The Snowfly

by Joseph Heywood

  “It’s not done,” I said, more to warn myself.

  “Net?” Janey asked.

  I fought a laugh. What net could handle this? I kept cranking slowly. Despite all the force at the start we were down to finesse and determination.

  Line came in steadily.

  “Can you see it?” Janey asked.

  I didn’t answer her. It had to be out of the hole. Now and then it swam a couple of feet backward and took line, but these were feeble efforts compared to the earlier thrusts.

  “How will you get it?”

  “Maybe it will get me.” I remembered the sharp pop of Hemingway’s line. It had broken his ancient heart.

  Suddenly, I had slack line. I backed up and began cranking wildly.

  “What?” Janey shouted. “What?” She had left the bank. “I’ll get a light!”

  “Coming at me,” I said, reeling furiously, my arms extended high, behind the curve, beaten.

  I couldn’t reel fast enough and never caught up to it. It swam almost lazily to my feet and between my legs and swung downstream in the current, head toward me, so close I could reach down and touch it, a slick black form, its shoulders as wide as my thigh. I could only imagine its length and girth. More than the thing on Sturdivant’s wall. Much more. Frighteningly more. A thing that could not be.

  It moved slowly around me again and let itself slide past again, looping me. All it had to do was dart for deep water and the leader would tighten on my legs and break.

  It had won.

  I dropped the rod tip and let the line go slack. Surrender.

  A light beam danced on the grass tops beside the water.

  “Don’t,” I said when Janey got to the bank. “Turn it off, please.”

  Darkness again.

  “Is it there?” she asked.

  “Yes, beside me.” For how long? Why didn’t it go?

  I heard Janey ease into the water.

  I looked at the majestic fish. It rose to the surface. I saw the fly embedded in the side of its mouth.

  Janey was beside me. “Is it hurt?”

  “No.”

  I tossed the rod backward and bit the leader in two.

  I took my wife’s hand and guided her to me.

  I ran my hand down the leader to the fly.

  Janey knelt beside me and touched the trout; it did not move.

  “My God,” Janey said.

  I wiggled the fly until it loosened and came free.

  The fish remained.

  Janey gently slid her arms under its massive belly and urged it toward deeper water.

  The fish still did not flee.

  I reached down and turned its head into the current.

  It submerged into the blackness, then reappeared upstream of us, held itself broadside to the current, as if it was measuring us, and after a brief pause flashed around and behind us and in a blink leapt completely out of the water and hung there in our minds, imprinting itself and, finally, plunged into the hole with a clean splash and disappeared.

  Forever. What could not be never would be again in my lifetime.

  EPILOGUE

  All of this was a long time ago. I did not intend to write about it, any of it, but Janey convinced me I should. Most of the time, I suppose, I couldn’t write about it. There were just no words. I thought of it as a curse, but Janey insists that all things have a purpose and it’s what we do with them that matters. The snowfly had brought us together, she said, which made it a gift. Ours.

  Maybe.

  Curiosity is also a gift, but too much, and it becomes something else. There is much in our world yet to discover, but discoveries always extract a price.

  I once asked Father Buzz how I could separate passion from obsession.

  He thought for a while. “Do what’s inside you and let God keep score.”

  We are different people at different times in our lives.

  I was driven to search and almost missed what is most precious.

  Life, I discovered, is not about the unknown. Life is defined by what we make out of what is and the comfort that comes with such knowledge. It’s hard enough to take care of what you have, and simplicity is the most complex thing in the world to maintain.

  But sometimes, when the air is dry and dust devils soar, or when lightning bugs hover over the ground like frail votives, I close my eyes and see the Rathead drinking pure water or feel the weight at the end of my line and see a snowstorm of white flies and that magnificent fish defying gravity, and I think it turned out better than I might have hoped. Certainly better than I deserved.

  Those who’ve gone up the creek and returned will know what I mean.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Joseph Heywood is the author of Covered Waters (Lyons), The Berkut, Taxi Dancer, The Domino Conspiracy—and all the novels comprising the Woods Cop Mystery Series. Featuring Grady Service, a detective in the Upper Peninsula for Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources, this series has earned its author cult status among lovers of the outdoors, law enforcement officials, and mystery devotees.

  Heywood is also the author of Red Jacket, the first historical novel in a series featuring Rough Rider-turned-game warden Lute Bapcat.

  Heywood lives in Portage, Michigan.

  For more on Joseph Heywood, visit his website at josephheywood.com.