by John Larison
Caroline took Hank by his beard and pulled him toward her and wrapped her arms around him and said, “You.”
Annie smiled at them, and for a moment, Hank imagined what it might have been like if he was hugging Rosemary now, if this glowing soul dancing before them was the Riffle they’d raised together. He imagined it so clearly that he felt it.
They’d spent their lives together in the valley and she’d grown to value the place above any career, and that vacuous feeling that kept him up nights had never existed because his greatest accomplishment lived a short walk away, and Riffle said, “You two are so cute together. So adorable!”
The dogs erupted. Hank was slow to turn, slower than Caroline and Annie, but he turned in time to see Samson and Delilah sprinting across the meadow, howling in fear. Behind them, a fat old skunk lumbered up the shoulder of the meadow.
*
IT WAS SOME time before Hank felt comfortable to drive. The weed had affected him profoundly. He hadn’t just felt high, he’d felt altered: He’d touched a parallel world, a place where things went like they should have. But what had spooked him, what had left him ataxic and dislocated, was that in this other world, things hadn’t been any more right. There hadn’t been the warm satiation, the soulful abundance. It was just as distressing, only differently so.
The hours it took to clean the dogs gave him a chance to get a grip. Caroline had a stash of V8 in the pantry, and they lathered a dozen cans into the dogs’ fur and then, while the freshly washed mutts rolled in the dust, two more cans on their own arms. The smell of skunk would follow them for weeks, a surprising whiff here and there and a steady sourness under all their midnight dreams.
“That smell,” Annie said, sniffing at her fingernails as they rumbled off Caroline’s land back toward River Road, “I think it’ll always bring me back to this moment.”
Once at home, Hank went straight to the Internet, to the one place removed from all places. He was squinting through his reading glasses and pecking at the keys when Annie put her arms around him. “Slave2chrome” had posted a technical question on Speypages about matching lines to a specific rod. He owned the eighty-one thirty-four with the stiffer tip pattern and was looking for a Scandinavian line for throwing dry flies. “If this guy follows the line charts, he’ll end up with a five-forty, which he won’t even feel on that rod. He won’t even feel it! A five-seventy, that’s what he needs. This is important.”
“Are you all right, Hank?” Annie’s breath smelled of toothpaste and she was wearing her pajamas.
“Of course.” She looked like she had something important to say, something on the tip of her tongue. He asked, “What is it?”
“Caroline’s great. I like her. How long have you been together?”
He told her and explained how they met. But he didn’t tell her that he’d wanted to marry her or that she wasn’t inclined to share her life with a man. He wanted to say all this, he wanted a moment of perfect honesty, a moment without any of the filters he’d been maintaining since she arrived. He was exhausted by worrying all the time what she thought of him. And yet, he couldn’t stop.
Annie said, “Do you remember the last summer I was here?”
The question caught him off guard. He looked to the computer screen, to the images of rivers on his screen saver. “Umm, boy, that was a long time ago.”
“I think about it,” she said.
And of course he thought about it too, so much so he didn’t know where to begin talking about it, and the moment grew awkwardly silent. Finally he found words: “What do you think?”
“Oh … ,” she said, like she was about to say more. But then she leaned in and kissed his cheek and said, “I’m glad you’re happy.”
He forced a smile, because he wanted her to believe he was happy. Then he said, “I’m glad you’re happy too.” And watched her walk down the hallway and into her bedroom and shut the door in her wake.
Chapter Fourteen
HANK LAY AWAKE most of the night. Any time he dozed off, the drowning rushed in and he shot upright gasping, the adrenaline coursing to his hands and feet, turning them to needles.
Annie’s arrival had thrown him, his routine, out of whack. He felt dislodged, in a way, from himself. Here he was trying to impress her, trying to be someone or something that was remarkable. He had repeatedly caught himself shoehorning facts or details into casual conversations, looking for any chance to prove he hadn’t wasted the last thirty years. There was the Guide of the Year Award from the Wild Steelhead Coalition, the River Steward Award from the Ipsyniho River Trust, the Lifetime Recognition Medal from the Native Fish Society. But what did any of these slips of paper mean to a doctor of philosophy? From that height, his accomplishments must look like specks of dust. But of course Hank didn’t see these awards as accomplishments, he never had; they were the cairns marking his real accomplishments: successfully lobbying the Board of Forestry to protect the headwaters of Steamboat Basin; identifying a lingering population of winter steelhead in Feather Creek, a population assumed extinct for forty years; petitioning the state fish and wildlife board to abolish the catch-and-kill regulations for wild fish in the Ipsyniho Valley. These were the successes of his life, the things that made him a household name in the households of Ipsyniho steelheaders. But what could they mean to her, a cosmopolitan woman for whom the Ipsyniho and its polite residents were little more than an amusing stop on a backwoods vacation? To her, the Ipsyniho and its troubles would look insular, peripheral, obsolete. Maybe that’s how she saw him too.
It wasn’t that he felt any resentment toward her, that wasn’t it. She had brushed aside his life’s work: “wasteful.” And there was that device, how she longed for it even when he was right there to keep her company. And there were the little things, like the phone at night, how she didn’t brag to Thad about the river or the hikes but instead rushed to ask about the goings-on back home.
But there was his overflowing appreciation for her willingness to return, for her eagerness to explore his life and share her own, some of it anyway. That flood of loneliness, which had been undercutting his once-stable banks, had ebbed for the moment. And for that, he was infinitely grateful.
He did mean something to her, that’s why she was here.
Poor thing. Imagine her own loneliness in that moment, in all the years of moments since he said he wouldn’t move to Chicago. What could she have thought but that her father didn’t fully appreciate her, didn’t love her as a parent should, as all the other fathers loved their children? He remembered that feeling from his own childhood, and it killed him to think he’d passed that most isolating reality on to her. His greatest failure.
They had planned on collecting crawdads that day so many years before. Hank was to teach her the method he’d learned from Rosemary, a system she’d learned from her octogenarian landlord. Hank had borrowed a half-dozen traps and gathered chicken scraps and fish entrails, and was now busy packing their lunch. “With any luck, we’ll have a feast tonight,” he said. Teenage Annie had, in the week since her arrival, remained aloof and pensive. Hank had assumed such behavior was typical for any seventeen-year-old female left isolated from her gaggle of friends, and hence, he hadn’t pressured her to divulge her feelings. In truth, he was worried she might have had her heart broken by some adolescent Romeo, or her virginity swiped by some Chicago Don Juan, or any number of personal traumas he wasn’t the least bit qualified to understand. Though according to all those parenting books, her remote demeanor should have been seen for what it really was: an invitation for dialogue.
“Do you even care?” she had said as he smoothed mayo over the sandwich bread. He turned to find her scowling behind him. This was the first he’d seen her all that morning, and he had no idea what she was talking about. He asked her to clarify, but she stormed outside. He found her waiting in the truck, listening to her headphones. She’d stayed listening to her headphones as he placed the traps on the way upstream, as he dropped the boat into the
river, as he oared them downstream. She refused to fish, she refused to pull the traps. She just listened to those headphones. He tried to parse the events of the prior days, but he could locate no fight or miscommunication that might have ignited this rage—he figured she must have brought it with her. Only when he handed her the sandwich for lunch did she roar, as if this sentiment had been building for years, the Clark’s Fork turned into the Missoula Sea by a quarter mile of glacier: “You’re just so into yourself that you can’t even see the people around you!” It was exactly the kind of blindsiding comment that he’d come to expect from Rosemary. It was meant to lure him into an argument, and he refused on principle to bite. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I don’t know what you mean. But I’m here, and I want to understand.” Was that what he’d said, or what he should have said? “That’s because,” she continued, “you don’t care about anyone except yourself, you know that? You love this river so that you don’t have to love me.” She was crying now, and he reached for her, but she pulled back. “Don’t touch me.” And then the clincher: “You left me.” Annie had on her own reduced the situation to the simple but caustic equation: Dad chose the river over me. And what could he say? Caught off-balance and underprepared, he did his best to articulate the reasoning behind his decision to stay. “Ultimately it was about you. It has always been about you.” But his articulation lacked something, confidence maybe, and Annie saw right through it. He pulled the anchor. “Would you like to oar?” he asked. She turned to him, calm now, and said, “You mean nothing to me. Do you know that? Do you care? Nothing.”
If only that were true, she could have been free from the burden that was her father. Maybe his life had been more than worthless, more than wasteful, maybe it had been harmful. He’d certainly harmed her.
Because he was a selfish prick, so selfish it’d taken him fifty-something years to notice.
But back then, he’d still been the hero of his story. And that fight was the first that cut through all his bullshit, the moment when the truth rose through the currents of self-delusion and smacked him as he so deserved. It sent him staggering through middle age. Every time he picked up the phone to call her, he remembered her words. And more often than not, he simply put the phone back on the ringer; she was better off without him. She’ll call when she’s ready.
No wonder she hadn’t invited him to the wedding. It was a miracle she was here now.
He couldn’t waste this opportunity as he had so many others. If it killed him, he had to make things right with her—with the only part of him that would live past him. If only for her sake.
Chapter Fifteen
ANDY TRIB WOULD go before a grand jury, charged with murder. Danny called to deliver the news, and when Hank called Walter, Walter said, “I’ll pick you up, and let’s give that two-bit sheriff the love he deserves.”
Hank left Annie a note on the counter, and forty minutes later he and Walter found Carter meeting a reporter at the Ipsyniho diner. They ordered coffee and sipped it silently as they listened to Carter answer the reporter’s questions.
Carter had been born and raised in the valley, and was just a couple years older than Hank. He’d been elected sheriff for the first time in the seventies and, as far as Hank could recall, had run uncontested every cycle since. In a valley of libertarians, there isn’t a lot of interest in being the long arm of the Man. But Carter had taken to the work and, in the eyes of most, did a decent job balancing the responsibilities of his position with the god-given liberties of his constituents. For instance, Carter let a lot of bad laws go unenforced, though he’d never admit as much publicly. Everyone knew that if you shot a deer or elk or bear out of season for the meat, Carter would look the other way. “A man has got a right to feed his family.” If you were sipping a beer on the way home but keeping between the lines just fine, Carter would let you keep the bottle. “A man has got a right to cool himself down.” And if you were growing a plant or two or fifteen on the hill behind your house, Carter would shrug. “A man has got a right to farm his soil as he sees fit, don’t he?”
And so it came as a surprise, especially to Walter, that Carter had rushed to arrest a guide for a murder that wasn’t even a murder yet for sure. “Nobody has even seen that autopsy paperwork. Carter is looking to make himself a star here. This is a chance to end up on the Eugene news, and he knows it.” Walter sucked his tooth, called the server, asked for another coffee.
Finally Carter was shaking the reporter’s hand, and Walter grabbed his arm as he came past the table.
“Hey guys. Didn’t know you did breakfast down this way.”
“Have a seat, Cart,” Walter said. He nodded at the space beside Hank.
Carter checked his watch. “Love to but I’m swamped today. Don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’ve been some developments on this Morell case.”
“Now, Cart. Have a seat.”
Hank smiled at Carter, trying to counterpoint Walter’s barely bridled aggression. Walter always had a hard time holding his temper.
Carter sat, said, “Figure I got a minute or two to spare.”
“I’ll make it brief, then,” Walter said. He finished his coffee and leaned forward. “This is bullshit. You know it, we know it, everybody knows it. Trib didn’t do shit to that little punk. You’ve had it out for Trib for years, on account of his being a foreigner.” To Walter and Carter and most other folks native to the valley, the word foreigner applied to anyone born outside of Oregon.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Carter waved at the allegations. “All due respect, Walt, but you don’t know every angle on this one. I’ve got some information.”
“Really? I know Morell’s head was cracked like an old watermelon and I know that Andy and he were having a bit of a tussle, and I know you found a fish club in Andy’s boat you think might be the ‘murder weapon,’ and I know you got your eye on running for the state senate. That ain’t the whole story?”
“Well.” Carter cleared his throat. “There’s a bit more than just that. Who told you I was running for the senate?”
“What more do you got than that?” Walter slapped a hand to the table. He leaned back and looked to Hank for support.
Hank said, “You’re picking on Trib. Just about everybody in the valley had a bone to pick with Morell. And half of us got a fish club, the rest a Pulaski.”
Carter shook his head. “I can’t be in the business of talking about ongoing thing-or-merathers. No offense, gentlemen. You know I got nothing but the utmost respect for both of yous, but this is an in-process matter. We’re talking about a killing here.”
“Or we’re talking about a cocky kid who slipped and cracked his head on rock,” Hank said.
“Here’s the short and long of it,” Walter said, his voice quivering with anger. “Trib ain’t a foreigner no more. Sure, he ain’t no native, but he’s got rights all the same. We can’t sit by while you or any Johnny comes along and fucks with his shit. He’s losing clients every day you got him locked up. You know that. Now, if he was caught in the act, or you had some of that DNA gimmickry, that’d be a different story. But to everybody in the know, it looks like you’re just getting even for that state trooper thing, and well, that ain’t right, and you know better.”
“He should have known better,” Carter shouted, then glanced around to see if anyone had heard. Leaning closer, “I was fishing with my grandson for fuck’s sake. You don’t go calling enforcement on something like that. Talk about rights.”
Hank and Walter shared a look.
Carter passed a hand through his hair and said, “I hear you, Walt. I do. But I’ve got a responsibility to solve this thing. Trib says he was home alone that whole day, but his truck was seen at the ramp, and that’s not the all of it. According to Morell’s girlfriend, Trib showed up at their house the night before Morell went missing, yelling and carrying on.” Carter stood up from the table, suddenly thinking better, it seemed, of continuing this conversation. “Just give me few days on this one. I’m
the sheriff for god’s sake. You know I don’t go messing in folks’ business unless I got good reason.”
He walked all the way to the door before turning around and coming back. In a whisper, he said, “And don’t go telling nobody about the senate, all right? My mind ain’t made up on that yet.”
*
HANK AND WALTER drove straight to the fly shop, and found Danny at the casting pond with a customer. He was demonstrating a single-spey with a Scandi head. “The fly drags and provides the resistance. And you can pivot at that moment and send the cast anywhere.” Danny rotated forty-five degrees in midcast and sent the fly across the parking lot and into the bed of Hank’s truck.
“Dropped her in the bucket,” Hank called.
Danny smiled and lifted the line in an oval that climbed twenty feet over his head and carried the fly all the way around and then out, across the casting pond to the circular target on the far end.
“Kid’s good,” Walter muttered.
“The best.”
They waited by the coffee pot while Danny finished with the customer. The guy wanted the rod, but said he “needed to check with the wife” before he bought it. When the customer left, Danny said, “Now he goes straight to his laptop and buys the thing used online. Shit. This business, I’m telling you.”
“We were just about to go see Andy, if they’ll let us.”
Danny nodded and pulled out his cell phone. A moment later he said into the device, “Hey, wondering if you can work the front for an hour.”
*
THE COUNTY LOCKUP had been built in the early sixties using plans drawn up probably a half century prior, and the place still retained all the charm of an old-West jailhouse. There were two cells, each with bunk beds and a toilet, separated from each other and the larger room by heavily rusted iron bars. Outside the cells, there was a woodstove and a stack of split fir, and a few feet away, the jailor sat reading a hunting magazine. Andy was the only occupant. Not a lot of arrests were made in Ipsyniho.