Seventh Enemy

by William G. Tapply

“Well, no.” I cleared my throat. “I’m going to be away for a few days. Thought you should know.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I’ve got a chance to go fishing with—”

  “No. I mean, why did you think I should know?”

  “Oh.” I hesitated. “The truth is, I guess it feels better, thinking that there’s someone who should know when I go somewhere. I mean, everybody should have somebody who knows when they’re going away. Does that make any sense?”

  “No,” said Gloria. But I heard her chuckle. She knew me. She understood.

  “Somebody who—cares,” I said.

  “I’m not stupid, you know,” she said softly. “You’re looking for someone to play wife for you.”

  “No, I just—”

  “I’m not your wife, Brady. I was your wife. When I was your wife, it was appropriate, your telling me when you were going somewhere. Which you used to do a great deal, if you remember. I don’t recall that you ever actually asked. You told me. Then you went.”

  “I asked,” I said. “I always asked.”

  “Yeah. You’d say, ‘I’m off to Canada with Charlie Saturday, remember?’ Some question.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Or you’d say, ‘You don’t mind if Doc Adams and I spend the weekend out on the Beaver River, do you?’ Like that. Asking.”

  “It’s the Beaverkill. Lovely trout river.”

  “Whatever.” Gloria laughed softly. “Brady, if you want to tell me when you’re going somewhere, that’s fine. If you want me to be a telephone wife now and then, I can handle it. Go fishing. I don’t care. Have fun. Don’t fall in. Whatever you want out of it. Okay?”

  I lit a cigarette. I took a deep drag, let it dribble out. “I don’t know why I called,” I said.

  “Me neither,” she said. “When Terri was on the scene you didn’t call that much.”

  “I guess not.”

  “I’m not your girlfriend, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “So why are you calling me?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, family…”

  “You made your choices, Brady.”

  “Billy’s at school, Joey’s in his own world. You…”

  “I’m divorced. So are you. We’re divorced from each other, as a matter of fact.”

  “I don’t like the idea of being out of touch.”

  “That’s the choice you made.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You can’t have it both ways.”

  “I guess not.”

  “That was always your problem,” she said. “Wanting it both ways.”

  “It was more complicated than that.”

  “Not really.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “Maybe you’re right.

  “Look,” she said. “If it’ll make you feel better, leave a number with me.”

  “Just in case something…”

  “Right,” she said.

  I read Walt’s phone number to her.

  She repealed it. “This is Walt Kinnick?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve been reading about him in the paper. You, too, actually.”

  “Yeah, well we’re just going to do some fishing.”

  She hesitated a minute. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure. Fine.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It sounds…”

  “Nothing to worry about.”

  “I didn’t say I was worried.” She paused. “Maybe a little concerned.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Um.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Sure,” said Gloria. “It’s what we ex-wives are for.”

  “And that,” I said, “is why every man needs one.”

  9

  I WAS ON THE road a little before seven. I beat the westbound commuters onto Storrow Drive, angled onto Route 2 by the Alewife T station, and had clear sailing. Morning fog hovered over the swampy places alongside the highway. It would burn off by mid-morning. It promised to be a perfect May day in New England.

  Sixty miles or so west of Boston Route 2 narrows from a divided superhighway to a twisting two-laner. Here it is called the Mohawk Trail. It dips and wiggles through towns like Erving, which prospers on its paper mill and its waste treatment plant, and Farley and Wendell Depot and Miller’s Falls, which don’t appear to prosper at all.

  On an October Saturday, the Mohawk Trail is crammed with leaf peepers, most of them out-of-staters. Caravans of automobiles pull onto the narrow shoulder so that gaudy vistas of crimson maples and bronze oaks and bright yellow aspens can be recorded on Kodacolor.

  It’s pretty as hell. Photographs rarely do it justice.

  Personally, I’d rather meditate upon a single scarlet maple leaf, preferably one that is floating on a trout stream past my waders, than on several billion of them all washed together over hillsides that stretch on for a hundred miles. I agree with Thoreau: All of Nature’s mysteries are revealed on a single leaf.

  Actually, I’m a leaf peeper myself in May, and when the trail began its acute northwest ascent into the Berkshire foothills west of Greenfield, I found myself marveling at the thousands of pale shades of green and yellow and pink in the new May leaves that walled the roadside and formed a canopy overhead. Even the bark on the new saplings rioted with color—the gold of the willows, the black of the alders, white birch, gray aspen. The maples exploded with their crimson springtime blossoms. The wild cherry blooms were white.

  Nature’s colors are more understated and subtle in May than they are in October. In May they’re fresh, young, natural, full of vigor and confidence. October foliage is the desperate makeup of old age, trying too hard to recapture the beauty that has irreversibly passed.

  May’s my favorite month.

  The fact that the best trout fishing New England offers comes in May could have something to do with it.

  I pulled to the side of the road where it picked up the Deerfield River just west of Shelburne Falls. I consulted the map Wally had drawn for me on the back of the Dunkin’ Donuts napkin. Nine miles past the old inn in Fenwick, according to Wally’s sketch, an unmarked gravel road angled off the paved road to the right. The gravel road forked exactly two-point-two miles past a wooden bridge. The left fork followed the river. I was to go right. A lightning-struck oak tree stood at the point of the fork.

  The right fork began as gravel but, after two hundred yards. turned to dirt. It twisted up into the hills. Wally had indicated several other roads branching off it. At exactly one-point-nine miles from the dead tree I was to follow the ruts to the left. A brook paralleled the wrong road. A stone wall and an old cellar hole marked the correct one. From there, a one-mile ascent would take me to Wally’s cabin. That’s where the road ended. Wally had drawn a picture of his place. Smoke twisted from its chimney.

  I suspected Wally liked his cabin because no one could find it without one of his maps.

  I found the unmarked gravel road. I recognized the fork by the dead oak. From there it got confusing. The road was narrow and rocky. The previous night’s rain puddled in the ruts. What on Wally’s map appeared to be small tributaries off a central roadway were, in fact, branches of equally untraveled dirt roads. It would’ve driven Robert Frost crazy. I drove slowly, glancing frequently at the Dunkin’ Donuts napkin. Finally the ruts narrowed and brush began to scrape against both sides of my ear.

  I stopped. This felt wrong. I looked again at the map. It didn’t help.

  I stepped out and leaned against the side of my car. I didn’t know where the hell I was. But, I decided, wherever it was, it was a perfectly fine place to be on a May morning. I was in the woods. All around me birds were whistling and cooing and flirting with each other. From somewhere above the canopy of new leaves came the squeal of a circling hawk. He was hunting, not flirting. A gray squirrel cussed me from the trunk of a beech tree. Off to my right I heard a brook burbling its way downhill over its boulder-strewn watercourse.

  Ma
ybe in one sense I was lost. But I knew exactly where I was.

  The road was too narrow for turning the car around, so I had to back down to where it branched. I got out and walked up the left tine of the fork, where I found the stone wall and the cellar hole. According to Wally’s map, I was no longer lost.

  So I stood there and told myself what a cunning woodsman I was, and after a minute or two I noticed the smell of woodsmoke. I climbed into my car and chugged in second gear to Wally’s cabin. It was made from weathered logs. A roofed porch spanned the entire front. Rocking chairs were strategically placed to encourage the loafer to prop his heels up on the railing and sip bourbon at sunset and watch the bats fly and the deer creep into the clearing. Big picture windows bracketed the front door. Smoke did indeed wisp from the chimney.

  It was more than a cabin and less than a house. From the outside, it looked spacious and inviting.

  I parked beside a mud-splattered black Cherokee, shut off the ignition, and stepped out. My BMW was mud-splattered, too.

  Before I had taken two steps toward the cabin, a liver-and-white Springer spaniel came bounding to me. I scootched down to scratch his ears, and he rolled onto his side and squirmed and whined.

  Suddenly there came a shrill whistle, the kind that basketball coaches make by jamming two fingers into the corners of their mouth. I never learned to whistle that way.

  A woman’s voice yelled, “Corky!”

  Instantly the Springer scrambled to his feet, trotted back to the porch, and flopped down beside the woman who was standing there waving at me. Her blond hair was pulled back into a careless pony-tail. She was wearing a white T-shirt and faded blue jeans and bare feet. She was slim and tall. She looked about sixteen. She was smiling at me.

  “Hey, Brady,” she called.

  I waved back at her. “Diana. Hi.”

  I went to the porch. Up close, I saw that she was closer to thirty-six than sixteen. Tiny lines webbed the corners of her dark eyes and bracketed her mouth and lent character to her face. She looked even better up close.

  The legend on her T-shirt read, “I FISH THEREFORE I AM.”

  She was holding out her hand. I took it. Her grip was firm. “You made it,” she said.

  “Only took one wrong turn.”

  “That’s par. I hope you’re ready to go fishing. Time for one cup of coffee. Let’s get your stuff.”

  We headed back to my car. Corky scrambled up and heeled behind her.

  “Where’s Wally?”

  She jerked her head backward in the direction of the cabin, “On the phone.”

  “Problems?”

  “He doesn’t seem particularly concerned. He’ll be out in a minute.”

  We unloaded my stuff and lugged it to the cabin. As we stepped onto the porch the front door opened and Wally stood there. He grinned and held up one hand like an Indian. “Howdy.”

  “Hiya,” I said.

  He held the door for me and Diana. It opened into a brightly lighted space that encompassed the kitchen, dining area, and living room. A huge fieldstone fireplace took up the entire side wall. Brass-bottomed cookware and sprigs of dried herbs hung from the kitchen beams and framed wildlife prints hung on the raw cedar walls.

  “You’re in here,” said Diana. She pushed open a door with her foot. It was a small bedroom. One queen-sized bed, a dresser, bedside table, chair. The single window looked out back into the woods. “Bathroom’s through there,” she added, indicating a doorway.

  We dumped my stuff on the bed, then went back into the living room. Wally handed me a mug of coffee. “We oughta be on the river in an hour,” he said. “Drink up.”

  “Let the poor man relax,” said Diana.

  “How can I relax?” I said. “I want to go fishing.”

  I sat on the sofa in front of the fireplace, where embers were burning down to ash. Wally sat beside me and Diana took a rocking chair. Corky hopped onto the bare wood floor beside her. She reached down absentmindedly to scratch his ears.

  “Who was it this time?” she said.

  Wally waved his hand dismissively. “One of the assistant producers.”

  “Is this serious?” I said.

  He shrugged. “The word’s gotten around. Kinnick has betrayed the cause. I guess SAFE’s got the NRA boys calling the station from all over the country. But, shit, we’ve always had stuff like that. Today the NRA, tomorrow People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or the congressman from New Jersey. I don’t know, I just seem to piss people off. The producers complain and worry and create disastrous scenarios, but I think they actually kinda like it when I offend. Controversy. That’s the ratings game, I guess. They like to say, bad reviews are one helluva lot better than no reviews. No, he was just wondering what I said in Boston that got the switchboard all lit up. I told him, just like I’ve been telling everyone else. He said it sounded okay to him.”

  “You seen a newspaper recently?” I said.

  “Absolutely not. Newspapers are not allowed in this place. Or televisions, either. We get some ink?”

  “The Globe thinks you’re a hero.”

  “Sure. They would.” He stretched elaborately. “Ready to go?”

  I gulped the dregs of my coffee and stood up. “I’m ready.”

  “Me, too,” said Diana. The instant she stood, Corky scrambled to his feet and scurried to the front door. He whined and pushed at it with his nose. “Okay, okay,” she said to the dog. “You can come.”

  Corky turned and sat, resting his haunches back against the door. I’d have sworn that dog was smiling.

  10

  THE FOUR OF US piled into Diana’s Cherokee—she drove and Wally sat beside her in front, while Corky and I shared the backseat. After twenty minutes—and at least that many forks in the dirt roads—we pulled onto the grassy parking area on the banks of the Deerfield just downriver from the hydroelectric dam. Only one other car was there, a late model green Volvo wagon with Vermont plates and a Trout Unlimited sticker on the back window.

  When I stepped out I could hear the river gurgling down in the gorge beyond the screen of trees. Here and there through the leaves I caught the glint of sunlight on water. I was familiar enough with the sounds of the Deerfield to know that the dam had reduced its flow and the water was running low. The sun was warm and mayflies and caddis flitted in the air—perfect fly-fishing conditions.

  I glanced at the sign tacked onto a fat oak tree, identical to the signs that were spaced every fifty feet along the river.

  In hold red letters, it read:

  WARNING RISING WATERS

  Then, in more sedate black lettering:

  Be constantly alert for a quick

  rise in the river. Water

  upstream may be released

  suddenly at any time.

  New England Power Company

  I smiled to myself. On two occasions in the years I had fished the Deerfield I had failed to be “constantly alert.” Twice I had been lifted from my feet and swept downstream on the crest of the rising water.

  The first time it happened I was trying to make a long cast to a large trout. Charlie McDevitt fished me out.

  The second time, two men with guns were chasing me and a boy named E.J. Donagan. That time a bullet grazed my buttock, and it was E.J. who saved me.

  I had no desire to try it again.

  Another sign on an adjacent tree, also one of many, read:

  CATCH AND RELEASE AREA

  ARTIFICIAL LURES ONLY

  NO FISH OR BAIT IN POSSESSION

  A guy from North Adams named Al Les had worked mightily to persuade the state to set aside these several miles of beautiful trout water for no-kill fishing. The trout here were bigger and more abundant than elsewhere in the river, the logical result of their being allowed to continue their lives after being caught by a fisherman. If your idea of good fishing did not require you to bring home trophies, this was the place.

  More than fifty years ago Lee Wulff said, “A good gamefish i
s too valuable to be caught only once.” Thanks to people like Wally Kinnick and Al Les, Wulff’s wisdom has been gradually catching on, and those of us who love fishing for its own sake have been the beneficiaries.

  The three of us pulled on our waders and rigged up our rods, while Corky sniffed the shrubbery and lifted his leg in the prime spots.

  Wally was ready first. “I’m heading down,” he said.

  “We’ll be right along,” said Diana.

  After Wally disappeared down the steep path, Diana smiled at me. “He’s like a kid when he’s going fishing. I love his passion for it.”

  “I knew him when he was a kid,” I said. “Nice to see he hasn’t changed.”

  She was tying a fly onto her leader tippet. She squinted at it, clamping the tip of her tongue in her teeth. She was, I thought, very beautiful in her floppy man’s felt hat and bulging fishing vest and baggy chest-high waders.

  We started down the path, me first, Diana behind me, and Corky at her heel. It was narrow and descended abruptly, so that I had to grip saplings to keep from slipping. Halfway down, I came upon Wally. He was crouched there in the pathway, peering through the trees down at the river.

  Without turning around, he held up one hand and hissed, “Shh.”

  I stopped right behind him.

  “Look,” he whispered, pointing down at the river.

  I peeked through the foliage. A fishermen was standing knee-deep in the water. His rod was bent. He was bringing a fish to his net. It looked like a large one.

  “Hey,” I said. “A good—”

  “Shh!”

  The angler had stepped directly out of the Orvis catalog. His vest was festooned with glittering fishing tools and gadgets, and his neoprene waders looked new and custom-fitted. His slender split-bamboo rod was bent in a graceful arc. He netted the fish and then knelt in the water to remove the fly from its jaw. He was turned away from me so that through the foliage I couldn’t clearly see what he was doing.

  Suddenly Wally muttered, “Bastard!”

  “What?” I said.

  “The son of a bitch killed the fish. He slipped it into the back of his vest.”

  “You sure?”