the rear.
To say that Carl knew nothing about fishing would be to say a baseball player who’d seen fastballs all his life could never hit a curve. It was possible, but the chances were slim. When he was seven, his father had taken him to a trout farm where he had snagged, eye-holed, fought, lost and eventually landed a trout. The brutal satisfaction of that was tempered by his having to gut and clean the fish. He didn’t like it as a boy and he doubted he would like it now. Nonetheless, he’d brought a knife, though it was a jackknife, not a fishing knife, and it was old and dull.
A quarter mile up the trail he found a nice flat piece of granite that jutted out over the water. Some tangled fishing line hung off the end of a bush. The spot was exposed and hot. Not uncomfortably hot, although he guessed the fish might think it was. His memory of the trout farm, in addition to his landing of the fish and succeeding for once in his father’s eyes, was of a day so suffocatingly hot and a lake so small and smelly and dirty that the fish seemed frantic to leave it, preferring the quick death of the hook to the slow, excruciating, oxygen-deprived one of staying behind.
He picked out a lure, the one he thought the prettiest, a flashy bit of silver metal that shone and shivered minnow-like in the water. He tied it to the line in a fair approximation of the knot the rental clerk had showed him, checked above and behind him for potential snags, then squared himself and let fly.
The lure landed at his feet. He tried again, and this time hit water. The third time the line caught on the branch of a tree. Ditto the fourth. His next cast was better, and before long he had a rhythm going. With practice his casts got bolder. Twice he snagged on something underwater but with an effort was able to work the hook and line free.
The afternoon wore on. Upstream Nick was catching fish, five already, two of which he released and three he kept, giving one to Burt in the unlikely event they ran into a Fish and Gamer. Pete was getting bites but hadn’t landed anything and had already lost three lures. Carl had not lost any lures, which, from a certain point of view, constituted success. On the other hand, he hadn’t had a single bite. He was slightly bored, mildly frustrated, but on the whole content. Expecting nothing, he had met and even exceeded expectations.
But wouldn’t it be fun to actually catch a fish? And not just any fish but a big one, a trophy fish, a gamer. He had no idea if such a fish was out there, but he tried to read the river, looking for spots where one might be lurking. There was a rapids just upstream with a king-sized boulder, below which lay a deep, protected pool. There was shade from the boulder, oxygen in the stirred up water, and a steady stream of food: it was what Nick called trout heaven. Raising the rod above his head and angling it slightly backward, Carl let fly.
It was a perfect cast. The lure struck dead center in the pool. He let it sink for a few seconds, set the lock, then slowly reeled it in.
All at once, the line twitched. Carl froze. It twitched again, and he jerked the rod to set the hook, and continued reeling. Now there was tension and resistance. The tip of the rod bent like a question mark, and the line became so taut it seemed about to snap.
His heart raced. What a fish this had to be! A monster fish. A record-breaker. A Leviathan.
But no. There was no play in the line the way there would be if a fish were on it. No play at all.
A snag then. Of course. What had he been thinking? Who was he to believe he could catch a fish? He tugged on the rod disconsolately, swung it, yanked it, pulled it, but couldn’t work the hook free. Common sense told him to cut the line and move on, but something stubborn and proud inside refused to give up.
Wedging the rod in a crevice of the rock, he took off his shirt, glanced up and down the river to be sure he was alone, then removed the rest of his clothes. Quickly, lest he be seen naked, he slid into the water.
The current was strong, and he hugged the shore, grasping willow branches to steady himself. Once he left the bank, he dropped down on all fours to keep his balance. The water was snowmelt and painfully cold. His hands and feet were numb by the time he reached the pool.
All around him the river churned and foamed, but the pool below the boulder was smooth and calm. The lure was visible near the bottom, winking like a jewel. He stared at it, building up his courage. He drew a breath, steeled himself against the cold, and before he could change his mind, dove in.
Steeled he may have been, but the shock left him nearly senseless. His chest felt caught in a vice, and his head began to spin. He felt dizzy, stupid and embarrassed. He was on the verge of blacking out, and maybe for a moment he did, when suddenly, his mind cleared.
A veil, it seemed, had lifted. He felt good, remarkably good, filled with something deep, peaceful and serene. The afterlife? He couldn’t be sure. But clearly it was a different life, a different feeling, from the one he’d always known. He felt weightless, and for the first time in memory unselfconscious and unashamed. It was one of those moments that people talked about. He felt connected to the world. In touch with the mysteries of the world. Inseparable from the great web of life.
It was astounding. And so simple. So obvious. So pure.
It was a moment to cherish, and his heart swelled. For the first time in his life he felt that he belonged.
Sharing this moment with him was a fish. A big fish, maybe the biggest he had ever seen, and maybe the prettiest too, with a long pink stripe on a field of silver, fins like butterfly wings, and two enormous glassy eyes. It hovered in front of him, somehow seeming to hold its place in the water without moving, and regarded him, first with one eye, then the other. It seemed intelligent. More than intelligent. The way it eyed him—shrewdly, knowingly—and the way its mouth hung open as if about to speak: this was no ordinary fish. It was something different, something special. Carl felt this in every fiber of his being. This was a creature out of stories, out of legend, primal, ancient, mystical. It had power. Divine power, he thought. Clearly, this was more than a mere fish.
But there were fish in the water, ordinary ones, seemingly oblivious to the strange-looking mammal in their midst, fish that under any other circumstances would have long since darted off. Carl wondered if they were under the creature’s protection, if it were some sort of guardian, or shepherd. He desperately wanted to know its identity, the truth of it, and he felt on the verge of this knowledge, at the very gate, when his lungs gave out. He thrashed to the surface, greedily gulping air, then dove back down. He searched for the creature, returned to the surface for air and searched again. And again. Peering in every nook and cranny, braving the chill. Desperate to find it. Craving another glimpse.
But no. The creature was gone.
The canyon of the Middle Fork ran east-west, and in summer the sun was visible throughout the day. It swung overhead like a marble in its slot, and at dusk the air grew thick and golden. Caddis flies, midges and mayflies swarmed and flitted in the air, and in response, the fish began to rise. They broke water with little plops and splashes, leaving concentric circles in their wake. It was the time of day to have your rod in hand, the time to have your line, any line—a bit of twine, some sturdy thread, a length of string tied to a stick—in the water, but Carl had other things on his mind. He was back on his rock, re-living his encounter, basking in the afterglow of what was obviously an epiphany of some sort. His senses remained heightened. He felt a well-being unlike any he had ever known. The water was splashing and gurgling beside him, and beyond it he heard a million other sounds: the rattle of a kingfisher, the whisper of the wind, the call of an owl, the caw of a crow. Closer by, he heard a rustling in the bushes.
A moment later, Pete appeared.
Tucked inside his vest was a plastic bag with two brookies. “A little on the small
side,” he admitted, adding, as every fisherman has added at some point in his life, “I probably should have thrown ’em back.”
He felt guilty but not too guilty. Then he noticed that Carl wasn’t fishing. He also noticed that his hair was wet.
“What happened? Hook a big one and it pulled you in?”
“Very funny.”
“Really. What?”
Carl wasn’t about to expose himself to further ridicule. “I got hot and took a swim.”
Pete gave him a look. Didn’t the fool know that swimming spooked the fish? What a bozo the man was. What a moron.
“Any sign of Nick and Burt?” he asked.
Carl shook his head. “Last I saw they were still fishing.”
Pete nodded and glanced at the sky, where the light was concentrating westward. There was still an hour, an hour and a half, of daylight left. Enough time for a few more casts. He wasn’t going to let Carl spoil his trip.
“Mind if I take a stab?” he asked, lifting his rod.
Carl briefly considered saying yes, I do mind, you’re interrupting something, go away. But that wasn’t going to happen, probably not ever, and he did what he always seemed to do, give way to someone else, in this case Pete, making room for him on the rock. He watched him work, envying the grace and beauty of his casting. Pete used a high release, and once his spinner hit, he pointed the tip of the rod down at the water. It was as though he were commanding the fish to take notice of him, to drop what they were doing and line up to be caught. His first few casts were downstream, which was counter to the prevailing wisdom that downstream fish were wary on account of the scent of humans upstream. But he’d had luck with this, though no luck now, and after a while he switched directions. He tried the far edge of the river, which was now in shadow, then a riffle in the rapids, then the pool where Carl had been. Nothing happened for five, six, seven casts, and then he got a bite.
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