“Tons.”
Filipelli could not tell if the little man was kidding or not. Bugsy bent down so the brim of the grimy Chevy Truck hat covered his face. Filipelli thought he noticed Bugsy’s shoulders shaking as if he were laughing hard, but there was no way to tell. The heck with him. As long as they caught big fish, this little troll could enjoy himself.
The roar of the water rushing through the dam began to fade as the dory moved downriver, which in the case of the Bighorn was due north. Filipelli lay back against the raised bow, breathed deeply again, and took in the landscape. The prairie, covered by a carpet of light green grass, swept gently up and away from the riverbank. In the distance rose buttes and mesas, and beyond them the snow-covered peaks of the Bighorn Mountains touched the deep-blue sky. Big Sky Country. An apt nickname. You could see forever out here.
“Where was Custer massacred, Bugsy?”
“That battle was on the Little Bighorn, a tributary of this river. They meet about thirty miles north of here.”
“Which Indians did he fight there?”
“The Sioux.”
“But the Indians around here are Crow Indians, right?”
Bugsy nodded. “That’s right. This section of the Bighorn flows directly through the center of the Crow reservation. Both sides of the river are owned and maintained by the tribe. Little advice for you, Chiefy. When you need to take a piss, don’t go above the watermark on the bank.”
“Why not?”
“Legally, the Crows is allowed to arrest you for trespassing if you do. We’re allowed to walk on the riverbank to fish, but you can’t go traipsing around them fields. By order of the federal government of the United States of America.” Bugsy said the last sentence sarcastically. He knew more about Filipelli than he let on.
“Do they actually arrest people?”
“Sure. Wouldn’t you? I mean, put yourself in their shoes. You see some joker walking around in your fields all decked out in fishing gear that probably costs more than you’ve been able to save in a lifetime. He pulls his pants down to piss all over your land, and all you can see is that lily-white ass sticking out at you. And that lily-white ass is probably related to one that came out here a hundred years ago to steal your land. So sure, they’re gonna do whatever they can to harass you.”
Filipelli laughed. “This land is so wide open, you’d see them coming for miles. I’d just go back to the boat.”
“First of all, a little bit downriver the cover on the banks gets a lot heavier. Cottonwoods, bushes, tall grass, and the like. You wouldn’t see them coming for the life of you down there. Second, an Indian could hide behind a blade of grass if he had to. Third, and most important, an Indian spends a good bit of his life carrying two things: a whiskey bottle and a gun. He often carries them together, which, let me tell you, ain’t a great combination. He sees you pissing on his land, and he’s likely to start taking potshots at us whether you’re in the boat or not. I don’t need that today. So just do me a favor. Stay on the riverbank and don’t go no farther!”
“I’m a senior government official, and I go where I want to go. Besides, we have two highly trained Secret Service agents with us. We won’t have any problems.”
Bugsy glanced over his shoulder at the two agents struggling to keep pace. “Those guys would never see Indians coming either,” he snorted. “They’d be dead before you could say Geronimo.”
“Your tone leads me to believe that you are sympathetic to the way the Native Americans have been treated, Bugsy. That’s good.”
“Personally, I don’t give two hoots about them, Mr. Filipelli. I’ve lived out here for fifty years and I ain’t never seen one worth a lick. They’re a goddamn pain in the ass is what they are. But I’m a pragmatic man. They’re here and they ain’t going anywhere, so I gotta live with ’em. And you know why they ain’t worth a lick, Mr. Filipelli? Because you bleeding-heart liberals in Washington got this big guilt complex about what happened a hundred years ago, just like you got a big guilt thing over dropping the big one on Japan. So you feel like we gotta give everything to them. Land, cars, monthly stipends, and such. I’m not saying what we did to them people was right. No sane man could. Some of the stories I’ve heard about the butchering and the raping the soldiers did are incredible. Abominable is a better word. Anybody ever tries to tell me the white man represents the superior race, I laugh at ’em. But the problem is, when you give somebody everything he needs to survive, you take away his incentive. You take away his determination. These Indians take the money we give ’em and spend it on whiskey. They get all drunked up, and they end up beating their women and getting into car accidents. Ultimately they become alcoholics. You got to give a man something to strive for. Otherwise he’s worthless. I don’t care if he’s Indian, white, Chinese, or black.”
Filipelli wanted to respond. He was naturally drawn into arguments. But the boat suddenly began to pick up speed as it drifted around a bend in the river.
“Hold on, Chiefy.” Bugsy pulled hard on the oars.
Filipelli turned in the bow. Before him was white water, boiling and churning over and through huge boulders. Skillfully, Bugsy guided the dory into the headwaters of the rapids. He stood in the boat, still holding the oars, mapping out his path through the rocks. Bugsy knew the slow water of the river intimately, but the fast water was constantly changing. As they reached the top of the rapids, he sat again and began to maneuver the craft through the frothy water.
The air became cooler over the fast-moving water. Filipelli grabbed the gunwales tightly and tried to anticipate the rocking and swaying of the boat against the rushing current. The rapids reached their peak, and then suddenly the dory slipped into smoother waters. Filipelli sank back into his position against the bow.
“That was great!” He was exhilarated, ready for anything, isolated in the wilderness and unavailable to the bureaucrats.
“That was nothing. This river doesn’t have any real rapids. Least not this far south.” Bugsy pulled a beer from the cooler behind his seat, cracked it open, and took a long swallow. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve when he was finished. “Want one?”
“No. Too early.”
Bugsy grunted and shook his head. “Look over there, Chiefy.”
Filipelli followed Bugsy’s gnarled finger. At first he saw nothing. The glare of the bright sun off the water’s surface was intense, even through the dark Polaroid lenses of his sunglasses. But after a few moments his eyes adjusted, and he could see why Bugsy was pointing. There were dorsal fins. Trout dorsal fins. Hundreds of them slicing across the top of the water as the fish fed on insects hatching at the surface. “Jesus Christ. There must be a hundred fish over there.”
“Three hundred at least.”
“That’s incredible. And with the sun so high in the sky. I wouldn’t think you would get a hatch like that until sunset.”
“Oh, that’s right, I forgot. You’ve never fished the Bighorn before. Well, get ready for a treat. They move like that all day long unless the weather is bad.”
“What kind are they? Browns or rainbows?”
“Browns.” Bugsy turned to look over his shoulder at the two Secret Service men, who were just now reaching the bottom of the rapids. He motioned for them to pull off the river. He did not want them disturbing the pod of feeding fish. They had nearly capsized three times coming through the boiling water and were only too glad to obey.
“All right, Chiefy, I’m going to pull us in here.” Bugsy’s voice had dropped to a whisper. It was his guiding voice. He scanned the water around the boat. “They’re feeding on blue wing olives and midges. Small ones too. Size eighteen at most.”
Bugsy was excited now. Filipelli could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice. Almost as excited as Filipelli.
“Tie on an Adams pattern, Chiefy. Size sixteen parachute pattern. That way you’ll be able to see your fly as
it floats through the live bugs. That little extra bundle of wool, the parachute, will stick out like a sore thumb on top of the water. You’ll be able to see when one of those big sons of bitches takes that pattern. Here.” Bugsy handed Filipelli an Adams dry-fly pattern from a small fly box he had hidden in his tattered cloth fishing vest.
Filipelli reached and took the fly from Bugsy. Filipelli’s hands were shaking and he took a deep breath. This was silly. These were just fish. But he was unable to steady his hands as he threaded the thin, clear monofilament line through the tiny eye of the pattern’s hook.
Bugsy guided the dory quietly to the riverbank. The oars were silent as he propelled the boat through the water. Ten feet from shore, he slid over the gunwale of the dory into two feet of water and pulled it up the bank until it was half out of the water, securing the stern of the boat to the bank with a heavy metal anchor.
Filipelli glanced back upriver. The Secret Service men had pulled their dory out of the water seventy yards upriver, just below the bottom of the rapids. They were watching the chairman carefully.
Filipelli grabbed his fly rod and quickly started his casting routine. The tiny fly, a combination of feathers, animal hair, and thread, floated lazily along the surface. It was a dry fly, meaning simply that it was supposed to imitate an insect that had matured to its winged stage, a stage in which the insect would float on the surface before it took flight, as opposed to its nymph stage, when it resembled some prehistoric creature and would crawl or tumble along the riverbed in its insatiable quest for food.
Filipelli stared intently at the tiny pattern as it floated amid the trout boiling on the surface, waiting for the slashing strike from a hungry trout. The fly neared the end of the feeding area, but still there was no strike.
“Again.” Bugsy whispered the words from his squatting position fifteen feet up the bank.
Filipelli lifted the long graphite fly rod, and the bright green, heavy fly line followed. It was this fly line that allowed the fisherman to cast the nearly weightless insect imitation great distances. The imitation fly was attached to a clear ten-foot leader, which was in turn attached to the fly line.
The fly jumped from the water. With a measured back-and-forth motion of the rod, Filipelli worked the fly line first back behind his body, then out over the water, simultaneously drying the fly and moving it into position to settle onto the surface of the water again. It was an elegant motion. It was an elegant sport. But not one for those lacking patience. The idea was to drop the fly onto the surface just upstream of where the fish were feeding and allow it to drift through the feeding area naturally, in the hope that it would attract a large fish along the way.
“Now.” Bugsy grunted the order.
Filipelli gave the rod one more strong forward thrust, and the fly and line shot out over the Bighorn. The fly settled perfectly onto the water amid the live insects crisscrossing the surface. The imitation moved into the feeding channel smoothly.
“Looks good enough to eat.” Bugsy followed the fly across the water.
“Let’s hope.” Filipelli’s voice was hoarse.
Dorsal fins swirled around the pattern sucking down the live insects, but the huge fish paid no attention to Filipelli’s Adams pattern. The pattern neared the end of the feeding channel again.
“Damn it.” Filipelli began to raise the rod to begin another series of false casts. Just as he did a huge mouth closed around the Adams fly. Instantly the line became taut.
“Bang!” Bugsy stood and threw a clenched fist into the air. “You’re hooked up.”
Immediately, the trout realized something was amiss. With one flash of its tail the fish propelled itself from the water, shaking its head from side to side, attempting to free itself of the barb. But the hook remained embedded in the trout’s jaw. The fish fell back into the water with a great splash. Again the fish leaped from the water, contorting its body, at the same time sending violent tremors through the line, the rod, and Filipelli’s hands. Again it crashed back into the water.
“Christ, he must have gotten three feet clear of the surface on that second jump!” Bugsy was screaming, elated at the battle unfolding in the river before him. “That’s a huge fish, Chiefy. Steady, man. Steady!”
Filipelli felt adrenaline surge through his body. It was just a damn fish. There was no reason to become excited. But he could not help himself. His breathing became short, and suddenly he found himself praying to whatever God there was that the line would not suddenly slacken, a certain indication that the great trout had torn the hook loose from its mouth or managed to break the thin leader at the very end of the line. He wanted to catch this fish badly.
“What kind is it, Bugsy?” Filipelli yelled at the older man without taking his eyes from the water.
“Rainbow! I can’t believe it. I thought they were all browns in that pool. It’s a beautiful fish. Must go eight to ten pounds. That’s a big fish, even for this river, Chiefy.”
Suddenly the line began to scream from the reel.
“He’s goin’ deep, Chiefy. Set the drag. Set the drag!”
Filipelli’s hands shook wildly as he turned a screw on the reel to tighten the drag, making it more difficult for the fish to strip out line.
“Not too tight. Mother of pearl! That fish’ll snap your leader in a heartbeat. That’s only a seven-x leader on there.”
The rainbow jumped from the water again, this time far out in the river. It had stripped out a huge amount of line.
“He’s running downriver, Chiefy. Run with him. Run downstream with ’im or you’ll lose ’im!”
Filipelli began to slog through the shallow water near the bank, holding the rod high to keep the line taut and maintain pressure on the fish’s mouth. The waders made movement difficult, and he struggled to keep his balance, feeling for the rocks and sticks on the riverbed. Gradually Filipelli moved out into the river until the water reached his waist. It was easier to maneuver here. The riverbed was clearer of debris in the deeper, faster water.
Still the trout moved downriver, though it no longer stripped line from the reel. Filipelli glanced back upriver. In only a few moments he had moved downstream several hundred yards. He could barely see the Secret Service agents relaxing in their boat. Even Bugsy was fading against the background.
The rope wrapped quickly about Filipelli’s ankles. At first he did not realize what was happening. Then suddenly he was pulled beneath the surface and completely submerged. For a moment he thought about holding on to the fishing rod, thinking that he must have tripped over some obstruction on the riverbed that he could not see through the murky water and that he would quickly regain his balance. But then he realized that he was being pulled toward the very deep water in the middle of the Bighorn, dragged by some unseen assailant.
Filipelli let go of the fly rod and began to claw for the surface. But already the attacker had pulled Filipelli into a pool ten feet deep, and Filipelli’s fingers did not break through the surface of the water. He tried to kick the attacker, whom he could barely discern through the churning water, but the rope effectively inhibited this movement. Water poured into the waders, dragging him even deeper, and Filipelli panicked, realizing that he was going to drown unless he did something drastic.
Frantically he leaned forward for his ankles in an attempt to free himself from the rope. His lungs burned. His body craved fresh oxygen. He struggled for the rope, and suddenly one foot broke free. Filipelli kicked and struck something and then the other ankle was free. He pushed toward the light, clawing and screaming. The surface was close. Another second and he would be there.
Phoenix Grey’s scuba mask was now around his neck, a result of Filipelli’s wild kick to his face. But Grey did not bother to adjust it now. He reached for Filipelli and managed to grab one of his boots. He hung on. He had to. If Filipelli were to somehow reach the surface, it meant failure for the entire operation
. And it meant his own death. Rutherford would see to that.
Filipelli kicked again. The surface was so close now. Inches away. Just inches. He felt as if his head must explode. Pounding. Pounding like hell. A pain he had never known. He screamed. He needed the air so badly. God, let me have one more breath. Why is this happening to me?
Filipelli’s fingers broke through the surface. He felt the cool air on his hands. Surely the Secret Service agents would reach him in just a few more seconds. They must have noticed him disappear into the river.
Phoenix Grey mustered all his strength and smashed a large fist into Filipelli’s solar plexus.
It was enough. Filipelli could no longer resist the natural urge to breathe even though he knew it meant death. The water poured into his lungs, and he began to choke. Grey pulled Filipelli back toward the depths.
Filipelli brought his hands to his neck. God, give me air. Please give me air. The pain is unbearable. I want to see my family again. One more time. There are so many things still to say. Please, God! He gulped another huge breath of water.
Gradually the light from the surface began to fade. And Carter Filipelli, chairman of the Federal Reserve, sank lifelessly to the bottom of the Bighorn River.
16
The Sevens of Harvard University trace their origins to the Civil War. In 1863, a number of undergraduate students formed a group that became known as the Federalists. Their solidifying philosophy was that the country had to come first, that it could not be torn apart and survive. It must remain united. So it was with unparalleled passion that they promoted support for the Union effort. And they were vocal in their condemnation of the Confederate insurgents.
The Federalists were fanatic as only young people can be. They nailed pro-Union propaganda to every tree on the grounds. They organized huge pro-Union rallies on the commons next to Winthrop Hall by inviting outspoken Federal proponents to speak, and they unmercifully harassed anyone on campus—student, faculty, or otherwise—who dared support the Rebel cause. They would issue threatening notes, throw rocks through windows, and offer other intimidations to those who held views contrary to their own.
The Takeover Page 18
