The Horse in My Garage and Other Stories

by Patrick F. McManus

  My friend Crazy Eddie Muldoon lived on the farm next to ours. Eddie helped me build the raft out of fence posts, which were abundant on his father’s farm. The raft turned out to be everything I had imagined except it was rather small. I noticed this when I ran my risk assessment on it. I also noticed that it lacked brakes and a steering wheel. Part of the risk was that I would be at the mercy of the creek and the raft. Eddie seemed to be running his own risk assessment. When I suggested he give the raft a test run, he replied that he couldn’t because he was wearing his good pants. The problem with pants for boys in those days was you couldn’t tell the good pair from the bad pair. As it happened, I suddenly remembered I was wearing my good pants also. So both of us having made our risk assessments, we shoved the raft off on its journey to the Pacific without a passenger. I was very glad afterward that I’d had the good sense to run that risk assessment. Before the raft had made it around the first bend, it began to disintegrate, each post going its own way. Perhaps it was a design flaw, I don’t know.

  If one tends to be addicted to adventure, it is important always to assess the risks. Then, of course, you ignore them. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be an adventure.

  The Forty-Pound Brown Trout

  M

  y wife, Bun, has been complaining of late that I can’t seem to keep my mind on any single subject for more than five seconds. Nonsense, I say. Now, where was I?

  Oh, yes, a while back a reader of mine sent me a colored photo of himself holding a forked stick containing about ten little trout, all eastern brook, as nearly as I could make out. He wrote that he and his son had caught them in a little Idaho lake, the name of which he forgot to divulge. Perhaps he knows I am an eastern brook fanatic.

  Brookies are by far the best tasting of all trout. “Tasting!” someone cries out. “You actually eat the fish you catch!” Well, yes, I do, I confess. The recent rise of catch-and-release has made catch-and-eat somehow seem immoral. Fortunately, it appears as if some fish and game departments view the eastern brook trout as somewhat of a lesser fish, because the limit on brookies, (as we aficionados call them) is often set at almost double that of rainbows. I am certainly not in favor of rushing the demise of brookies, but I do appreciate the efforts of fish and game departments to keep the limit on them up to a reasonable eating level. Rainbows, on the other hand, are perfect for catch-and-release, particularly those removed from the hatchery and “planted” by the fish and game department the day before the season opens.

  What’s that, Bun? Forked sticks? Oh, yeah, I was just getting to that. This report is not about brookies. Don’t know how I drifted off onto them. No, what I intended to write about is forked sticks. After brookies, the second thing in the photo to get me excited was the forked stick on which the brookies were strung. When I glimpsed the forked stick, I knew that here were two fishermen of my own ilk or what had once been my ilk. One does not release fish that have been carried about all day on a forked stick, at least not intentionally. In my youth, I occasionally lost a fish from my forked stick, but only because it had dried out, withered, and fallen off on its own. Maybe that’s where the whole idea of catch-and-release came from. “Yeah, I had a lot bigger one, but I released it.”

  There is something to be said for eating the fish you catch. I suspect it has something do with a gene we still retain from the days we actually hunted and fished for food. Undoubtedly, the joy of a kill or a catch was greatly enhanced for anyone who hadn’t eaten for a week or two. We still get that little burst of joy from hooking a fish, and I think it may be because we still retain the gene that remembers not having eaten in a couple of weeks.

  Fishing is one of those things you don’t want to think too much about. I know people with $50,000 boats and about that much in fishing tackle, and they still get that little burst of joy from hooking a fish. Not only could they go to the fish market and buy a whole salmon, but they could buy the whole market. So where does the thrill come from in catching a fish? I don’t want to think too much about it.

  Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, forked sticks. I guess the reason I was so impressed by the picture of a forked stick strung with brookies was because I hadn’t even seen a forked stick in maybe forty years, let alone one strung with little trout.

  As a kid, when I first heard about a wicker creel, I thought it was some kind of folk dance. I still have my first wicker creel. It’s hanging out in what I laughingly call my shop. As soon as a fisherman obtained his first wicker creel, forked sticks started to fade into history. The fine art of cutting a forked stick from a willow became a lost art. You simply dropped your fish through the little hole in the lid of the creel and that was it. If the fish was too big to fit through the hole, you unfastened the leather strap that held the lid down, opened the basket, and placed the fish inside. There was some technique involved with the creel. Before inserting the first trout, you filled the creel half-full of ferns that you had gotten wet by dunking them in the creek. These helped keep your fish fresh, but also the water leaked out of the creel and ran down your leg keeping it fresh, too. I can still remember the sensation of that water soaking my leg. It wasn’t pleasant, but it reminded me that a person had to be tough to put up with all the kinds of hardship you experience as a true fisherman.

  The creel that hangs in my workshop was probably the same one that accompanied me on my first hike into the North Fork of Callihan Creek. There was no road into Callihan back then, and the only way to reach the upper creek was for us to hike in over the mountains and then drop down a steep sidehill into the drainage. Callihan was so full of native rainbows that if your fly dropped in the water accidentally while you were wading the creek, you would catch a fish and . . . “What’s that Bun? Forked sticks? Oh, yeah, forked sticks.”

  Forked sticks were a big part of my youth. You never used your forked stick more than once. After you had unthreaded your fish from the stick and dropped the fish in the sink, you tossed the forked stick in the garbage.

  Finding a new forked stick, just the right forked stick, was part of the art of fishing in those days. A couple of my friends had a clever way of cutting a forked stick so that it had two forks, one at each end. The upper fork was slipped under the angler’s belt and twisted, and that way he didn’t have to hold the stick while he fished.

  I always carried my forked stick in my hand. This led to major excitement. In order to fish a hole properly, I would lay the forked stick and my catch down on a rock. After I had fished several holes downstream, I would catch another fish and start to thread it on my forked stick. But the stick would be gone! Then I would race back upstream looking for it and at last would find it resting on a rock, the fish drying out and starting to crinkle up. I would dunk them in the creek to freshen them up and then proceed back down the creek. The joy of finding my catch once again greatly improved the quality of my fishing in those days. A fisherman who has never used a forked stick for holding his catch will never know the joy of finding it on a rock two or three times during a day of fishing.

  Eventually, I outgrew forked sticks as a means of carrying my catch, but I have never forgotten the art. For one thing, you tried always to remember to carry your jackknife with you whenever you went fishing. That was so you could clean your fish before heading home, a small gesture always appreciated by mothers. Even more important, however, the jackknife simplified and improved the art of preparing the forked stick. True, it was possible to prepare a forked stick by twisting off the willow branch and the fork, but this left the ends fuzzy and hard to slip through the gills and mouth of small trout. A jackknife allowed you to cut the ends at a smooth angle, thereby simplifying the threading on of fish.

  Eventually I would grow up and fish in many distant parts of the world, but no such expeditions satisfied me as much as the days spent casting lead sinkers and hooks baited with freshly dug worms into the swirling creeks within walking distance of my boyhood home. It was a rather primitive pastime but highly satisfying.

  Then one day
in my early thirties a financial windfall suddenly descended on me, my wife, and four young daughters that would have allowed us to buy a house of our own. Instead of giving in to such foolishness, we went off to live in England for several months. It was our first trip abroad, and we did all the usual things: exploring historical sites, museums, castles, restaurants, and I can’t remember what all. We were in the land of Izaak Walton, author of The Compleat Angler. Although Walton wasn’t that great at spelling, he was one of the great authors of his time or any other time, but even more important, he was a man who truly understood fishing. I decided that before I left England I would have to fish in some of the streams that Walton had fished. I’m not sure which streams those were, but in my research I discovered that England possessed a number of fishing hotels. I had never heard of a fishing hotel, but I soon found one within an hour’s drive of our temporary place of lodging. The very next day, I arrived at the hotel shortly after the crack of dawn and found the fishing headquarters. The manager quickly rented me a trout “beat,” which consisted of a mile or so section on what he referred to as a “river.” I cannot recall if I asked him whether Izaak Walton had fished the river, but I’m certain he would have assured me that, indeed, the stream was among Izaak’s favorites. In addition to the beat, I also had to rent a complete fishing outfit. The total cost of the fishing gear and the beat came to forty pounds or about $200 at the exchange rate of approximately $5 per pound at the time. Well worth the cost, I must say, to fish the same stream as Izaak Walton had fished.

  The fishing manager gave me a little map on which he had circled the section that consisted of my beat. My car now lightened by the cash I had left with the manager, I easily sped to my assigned beat. The stream, which we in the U.S. would refer to as a creek or a crick instead of a river, was nevertheless not without its attractions. There was thick foliage on either side that seemed to extend over the top of the river, providing the sensation that the stream flowed through a green tunnel. It would have been impossible to fish from either shore, but the water was no more than a foot deep, and the fishing manager had thoughtfully provided me with a pair of waders.

  I thoroughly enjoyed strolling down the middle of the stream and sending my line and fly a dozen yards ahead. Never once disturbed by the irritation of a trout attacking my fly, I found the excursion quite peaceful and easily could imagine Izaak Walton fishing alongside me, only with more luck.

  And then suddenly it happened. A tiny fish struck my fly. Somehow I had managed to catch an eight-inch trout before reaching the end of my beat. It was a brown trout. It had cost me exactly forty pounds. Still, I thought it was very strange that a fishing hotel would rent out beats totally lacking in fish with the exception of my one catch. I was not upset. I had experienced fishing in England, perhaps in the very same waters Izaak himself had fished. It was enough. Now, with evening closing in around me, I happened to glance through an opening in the foliage off to my left. Two boys of about twelve were trudging off across a farm pasture. One of them carried a large can, which, I’m sure, contained a supply of worms. The two poachers had gone down creek ahead of me like a seine net, catching every fish but one on my beat! Each of them carried a long string of fish—on forked sticks!

  I drove off to our modest cottage, not at all dissatisfied with my day of fishing in England, perhaps in the very same waters as Izaak Walton. Izaak himself, I’m sure, would have been pleased with a forty-pound brown trout. The two boys I had spotted retreating from my “beat” were obviously catch-and-eaters, too, and carried the proof on forked sticks. I couldn’t have been more pleased.

  Bear Hunters

  M

  y friends Retch Sweeney and Birdy Thompson rode home with me on the school bus one crisp Friday afternoon in September. We were going to hunt together over the weekend, and they carried their hunting clothes in large, brown-paper grocery bags. They wore their hunting boots, which by sheer coincidence were also their school boots and their Sunday church boots. In those days, a kid didn’t have to waste a lot of time deciding which pair of shoes to wear for which occasion.

  Earlier in the week, my mother had driven me around to the Sweeneys and Thompsons to pick up my friends’ .30/30 rifles and hunting knives. That was because Ed, the bus driver, didn’t want the kids who rode the bus to carry guns and knives. He said it put him at a disadvantage.

  In those days, the girls rode on one side of the bus and the boys on the other. Parents and school officials were afraid to have the boys and girls sit together. There’s no sense taking chances, they said. The bus was full of the smells and sounds of kids eating snacks they had saved from their school lunches—oranges, slabs of dried pie, hard-boiled eggs, and stale baloney sandwiches. The bus driver used to mutter that the sound of after-school snacks being eaten was sending him to an early grave. Ed did a lot of joking like that.

  Every so often, the bus would stop to disgorge kids. Occasionally some kids would be disgorged who didn’t want to be disgorged. Whenever a fight erupted, Ed would pull the bus to the edge of the road and order the combatants out. Sometimes they would refuse to leave, and Ed would get up wearily from his driver’s seat, walk back, grab them, drag them down the aisle of the bus, and disgorge them forcibly. Then they would have to walk home, usually shaking their fists at the back of the bus. Riding the bus was always interesting as a result of these activities, and Retch and Birdy, both town kids, seemed to enjoy the ride immensely.

  “Are you sure your friend Rancid Crabtree doesn’t mind us spending the weekend with him?” Birdy asked.

  “Sure, I’m sure,” I said. “Matter of fact, it was Rancid’s idea. He said that way we could get an earlier start on the bear hunt.”

  Rancid was an old woodsman who lived back against the mountain behind our place. He had taught me everything I knew about hunting and fishing and trapping and a whole lot of other stuff, some of which my mother didn’t want me to know, like why the boys and girls didn’t get to sit together on the bus.

  “Is Rancid going to hunt with us?” Retch asked.

  “Nope,” I said. “He is just going to drive us up to Ginger Ann’s ranch. Ginger Ann’s sort of his girlfriend, and he’s gonna spend the day there.”

  “How come he’d rather spend the day there than hunt with us?” Birdy asked.

  I just shook my head. I figured Birdy probably didn’t know yet why the boys and girls didn’t get to sit together on the bus, and it wasn’t my place to tell him. “Rancid says there’s a good chance we can get us a bear though,” I went on. “A bear tore up all of Ginger Ann’s beehives this summer. It even killed her pig.”

  “Killed her pig?” Birdy said.

  At that moment, two sixth graders near us got into a fist-fight over the ownership of an Oreo cookie, and Ed came back to drag them out of the bus.

  “How big a bear did Rancid say it is?” Retch asked, fending off a stray left hook from one of the sixth graders.

  Ed got hold of a flailing leg and began to pull, propping his foot against the back of an empty seat.

  “He said it was a big one,” I said, pushing one of the grunting fighters off my lap. “He said the tracks were big around as dinner plates.”

  “That’s a big bear, all right,” Ed put in. “Pat, would you see if you can pry Rupert’s fingers loose from that seat leg?”

  “You bet,” I said, grabbing Rupert by an ear so he couldn’t bite me while I worked on his fingers. “You don’t suppose it might be a grizzly, do you, Ed, with tracks that big?”

  “I hope it’s a grizzly!” Rupert yelled.

  “Naw, I don’t reckon it’d be a grizzly,” Ed said. “The last grizzly I seen in these parts was up on the headwaters of Pack River and that was near twenty years ago. Here, let me hold his ear while you get his other hand loose. You know Oscar Davis, how fat he is? I swear Oscar went up a tree so fast it was thirty seconds before most of his fat caught up with him. Most interesting thing I ever seen. Thanks, Pat, I can get him by myself now. C’m
on, Rupert, you’re walking home.”

  “Don’t mention it,” I said.

  “We gonna eat at your house tonight?” Retch asked, the sounds of chomping, munching, and slurping apparently having aroused his appetite.

  “No, Rancid said he’d fix supper for us.”

  “What do you suppose he’ll cook?” Retch said.

  “I can’t tell you,” I said. “It’s supposed to be a surprise.”

  “Good,” Birdy said. “I like surprises.”

  I didn’t say anything. A kid who didn’t know why girls and boys couldn’t sit together on the bus couldn’t know much about surprises either.

  When we got to my stop, Retch and Birdy thanked Ed for the ride and all the entertainment. Ed said, “Don’t mention it. Sorry it was so dull. Usually we have a little excitement.”

  We stopped by my house to change our clothes and pick up our rifles and hunting gear and then headed over to Rancid’s cabin. The old woodsman was happy to see us. I introduced him to Birdy, Rancid having already met Retch.

  “Uh, nice place you got here, Mr. Crabtree,” Birdy said, glancing around the cabin.

  “Thanks. Ah like it. Pull up an apple box and hev a seat. Jist toss them hides on the floor thar, Retch. Thar’s a choppin’ block underneath that will make a good seat fer ya. Wall, all be dang! Ah been lookin’ all over fer thet ax an’ all the time it’s bin under thet pile of hides. Place is kind of a mess right now. You wouldn’t believe ah cleaned it up jist last March, would ya?”