by Gary D. Svee
Mac swallowed once and took a deep breath. No sense waiting anymore. Might as well take his chance. Might never have another chance like this. He let out a little line and swung the hopper back and forth from the end of the rod as though it were a child on a swing. When the swing picked up a little momentum, he let out a little line. Soon, the hopper was almost touching the water on the bottom of the swing. And then, as the hopper almost reached the top of the swing on the upstream side, Mac let the hopper go. It sailed upstream as though that were the only purpose in its swiftly waning life. The hopper landed with a little splot and started its downstream journey toward Mac. Mac held the rod tip high. When that monster fish took the hopper, he would need the full length of the rod to absorb the shock of the strike.
Mac’s hands were trembling slightly as he watched the hopper enter the swirl that the bull trout called his own. The hopper, caught in a little eddy, turned circles on the water, and Mac could see a dark shape rising from the depths. The fish held a foot below the surface, watching the hopper dancing above his nose, and then sank back into the depths.
Mac’s chin fell to his chest, and he almost cried out his despair. At that moment the rod was almost wrenched from his hands. The big fish had come back, and the bull trout was hooked solidly.
“Yahoo!” Mac whooped. “Yahoo!”
The boy could hear Sheriff Drinkwalter yelling something from upstream, but he lost the words to his excitement and the rush of the river. The boy held the rod tip high, letting the line slip through his fingers to ease the fish’s power against the pole, line, leader and hook.
The fish was running now, downstream, and the line was cutting into the boy’s thumb and forefinger. Mac ran downstream, too, stumbling along the bank, crashing through willows, always the rod tip held high, always his attention on the fish and not on the branches cutting past his face.
The fish came out of the water as it tried to shed itself of the hook. Mac stood stiff-legged and wide-eyed. The fish was even bigger than he had thought, bigger than any fish he had ever seen. The fish fell back into the water with a SPLOOSH!—the same sound a big rock dropped off the bridge might make.
The fish was whipping its head back and forth, and each time the split-bamboo rod throbbed with the power of the creature. No one could land this fish—no one. It was too strong and too set in its ways to allow a fourteen-year-old boy, a puny rod, and a flimsy line to stop it.
Once again the fish rose from the water as though it meant to fight this creature that dared to challenge it. Bull trout it was: ruler of the deep green stretches of the Yellowstone River; eater of nymphs and flies and any other fish that dared move into its path. Bull trout it was, all muscle and power and meanness.
SPLOOSH! The fish crashed into the water, sending up a spray that painted the sun pink and blue and red, like the colors that flashed from its flank. A magic fish this was, magic enough to paint the waters, magic enough to set a fourteen-year-old boy to dancing on the bank.
“Whooee!”
Mac looked up. Sheriff Drinkwalter was standing beside him, smile wide as the river.
“Boy, you got yourself into the bull trout of all bull trout. Whooee! Look at that fish jump. You’re doing great. Keep that rod tip up. Let him have his head until he tires, and then point him toward the bank. Let him run now, boy, and run with him. If he isn’t exhausted, you’ll never get him on the bank. Whooee!”
“He’s headed upstream, boy. Go with him, but keep the pressure on him. Always keep that line tight or he’ll spit that hopper at you like a bullet. Beaver cache up at the head of this island. Keep him away from that. He gets into that tangle of branches, you might as well kiss him good-bye. Whooee!”
Up the river the two ran, the sheriff ahead, breaking the way through the willows, and Mac behind, seeing only the fish, nothing but the fish. And then when it seemed that neither Mac’s arms nor the rod and line had the power to keep the fish away from the beaver cache, a tangle of limbs the animals stored for winter forage, the fish jumped again, but not so high and no so wildly.
“He’s tiring, Mac!” the sheriff shouted as the fish turned again downriver. “But he isn’t whipped yet, not by a long shot. This is when they slip loose, when they’ve been on a long time. Sometimes a leader will wear through, or a hook will pull straight.
“You have to keep the pressure on, Mac, but not too much. You’ve got this bull trout damn near broke to lead, Mac. Come on, Mac. He’s running, boy. You’ve got him on the run.”
Down the river they ran, willows slashing at their faces as they passed. And always there was the line, the line, a telegraph between the two-leggeds and the bull trout.
Near the tail of the island where the river had eaten away some of the land, leaving only the bones of river rocks to bleach in the sun, the fish turned toward the bank, no longer fighting the line or fate.
“You’ve got him coming, boy. He’s coming in. All you have to do is keep his head pointed toward the bank, and that’s where he has to go. He can’t swim backward, so he’ll come right up on the bank. But when he first sees us, he’ll spook. He’ll head back for deep water, so keep the pressure on him, but not too tight. He’s coming.”
Only an avalanche could have pulled the two’s attention from the trout, and that’s what happened. Big Jim Thompson was running across the gravel bar, rocks skittering away from his boots, as though he were a giant boulder crashing down a talus slope in the Beartooths.
“Don’t lose him, boy. I seen him. That’s the bull trout, granddaddy of all trout. Hang on to him, boy.”
The avalanche slowed to a walk about twenty feet from the two, Thompson walking softly the rest of the way so he wouldn’t frighten the fish.
“That’s it boy,” Thompson said. “Ease him toward the bank, just keep him pointed this way, and he’ll come right to you. Now, when he first see you, he’ll…”
The trout showed himself ten feet out in about three feet of water. At least thirty inches long, maybe more, with a back green as river moss. His body was thick, ending at one end with a hooked jaw and at the other in a tail that seemed bit as a canoe paddle. His sides flashed silver as he swam into the current, gill cover opening and closing.
“Damn,” Thompson whispered reverently. “Damn, what a fish.”
“Bull trout of all bull trout,” Drinkwalter said. “Biggest fish I’ve ever seen.”
“Or heard of.”
“Or heard of.”
“Better get him in.”
“Yeah. Mac, just ease him in toward the shore. You get him into that shallow water. We’ve got him then.”
The fish came in as though he’d been broken to lead, spent all of his life at a fisherman’s beck and call, but when his belly touched the rocks, he made one last desperate lurch for deep water and safety—and the hook popped from this fish’s mouth.
The trout skittered through the shallows, trying to find swimming depths. With great whoops, Drinkwalter and Thompson took chase, water spraying from each step. But now they were in the fish’s environment, and with a thrust of his great tail, he slid over the shallows and into the green waters.
Both men stopped, not willing to believe that they had lost the giant fish.
Thompson looked up at Drinkwalter: “We are two sorry sons of bitches.”
“Three,” Mac whispered. “There are three of us. I’m one sorry son of a bitch, too.”
10
“He was a helluva fish, one helluva fish.”
Sheriff James Thompson sat on the wagon bed, legs swinging as he watched Sheriff Frank Drinkwalter and Mac McPherson eat their roast beef sandwiches, Tilly’s specialty at the Stockman Café in Eagles Nest.
Drinkwalter would take large bites from the sandwich and then savor the explosion of flavor that followed his teeth’s assault on beef and bread. Mac was taking tiny bites, nibbling away at the sandwich as a squirrel might, if squirrels ever had a chance to eat one of Tilly’s sandwiches.
Thompson decided that Mac
’s style was more aggravating. The boy seemed to be doing nothing so much as teasing the Yellowstone County sheriff. Big Jim’s eyes squinted nearly shut. A boy should respect his elders, not tease them with one of Tilly’s beef sandwiches, seasoned and roasted to perfection.
“He was one helluva fish,” Thompson said, trying to pull his thoughts away from Tilly’s sandwiches.
“Aren’t you going to have a sandwich, Big Jim?”
Thompson glared at Drinkwalter. “You trying to be funny?”
“You didn’t really eat all six of your sandwiches while Mac and I were fishing, did you? I only got you six as a kind of joke. I didn’t really expect you to eat them.”
Thompson’s eyes squeezed almost shut. “You’re going to go too far, Frank Drinkwalter. I won’t be responsible, if you keep up that chatter.”
“You responsible? Someone who eats six of Tilly’s sandwiches and doesn’t have anything left for lunch? Now, that’s not very responsible, Big Jim. That’s not really very responsible at all.”
Thompson growled, a low rumbling that made both Drinkwalter and Mac look for dark clouds on the horizon.
“Sounds like rain,” Mac said.
“Yes, it does,” Drinkwalter answered.
“No clouds.”
“Just the few, but they don’t look like rain.”
“Doesn’t feel like rain.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Don’t think it’s going to rain.”
“Don’t think so, either.”
“What do you think, Big Jim? Think it’ll rain?”
“I’m about to rain on your parade, you sorry son of a bitch.”
“Oh, a discouraging word. I just hate discouraging words. Don’t you, Mac?”
“Just hate ’em, but I can’t talk now. I’m whittling away on one of Tilly’s sandwiches. I think she got an especially good do on this batch.”
“I believe you’re right, boy, an especially good batch. I’d like to say they’re good to the last drop, but that would remind me that Big Jim drank all the beer. Drank a whole bucket of beer this morning. I think the man needs help.”
“I’d say he does,” Mac agreed, nodding.
Thompson jumped stiff-legged from the wagon box, and Mac swore the earth recoiled from the force of the sheriff’s weight.
“The hell with the both of you. I’m going fishing. It’ll be a cold day in hell before you see the likes of me up here again. I sure as hell wouldn’t treat anyone the way you’ve treated me, Drinkwalter. Be damned if I’ll buy you dinner at the Golden Belle the next time you come to Billings.”
Thompson grabbed his fishing rod and creel and took three stomping steps toward the river.
“Uh, before you go, Thompson,” Drinkwalter said, “would you mind getting something for me? Mac and I are awful tired from our morning of fishing.”
Thompson’s eyes squeezed almost shut, and the giant man took one step toward Drinkwalter. Then he sighed. “What do you want?”
“See that toolbox under the seat?”
“Yeah.”
“Would you open it?”
“Open it yourself, you … you …”
“One sorry son of a bitch for another?”
“Ah, hell.” Thompson jerked the box from beneath the seat and twisted off the wire holding the latch shut. He popped open the lid, and a grin crept slowly across his face. “Tilly’s sandwiches. You got me some of Tilly’s sandwiches.”
“And another bucket of beer.”
“And another bucket of beer. Drinkwalter, you are truly one sorry son of a bitch.”
“You, too, Thompson.”
“Me, too,” Mac said.
All three broke into guffaws. This was one beautiful day on the banks of the Yellowstone River, just outside of Eagles Nest, Montana. But that was about to change.
Sheriff James Thompson pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and dabbed his lips. “Ah, hell,” he said. “I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
“It’s nice enough to be in heaven, isn’t it?” Sheriff Frank Drinkwalter said.
Nice enough it was. The trees had the soft green leaves of early spring. The air was soft and clean, and the sun kissed the earth as gently as a mother kisses her sleeping child.
Thompson stuck one of his huge fingers into his mouth, his fingernail working at dislodging a bit of beef stuck between his teeth.
“Water’s coming up. Won’t be long before it’s muddy with the runoff. That will take care of most of July. No sense fishing in August. Fish just find a deep pool and cool water and hibernate, so I probably won’t be coming back until September.”
Thompson leaned back, studying the flash and glitter of the sun off the trembling cottonwood trees. “You did the right thing coming up here, Frank. Nice place to spend a life.” Thompson shifted a bit, making room in his pockets for his hands. He pulled out an envelope. “Kind of hate to do this. Feel like the serpent in the Garden of Eden must have felt.” Thompson nodded toward Mac. “Maybe it would be better if we waited until Mac went fishing.”
“Mac’s all right. He reads all of the reports in my office.”
“This isn’t like any of the reports in your office.”
“Go ahead, Jim.”
Thompson cocked his head and looked at Mac. “Well, Sam Fiddler was out on patrol this past spring. You remember him, don’t you, Frank? Damn fine officer. Not so big, but wiry and smart. Good man to have around.”
Drinkwalter nodded.
“Anyway, he was patrolling down by the uh … cribs, a couple weeks ago. Just a normal patrol. Men get a snootful of booze and decide they’d best go down and … uh, visit the girls down there. Often as not, they get robbed. Sometimes some pimp … uh … Frank, you sure it’s all right to talk in front of the boy like this?”
“Go ahead, Jim.”
“Well, it was quiet that night and black as a banker’s heart. Fiddler saw something oozing out from under the door of one of those cribs. Sam knew what it was. Once you get the smell of that in your nose, there’s no way you can mistake it for something else.”
“So Sam knocked. It was just a formality. He didn’t expect anyone to answer, but then he heard the window break at the back of the crib. So he put his shoulder to the door. The latch broke, but the door held. He thought somebody was pushing back, trying to keep him out. He shoved and the door opened, and he saw what was blocking it. He said later that it was almost like that woman didn’t want to be seen in the condition she was in.”
“Fiddler is a tough cop. He’s been on that beat for years seeing the worst that humanity has to offer. But when he saw what that man did to that woman, he went down on his hands and knees and vomited. By the time he got around the crib, the killer was almost a block away, running from shadow to shadow.”
“Sam, he kept as close as he could, and the killer led him straight toward a little one-room cabin. Jack Galt’s place,” Thompson said, leaning over to spit in disgust. “Didn’t surprise Sam at all. Galt was pimping her, and he had put his boots to that woman before. He has a god-awful rage in him that…”
Thompson shook his head and spat again on the grass.
“Anyhow, Galt had a little shed out back of his place. There was light shining out of the shed when Fiddler ran up, so he stepped over and peeked in the window.”
“Galt had been keeping a calf, fattening it on grain he found along the railroad track. Well, the calf was too young to butcher, but Galt had cut its throat, and he’d done a hell of a poor job of it. Blood all over the shed. Galt was blood head to toe.”
“That sly son of a bitch. He covered himself with the blood from the calf so the policeman couldn’t see the woman’s blood on him. Galt said he didn’t know anything about the woman. Said he had heard someone running by just before Fiddler got there. And all the time he was grinning, grinning like he’d played some kind of joke.”
“We found a patch of Galt’s shirt at the crib. It matched perfectly with a tear in the shirt he
was wearing when Fiddler caught him. We took what we had to the county attorney, but he said it wasn’t enough. With Galt hanging around that woman the way he was, that shirt could have been torn anytime.”
“Galt beat her up more than once, but down around the cribs, somebody’s always beating up someone. It’s like they all hate being there, hate themselves for what they’re doing. So the pimps beat up the drunks, and the drunks beat up the women.”
“There’s something about … that profession that hurts everyone. The woman loses her dignity at the door. She lets herself be pawed by drunks, and the man feels cheapened because he has to resort to ladies of the night. It’s as though a woman couldn’t stand being around him if he didn’t pay her. So fists fly. We see that all the time.”
“But the woman wouldn’t settle for what Galt was doing to her. She had been planning to go back home, someplace in the Midwest. We found the railway ticket in the room, all stained with blood.”
“Hell! Isn’t any justice for some people. She was no different from Gertie, but Gertie plays her parlor games with the mayor and some of the other leading citizens of Billings. Had Galt done that to Gertie, it would have been different. But it was Sally Higgins, poor little Sally Higgins, and nobody gave a damn about her when she was alive and nobody gave a damn about her when she was dead.”
“Anyhow, there wasn’t anything legal I could do about Sally, so I had Galt hauled in for questioning. I took him back to a cell in the jail and told the jailer to go have a cup of coffee. Galt was smiling at me the same way he was smiling at Fiddler that night.”
“He wasn’t smiling when he left that cell, Frank. He didn’t have a mark on him, but he was hurting something terrible. I told him that he didn’t look well. I told him it would be a lot better for his health if he went somewhere else.”
Thompson leaned back and locked his huge fingers behind his neck. “Wasn’t anything new to him. He’d been run out of Glendive not much before that. Woman died down there, but nothing could be proved. There are other rumors, too, but …”
Thompson leaned forward, putting his hands on his knees and staring into Drinkwalter’s eyes.
