The Snowfly (43 page)

“It's not very elegant,” Creamer said.

“You can have big fish or you can have elegance,” I told him. “You seldom get both. Little fish are predictable. Big fish aren't and no two of them fight alike. You need to reduce the elements that can go wrong. Nets are usually trouble. With big fish you have to do whatever is required. Trust your instincts.”

Creamer attracted a twenty-inch, three-plus-pound fish after only a few casts and obediently drew it into shallow water before releasing it with a shaking hand. “You're going to hit a big one,” I told him. “I'll walk overland to make sure our lunch is set.”

“What if I hook a big one?” Creamer asked, obviously edgy about being left alone.

“Do what you just did. You don't need me,” I added.

“What about the pictures?”

Nearly all drifts come for trophies, but you couldn't take fish from a no-kill stretch. Instead photographs and measurements were taken and sent off to a taxidermist in Pennsylvania, who used fiberglass to create a lifelike replica of the take. The taxidermist could estimate weights accurately with photos and good dimensions. The idea was to get a trophy without killing a fish. Sturdivant paid for hard drifts' trophy mounts and often had duplicates made for the lodge. It was all part of the service and the hustle, and I wondered what Sturdivant would do if we pulled in a monster bigger than the mount in the lodge. I pointed to the shore rocks where I had placed two cameras, a Polaroid and a German-made thirty-five millimeter. “Loaded, on, and totally automatic.”

“It'll stress the fish to take it out of the water.”

“Big ones don't stress like smaller ones. Don't worry about it. Catch one first and you can worry about the details afterward.”

Creamer hesitated. “I'm not sure about this. I paid for a guide for a full day.”

“Can I be straight?”

“Of course.”

“The first time you went to India. Did you have a guide?”

“Of course. It's not possible alone, not the first time.”

“But you kept going back and eventually you didn't need help, am I correct?”

“Yes.”

“This is the same thing. You don't need me around. I've watched. You know what you're doing; now just do it. You trust yourself with fabrics, why not out here?”

“Aren't you afraid you'll lose a customer?”

“If you land a big one, you'll come back, but I won't be your teacher. I'll be more in the role of caddy.”

Creamer chuckled and shook his head. “You're one of a kind, Rhodes.”

“We all are,” I said, checking my watch. More time had slipped by. “I'll push lunch back to one. I'll be back later.” I flipped a small plastic container of streamers to him. “Switch to gold or chartreuse if you don't get hits or you don't catch a larger fish. Give the orange another half hour.”

Creamer stuffed the box into a vest pocket and gave me a crisp salute.

Kelli was where she said she would be. A table and folding chairs had been set up. There was a linen tablecloth with silver threads, bone china, and place settings for five courses. A deck umbrella lay furled on the ground. The girl was dressed in a white peasant's dress with a pale yellow smock. White flats lay in the grass beside a log where she had stretched out. The dress had been pulled down her shoulders and tucked into her crotch to allow her legs to catch the sun. She sat facing the river, her back against a log, taking long pulls on a cigarette.

“Kelli?”

She immediately lowered the cigarette and raised her other hand to her chest, which sent her tumbling sideways.

I ran to her, but when I looked over I found her laughing silently. “You scared the
shit
out of me!” she said.

I held out a hand and pulled her up, but when she landed on her feet I jerked her off balance and grabbed the hand with the cigarette, which was hand-rolled, small, with an unmistakable odor.

“Wacky weed.”

“You got me,” she said. “I'm not hurting anyone, but Sturdivant's death on anybody who doesn't follow his rules. He's like, old fashioned? You gonna narc on me?”

“Your secret's safe,” I said, releasing her wrist.

She held the joint out to me. “Want a hit?”

“I'm high on life,” I said, “and equally old fashioned.”

“Me too,” she said with a happy squeal. Then, turning serious, “Where's your drift?” She looked past me toward the river.

“We're going to push lunch back. Will that mess up your schedule?”

“No prob,” she said, taking a deep hit. “
My
schedule? All that counts are guides and drifts.”

“I want the drift kept happy. He's about to catch a big fish and he's going to arrive thinking this has been perfect and I don't want to ruin his moment.”

“How do you know he's going to catch a big fish?”

“I just do.” Which was true. I couldn't explain it, but minute by minute I felt the certainty growing.

“Are you psychic or something?”

“I seriously doubt it.” If I was, I would have solved M. J. Key a long time ago.

“You could be,” she said. “It's weird knowing stuff before it happens. That happens to me sometimes.”

She was pleasant and attractive in a wholesome, home-town-girl way, but she had hard brown eyes that tracked my every move. “Where are you from?” I asked her.

“Bloomington, Indiana. IU?” she said. “Basketball, Go Hoosiers?” She raised two arms like a halfhearted cheerleader. “This job is a stepping stone,” she said. “Someday I'm going to open a gourmet catering service in Oregon. I've researched it. There's scads of sportsmen out west with money to burn. It'll be like Sturdivant's, only classier.” Her face suddenly lit up. “I'll call it the Classy Lady. Do you like that?”

“Not bad.”

“Everybody wonders about you,” she said. “You know, like all the girls in the kitchen? Like all the other guides.
Everybody.
Nobody can figure you out. The guides, they all know each other and they say none of them know you. 'Course, they're real jerks. It's like sick how they act, you know, their shit doesn't stink?”

I didn't say anything.

“The girls think you're sort of delicious looking,” she said. “When you came in this morning I thought you were nice. Not bossy or anything. I like that.”

I checked my watch. My drift would be wondering where I was.

“Well?” she said.

“Well what?”

“If you're like psychic, you'd know.”

“I'm not.”

She looked irritated.

“I'd better check on my drift,” I said.

Creamer's smile told the tale. He waved and enthusiastically pumped the air. When I got to the boat Creamer grabbed my hand and began pumping. “Two whoppers!” he yelled gleefully. “Can you believe it?” He took Polaroids from his pocket, shoved them at me and went splashing into the water. “Here,” he shouted, “up here.”

I looked at the pictures. I was pretty good at guessing length, even when fish were finning under water, and could estimate weights based on length and girth. A scale would have been accurate, but we wanted to handle the fish as little as possible, so we estimated as best we could. The first fish was twenty-six inches and around nine pounds. The second was much longer. Thirty inches, but maybe only eleven or twelve pounds because it was lean. “Eleven pounds and change,” I said, tapping the photograph.

“I shot the whole roll of film,” Creamer said. “I owe you.”

“It's included in the fee.”

Creamer splashed back toward me. “Screw the film. I mean
you.
That chartreuse, Jesus! First cast, the fish rolled behind the streamer. I threw again, another flash. He was definitely interested. Third time, I sped up the retrieve and bam! I'm afraid I got excited and horsed him onto the beach too soon. He broke the tippet on the gravel, but I kicked him out of the water. It was strictly amateur hour. I hope he isn't hurt.”

Creamer suddenly sat down in the water. “I was ready to quit, but I thought, what the hell.” He pointed across the river. “I saw a fissure down there. See the rounded area?”

I had seen it and knew he would too.

“I thought, that's a virtual cave. I've seen similar formations in southwest France. First cast, this thing hits so hard it nearly rips the rod out of my hand and I'm thinking, how much backing do I have, one-fifty, two, two-fifty? I don't have a clue, but I remember what you said, keep him in the open, let the drag do its job. I got calm, my head cleared, I did it by the book, played him out, turned him in, eased him up, took him out. I've never seen anything so beautiful. I'm starved,” he added, staring downriver.

He was smiling and content when we got into the boat and drifted down to lunch.

Kelli was standing on shore at the downriver side of the island, which was actually a peninsula shaped like a hammerhead, holding a tray with two fluted glasses filled with champagne. I thought of James Bond movies and started to laugh. I beached the boat and stowed the oars. Creamer vaulted out and took a glass. I had to hand it to Sturdivant. He knew how to create an aura. Kelli looked like a very sexy saint.

“Luck, gentlemen?” Kelli asked.

“He's the best,” Creamer said enthusiastically.

Kelli's eyes flashed briefly when I looked at her, but the pleasant, relaxed smile stayed perfectly in place. I took the other champagne glass and executed a small bow. “Mademoiselle.”

“
Merci,
” she said. “Shall I serve, gentlemen?”

“Mister Creamer?”

“Call me Sam,” Creamer said. “I'm famished. What a
fantastic
day!”

This was how hard drifts and their guides dined at the riverside: Cuvée Louis Pommerol 1965 to freshen the palate; Wisconsin whitefish roe on rye bread squares, with lemon, Belgian endive, grated Spanish onion, and chopped hard-boiled egg yolks, all of this served with ice-cold Finnish vodka; as a main course, chicken salad with red pepper vinaigrette on a bed of Maine fiddleheads; a small pan of Virginia spoonbread made with white cornmeal, washed down with chilled Scottish Silver Birch; dessert of apricot lace cookies served in a gold-foil tube with
samuel creamer
printed on the tube, left to right; and, to finish, a cup of strong, fresh coffee.

After lunch Creamer sat on a boulder and smoked a black cheroot. “How far back to camp?” he asked, watching an attempted smoke ring dissipate before it could take form.

Camp?
The word struck me as ludicrous. Sturdivant's was anything but a camp. “Twenty minutes. Climb up the ridge and head east.”

“I'm thinking I might walk downriver, Bowie, then work my way back upstream. I'll go to purple and black Muddlers as the shadows come in, work the holes slowly. That sound like a workable plan to you?”

“Should do,” I said. “There are some interesting holes below here.”

“I'd like to do it myself.”

“You sure?”

Creamer sat up and extended his hand, “Positive, Coach.”

I asked Kelli if I could help her carry her gear back.

“Sturdivant wouldn't go for that.”

“I won't tell.”

She had a pickup truck parked up the hill. Sturdivant's logo was painted tastefully on the doors. I helped her carry her things.

“Your drift seemed pretty happy,” she said. “And nice. A lot of them aren't. They spend a lot of money and think they can have anything.”

“Do they ever bother you?”

She shrugged. “I can take care of myself.”

I wondered.

I went back down to the river, got into the boat, and headed for the pickup point. Creamer gave me a wave and a smile as the current took me past him. I couldn't believe that people would pay a thousand dollars a day for what was essentially free. Collister was right about that. It did not feel right, but I was determined to stick with it and find out what Sturdivant would reveal about the snowfly. I had hoped that Hannah and I had buried my obsession with her father's flies, and for a while I thought we had, but the big fish mounted in the lodge had rekindled the smoldering fire.

With soft drifts everything was relaxed and informal, but dinner with the hard drifts was formal and, as it turned out, tense. Guides and drifts were seated at a long, polished table, dining banquet style. I watched the serving girls bring in the food and spotted Kelli, who smiled away at the drifts at the other end of the table and did not look at me. Sturdivant sat at the head of the table; he wore a black satin running suit with white trout embroidered on the shoulders, tasseled alligator slip-on shoes with black silk socks, and dark glasses. There was friendly banter around me, but I didn't join in. I preferred to observe. Creamer was beside me and also content to listen and eat. There was a lot about this whole operation I didn't yet understand and I felt keeping my mouth shut was the best way to learn.

A square-jawed woman with flaming red-orange hair sat between Collister and me. She had feline mannerisms, those not of a housecat but of a puma, bursting into ear-splitting squeals at any hint of a joke. Her hair was short and heavily moussed forward. Like Woody Woodpecker. She wore gold and jade rings on all of her fingers.

“Go all right?” Collister asked past the woodpecker.

I nodded. “You?”

“Carl helped me collect my twenty pretties,” the woodpecker said, interrupting and grabbing his arm. “It was
great
fun,” she added. “And I'm just learning,” she said. “On dry flies,” she went on. “Olives, I think? Just
fantastic.
Talk about a rush! It's nearly as good as sex,” she said, shaking her head. Her rigid hair looked like a tomahawk being lined up to hack at something. Then she giggled. “Well,
almost.
. . .”

Collister wore tan pants and a black shirt. “Congratulations,” he said to the woodpecker. He lifted his glass and she hers. The touch released a single clean, pure note. I saw that he held the glass to his lips but did not drink.