Trout Quintet

by Steve Raymond

  Properly cowed, the jurors filed out for the last time.

  When they had gone, Judge Winship turned her attention to Vernon and me. “Will the defendant please rise,” she said—an order, not a question.

  “What’s happening?” Vernon whispered as we both stood.

  “She’s about to announce her verdict,” I whispered back.

  Judge Winship locked eyes with my client. “Garrett Vernon,” she said, “this court has listened carefully to the testimony given in this trial and has weighed the evidence and arguments with equal care. Your counsel, Mr. Calloway, is to be commended for the able manner in which he has presented your defense and for the eloquence of his plea on your behalf. The court also is mindful of the misfortunes you have suffered and is sympathetic with your current situation. But it is also the court’s considered opinion that the evidence presented to support your plea of temporary insanity falls short of meeting the threshold required to sustain such a plea. It is therefore the judgment of this court that you are guilty of violating the State Water Resources Protection Act in that on May 19 of this year you did willfully fish in Youngstown Lake, a water closed to public fishing under the act.

  “You may be seated.”

  We both sat down. Vernon, obviously confused by the proceedings, leaned over again and whispered: “What happened? Did we win?”

  “Yeah, we won,” I said. “But then we lost.”

  Judge Winship was speaking again. “Gentlemen, as you know, normal procedure would be for the court to call for a pre-sentencing report and set a date for sentencing. I do not think that is necessary in this case. I doubt very much that a pre-sentencing report would tell me anything about Mr. Vernon that I have not already learned during the course of this trial. So, unless there are objections, I propose to pass sentence immediately.”

  Danning and I both thought about it. “No objection,” he said.

  “No objection from the defense either,” I said. I couldn’t see any point in waiting.

  Danning stood again. “Your Honor, may I be heard on the matter of sentencing?”

  “Of course, Mr. Danning.”

  “Your Honor, as you know, this case will establish a historic precedent in this state. It is the first conviction for violating the State Water Resources Protection Act. For that reason the prosecution believes it is imperative the court impose the maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. This will send an unmistakable message to any others who might be tempted to violate the Water Resources Act. It will assure potential violators they may expect to be prosecuted and punished to the full extent of the law.” He bobbed his head one more time for good measure, then sat down.

  “Thank you, Mr. Danning. Mr. Calloway?”

  I stood. “Your Honor,” I said, “the prosecution appears to see this case only as an opportunity to send a message. It’s not about that at all. It’s about Garrett Vernon, a human being, and the sentence should consider his personal circumstances. He has already suffered great personal tragedies that led him to commit the violation for which he now stands convicted. If the purpose of punishment is to discourage such behavior in the future, then punishment would obviously be wasted in his case because it is extremely unlikely that a similar string of tragedies will ever occur in the future. At least, we may hope so for Mr. Vernon’s sake.

  “As the testimony in this trial has shown, Mr. Vernon is a quiet, mild-mannered, even meek little man who has nevertheless long been a stable and contributing member of our community. His prior record is unblemished. He has never even had a traffic ticket. He is not a threat to society. Even though he may have technically violated the law in this case, he did not commit any of the actions the State Water Resources Protection Act was designed to prevent. By any measure, the seriousness of his offense was very minor. It certainly does not deserve major punishment. He has already been confined in the county jail for nearly four months, which is probably already more punishment than is warranted in this case.

  “For all those reasons, I urge the court to impose a sentence equal to the time Mr. Vernon has already served, and no more. Thank you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Calloway,” the judge said. “The court is inclined to agree with your argument. Obviously it would be useless to impose a fine of $10,000 in this case because Mr. Vernon has no means to pay it, and probably will not have such means for a long time to come. I note he also has spent 111 days in the county jail, so I think further incarceration is clearly greater punishment than is called for in this case. And I agree the sentence should consider the circumstances of the defendant more than any message the prosecution wishes to send, as legitimate as that message may be.

  “So. Mr. Vernon, please rise.”

  He stood next to me and we both waited expectantly. Judge Winship again looked Vernon right in the eye. “Mr. Vernon, is there anything you wish to say before I pronounce sentence?” she asked.

  Vernon shook his head.

  “Mr. Vernon,” the judge said, “you have been convicted of the crime of violating the State Water Resources Protection Act. This court sentences you to one year in prison, with credit for the 111 days you have already served in the Monroe County jail. The balance of the sentence will be suspended on condition you commit no further criminal offenses for one year. You are now discharged from custody and free to go, although the court advises you that if you are again found fishing at Youngstown Lake, or any other waters closed under the Water Resources Act during the balance of your suspended sentence, you will be ordered to serve out the remaining time of your sentence. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Vernon said softly.

  “Good. Court is adjourned.” Judge Winship arose from the bench, unfolded her billowing black wings, and retreated into her cave.

  The courtroom emptied quickly until Vernon, Danning, and I were the only ones left. Danning came over, head still bobbing wearily. He offered his hand and we shook.

  “Tough break,” he said. “You really captured the jury with your closing argument.”

  “Yeah. Too bad the judge didn’t agree.”

  “My lucky day. I’ve never seen a jury screw up like that. You put on a damned good case. Maybe you’ll have better luck next time.”

  “Yeah, sure. Next time.” We shook hands again and he headed for the exit, leaving me alone with Vernon. Confused by the rapid-fire events at the end of the trial, he asked me to explain exactly what had happened.

  “If the jury hadn’t decided to cross out the word ‘temporary,’ you would have been acquitted,” I told him. “But they did, and so the judge dismissed the jury for misconduct and decided the case herself. And she convicted you. That’s the bad news. I had hoped to spare you that. The good news is she also gave you a suspended sentence, so now you’re free. Unfortunately, however, you’ll have the conviction on your record. Understand?”

  He sat quietly for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “At least I’m free—except I can’t go fishing.”

  “What do you want to do now?”

  “I want to get out of here. Can I get my truck back?”

  “Sure. I’ll help you with that.”

  We took the elevator upstairs to the jail and I stood by while he was processed out. The jailers had grown fond of him and several gathered around to shake his hand and congratulate him on his release. He exchanged his jail uniform for the clothes he had been wearing when arrested and reclaimed his wallet, carefully counting the $9.68 to make sure it was all still there. Then I led him to my car in the parking lot outside and drove him to the police department’s impound yard, where his truck had been kept since his arrest.

  Not surprisingly, the truck’s battery had run down, so I borrowed a pair of jumper cables from the lot supervisor and jump-started the truck from my car. I returned the cables, walked back to Vernon’s truck and found him standing beside it while it warmed up and charged the battery. He looked away for a moment, then turned back and came forward self-con
sciously, his hand extended. “Mr. Calloway, I can never thank you enough for all you’ve done,” he said, gripping my hand with much more strength than I would have expected of him.

  “I was just doing my job.”

  “No you weren’t. You were doing much more than that. Believe me, I could tell.”

  He was making me feel embarrassed, so I tried changing the subject. “Where will you go now?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Away from here, that’s for sure. Someplace where people are still free.” He turned and started for his truck.

  “Wait a minute.” I reached in my pocket and took out my wallet. Inside were two $20 bills I had been saving in hopes of having a little victory dinner. I wouldn’t need them for that purpose now. I took them out and handed them to him. “You’ll need these.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t do that, Mr. Calloway. You’ve been much more than generous already.”

  “Yes, you can. Look, this is your attorney advising you to accept these $20 bills. You have to do as I say.” I thrust the bills into his hand and squeezed it shut. He swallowed and cleared his throat, but instead of saying something he just reached up and gave me a fierce hug. Then, without another word, he turned, got into the truck and drove out of the impound lot.

  And that was the last time I saw Garrett Vernon.

  Fourteen months and hundreds more petty crooks and scumbags later, I was still striving for my third courtroom victory over Nicholas Danning. In the steady stream of unfamiliar names and mean, dirty, vacant faces, I had all but forgotten about Garrett Vernon.

  After one particularly long day of bail hearings, arguments over motions, interviews with newly arrested defendants and so forth, I finally returned to my basement cubbyhole with a dull headache and was greeted by the unwelcome sight of a stack of new case files on my desk. Muttering profanities, I sat down and reached for the pile. That’s when I noticed a thin white envelope on top. A Canadian postage stamp on the envelope caught my eye.

  Curious, I picked up the envelope and saw it had been postmarked somewhere I’d never heard of, a place called Riflestock, British Columbia. The address, printed by pencil in block letters, was to “Henry Calloway, Esq.,” in care of the Monroe County Courthouse.

  I picked up a letter opener, slit open the envelope and a single color snapshot fell out. It landed on its face, so I could see nothing was written on the back. I turned it over and found what anglers call a “hero” photograph: A fisherman kneeling at the edge of a river, fly rod by his side, cradling one of the largest, brightest, thickest, most beautiful rainbow trout I’d ever seen.

  But I didn’t recognize the fisherman. Puzzled, I wondered who would send me a photo of someone I didn’t know, and why. I studied the photo again, looking long and hard at the fisherman, and finally the pieces fell into place.

  No wonder I hadn’t recognized him. It was the first time I’d ever seen Garrett Vernon with a smile on his face.

  AN HONEST ANGLER

  Editor’s note: Jake Stone, author of the following story, is former editor of Salmo, the Magazine for Trout Fly Fishers. He wrote this story for the magazine but it was not published. It appears here for the first time.

  By JAKE STONE

  This is probably the last story I shall ever write for Salmo magazine. I didn’t plan it that way—I don’t want it to be that way—but I fear it will be the inevitable consequence of what I’m about to say.

  It all began when I returned to my office after a ten-day absence that included a week of steelhead fishing at a lodge in Southeast Alaska, where I was, as usual, a non-paying guest. Also as usual, there was a clear understanding with the lodge owner that in return for being a non-paying guest I would write a favorable account of my stay. Anticipating publication of the article, the owner even purchased an expensive full-page color advertisement to run in the same issue of Salmo.

  The lodge was okay but not great. The food was decent but I’ve had better. The liquor flowed freely but was cheap. And the fishing was remarkably poor. At first the owner said it was because the steelhead run was late; then he said it was because the run was early and I should have been there a week earlier; then he blamed the weather, although I don’t remember anything remarkable about it. Finally he started blaming me for what he thought was my lack of steelhead fly-fishing skill, although I’ve probably been fishing longer than he has. In spite of all that, I did what was expected of me and wrote an article for Salmo that made both the lodge and its fishing seem as close to heaven as a fly fisher could possibly get without leaving the planet. It was a fine piece of advertising copy if I do say so myself.

  When I returned to my office after the trip, I found the usual clutter of manuscripts, letters, and junk mail, each arranged in a neat pile by my efficient secretary, Nancy (whom I will miss greatly). I spent the morning working through the piles, answering letters, emails, and phone calls that required immediate attention, setting aside the manuscripts for later perusal, and tossing the junk mail into a large wastebasket.

  I had nearly reached the bottom of the pile of letters when I came across a large, thick envelope made of expensive paper. The return address was a place in Montana I’d never heard of called “Troutwaters Lodge.” The name sounded intriguing, so I tore open the envelope and found a letter and a handsome twelve-page color brochure. The letter was on heavy, watermarked stationery with an embossed letterhead advertising Troutwaters Lodge as “the absolute ultimate trout-fishing experience in the world.”

  A rather exorbitant claim, I thought.

  The letter was addressed to me as editor of Salmo.

  Dear Mr. Stone,

  Please allow me to introduce you to Troutwaters Lodge, dedicated to the conservation, sporting capture, and glorification of wild trout. Our 60,000-acre Montana property features two spring creeks, one exclusively populated with wild brown trout and the other with wild rainbow. A third stream, of the freestone variety, holds wild cutthroat. All three are pure strains of native trout, untainted by any hatcheries. The browns came directly from their original home waters in Europe and the rainbow and cutthroat from their original home waters in the Western United States. We allow only catch-and-release fly fishing with barbless hooks for these fish.

  Troutwaters Lodge itself is a handsome three-story structure constructed entirely of Ponderosa pine logs, representing the very best of rustic Western architecture. Fully equipped with the latest appliances and technology, it also features exhibits of priceless fly-fishing memorabilia, including rods, reels, flies, art, and many other items, plus a library of more than a thousand fly-fishing books for the use of our guests. Our resident chef, Etienne Ducette, is French-trained with years of experience in some of the finest restaurants in Europe and North America. His culinary artistry is beyond compare and his sumptuous meals are memorable highlights of any visit to Troutwaters.

  It is my very great pleasure to invite you to be our guest for a week of fishing at Troutwaters. I am confident you will find it the greatest fishing experience of your life, one I hope you will be able to describe appropriately for readers of your fine magazine. You are welcome to come whenever your schedule permits, although I would encourage you to plan your visit soon while the spring insect hatches are still under way on our streams. Please contact my assistant, Grant Sharp, to confirm dates.

  The enclosed brochure provides additional details about Troutwaters. We hope you will be able to join us soon, and I greatly look forward to your visit.

  The letter was signed by someone named Carl Seifer and included a telephone number and email address for his assistant.

  Seifer’s name sounded vaguely familiar, though I wasn’t sure why, so I went on the Internet and searched. What I found made me whistle. There were hundreds of articles about Seifer, a reclusive, eccentric billionaire software developer who seemed as cryptic as his name. Details of his background were sparse, but I learned he had never married and his only interest other than software appeared to be fly fishing. A pa
ir of recent articles also described the purchase of a 60,000-acre Montana ranch by an anonymous buyer who was rumored to be Seifer. His letter seemed to confirm that.

  Next I looked at the brochure, which advised that “the spring creek fishing at Troutwaters Lodge can be difficult and is not for the faint of heart. Trout in these creeks average several pounds and fish as large as ten pounds have been caught. Many are taken on dry flies by anglers of sufficient experience and skill. Cutthroat fishing in the freestone creek is somewhat easier, and although five-pound trout are not unusual, the average size is not as large as in the other creeks.”

  There was information on what to wear and what tackle to bring, including a selection of fly patterns, but the brochure also advised that the lodge could provide virtually anything an angling guest might need or desire. As for what it would cost for a week’s stay, the brochure said only “please inquire about seasonal rates.” To my mind, that meant it was expensive.

  The brochure had lots of color photos, including the usual assortment of “hero” shots—grinning anglers holding up obscenely large trout—a close-up or two of adult mayflies, some scenic views of the streams, and a large photo of the lodge. The lodge reminded me of a Cabela’s superstore at first glance, but a longer look revealed a structure much more tasteful in appearance. There was also a close-up of a sample of the lodge cuisine, an unidentifiable but delectable-looking creation posed tantalizingly on a china plate next to a glass of deep red wine. I wondered if anybody had eaten the dish, whatever it was, after the photo was taken.

  There also was a map of the property, showing the location of the lodge and the three streams, but nothing else. There was no clue as to exactly where in Montana it was situated.