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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780811707053 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Stackpole Books |
| Publication date: | 07/01/2001 |
| Edition description: | REVISED & UPDATED |
| Pages: | 192 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
Rick Tamerlin, the guide, had three days to kill.
Jane was away. There was nothing on the calendar, andRick's list of projects to catch up on contained nothing pressing,unless you counted the article on reels he was to deliver ina week but hadn't started. By now he should have completed afirst draft. But he had not. But (he reasoned) if he startedthinking about it he might worry, and if he started to worry hemight freeze up and never get started, so the best thing to dowas to go fishing.
He was getting his gear together, not unhappily, a pallid-complectedredhead, slight of stature, middling of coordination,sensitive of slim hands and sandy speculative stare, whosecentral problem, when he analyzed it, was the inability to forma simple thought.
The phone rang.
It was a friend, another guide with a potential client, aFortune 500 executive in town with a raft of lawyers and opponentsand sycophants and crunchers. They were hammeringout an agreement—negotiations hugely stalled in a billablebroil of intellectual plumage display, and Mr. Boldt decides toget out. Get the hell out, leave the inmates alone, let the gladiatorsgo at it without him. He's an avid fisherman. He'll needgear; he wasn't expecting to fish. Mr. Boldt will pay triple thefee of whoever guides him. Rick's friend can't do it ... mightRick be interested?
Rick was interested for several reasons. First, he would do itto help his friend. Second, CEOs can be interesting. Third,triple his fee approximated what he stood to get for thearticleon reels that he hadn't started, and this, in the cogwheels of hisconscience, might relax him long enough to allow him to writethe damn thing. There was a fourth reason.
Hurrying out the door the following morning he loweredhis eyes when he passed the mirror. He was concentrating.Tackle he had. He had checked and doublechecked everything.Lunch he had time to get. He was supposed to collect Mr.Boldt at Mr. Boldt's hotel. He had time to buy lunch stuff andget it all ready before picking Boldt up. He must go. He mustgo now and not get to thinking. It was either do this—guidethe guy—or else go out by himself for two days' solitary joy inthe high hills he loved. Two days and a night alone in the secretmountain places where he felt eternal. But if he did that, if hepassed on Boldt and went alone, he would likely do it again.And if he did it again he would do it the time after that, until,if he should continue thus irresponsibly indulging himself, hewould get to feeling guilty. He would get to feeling so guiltythat he would recoil from such selfish behavior and boomerangand carom right back into a world so opposite to his belovedhills and streams, a world so dreaded, so difficult, so challenging,so different from the lonely, lovely peaks and rills, thatRick could not bring himself to name that world in his mind,though it was a world he knew well. This was his fourth reasonfor going.
"How long a drive?"
"About an hour."
Rick turned the wheel just slightly, testing to see if thepickup would respond. It did not. They left the plain where thecity lay. The mountains devoured the six-lane highway like afrog lapping flies.
"Will we catch fish?"
"Well," Rick said, "if we can get the things we can controlright, and if the things we can't control decide to behave themselves,maybe we will."
"I had to get out of there. Absent the final authority from thefray." Mr. Boldt clapped once. "The shit was in place," he said,"so I decided to remove the fan." The steep rock faces were sohigh they blocked the sun, allowing the turning highway through.Boldt was five-seven, but no one, Rick was sure, had ever madethe mistake of thinking Sean Boldt small. He had a muscle-boundupper body. His short black hair lay one way. His mouth was aletterslot. A mean energy played around him. None of himmoved extraneously. He vigorously scoured his hands together.When he stopped, no part of him moved. Except the eyes. Theeyes moved. "Climbers," he said. "Is that a popular face?"
Rick said, "Usually. Boy, there are a lot of them up theretoday."
"Like little bugs all over the rock."
"It might be a celebration."
"It takes about an hour you say?"
"About. Not much on the road on a weekday."
"What sorts of activity will we be seeing? There's a Tricohatch I would imagine."
Rick looked at his wristwatch with a tilt of the head and asmall lift and axial turn of his wrist on the side away from hispassenger, instead of checking the old clock on the dash, whichwill read 5:48 forever. He gave an inner sigh. "Well," he said,"yes, there's a morning hatch. Sometimes."
"I assume you have plenty of whatever we might need."
"We should be fine."
"Good. Now for instance," Boldt relished, "will we be fishing20s? Something in that range?"
"That's about it."
"Parachute hackles, paraduns."
"Exactly," Rick confirmed, thinking if under the right circumstances.If not, then perhaps not so exactly. Exactitude can betricky, Rick Tamerlin had learned.
Boldt squirmed getting comfortable in the truck's mangyseat, happy to be talking and thinking about such stuff. "Size,"he decreed, "in my estimation matters less than presentation.As long as you're in the ballpark. With all those spinners blanketingthe water getting your cast to the exact spot mattersmore than size ... and you wanna be working on eliminatinghidden drag insteada pratting all around with oh gosh do I usea 22, do I try a 24, do I want my wings up or do I want themspent or how far do I want the hackle from the eye or howclose do I want the dubbing to the eye and blah blah blah."
"Exactly."
They got onto the subject of Boldt's first million. "I was aone-man shop." A fond, faraway look coming on in the finlesseyes. "I'd call a guy up and we'd strike a deal and I'd say, 'Okay,I'll send a messenger; I'll send a boy over with the documentation.'Messenger hell. I didn't even have a secretary. I didn'thave anybody. I'd bang the phone down and jump up and getmy coat on and grab the papers and beat it across town. Inthose days nobody knew who I was."
They were swinging south through valleys of grasses. Thehillsides were candescent yellow, veiny red, fiery orange—luminescentand flaming where the sun shone in the turnedleaves—and in places still a minty light green where things hadyet to turn. These swatches of varying color were couched inseas of one darker color: verdant pine, the darker evergreenflowing in the speeding windows.
"Is there someone you should call?"
"Call?"
"Get information from," Boldt snapped. "Somebody whomight know something. About where we're going. Check thewater conditions."
"Well," Rick said, "yes, I suppose there is."
Of course there was.
He had not bothered to call Ray at the shop in Mintonbecause he knew what Ray would say: rate and volume unvarying.They hadn't been releasing because there was no reason torelease. Temperature and clarity fine ... and what wouldpeople be using? Rosemont "worms" and BWOs. Rick hadchecked the day's weather prediction twice. It wasn't perfect,but it wasn't bad.
Still, he might have called Ray. Perhaps he should have.
"What'd he say?"
"I didn't call him."
This brought on an emphatic silence. They drove. Boldtwas looking out his window.
"The aspen," Boldt decided, "are indescribable."
"You mean they're beautiful?"
Boldt's grunt might have been of assent. It was like a bullfrogcroak, smothered.
"Different groupings are different in color," Rick explained,"because it's the same tree basically, but they're different communities.Say that one's yellow. Well, right next door theremight be a different strain. Like gold."
Nothing further was said for twenty-seven miles.
Boldt took out a communications device.
Wafer-thin. Nasty-looking. Glancing over at it, Rick hesitatedto categorize it as mere phone.
"This baby's DOD-grade. It can reach anyone anywhere.What's his number?"
"Whose?"
Boldt frowned and waited, dialing finger poised.
"Oh," Rick said, "you mean—uh, yeah, uh, I don't know itby memory. I'm afraid I don't have it."
"That's all right. What's his name and address?"
Between low hills of sagebrush and scrub the flat meadowsflew by, a hawk coasting over the grassy fields in the sunshine,its wings set, turning its head. They flowed along. It seemed toRick that his venerable valves and cylinders were positivelysymphonic. Boldt, supplied with the needed data, worked hisstealth-smooth device and got through, identified himself,interrogated, listened, gave a grunt.
"He says the flow's normal—temperature, clarity, ditto.They're catching 'em on Rosemont 'worms,' whatever the hellthat is, and BWOs—I'm sure you have plenty of those."
"Yes."
"Good ... he says the Tricos are on."
Rick said nothing. The implied question was Will we getthere in time? No, was the answer, we will not. It was beginningto annoy Rick that Boldt should so swiftly have come to distrusthim, so Rick made an attempt to prevent himself frombecoming angry by going, in his mind, up into the true, faroffhigh country as they drove.
The sky, so far, said fair weather. Maybe a latish shower butthat was all, and that would be usual. The white puffs sailingeastward over the hills with tons of blue between them would,densening, if there were to be a shower, show less and less bluebetween them and then, as they moved in around the faroffpeaks, no blue at all and it would be raining. In not too manymore days it might be snow, but for this morning the skylooked harmless to Rick—like me, he thought.
Boldt's device's "ring" was unlike any two-way warble Rickhad heard, a wussy shrill peeeeeeeeee. It was unnerving, with awave of soundless force in addition to the audible tone, a waveof force like what emanates from a big system with all its powerup and the gain way high but nothing playing. It didn't botherBoldt. But it bothered Rick. Boldt bothered Rick. Did Rickbother Boldt? Rick wondered if he did, as Boldt conferred withan underling.
"No," Boldt said. "Yeah, but no. Normally sure, but this ain'tnormally. Look, I can afford to have this thing crater, can you?"
Sign-off was peep.
"He needs that," Boldt said. "It's good for him." Boldt'stone was the same as he had just used with his underling. Heslipped the svelt thing in a pocket and rode looking out thewindow. "I'm not as tough as I sound. For him I'm that way.For him I'm tough. For someone else maybe I'm different. I'mhow I have to be. Everyone has his assigned frequency."
In the far distance a famous American peak lifted into view.It lifted above the straight highway oncoming and the nearbyhills flying by to either side.
Boldt cleared his throat: "Ever run into Gregory Unterline?"
"Sure."
"Ever fish with him? I fished with him last year up on thatstream he's always yakking about. Writing about."
"Greg's an outstanding fisherman."
"The second evening I caught thirty-four fish. Thirty-fourin an hour, right at sunset. The salmon flies were on and Ireleased thirty-four trout in one hour, right at sunset."
"That's the time of day they dance."
"Or morning."
Rick looked at his gas. He let the empty road come at him.Gas looked okay, but he couldn't remember, and you couldnever tell with this particular gauge, but he thought he wasokay, so he let the road come at him. There was no one to passor be passed by. The famous peak, brownish and rounded,showed nothing of its actual height this far away. Rick wasstrangely aware of the physical presence of his watch on hiswrist.
Boldt folded his arms.
"I've never been skunked," he announced.
Rick said nothing, but no fisherman has never beenskunked. He speculated on what Boldt might be counting, ornot counting, but he decided not to ask because he could imagineno answer that would interest him.
They reached the canyon soon enough. You could see theswinging, brawny river in glimpses down through the trees, arun of prime lies, backeddies where the big rocks break the surface,smooth swirls where they do not, wakes, waves, interweavingcurrents—three anglers in the water were fishing ...then blur of forest. Then the forest opened again and far belowwas a stretch of sparkling rifflewater pivoting around the fulcrumof a broad pool-like still. Two anglers stood on the gravel.They were casting ... forest-blur. They rounded a high bend.The forest opened again and the river was wide, below. Therewere more fishermen. Looking down on it was like looking atan illustration in a how-to guide, all the different currents,speeds, surfaces. Part of a tire left the paving. It was the feelingRick always got when he got here, and he hoped Boldt, whowas looking out over it, was moved similarly. At least Boldt hadnot seemed to notice when Rick had almost run them off thecliff.
They passed that stretch, driving downstream, and the roadpitched downhill, the water no longer visible, the trees theypassed no longer forest, just tan slope and scraggly mixed evergreenin the side windows. It was the run into town. Boldtasked: "This is it?"
"Yep," Rick said proudly.
"Where do we go?"
"We go up. We drive about three miles upstream to park.Then we walk in. We can walk to any number of places."
"Upstream from here?"
"Right."
"Then why are we driving downstream?"
"I thought we'd stop in at the shop."
Boldt folded his arms.
"Say a quick hello," Rick reasoned. "Pick up some Blue-WingedOlives with a little more Nile in the body than I mayhave tied, now that I think about it, if Ray's got some, which I'mcertain he does. He obviously does. And fly floatant."
It was impossible for Rick to explain to anyone includinghimself the feeling he got when he got here. It was a feeling offreedom, peace, smallness and ambition in blended portions.
They pulled into the village and drew up with a slowingmastication of pebbles before the flimsy front stoop of the shop.
"Morning!"
"Well good morning," Rick greeted Ray.
"Morning sir."
"Morning."
Tight-lipped, Boldt shook hands with Ray Plover as Rickintroduced them. "The Tricos still on?"
Ray is an ample man, plump-muscled. He is not in goodphysical shape. His circular eyes and the O he makes with hislips, as if to say oooooo, are his response to everything. Youcould tell Ray what his own name is and the eyes would goround in fair surprise and the gallic, full lips signal O like awalleye eye.
"Still on?" he near-whispers in surprise, "why yes, er, probablyso, yes. They're still on I do believe."
Rick has the superstition that it's good luck to stop at atackle shop, if one's available, before fishing. And you always,always need more BWOs.
Rick was having an unrelated-thought riff. (It was: when inthe course of human divine. It passed.)
He has them sometimes.
He hears out Ray's opinions on water-flow rate, and Rayhis. Boldt is darkly browsing the trays. Colossally folded arms.Rick finishes his chat with the ever-amiable Ray and wandersover to Boldt's side and pretends to be browsing, upon whichBoldt carries his folded arms elsewhere. But moments laterRick is delighted to hear Boldt and Ray in conversation. Makingthe sign of perfection to tweezer, with nail and nail, eachminiscule BWO from the compartment tray, Rick is moredelighted still to hear the impatience in Boldt's growl soften as,despite himself, despite his impatience, despite his pique atbeing here instead of fishing, Boldt becomes interested in whathe and Ray are talking about.
Then Rick was looking at a fly and he was thinking somethingabout it that he could not remember, in this loss of timethat sometimes happened to him, and by definition could be asecond or a minute.
"... stunts," Ray was nodding with spherical affability,"trick improvements, that's all they are."
"Precisely. Precisely what the darned things are."
"Trick improvements," Ray sagely nodded, since Boldtseemed to like it. But Ray Plover could've taken either side. Raywas here to please. The round eyes and professionally astonishedmouth made their circles as Ray invited Boldt to saymore.
Boldt: "Did it ever occur to anybody that after decades ofchange fishing's at a quiet-down point? I mean if fishing were abusiness I wouldn't buy it."
Ray agreed and adoringly nodded.
Rick wondered if Ray ever disagreed. Maybe he did. Sometimeshe must. But he always brightly appeared to agree. Rickwondered if, in always agreeing, Ray always felt like agreeing.Rick was cheerful too but he didn't always feel cheerful whenhe was being cheerful. He didn't dislike himself, but he likeduncertainty better, as best he could tell, and it was in this trainof odd thought that he nearly left the road again as they droveto the parking area, which was more like four miles upstream.They had missed the Tricos. An angler coming out of the treessaid so. The hatch was over, too bad. Boldt was severely pissedoff but controlled it. Contrary to popular belief most anglersare not fools. Boldt's eyes strained inwardly and his mouthstayed shut like a wine press, but not for long: they'd missed thehatch—so be it.
And even if they had not stopped in at the shop they stillwould have been rushing and most likely would have screechedto a halt and yanked their rods out and run to the water only tofind the hatch practically over, or certainly the best of it. Youdon't want to rush. Not to rush your fishing is very importantand Rick was happy to see that Boldt, though by no stretch ofthe imagination pleased, understood this and was ready andlooking forward to the next thing.
Excerpted from The Guide and the CEO by M. David Detweiler. Copyright © 2001 by M. David Detweiler. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
SOUTH OF THE BIG FOUR
By Don Kurtz
CHRONICLE BOOKSCopyright © 1995 Don Kurtz.All rights reserved.
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