He kept going until he thought he was deep enough into the scrub that his assailant could no longer see him, then halted, sank to his knees, and drew great draughts of breath. He stayed there, on his knees, until his pulse and respiration gradually returned to something approaching normal. Only then did he dare to look back, peering cautiously through tangled limbs and leaves.
The boy wasn’t even looking his way. He already had Warren’s waders on and was lacing up his wading shoes. As Warren watched, the boy put on his vest, picked up his fly rod and waded into the river, again without even glancing in Warren’s direction. He waded out to the spot where Warren always liked to start fishing, stripped line, and made a cast.
Warren swore under his breath, regretting his vocabulary of profanity was insufficient for the occasion. The effects of fear-induced adrenalin were wearing off rapidly; anger and frustration were taking their place.
How could this have happened? How could a pleasant, innocent, relaxing day of fishing turn so suddenly into this… this predicament?
More to the point, what was he going to do about it?
The answer, unfortunately, was clear: There was little he could do about it. The boy had a gun. He had Warren’s fishing gear and shoes. He had given Warren the chance to escape with his life, but that was about all.
Only one choice seemed open to him now, and that was to walk back to his car, which he had left parked at the logging-road gate. But in fishing his way downstream he had left the road far behind, and now it would be a long hike just to reach it. Even when he got there, he would still face a long trek back to his car. With bare feet it would be torture.
The thought of bare feet made him suddenly aware of the abuse his feet already had suffered crossing the gravel bar. He sat down Indian-style and surveyed one foot, then the other. Each had a network of bloody fissures from sharp-edged rocks or driftwood; each also was visibly bruised. As he saw each mark the pain grew sharper and more distinct, especially along the cuts and scratches.
Walking on such battered feet would be cruel punishment, yet there was no choice. And if somehow he could walk fast enough, he might even be able to reach his car, drive out and call the sheriff in time to catch the boy who had robbed him.
That thought gave him determination.
He took a last look back at the boy, now contentedly casting over the upper Nehallis as if he had no care in the world. Warren again swore silently at the sight, then got unsteadily to his feet and started into the woods. There was no trail, but he knew that if he kept going uphill in the direction of the old logging road he would eventually find it.
To say the going was difficult would be an understatement. Deep grass grew around the trunks of the willows and alders and Warren welcomed its softness until he discovered it hid many rocks that brought new scrapes and bruises to his suffering feet. At one point he stubbed a toe so badly he had to grit his teeth to keep from crying out, then wait for the pain to subside before going on.
As he moved farther away from the river the willows and alders began to give way to fir, cedar, hemlock and dense thickets of nettle, salmonberry, wild rose, and other thorn-bearing underbrush that clawed at Warren’s feet, face, and arms. The brush also hid a nearly impenetrable litter of old logging debris, deadfalls, exposed roots, and more rocks that tripped him repeatedly. His slow progress was marked by a trail of bloody footprints. Squadrons of mosquitoes came out of the woods and added to his misery.
The anger and frustration that fueled his initial resolve gave way slowly to a kind of desperation. The slope grew ever steeper, the underbrush thicker, his progress slower. He was soon drenched with sweat and intensely thirsty and his muscles were beginning to protest the unaccustomed strain after too many hours spent in an office chair. He tried to ignore all these things by forcing himself to concentrate on the simple task of placing one foot in front of the other, but it didn’t help; discomfort constantly intruded and grew worse.
He fought his way uphill for what seemed like hours, pausing occasionally to wipe sweat from his eyes and look ahead, hoping to see a break in the woods that would mark the location of the road. But there was no sign of any break, and after a while Warren began wondering if he was still headed in the right direction. He stopped then and studied the shadows from the surrounding trees; they indicated he was still headed right, so he resumed his painful trek, leaving dark spots of blood in his wake.
At last he saw light ahead, signaling an opening in the woods. Wearily he forced himself the last few yards uphill and finally stepped out onto the old logging road. For a terrible moment he was afraid it was the wrong road, but then he saw the tracks he had made on his morning walk. Sighing with relief, he dropped down to rest on the shaded grass at the roadside, but the mosquitoes quickly intensified their attack on their suddenly immobile target, forcing him back to his feet.
The going was easier on the road. There were still rough stretches but they were easier to see and avoid, and the rocky spots alternated with patches of cool, moist dirt that felt good against his tortured feet.
He had no idea how long he had been walking but after a while he came to a place he recognized, where a small stream passed through a metal culvert under the road. Unable to resist the temptation, he slid down the muddy bank and thrust his sore feet into the cold water. The relief was instantaneous, so he stayed there a while, soaking his feet and swatting mosquitoes. He considered drinking some of the water, but thought better of it; even in this remote spot the threat of waterborne disease was real. He’d left a cold six-pack in the trunk of his car; he would just have to wait until he could satisfy his thirst from that.
He kept his feet submerged in the cold water until they were nearly numb, then wearily and painfully scrambled back up to the road and resumed his journey, feeling discomfort return after only a few steps. To distract himself, he began thinking of a suitable punishment for the boy who had robbed him. A prison term would not be enough; drawing and quartering seemed more appropriate.
His neck grew stiff from studying the ground for safe places to put his feet, and when Warren finally raised his head to stretch the aching muscles he caught a glimpse of light far ahead. It could only be sunlight reflected from the windshield of his car. The sight was a beacon that beckoned him forward, and he stumbled the last several hundred feet as fast as his tired, aching limbs would carry him.
He opened the car’s trunk first, grabbed an ice-cold bottle of bitter IPA from the cooler and downed half of it in a single gulp. Nothing ever tasted better. Then he opened the driver’s-side door and sagged with relief onto the front seat. He looked at his wristwatch and saw with surprise that it wasn’t yet one o’clock; less than three hours had passed since the robbery, although it had seemed like an eternity. Perhaps there was still a chance to get help and catch the little s.o.b.
But first he had to remove the most painful thorns from his feet. He took his right foot in his hands and held it where he could get a good look at it; the sole was caked with dirt and blood, the sides and top crisscrossed with cuts and scratches, the whole foot badly swollen. Dirt camouflaged the thorns, forcing him to probe with his fingernails until he found the worst of them and pulled them out one by one.
He had finished the right foot and was just starting on the left when he caught a quick movement from the corner of his eye. Looking up, he was startled to see the boy who had robbed him walking toward him on the road, still wearing Warren’s fishing vest and carrying the rest of his gear.
“Ah, there you are,” the boy said. “Glad I caught you.”
Warren felt a quick, cold stab of apprehension; maybe the boy had come to finish the job. “What do you want now?” he asked angrily.
“Why, I wanted to return your stuff. Thanks to you, I caught a very nice steelhead, about seven and a half pounds, I’d guess. Good fight—six jumps and a couple of good, long runs. That old Hardy reel of yours really makes a racket. Of course I let the fish go. It took a Green-Butt Skunk I found in
one of your fly boxes. Did you tie those?”
Too dumbfounded to speak, Warren merely nodded.
“Well, you sure tie a nice fly.” He placed Warren’s fly rod and the rest of his things on the hood of the car. “I guess that’s everything,” he said. “Thanks for letting me borrow it.”
“Borrow, hell! You robbed me.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry about that, but it was the only way. Like I told you, I don’t have any gear and I just had to go fishing. You see, what happened was I got home from work a couple of weeks ago and found my girlfriend had cleared out. She took all my rods, reels, flies, fly-tying stuff, everything. I don’t know where she went. She left a note saying ‘I think you love fly fishing more than you love me. Let’s see how you get along without both.’ You know what? I think she was right; I do love fly fishing more than I loved her.
“I don’t make much money, so it’s going to take a long time to replace all that stuff. And here it is the middle of the summer steelhead season and I just couldn’t miss out on it. So… well, that’s why I had to do what I did.”
“That still doesn’t give you the right to stick a gun in a man’s face and threaten his life,” Warren said.
“Oh, that,” the boy said, chuckling. He reached under his shirt and pulled the pistol out of his waistband. “It does look real, doesn’t it?” He tapped the revolver against the hood of the car; it gave off a dull sound. “Pure, 100 percent plastic.”
“You mean it’s fake?”
“Sure is. Looks real, but it’s fake.”
“Well, those bullets sure don’t look like fakes,” Warren said, nodding at the rounds visible in the cylinder.
“No, they don’t, do they?” The boy flipped open the cylinder, extracted a cartridge and ran his thumbnail along the metal jacket. It split open, revealing it was actually some sort of metal foil, disclosing a dark brown oval shape beneath. The boy removed it and popped it into his mouth. “.38-caliber chocolates,” he said, grinning. “Fresh from the NRA gift catalog.” He shook the other cartridges out of the cylinder and handed them to Warren. “My treat. A little soft, but they still taste good.”
Suddenly Warren felt foolish. “So this whole thing—the stickup—was a scam?”
“You got it. Desperate times, desperate measures, and all that. I actually thought of saying, ‘Your tackle or your life,’ but that would have been a little too melodramatic, don’t you think?”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Warren didn’t know what else to say.
“Anyway, I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” the boy said. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.” He gave a final wave and started down the road.
Warren watched until he was out of sight, then looked down at the chocolate bullets in his hand. He stripped the foil off one and popped it in his mouth. The boy was right; it was a little soft from the heat of the day, but still tasted good.
Then he checked his gear. Everything was in good order. Each fly was still neatly arranged in its clip in each fly box, all present and accounted for. The spools of leader material were still stored neatly in the smaller pockets of his fishing vest and everything else was just as it should have been. His fly rod, the Hardy reel, the waders, and wading shoes all seemed none the worse for wear.
While he inventoried his gear, Warren tried to make sense of what had happened. To say his day had been ruined was an understatement. But when you got right down to it, the only thing the kid actually had stolen from him was a few hours of fishing time. Yet he’d also scared the living daylights out of him, forced him through a painful ordeal, and then made him feel like an absolute idiot. Those were hard things to forgive.
But what irritated Warren most of all was that for some reason he felt guilty, as if he’d somehow been to blame for what happened.
Maybe he was. Maybe he’d been selfish in refusing to let the boy use his gear. After all, he’d asked politely enough, and if Warren had consented then they could have shared the tackle and the fishing. That way Warren wouldn’t have lost so much fishing time. He might even have been the one who caught a steelhead instead of the boy. He also wouldn’t have a pair of bloody, swollen, aching feet. Maybe he and the boy even would have ended up as friends.
Warren remembered how desolate he’d felt a few hours earlier when the boy had taken his rod, reel, vest, flies, and waders. He was so grateful to have everything back, and thought of how much worse it would feel if he had lost all his fishing tackle, as the boy had. That made him feel even guiltier.
And yet.…Warren couldn’t decide whether to be angry at himself or the boy. Or both.
He finished putting away his tackle, slipped his shoes on gingerly over his swollen feet, finished the IPA, and started the car.
He turned around and headed down the road. He drove slowly, watching for a sign of the boy. For some reason it seemed important to find him, although Warren wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because he wanted to run over the little bastard and kill him on the spot. Or maybe he just wanted to stop and offer him a ride home. He wasn’t certain.
The only thing he knew for sure was that his feet hurt.
ONE SIZE FITS ALL
THERE WERE still many things about life I didn’t fully understand when I was twelve years old, but being poor wasn’t one of them. I understood that very well. My family, such as it was, had been poor as long as I could remember. When I was little we lived in a city tenement, but my father’s drinking habits eventually cost him his job and we were forced to move to the edge of town.
Our new home—new to us, that is—was an old, single-wide trailer that had seen much better days. Every window was cracked and one was missing altogether, covered with a sheet of cardboard that turned pulpy after every rain. The inside was dirty and dingy with spots of rust and mold and a burgeoning population of mice. I lived there with my mother, who also had a drinking problem, and my younger brother, Adrian, who was only a year old and yelled all the time. At least I called him my brother, although I wasn’t exactly sure he was. My father disappeared not long after we moved to the single-wide and my mother would never tell me where he’d gone, although I had an idea he was in prison. And while I still wasn’t completely certain about the timing of such things, I thought my father had been away too long for him possibly to have been Adrian’s father as well as mine. It seemed more likely that Adrian’s father was a guy named Lyle, who hung around a lot, spending time with my mother. I suppose that should have bothered me more than it did. Anyway, I didn’t like Lyle.
I knew I was poor not only because of the miserable dump we lived in, but also because I never had new clothes, let alone clean clothes, like the other kids at school. More often than not I didn’t have any lunch either, and some of the other kids made fun of me about that. They all had what I thought was more to eat than they needed, but none of them ever offered to share.
Mom told me to quit bitching about things and get a paper route so I’d have a little money. I did that, but we lived so far out in the sticks there were only a few customers on my route, so I didn’t make much money. It didn’t help that some of the customers never paid, which meant I had to pay for their papers out of my own pocket. That was how the system worked.
Our isolation also meant there were no kids nearby to play with, so I had to amuse myself with whatever I could find in the junk surrounding the single-wide—old tires, a car battery, pieces of bicycles, rotting furniture, broken tools, and lots of other stuff hidden in the grass, which hadn’t been mowed for years before we moved in and hadn’t been mowed since. My favorite piece of junk was an old Dodge four-door sedan someone had left behind the trailer. Its wheels were long gone, its upholstery torn and filled with mice nests, and the hood was stuck in the upright position, revealing an empty engine compartment. But the steering wheel was there and the dashboard was still intact, although every switch was dead and every gauge stuck on zero.
The driver’s seat of that smelly old car became my refuge. I would sit there and ima
gine myself the pilot of a jet fighter in a deadly dogfight, or an astronaut rocketing into space, or a cop chasing bad guys at high speed down a mountain road. By pushing as hard as I could, I finally got the hood to close with a raucous screech and a loud bang. Then I was able to look through the dirty windshield at tall grass and a ragged row of unhealthy trees on the near horizon. That was a big improvement; after all, it’s pretty tough to make a safe landing on Mars if you can’t see through the windshield.
The single-wide also had an old seventeen-inch black-and-white TV with a rabbit-ear antenna, and if I played with the antenna long enough I could get two channels. One showed a lot of old movies, mainly Westerns and war films, and I liked watching those. On weekends it also showed my favorite program, The Flying Fisherman, starring a weather-beaten old geezer who might have been one of my grandfathers, had I known who they were. He called himself Gadabout Gaddis and he flew his own little plane wherever the spirit took him, always landing on or near water so he could get out and fish. (Much later I learned his real first name was Roscoe, which maybe was why he used the nickname Gadabout.) He fished with a fly rod, and I was utterly entranced at the way he could cast so far and so gracefully with such little flies, and what a tremendous fight the fish put up on a fly rod. To me it looked like the greatest fun there ever was, and I dreamed of being like Gadabout Gaddis, able to fly as free as a bird and visit distant, never-fished waters, casting a fly for enormous trout or salmon.
Sometimes I would sit in the front seat of the old Dodge and pretend I was flying a float plane somewhere in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, or British Columbia. I would “land” the plane, then get out with my old Shakespeare Wonderod and head down the path to Lofton Creek, which flowed through the woods several hundred yards behind the single-wide. Besides the old car, it was the only feature of the place that appealed to me.
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