Dead Frenzy

by Victoria Houston

  The sun, just beginning its descent, chose that moment to soften the air with a golden sheen. Osborne loved this time of day. He let his eyes wander through the woods, which were luminous and deep. Dark brown trunks of maple etched black lines against the brilliant white of the birches. Everywhere was leaf and light.

  “Trout live in beautiful places,” said Lew, her voice low and soft as she trudged along before him. It was her favorite expression. She stopped for a moment to inhale and look about with pleasure. Osborne said nothing. At this moment, the forest cast a spell so magic, so infinitely peaceful, that no words were necessary. Maybe this was why he loved fishing with Lew: He never had to say more than he wanted to.

  As they resumed their walk, Osborne studied his companion from the back. She had rigged her float tube, her fish net, and her flippers with such precision that she strode soundlessly along the path while he bumped along, the float tube banging off the backs of his heels. He couldn’t have felt more awkward than if he had spilled an entire box of fishing tackle.

  Another fifty yards and Lew stopped short, a look of annoyance on her face. “For heaven’s sake, Doc, let me rig that higher for you,” she said, turning him by the shoulders to adjust his straps. That helped. On they went.

  As they walked, Osborne was reminded of Lew’s home, where everything, like the rigging of her backpack, had its place. Just a week ago, when they had decided to fish a trout stream thirty miles west of Loon Lake so it made more sense for him to pick her up for a change, he finally had a chance to see where and how she lived.

  She owned twenty acres bordering tiny little Lake Tomorrow and lived in the original farmhouse. Once upon a time the place had been a goat farm; now it was a jewel. At least that’s what he thought. Built of weathered planks, inside and out, and with rooms whose walls were hung with silver-framed fish etchings interspersed with trophy fish mounts—including a muskie nearly fifty inches long—the farmhouse was quite small, picturesque, and comfortable.

  Arriving ten minutes early that day, he had caught her still in her apron with flour up to her elbows. She was pulling four loaves of bread from the oven of an old ceramic and iron gas stove. Over her head hung a rack of pots, all sizes and blackened with use. On a wooden table behind her sat two dozen freshly frosted cinnamon rolls. The aroma made him hungry even though he had just wolfed down a ham sandwich.

  “Lewellyn! I didn’t know you cooked.”

  “Bread and rolls—every Saturday.” She spoke with the same crispness she used to assign a jail cell to a drunken ATV rider.

  “Every week? How do you eat all that and not get fat?”

  “Oh, this isn’t for me. I cook for my nephew and his family. And my daughter’s family when she visits. Here, have one.”

  She handed him a roll on a piece of paper towel and waved him toward the living room. The room held a wood-burning potbelly stove, an old wood and leather chair with a leather ottoman, and an oak bookcase. It was a place that made him feel like putting his feet up and staying awhile. A long while.

  Careful not to drop crumbs, Osborne leaned over the bookcase, curious to see what she read. The shelves held a collection of books on fishing muskie and trout, a stack of old Orvis and Cabela catalogs, one book on shotguns, and a couple on tying trout flies. There were several children’s books, which he imagined she read to her grandchildren, some cookbooks, and oddly, a well-thumbed paperback edition of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The top of the bookcase was covered with framed photos.

  Lew walked in, drying her hands on a towel, just as he was examining the pictures. She pointed to one. “That’s my nephew and his wife and these are his children…. And this is my daughter, her husband, and my two grandchildren. Aren’t they cute?” And there were more pictures—of her parents, aunts, and uncles—and her son, the one that had been killed. “He lived hard and it’s good he did for all the time he had, Doc.” Once again that crispness. What a funny woman, thought Osborne. Rarely did he catch her in a moment when she wasn’t no-nonsense.

  Then she had shown him the rest of her place, including the bath with its old claw-foot tub. Her bedroom held an antique iron bed painted white and covered with an orange-and-white patterned quilt—”My great-grandmother made that.” Over the bed hung a wood carving of an eagle in flight. A beat-up vanity, well on its way to losing all its paint, was angled into one corner. Her holster hung off the side and the .40 caliber SIG Sauer rested beside the telephone.

  Can’t beat that as a quaint setting for communications and firepower, thought Osborne. He still found it hard to believe he had a crush on a woman who packed heat.

  A second room held a small workshop. Neatly organized like the rest of the little farmhouse, two countertops held boxes of tools and supplies for woodworking. “When the weather is too rough to fish, I relax in here,” said Lew. “I make walking sticks, wall sculptures, pins—that kind of thing. Nothing special.”

  “Did you carve that eagle in your bedroom?”

  “Yep—that’s one of my favorites. These walking sticks over here in the corner? These are my own designs, too.” Then she pulled out a wooden box and opened it to show him more of her work: little wooden grouse pins, lots of leaping trout, and Christmas angels.

  “Lew, these are good. You should sell these.”

  “Actually”—she paused and for the first time ever he saw her blush—”I do. A shop up in Boulder Junction carries my stuff. Everything I make on these I save in a special account that I plan to use to buy fishing equipment for my grandchildren when they’re old enough. And travel—I want to take them fly-fishing in Colorado someday.”

  Osborne had the feeling that he was one of the few people who knew this about her. “So that’s that,” Lew had said, shutting the box. Excusing herself then, she had changed into her fishing clothes.

  While he waited, Osborne had felt a little sad. What a full life she had. Too full. No room for him, that’s for sure.

  The sun was still high as they walked. The light dappling through the leaves, a gentle breeze, and the fragrance of some wild bloom did its best to make all the cares of the world seem far away. They were three quarters of a mile into the maple and birch forest when the path took a turn into a stand of virgin hemlock.

  Ancient trees towered over them, shutting out the sun. Dark shapes hunkered behind splayed, dead stumps. The trunks of the living trees were so tall and bristled with dead branches that Osborne felt as if he were creeping under the legs of giant spiders. The change was typical of a northwoods forest: in less than ten feet, these woods could turn on you—from hallowed to haunted.

  Off to his left, through the shadows, he saw jagged branches clawing at the air. The sight jolted him back to the morning—to Erin, the fear in her eyes and the terrifying memory they had revisited.

  Stumbling suddenly, Osborne grabbed for the spindly branches of a young hemlock to steady himself. The float tube didn’t help. It swung around, catching in the overhanging brush. Leaning back to tug it loose, Osborne hoped like hell the damn thing wasn’t punctured. He was still leaning when it came free with a snap that sent him lunging backward. Grabbing at air with one hand and trying desperately to keep his rod free of branches with the

  other, he went down on his butt—and the tube. It was a soft landing.

  “Need a hand?” Lew hurried back to help him.

  “I’m fine, I just tripped on something.”

  “You didn’t just trip, Doc. You weren’t watching where you were going. What is up with you anyway? You haven’t been yourself all afternoon.”

  Really? He thought he’d been doing just fine.

  Before he could answer, Lew said, “You’re preoccupied. I know you well enough to know you’ve got something on your mind. You want to talk about it?”

  She yanked his float tube around and adjusted the straps again. Osborne brushed pine needles off his hands and knees.

  “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she said. Her tone implied th
e exact opposite. She gave him a sharp look, then started down the path again.

  After a few steps, she called back over her shoulder, “Are you worried about the fishing?”

  Again he felt that sting behind his eyelids. “No … I’m worried about my daughter.”

  Lew stopped and turned around. “So tell me about it while we walk?”

  “I was hoping I didn’t have to ruin the evening with this.”

  “Trust me, if there’s a hex hatch, nothing can ruin my evening. C’mon, get it off your chest, Doc. I may be able to help—after all, I’ve raised one, too, y’know.”

  And so he told her everything, starting with Erin’s surprise visit that morning and ending with the vision of the decomposing body, the bones fighting their way out of the burlap sack. The only thing he forgot to mention was the mysterious appearance of the peach pie.

  When he had finished, Lew nodded. “Feel better getting it off your chest?”

  “A little. No, a lot better. I feel much better, Lew. Thank you.”

  “Good. Now we’ll go fishing and we’ll both think about it.”

  That struck Osborne as not quite fair, but he had to admit he was up for sharing the burden.

  nine

  “The very mechanics of fly fishing are restful and relaxing. The act of rhythmically casting one’s rod and line to and fro slows one’s mood to the tempo of the gentle winds and undulating currents.”

  —Martin J. Keane, Classic Rods and Rodmakers

  At the end of the path, a pool full of sky broke the gloom of the forest. Though it was already past six, the July sun hung high enough in the west to send shards of glitter rippling across the surface.

  Ready to launch in boots and waders, Lew stood with her hands on her hips, eyes raking the water. “I see slurps … some jumping. But those are little dinks.” She waited. “We oughta see some big brook trout in this lake, Doc—planted, of course. This is one place that doesn’t get overfished because very few people know about it. I’ve seen plenty sixteen to twenty inchers—caught one nineteen inches last time I was here.”

  An impish look crossed her face. “If I get one over twenty-two inches tonight, I might have to keep it—and you might not have to tell anyone.”

  “To mount?”

  “Yep. How many times do you see a twenty-two-inch brookie in this neck of the woods, huh? Ready, Doc?”

  “I think so,” said Osborne. Boots on over his waders, he was standing in water up to his knees, one hand on the float tube, the other holding his rod. He watched as Lew stepped into the mesh seat of her tube, sat down, then leaned forward to strap the fins on over her boots.

  “Be sure you clip the ankle strap on,” she said. “If the fin slips off, it’s gone and you will be floating forever. Hook the stripping basket across your lap like so,” she demonstrated, “and you’re set.” She pushed off from the bottom. “You want to kick nice and slow and don’t let your fins break the surface or you’ll scare the fish. Just like this—keeping it slow and rhythmic.”

  “Lew, it’ll take forever to get anywhere,” said Osborne a few minutes later as he tried to follow her out. They didn’t have far to go. The lake was quite small, maybe five acres at the most, a perfect oval ringed with hemlock, balsam, and white pine. Feeling like a human bobber, he did his best to follow Lew as she worked her way toward the center in a silence broken only by the trill of an occasional bird.

  At first, Osborne found the boot fins awkward and ineffectual—propelling him nowhere fast. On the other hand, he had an immediate sense of being one with the water and that was good. He could see sneaking up on a loon or joining a family of ducks with no one noticing—not a bad crowd if you needed new friends. To his surprise, in less than five minutes they were a good distance from shore and Lew was bouncing with excitement, switching her tube around so he could catch up.

  “We got a hatch!” She pointed off to the southern shore as she held a thermometer in the water. “Definitely a good hatch, too. See those little dinks leaping off to your left, Doc? But this water is too warm on the top for the big guys—we have to go down. I figured we would. They’re feeding on the emergers on the bottom. Whoa, look at that! This is a fine hex hatch.”

  “Maybe I should use that Hairwing Dun that I’ve got?”

  “No, not yet. I know this water real well. We need weighted flies with a touch of split shot on a sinking line. That’ll sink your fly down to where it can drift through the feeding zone and reduce the vertical drag so you’re less likely to spook the fish.”

  She reached for his fly rod. Fingers moving deftly, she clipped and tied. “Because this lake is so clear, I’m giving you fluorcarbon tippet for the sinking line and I’m tying on a rabbit fur strip nymph.”

  “So no dry flies…. ”

  “Not if you want a big fish.”

  “Lew, whatever you say—I definitely want a big fish.” Given his track record, Osborne hoped for any fish. Even a dink would do.

  She handed his rod back and began to work on her own. “Maybe after dark you could try an extended body deer hair.” She spoke through the line in her teeth. “That’s when that Hairwing Dun might work, but only if we see hexes all over the surface. This is just like fishing muskie, Doc—by this time in July, the thermocline sets up so those big fish go deep. Kinda like the Packers: ‘Go-o-o Deep!’“ She flashed a big grin as she mimicked a crowd cry. “But if you do decide to use a dry fly, be sure it’s a size six—”

  “I know, I know—better the wrong fly in the right size than vice versa.”

  Lew knotted, then spit, then tested her knot. “Good. Okay, let’s fish.”

  Osborne raised his rod for a backcast. He could move easily in the float tube, which was a good sign.

  “Oops, no, Doc, you don’t cast a sinking line. You have to troll, letting the line drop and keeping the slack out so you can feel a strike. Watch me.”

  That he was happy to do. Sometimes he thought he fly-fished not for the challenge but just to see the sheer enjoyment on her face.

  Feet moving under the surface, Lew positioned herself about twenty yards from shore and thirty feet from Osborne. With a simple roll cast, she had the fly line out, let it sink, and then, kicking slowly, she trolled.

  Bam! A trout slammed the line.

  Osborne’s adrenaline skyrocketed as he watched Lew work the fish: rod bent, line taut, letting it run then stripping in her line. He loved to watch her—every move fine-tuned to the action of the trout. Her whoops of excitement and the shine in her eyes were so infectious he had to laugh out loud as he shouted encouragement. Soon she had a fourteen-inch trout, which she deftly measured against the ruler diagrammed on the stripping basket, then released.

  “See how easy it is, Doc? Hey-y-y, did you hear my rod sing?”

  “Sure did.” God, he was happy he was here. While Lew checked the condition of her leader and trout flies, Osborne paddled off to troll on his own.

  In less than two minutes, he had a strike.

  “Set that hook!” shouted Lew.

  Yanking too soon and too hard, he lost the fish. Ten minutes later, another strike but no fish. No mistakes on his part, however. That strike was a signal that he recognized from his years of bait fishing for muskie and walleye and bass: Something big was down there, nibbling, testing. What a night this might be! Holding still to hang in the same general area as that second strike, he suddenly felt the fin slipping off his right boot. Darn!

  Cradling his rod against his left shoulder, Osborne paid no attention as the line sank, the fly drifting down and down while he reached with his right hand over the side of the tube to rank on the strap holding the fin to the heel of his boot.

  “C’mon, Doc, what are you doing?” Lew sounded exasperated. “You can’t catch fish that way.” Just as she spoke, something hit his fly and zoomed.

  “Whoa!” Osborne grabbed his rod at the last minute and held on.

  “Set that hook!”

  “I did!”

&n
bsp; “Let it run … don’t let that line go slack!”

  “I won’t, I won’t, ohmygod…. ”

  The fish was running deep and it was strong—it had to be big! Lightly grasping the stripped line with his left hand, Osborne let it out, watching it speed away. Suddenly the fish turned, heading in the direction of Lew—then it was under her. The two of them burst into excited laughter. This was amazing! Then, just as suddenly, the line went slack.

  “He broke it,” said Lew, “that son-of-a-gun. I’ll bet he bit that fly right off.”

  She was right. But even as Osborne examined his decimated tippet, he was happy. He grinned over at Lew. “Do you believe I’m as excited now as I was when I was six years old catching my first fish—it was a ten-inch rock bass.”

  “Yeah,” she said, “doesn’t it always feel that way?” She looked around. “I hate to say it, Doc, but this hatch is over.”

  “We got in a good half hour.”

  “A great half hour. Let’s head back. I need to grab a bite before heading over to the hospital to check on Roger and that girl.”

  “See the point over there?” said Osborne, indicating a spit of land not too far off. It looked conveniently sandy with a few fallen logs that could serve as seating. “Since it isn’t dark yet, why don’t we go ashore for a minute—I have something I want to show you.”

  “Oh? All right. I need to see a man about a horse anyway.”

  While she was in the woods, Osborne set up quickly: tablecloth, napkins, cutlery, paper cups, and with a couple quick squeezes on the Ziplocs, the plates were filled with slices of roast lemon chicken and cones of orzo, gleaming with olive oil and herbs. The menu was limited but he was pleased. Years of camping, in spite of Mary Lee’s disparaging remarks and refusals to come along, had paid off: His al fresco table technique looked great in the twilight.

  Oh, right. He reached deep into the back pocket of the float tube for one last item. By the time he could hear Lew striding through the brush behind him, the candle was lit.