“I don’t like you being out here like this,” his father said.
“I’m just thinking,” Daniel said.
“What are you thinking about?” his therapist asked.
“Things.” Daniel was curt, perhaps dismissive, but he didn’t think he was being rude. Not that he cared. “Stuff fourteen-year-old boys think about.”
“Oh,” Dr. Feller said.
“I haven’t masturbated yet,” he said. That was rude.
He looked at his mother. She appeared to have been slapped. “Well, I haven’t.”
His father cleared his throat. “I’ve had about enough of this.”
“I’ll be home soon,” Daniel said again.
His therapist walked closer to him but kept stealing glances back at the pool. “You know, it’s all right to be angry.”
“So I’ve been told. I’ll give that some thought. Three o’clock. I’ll get angry at three. Will that work for you?”
“Daniel,” his mother said. “Dr. Feller is just trying to help.”
“I don’t need any help,” he said. “I’m only fourteen, but I can see that this therapy crap is for you two. I was eight. The only feeling I ever had about any of this is confusion. I don’t want to know anything. I don’t want to figure out anything. I just want you to know that I’m not out here to drown myself.”
“We know that, son.” The relief on his father’s face was clear. Still, he was angry, perhaps at being defied, perhaps at being made to feel afraid.
“This is good, Daniel, this is good,” Dr. Feller said.
“Shut up,” Daniel said.
“Daniel,” his mother said.
“Tell her to get in the truck,” Daniel said to his parents. “I’m sick of being one of the doctor’s hobbies.”
He could not have hit the woman any harder with a steel pipe or a brick. She turned and walked, red-faced, to the truck.
“I really need to be alone right now. I’ll probably be here most of the day. I might stay another night.”
“You warm enough?” his father asked.
“I’m fine.” His mother started to ask something, but he stopped her. “Really, I’m fine.”
No one said anything else. The three drove away and Daniel watched them until they were out of sight. He then turned to regard the same clouds his father had been watching. Snow was coming.
The mayfly hatch that Daniel had imagined, or hoped for, still had not materialized at noon. A few small trout were rising to midges at the outer edge of the pool. Occasionally the big fish would surface, roll, and disappear. He got himself into his neoprene waders and boots. He took a size twenty midge from his box and snipped off the hook. He didn’t want to land the fish, only have it take his lure. But the fish did not. After several casts small fish came up to investigate; a few even mouthed the fly and spat it out.
The day did not warm up much, but acted in a way consistent with his prediction of snow. He tried other flies, choices that made no sense. He tried wildly colored salmon flies and received no interest at all. The same was true of streamers that he swung along the outer edge of the pool with the current and beaded nymphs that dropped down deep into the stillest section of the water. The big trout continued to show itself time and again, two or three times with a splash.
At around four o’clock a bit of snow began to fall. Daniel collected wood and got his fire going again. He put some big logs on. He opened his fly box and took out a size eight stonefly, a fly he never would have used in this creek or at this time of year.
Again he used his wire cutters to snap off the end of the hook. He tied the fly onto the tippet and roll cast the fly upstream and to the far side of the pool. Even with his best technique, the fact that his rod was so light made the big lure splash like a stone into the water and sent mad ripples all through the pool. He thought he’d have to pull his line in and rest the water for at least a half hour. But then he saw the big shape coming, circling around, then venturing close to the stonefly imitation. The trout seemed to regard it but swam past. He reeled in and threw the line back out, splashing again, and again the trout came and gave another disdainful glance. This went on until it became clear that the animal would not bite. All he wanted was for the fish to put his mouth to the fly.
He returned to the fire and added more fuel. He took out the tying kit and started making a larger stonefly. He tied it onto a number six hook. He made the abdomen fat, laying the mustard-colored dubbing on thick, then stopped to stare at the thread dangling there from the vise, the bobbin swinging. He took the little scissors and snipped some of his own black hair. He applied more wax to the thread and worked his curling hairs onto it, mixing it with the dubbing. He finished the fly without bothering to fashion any legs for the thing. He wound the grizzly hackle onto the fly and tied it off. He cemented the head and sat back. The snow was falling harder. He looked up at it and wanted to find it beautiful.
This time he did not remove the hook. In fact, he didn’t even crimp down the barb as he always did. As long as he had been fishing, he had never eaten a trout from this stream. He cast the fly out and it disturbed the water awfully. But as soon as it landed, the big fish was on it. The trout bit the fly and pulled it deep. Daniel suffered from trigger lock. He was frozen, shocked. He finally gave a yank to set the hook. The trout took off downstream. Daniel stepped into the water to follow it, getting the line on his reel as quickly as possible. The line went slack and he was sure he’d lost the trout, but the fish had simply come back, pulled the line taut as it fought upstream. This back-and-forth happened three more times, all the while Daniel fearing that he was going to wear the fish out and be unable to safely release it. He tried to ease up on the pressure and let the animal slip the hook, but it wouldn’t happen. However, what he feared did happen. The exhausted trout stopped racing, stopped pulling, and let itself be reeled in.
Daniel stepped to the bank. It was the darker side of dusk now, and the snow was really coming down. It was much colder and Daniel could feel it profoundly because he was wet from perspiration. He held the trout in the shallow water. It was huge. It was easily over two feet long. Its presence just didn’t make any sense. None of it made sense. He’d caught the fish on his little four-weight rod and 7x tippet. It didn’t make sense that the trout would take this fly, especially when the lure had been presented so badly, especially when the fish had refused the same thing previously. The fish huffed. The rainbow coloring was beautiful, but the thing was somewhat hideous for its size.
He pulled it fully onto the beach and worked the hook out of its mouth. It seemed to look at him. And he of course looked back. He cut the fly from his line and put all the line on the reel. He broke down his rod.
He walked back up the slope to his camp, pulled off his waders, and laced on his boots. He quietly put out his fire. With the snow falling he was happy to extinguish only the flames. He struck his tent, packed his gear. He saddled his horse and was ready to leave.
He walked back to the edge of the pool and looked down at the fish. Remarkably, it was still alive, but he left it where it was, where it needed to be. After all, he thought, it couldn’t have been there in the first place.
As Daniel rode home, he leaned his head back and looked at the sky. For all he knew the snowflakes were stars, and he smiled.
A High Lake
Norma Snow still rode. She chose a shorter mount, almost a pony, and used a synthetic saddle; a leather roper was just too much to lift, but she still rode. Her horse was a fourteen-hand Arabian, twelve years old, a little loose in the back, with sturdy feet. She called the gelding Zed because of his lightning-bolt-shaped blaze. Norma lived alone in the house that she had built and shared with her husband. He was dead now. She hired a nurse to come by once every day to make sure she was still upright and not stretched out helpless on the kitchen floor. Norma wanted the nurse for no more than that.