An IV was taped into her arm for hydration. On her bedside table sat uneaten eggs and ham. J.P. knelt next to her, holding her hand. He’d found flowers to bring—quite a feat in a small town in the early morning.
“The hero,” Esma said in a raspy, weak voice. “C’mon over.” Jake had been standing in the doorway, feeling sheepish.
“He’s the hero,” Jake said earnestly. “He’s the one who heard you scream.” Jake winced at his word choice. “He’s the one who found you.”
“You are both my heroes. C’mon.”
Jake left his awkward position at the door and walked to the hospital bed. He bent down and hugged Esma. As he did so, J.P. gave him a few hard slaps on the back. “Love you, buddy,” his friend said softly.
It was a lot for Jake to handle. The trauma of a gunfight was taxing enough, and the duress of having had two people close to him in such peril almost sent him over the edge. He stood and took a moment to compose himself.
“Tell me,” Esma said with tears welling in her eyes, “how is it that I came to befriend the two most courageous men in the world?”
J.P. blushed. “I’m not courageous, just dumb and in love.”
Esma knocked him on the shoulder. “I don’t think so, mi amor.”
Jake stood and kissed her on the forehead.“I should be going. I’ve got a meeting with the cops to explain all this.”
He gave Esma another hug, and then shook J.P.’s hand. “When will you be released?”
Esma shrugged. “Tomorrow. I have everything I need.” She tousled J.P.’s already bedraggled hair.
“Take care of yourselves.” Jake walked out of the room.
He exhaled. Things were looking up. Esma was safe and happy, and Allen, the true hero, was going to be fine according to Esma’s nurse, who had just talked to the folks at St. John’s. Fishing with Don was sounding better and better.
Jake parked behind the library and walked into the police station later that morning. The receptionist was a woman who looked to be about a hundred and two.
“Yes?”
“I’m Jake Trent. I have an appointment.”
The old woman said nothing, but slowly picked up the phone and mumbled something into the receiver.
A few seconds later, a fortysomething man with broad shoulders strode forcefully toward Jake.
“Mr. Trent.” He held out an enormous hand. “Nice to see you again.”
“Likewise.”
“Follow me.”
The detective’s office was sterile. No pictures. No desk gnomes.
“We’ll make this quick. Have a seat.”
Jake shrugged, meaning Do what you gotta do.
“First, just a formality. Do you have a Concealed Carry Permit?”
Jake took out his wallet and handed Rapport his card from Wyoming. “Idaho has reciprocity, I assume.”
Rapport smirked. “Yep, no problem here.”
“I also have this.” Jake handed the chief his old Department of Justice identification card. Across the front, it was stamped RETIRED.
An incredulous look from Rapport. After flipping it over a few times, he spoke. “I don’t know what this is.” He handed it back to Jake, who put it in his wallet.
“I used to work under the Justice Department. Investigations.”
“But now you’re retired?”
Jake nodded.
“Listen.” Rapport leaned over his desk toward Jake. “I got the lowdown already. It doesn’t matter who you are. What you did out there was hella impressive.”
This reaction was about 180 degrees from what Jake figured he deserved.
“Tell you what, we’ve got a little award in Lemhi County we call the Spirit of the Grizzly. I’m gonna nominate you this winter.”
“That’s not necessary. I—”
“I insist.” He gave Jake a satisfied smile.
“Is that all? No statement?” Jake was shocked there wasn’t more hoop-jumping.
“We got plenty last night. I’ll give you a minute to review this for details and then sign the bottom.”
Jake looked over the report. It seemed accurate, if vague. He looked up before he inked his name.
“You’re satisfied with the amount of detail here?” One of the few specifics was the caliber and type of Jake’s sidearm, which the detective had inspected last night. “You’ll be able to go after this guy? Kidnapping, everything? Rape?” Jake had guessed the last part from the look in Esma’s eyes.
“Oh hell yeah. We get a lot of crazy people in these woods out here. These particular guys have warrants out the ass. A few states.” The detective was looking down, clipping his fingernails. “Drugs, robbery, all that. He’ll be in for a while.”
“What’re their names?”
A pause. The detective knew them from memory. “Timothy Corfie is the deceased. Layle Neville is in stable condition.”
Jake threw that in the memory bank, grabbed a pen from the desk, and signed the document.
They shook hands, and Rapport gave him a quick salute, probably thinking this was a daily occurrence at the DOJ. Jake awkwardly saluted back.
It was warmer outside when Jake walked out of the station. Sunny, the air smelling of fallen leaves, and rain spitting from a few straggling clouds. Jake was right across from the bronze bear statue in the center of town. On a heap of river rocks, the grizzly stood, watching the salmon and steelhead migrate past his feet, looking for an easy meal.
Jake reached down and touched the nearest fish. It was smooth and ice-cold—not unlike the real thing. The sensation gave him a moment of peace.
He took out his phone and gave Don a ring. “All right, I’m in.”
They met at Tower Rock, a few miles downriver from town.
“Still got the Dodge, I see.” Jake shook Don’s hand. He wasn’t a tall man, but the width of his rowing shoulders made him appear bigger than he was. His hair was jet-black, like his scruffy beard.
“Yep, one hundred twenty-one K on her.” These were the sorts of things fishing guides liked to talk about. Good, dependable truck, a boat that had withstood years of abuse. It all meant your rod was longer than the typical weekend warrior’s.
In this case that was accurate—Don took two thirteen-foot Spey rods from the magnetic holder stuck to the roof of the Ram.
“I can grab something.”
Don handed the rods to Jake, who stared at the reels on the outfits. “Old loops?” The reels adorned seven-weight Beulah Classics.
“The originals. Made by Danielsson Innovation. Salmon series.”
“Nice. Where’d you find those?”
Jake was walking alongside the truck as Don backed the trailer in.
He shouted back through the window and over the diesel. “An old client. He croaked. Widow called and said he always wanted me to have them.” A little laugh.
“Quite a compliment. And you use them with clients?”
Don stopped the truck abruptly and killed the ignition. “Are you outta your mind? Clients get the snickelfritz.” Don’s term for the cheap gear. “Haven’t even had the loops out yet. Just put new line on ’em.”
“Wow. Thanks.”
Don’s old High Side was heavy and the roller bar cranky. It took both of them to push it off the trailer and into the river.
“Be right back.” Don accelerated off the ramp to the parking area.
Jake took stock of his surroundings. It had turned into a beautiful day. Tower Rock, the landmark crag where Lewis and Clark once camped, stood behind him, glowing warm orange in the autumn sun. The water was a complementary emerald hue, a little cloudy from the recent precipitation. Sometimes this was a boon; it stirred things up, got the fish going. A steelhead’s normal mood was somber and unimpressed. Any change in the conditions might make them happy, mad, annoyed—whatever it
was that sparked them to lash out and strike a fly.
Don was back at the ramp. He tossed some loaner waders at Jake.
“Snickelfritz?”
“You’ll find out when you get in the water.” Which was hovering around forty degrees. Plenty cold enough to feel a leak.
Jake laughed and pulled on the bootfoot waders and carried the rods into the drifter.
Don pulled up the thirty-pound anchor and nudged the craft out into the current.
“Purple on both rods; I know you wanna change to black, so just go ahead.” Color was everything—and nothing—in steelhead fishing. In a sport where your odds were so low, people obsessed over minute details: “The one you got last Thursday, did he eat the dark-pink one or the light-red hackled one?” At the same time, logic pointed to the fact that it made no real difference.
Jake was one of the many who subscribed to the notion that any color works for any fish as long as it’s black. He took the clippers and the black Hobo-Spey pattern that Don was holding up for him and made the change.
Casting a long Spey rod required a touch more artistic flair than your normal nine-foot fly rod. That, and it brought the fly damned close to the person rowing if you tried to cast from the boat. So the strategy was to use the boat as transportation from likely run to likely run, then anchor and fish thoroughly.
The first few runs were crowded with fishermen. “Bank maggots,” Don mused. “Every year I’m amazed that the fish even come back. They run through nine hundred miles of land mines—lures, flies—to get here. This is a mighty strong river to support all the pressure from fishermen.”
Jake nodded. He wanted to laugh at the typical frustrated-guide talk, but he’d heard Don do the “mighty strong river” bit before, and he knew his friend took it seriously.
“Mighty strong,” Don said again. “Hell of a burden, all these fishermen. ’Course, I’m not helping, I ’spose.”
“You act like you actually catch fish.”
Don chuckled, and they sat for a few minutes, contemplating the burdens they placed on the land they loved so much.
“This one around the bend is a sleeper hole. Won’t be anyone in it.”
When they got to the spot, Jake could see why it didn’t get fished. “Sandy bottom,” Jake said. Steelhead notoriously hated sandy bottoms.
“Looks that way, doesn’t it?” Don was pulling the drift boat over into an eddy on river left, working hard. When the boat was in the calm, shallow water close to shore, he dropped anchor. It stuck in the mucky substrate.
“C’mon.”
Jake hopped out and handed a rod to Don. Then he followed his friend down the bank.
“The good water is just here at the bottom of the run. That sand and mud give way to three big boulders on the current seam out there.” He pointed his rod tip toward the center of the river and swept it downstream. “One, two, three.” They were spread out with fifty yards between them.
Jake could see the giant rocks’ effect on the current. Three sofa-sized hydraulic swirls along the seam.
Don continued. “That upper part of the run is garbage, but down here if you can send a cast out beyond the rocks and let it swing back through, you’ve got a good chance. Go ahead and hit it first; I’ll jump in behind you.”
“Got it.” Jake eyed the distance—about seventy feet, not very long for a Spey cast. He walked back into the water and unhooked the black fly from the rod’s first eyelet.
“And let that thing swing the whole way to the bank; they’ll follow it way in here.” One last piece of advice from Don.
It sounded so promising before you fished it, and that was the charm of steelheading.
It was all about covering the water. Since one eager steelhead might be two miles from the next one, the angler presented only one cast from each spot he stood in, then took two steps downriver and repeated. If you got a bite, a pull, a tug, a whack, but didn’t connect, you got a free pass to spend an extra five minutes on that spot, changing flies and trying to convince the fish.
After about six cast-and-swing presentations, Jake had seventy feet of line out. Enough to reach the boulders.
Nothing.
Jake stepped downriver two steps. The next cast landed five feet downstream from the first. The fly swung right on top of the rock. No tug. No whack.
Jake stepped down two more. This was the money shot—the fly would be swinging right behind the first boulder, where the river’s strong current was momentarily relieved.
Nada. Jake worked his way down, cast by cast, two-stepping to the next boulder.
It didn’t take long for the sense of tranquility to come. The waders were holding up, and the air temperature was a pleasant fifty degrees. The repetitive motion of the cast and the swing eased Jake’s mind. A smart steelheader was resigned to being unsuccessful, and so could achieve a kind of inner peace. Sometimes the strike of a fish interrupted that Zen moment, but the indignity was quickly forgiven.
By the last boulder, Jake had experienced no lucky interruption. His mind was churning on the previous day’s conflict. He walked slowly back toward the boat when he finished, thinking it all through. He had to admit that killing a man was easier than the innocent might imagine. At least the act of it. The aftermath was different. Self-doubt came pouring in like a spring tide. Justification meant nothing in the following days. Over the years, Jake numbed himself to it as best he could. But now, as magpies flitted about in the skeleton trees and ravens’ screams echoed through the canyon, he had to strain to keep it from his mind. He was uncertain and regretful. Wondering what he could have done differently to spare a life.
Higher up in the run, Don was still working the second boulder. He didn’t need to ask if Jake saw any action—he would have heard the hooting and hollering. “Jump back in behind me if you want. I’ll be just ten more minutes.”
“I’ll wait. I’m enjoying myself.”
Jake sat on the bank and admired the guide’s cast: efficient, powerful, and graceful. No wasted effort, yet something workmanlike about it. Unfortunately, his proficiency for casting didn’t impress the fish. Don finished the run without a take.
“Let’s get moving. Plenty of good water before the takeout.”
It was 1:30 p.m. now. Back in the drift boat.
“You have heaters in this thing?” Jake had followed a silver tube along the gunwale down to a propane tank.
“People get softer and softer every year. Pretty soon we’ll have indoor fishing.”
Jake laughed—he was feeling better indeed.
“So what’re you doing here anyway, if you didn’t come to fish?”
“A friend of mine was having some personal problems—love-life stuff, bullshit like that.” Jake didn’t want to get into it. Didn’t want to get called a hero again for acting like an idiot. So he spoke in terms a fishing guide would appreciate. It worked.
“Shit, man. Bummer. Anything a bottle of brown water wouldn’t fix?” Don had put on jets, rowing powerfully, and glaring at a boat that was trying to pass them.
“Not really.”
“Good.”
“What’s new with you anyway? Still got that hot Smokey-the-Bear chick I met at the fly-fishing film tour?”
Jake looked down. “Not sure if I ever had her, to be honest.”
“Man, she seemed pretty taken with you.”
“You think?”
“Hold on.” Don stood at the rowing station. “Fucking assholes!” he yelled at the fishermen in the other boat, who had successfully cut him off. One held up a silent middle finger and a dry smile. Don laughed at them and yelled, “All right! Well played!”
He turned to Jake again. “Hey, sorry. What the hell do I know? I’m divorced.”
Jake wouldn’t go there. “You have Amy now.”
Don smirked. “True. Best part is Morgan didn’
t get my boat.”
“Or the old Ram,” Jake chuckled.
That set the tone for the rest of the afternoon. Jake and Don. Two bachelors out enjoying a damned beautiful afternoon. Fishing. What could be better? Jake needed that, considering the gravity of the prior day. Don brought out a bottle of Wyoming Whiskey and it was just like a played-out country song.
* * *
Later, at the takeout, Don could say only one thing: “Wasn’t your fault, man; he just let go. You did great.”
“I lifted my rod tip.” Jake appreciated the cheerleading.
“I didn’t see it that way.” Don had brought an average-sized male, six pounds, to the net on the purple Hobo Spey that Jake had so quickly chopped off. The black fly had turned one fish too, who grabbed excitedly, but came off when Jake tried to set the hook.
“I trout-set him. I’ve gotta learn to keep that rod tip down when they grab it.”
“Everyone screws up the first of the year.”
It was getting close to dark by the time Jake arrived back at his vehicle in town. After about fifteen minutes of convincing, he agreed to hit up Bertram’s for rib night with Don. Jake was cold and tired, and the offer to spend the night at Don’s was accepted as well, after some cajoling. Visiting Allen could wait a day.
At the brewery, Jake’s phone lit up with an incoming call. Divya Navaysam. He clicked ignore, and turned back to Don and his plate of ribs.
27
GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK. OCTOBER 24.
7:45 A.M. MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME.
Park Ranger Noelle Klimpton was moving up in the ranks. She’d spent her first several years in Grand Teton National Park as an Interpretive Ranger Supervisor, but her role in solving the previous summer’s crisis had landed her a full-blown enforcement role. Law Enforcement Ranger Noelle Klimpton. Total police power.
She had more freedom now, which she loved. A new truck too—a gleaming white 2013 GMC Yukon with LED emergency light bars and an oversized engine. Her dilapidated cabin remained largely the same, although the extra $15,000 a year had gone toward some new furnishings—primarily IKEA from the Salt Lake store, the most exciting addition being a cabinet and counter set that she was able to install around the pre-existing sink.
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