The Sky Fisherman

by Craig Lesley

  At our approach, all came to their feet, apparently startled at my mother's presence. The old man whisked off his cap, holding it over his heart as if he expected someone to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner." He teetered on a gimpy leg, and I wondered how he jumped moving trains. The red-haired man stared at both of us; I couldn't pinpoint the favored eye. And Minnesota grinned and said, "Here's a young man that knows fishing. I caught some swell trout."

  Now their supper was rabbit sizzling in a long-handled skillet and baking powder biscuits in a makeshift Dutch oven. Two had been drinking 7-Up, the third held a can of Dad's root beer. So much for the colorful stories of Sterno and Vienna sausage Riley told.

  Overall, the camp appeared fairly tidy, considering how dry and dusty the summer was. They had swept away the cheatgrass and pine needles to avoid starting a fire. Toiletry items were visible near the bedroll. The old man had been reading an adventure novel with a lurid cover.

  Apparently Minnesota's remark didn't register on my mother or she chose to ignore it. Her accusing eyes shifted from man to man; none held her gaze more than a moment. "Well, you might as well tell me where Riley is."

  No reply.

  "I'm certain you boys know." She tapped her right foot a few times, waiting.

  Out of hobo loyalty, all shook their heads, but it wasn't convincing. The redhead seemed to be looking all over the place at once. My mother's gaze had settled on a fourth bedroll apart from the others and a couple of Riley's shirts hanging from a juniper branch. One had been our birthday present to him three years back and featured small red locomotives on a blue background.

  She shook the New Testament in their faces. "Put your hands on this and deny you know Riley. Take care now. Remember how ashamed Peter was when he denied Christ three times before the cock crowed."

  They shrank away from the Bible as if its pebbled green cover belonged to a serpent. I admired the way she had them buffaloed. Triumph gleamed in her eyes.

  I half wanted to confess about encountering Riley myself by the icehouse. That's how convincing she was.

  "I'm certain you men haven't touched a Bible since the last time you appeared in court. You prefer to wallow in darkness and lust, I imagine." She glanced at the cover of the adventure novel.

  The redhead's shoulders slumped, and the old man fidgeted as he tried blocking her view of his book. Minnesota cleared his throat and said, "Ma'am, Riley's off fishing right now. Usually he comes back way late."

  "He probably lures them in with a lantern," she said. "I hope the game wardens nail him."

  I was amazed she knew this trick of night fishing.

  "You men tell him I demand a divorce," she continued. "Culver and I deserve a clean slate." Her eyes settled on Minnesota, who seemed the likeliest of the bunch to convey a message ungarbled. "You tell him."

  "All right." He agreed, and the others nodded in unison like backup members of a singing group.

  "And point out that should he ever beat up Franklin again, or anyone else in town, I shall be forced to engage the police. Understood?"

  Again they nodded.

  Turning her attention to the pan and its contents, she frowned. "Your poor supper's burning, I'm afraid." Her voice had softened. Taking the pot holder from the red-haired man, she seized the handle and shifted the skillet to the edge of the fire. "Rabbit's like chicken," she told them. "It requires a long time to cook. And you must do it slowly or it remains tough." She put a little pepper on the pieces, turning them over. "Delay adding salt until the last few minutes. That way the juices remain sealed."

  "Would you and the boy care to stay for dinner, ma'am?" the red-haired man asked. "We don't get much gentle company." Until then, I had thought he might be mute.

  "I don't believe so," she said. "Our own supper's at home waiting. But I can sit and visit a minute, supervise the rabbit. I trust it's not a jackrabbit. You might get tularemia. You must never eat a jackrabbit in a month that doesn't have an r."

  She chose a place on a log and handed the pot holder back to the redhead. The old man offered 7-Ups and we both took one. Until then, I hadn't realized how dry my mouth felt.

  After drinking, she sat on the ground, resting her back against a jack pine. A few stars were visible in the night sky, and Venus hung on the horizon. "I envy your lives in a way," she said to no one in particular. "So adventurous and free. Sometimes, I wonder—if I hadn't been born a woman needing to think about family responsibilities..."

  They allowed that the traveling life had advantages. Most places they obtained day labor, lived off panhandling and church suppers. And as they watched out for their own, a kind of camaraderie grew. But it was no life for a woman, they agreed, at least not the kind of well-mannered woman my mother represented.

  After the rabbit was properly cooked, if a little burned on one side, the men began to eat. Mom tried one of their biscuits, breaking off small pieces and chewing thoughtfully. Hungry, I gobbled two, and imagining the cold stove at home, longed for a rabbit thigh, but I was petrified of rabbit fever. Riley had told tales of men he'd encountered living along isolated sections of track whose diseased livers had turned them yellow as field corn. I settled for a third biscuit.

  Over supper, each man catalogued his tribulations—divorce, bad business deals, crazy relatives, lousy breaks. Minnesota had served time for shoplifting in three states; the old man was wanted for armed robbery somewhere in the South. The red-haired man quietly confessed he hadn't paid child support in six years. "I'm a roofer by trade, but what's the point of sweating in the sun, freezing in the rain, when the government takes most of what I make?" He shook his head. "One day I'll fall off a slick roof and break my skull. For what?"

  When my mother pressed him, he admitted he felt bad about the children. "They're in junior high by now. Lester had to repeat fifth grade. That's his mother's doing. She tried home schooling back in Kansas."

  These were criminals all right, but not the hardened type I had imagined. Somehow they had lurched to the wrong siding and seemed unlikely to ever cross back to the main line. I realized they weren't much different from the back-room boys. A slow switch, a faulty coupling would land them here. Riley was proof.

  Eventually the conversation lulled and my mother rose, brushing a few pine needles off her office clothes. The men rose, too. Once again, the old one removed his tan cap.

  "We'd like to thank you for your hospitality," she said. "Please don't forget to deliver the message to Riley."

  Before leaving, she handed the Bible to Minnesota. "I noticed one thing missing here. You men forgot to say grace."

  12

  THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD, I was thinking when my uncle's voice cut in.

  "You buy a boat and start running the rapids. After three years, if you've bought a lot of boats, look for another line of work." Jake grinned. "Now if you wreck Old Skookum, I've got to dock your wages."

  I smiled, too nervous to laugh. He was teaching me to take the boat through Horse Head Rapids on our way to the memorial site, and I felt excited but scared, the way you might at a championship basketball game, when you want to make the big play but fear you'll goof.

  "Tell me again, okay?" We stood on a railroad grade, studying the rocks and water below.

  "Stay toward the right bank, not too close. Keep away from those overhanging trees." Jake drew an imaginary line through the rapids with his finger. "On the upper run, watch that bad rock this side of midstream. We call it the Can Opener. Real sharp edge will tear out a boat's side." He paused a moment.

  "Slide past the Can Opener and you're in whitewater. See that groove of water below?"

  "Right." I thought I saw the place. "It starts above those rock shelves."

  "Teeth and Tongue, we call it. Hit that groove dead center and slide between those teeth on that long tongue of green water. That'll sweep you into the rooster tail. But hit it wrong, and I've bought a new boat."

  "You don't pay me enough to dock my wages," I said.

  "Liste
n. Once you're past the Can Opener and in the whitewater, take three good strokes with the left oar. That'll slide you right onto the Tongue."

  Jake pushed the drift boat away from shore. His big rough hands on the gunnel made my own seem puny, but I gripped the oars, making certain they were secure in the locks.

  He climbed in, water dripping from his hip boots. Making a show of tightening his life jacket and tugging his hat down, my uncle said, "I'm taking a deep seat, pardner." Picking up the spare oar, he brandished it over his head. "Might need to keep those teeth from biting the boat."

  I rowed just short of midstream, then turned the boat to face the rapids. My hands were slick on the oars. As we approached the Can Opener, I kept stroking, giving us plenty of room.

  "Not too much," he said. "We want to hit the green Tongue dead center."

  As the Can Opener slid by, I could see the paint from other boats scraped along its jagged edge. We hit the whitewater, and I stroked three times with the left oar, then realized the current was sweeping us too far right.

  "No!" Shifting his weight, Jake readied the spare oar to fend off the rocks.

  I remembered to ship the right oar just as we began bumping along the rocky ledge. Jake grunted as he pushed us away, and I jammed my right palm against the mossy rocks. After bumping twice we cleared the shelf, sweeping through the rooster tail and slowing in the long calm pool beyond.

  "Head for shore," Jake said, putting the spare oar back.

  Mouth dry, I rowed the boat over to a sand point between two alders at the water's edge. At least I hadn't broken an oar or lost the boat.

  Jake loosened his life vest.

  "I'll do better next time," I said.

  "That wasn't too shabby. It takes experience." He climbed out of the boat. "Come on. Let's pull Old Skookum out and take a look downstream."

  According to Jake, "Skookum" was an Indian word that meant something like "powerful spirit." On this river, I was happy for any extra help I could get.

  "Watch out for that goddamn poison oak," Jake said as we pulled the boat onto the lower end of Whiskey Dick Flat. "Sonofabitching stuff must've grown a foot in the last week. Maybe we can get the BLM to spray or something."

  I was careful to follow Jake's footsteps around the patches as he led me to the memorial site. Whiskey Dick's was a long, low flat covered with ponderosa pine and junipers. Unlike the Barn Hole, this place had lots of shade and a beautiful view of the river. High redtop grass and a few cattails marked the flat's lower end, along with the poison oak. When I looked close, I realized a dozen saplings had been planted recently and would form a little arbor as they grew taller. "You did this?" I asked.

  Jake took off his cap and rubbed his forehead. "Been planning awhile. When I'm not overloaded with dudes, I've brought down a few trees—black locust, red birch. With Juniper busy painting a few days, I thought we'd sneak down and take a look." He put on his cap. "This is one of the best spots on the river. Your dad loved camping here and I figured he'd like the trees. We'll bring some more down. The guides will make sure they get watered steady."

  Three feet of chicken wire or cyclone fencing encircled each tree, protecting them.

  "Beavers?" I asked.

  Jake nodded. "They'll girdle a tree right quick. And cattle will rub against a trunk, knock it down. Can't do much about the deer, except pray for high grass."

  "How do you plan to do the memorial? Put it right in those trees, I'll bet."

  "Got a couple ideas," he said. "First, I want it solid. Make sure no flood or city dude can carry it out. We'll wrestle a big field rock down here, half bury it, fill up the hole with cement. We'll want a flat rock so we can drill one side, mount the plaque."

  I didn't see any likely looking rocks nearby. Basalt rock was plentiful on the talus slopes, but I thought it would be too brittle to drill.

  "I know some farmers with good field rocks," he said, as if reading my thoughts. "Granite should do the trick."

  "You're going to need a pretty big boat to bring a rock in."

  Jake pointed to a zigzag scar stitching the hillside. "This flat used to be a lambing site, and some bowed-neck old rancher punched a road out. Only took him eleven years. If we fill in a few slides, we can bring a tractor and trap wagon down. All we need's a key to the gate on top."

  Following Jake's finger tracing the road, I realized what a rugged job it must have been. The hillside was so steep as to seem untrackable. "Tough country," I said.

  "Tougher people."

  After lunch, we took a nap, and when I awoke about three I noticed the blue sky smeared with dirty white smoke. "Think that's field burning?" I asked Jake.

  He squinted. "Doesn't look too wild. But fire's always a threat in this country. Even in good years it's bad, and this year is terrible. Next trip down, we'll bring a propane stove. No open fires. Over the years we lost most of this country to fire. Half of Gateway burned once when a dude dropped his cigar in dry hay at the county fair. Hamilton burned up—that was a little mining town—Pine Crossing, Bright's Mill, and the Grand Hotel.

  "When the old man got here he joined the fire department up on Juniper Flat, just a volunteer deal. The first time they got called to fight a grass fire, he saw the truck. Nothing but an old slick-tired flatbed with four fifty-five-gallon drums filled with water and burlap sacks."

  "That was it? No pumpers or anything?"

  Jake shook his head. "The old man couldn't believe it either. They expected him to beat out that fire with wet seed sacks. Problem was, the sacks kept falling apart. Most had been chewed up by mice. Otherwise the cheap farmers wouldn't have donated them to the fire brigade."

  ***

  That evening, when the wind kicked up a chill, Jake pulled an old Filson vest from beneath the seat of the boat. "Try this on for size. It's cotton duck, oiled to keep the wind from cutting."

  "One of yours?" I asked. Big for me, the vest would be snug on Jake. Still, it felt comfortable.

  "Your father's. It went down with the boat, but the scuba divers brought it up when they salvaged the gear. I dried everything out, put the gear back in the vest." He shrugged. "I figured someday it would hang on a good set of shoulders."

  I was excited knowing the vest had belonged to my father. "Thanks, Uncle Jake." The pockets bulged, and I was curious to see the gear.

  "Some guys are all tackle and no fish," Jake said. "Talk and act big shot but can't produce. Your dad was the genuine goods, like this Filson vest. He liked their company's motto: 'Might As Well Have the Best.'"

  "Can't top that," I said.

  "None better. When we first started the business and got in some of their equipment, I saw him eyeballing the vest. Awful pricey. Then we took some Denver dudes out and just slaughtered fish. Afterwards, one of them gave him a nice bonus. So he got the vest. It's a hunting vest, really, but he added a wool strip to dry his flies. Paid for it, too. That was your father. Some guys would just grab it off the rack, but he knew we were trying to build the business. He was always squared away."

  I nodded, feeling good about wearing my father's vest, enjoying the gear's weight. This is what it's about, I thought, knowing I belonged right here on the river my father had loved so much, and his before him. Jake, too. Still, I felt a deep ache, because good as it was, something was missing.

  "Check out the equipment," Jake said, jabbing his thumb at the vest. "Good reel there. Oiled it myself after he died, but most of the stuff, I just left alone."

  I don't know if Jake had any idea what I was feeling, but he stood and walked down to the river, giving me a chance to explore the pockets and inventory the equipment.

  The heaviest item was a Flueger Medalist reel. I loved the deep green metal casing with well-worn silver patches. The fly line was cracked, but I could buy a new one. And backing; that would be rotten. The reel's action was smooth though. Jake had oiled it well.

  In other pockets I found pliers, Not-a-Knot leaders, a snakebite kit. Opening the kit, I discovered the Ba
nd-Aids and Merthiolate missing. In one pocket I found a fly box jammed with my father's favorites: Renegades, Spent-Wing Stones, Adams, a few Bucktail Caddis. The hooks were still sharp.

  A plastic folder held his fishing license and steelhead tag from the year he drowned. Eleven punches in the tag showed he'd landed some big fish that spring. Underneath the steelhead tag was a small black and white photo of two men comparing catches of fish. One was my grandfather. The other I didn't recognize, but it seemed odd he was wearing a bow tie. I put the plastic folder on a flat rock so I could ask Jake when he came back.

  Reading my father's signatures on the license and tag had sent a shiver down my back. And it made me curious about the vest and equipment. I wondered why my father wasn't wearing it when he drowned. Maybe it had been too awkward to get the life jacket over the vest, I decided.

  My uncle was still bumping around in the boat and double-checking the tie-up, making certain the equipment was stored securely. He took pride in never losing a boat, except in the accident that killed my father, and he wasn't going to lose one at night, as dudes sometimes did when the river rose or a knot worked loose.

  Old Skookum was heavy—some guides thought too heavy—be cause of all the extra equipment my uncle carried: spare hip boots, rods and reels, first-aid kits, flashlights and lanterns, fire extinguishers. His rule of thumb was to carry two of everything, just in case one failed.

  "Anyone can have a bad day," he had explained once. "Lose a reel, break a rod, step in a hole and have to kick off your hip boots. What if it was the best day of the season and you ran short of flies or had a reel freeze-up? Once I had two reels give out the same trip. Might as well have plenty on hand. You can always put gear back when you're off the river."

  Curiously, I had never seen him replace anything in the store except leftover sodas and a few bad fly patterns some dude might have insisted on trying after reading an article somewhere. Every time he went out, he threw in three or four rolls of toilet paper. "Film for the brownie," he called it; any given trip, the boat must have contained a dozen rolls.