The Fly Caster Who Tried To Make Peace With the World Read online

  Chapter 10

  I put on my waders, took my Leonard rod and my fly box, walked outside and turned onto Bridge Street, a street lined with small, wood buildings. I felt as if I stepped back into the Wild West. But instead of gunslingers I saw a piano store. I went inside. The clerk welcomed me.

  I said, “I’m surprised to see a piano store up here.”

  “We’re people too.”

  “I’m sorry.” I pointed to the baby grand. “Is that a Steinway? My mother had one.”

  “Do you play?”

  “I never wanted to.”

  “What a shame.”

  “At least fly fishers, unlike aspiring musicians, didn’t really get their hearts broken.”

  The clerk flinched. Abruptly, I left the store, walked to the fork in the road, bore left and marched toward the small, metal railroad bridge.

  I walked faster, then marched onto the bridge and right above the upper Beaverkill. From bank to bank the gurgling river was fast, riffled and rocky, and about twice as wide as the Saw Mill. The trees that lined the banks had trunks that seemed too thin to support their dense layers of branches. The trees didn’t look like the tall, umbrella-like trees I pictured at Cold Harbor but instead like overgrown Christmas trees. Their short branches didn’t come close to forming a leafy roof and to closing out the blue sky.

  To me, the Saw Mill was prettier than what I saw of the Beaverkill. 

  Below me a fly line shot out and unrolled. The leader swung left, as if the caster had moved his elbow too much. The fly landed gently, upstream of the line and just outside a swirling eddy. The fly drifted about two feet, then was retrieved. The angler below me wore a black suit, hip boots and a gray cap. He cast again, pointing the rod out at an angle of about 45 degrees to the water. The leader swung again, and the fly landed just outside the eddy. 

  I walked off the bridge and down the road. Following Clay’s directions, I turned onto a narrow road and into a rocky clearing. The clearing, I quickly saw, was the north bank of the Beaverkill. Across the river, the far bank was about six feet high and tiled with big, flat rocks. Above the bank was a big corn field.

  The angler under the bridge wrote something in a small notebook. He looked familiar. Could he be—yes he was, George M. L. La Branche!

  I walked to him. “Mr. La Branche?”

  He glanced at me. “Yes?” he said coldly.

  “I saw you cast in a tournament.”

  “I cast in a lot of tournaments.” He stuffed his notebook and pencil into his pocket.

  “The one in Central Park that Izzy Klein won. Do you know what happened to Izzy?”

  “Happened? I never saw or heard anything about him again. I’m very busy right now.”

  Busy? He was fishing. I was stupid for starting a conversation with a man with two middle initials.

  I walked downstream. The river widened into the shape of a huge funnel. The funnel, I knew, was the Forks. The stem was the Willowemoc Creek. Like the upper Beaverkill, it was riffled from bank to bank and reminded me of a marching army.

  Why, I wondered, did images of armies, instead of beauty, pop into my mind? Was it because I felt I was in foreign, hostile territory and about to do battle with the Beaverkill?

  If so, at least I was glad the Willowemoc and Beaverkill armies didn’t collide. Both slowed, surrendered and merged into a large plain of what seemed like neutral territory. The plain, however, was wrinkled by swirling eddies that soon changed directions, as if they were lost and couldn’t find their way.

  What formed the eddies?

  The biggest eddy disappeared, suddenly, then popped up a few feet downstream.

  Did eddies, like stars, form out of nowhere and then disappear?

  Way downstream of the big eddy was a big, round island, covered with tall, uneven grass. The island looked as if it needed a haircut; then I remembered the tree trunks that blemished so many mountains.

  Maybe nature was better off not having Man as a barber.

  I walked to the pool’s tail. Two currents flowed in opposite directions, like the lines of immigrants strolling up and down Orchard Street. Near the end of the tail, the upstream current about-faced and merged into the downstream current, and the whole river seemed to smooth into a football-field-long pane of sliding glass. At the end of the field, in the end zone, the river sloped sharply, sped up and reformed into a riffled, roaring army, more powerful than either of the armies flowing into the Forks.

  Why was it, I wondered, the Beaverkill presented so many different faces of water? Was the Beaverkill like an exposed army donning different camouflages?

  But the river had no real reason to feel exposed. A mountain protected it like a fortress wall and enabled the river to quickly surround the island; but instead of storming and sacking it, the river widened and gave way to it, then marched out of my view, without saying good-bye.

  How could it? Did the Beaverkill, the sky or the mountains care about me? Wasn’t I like an unloved insect trapped in the vastness of the world? Or was I just trapped in one small world? If so, how many different worlds were there on earth? As many as stars in the sky? Could people go from world to world and not get lost or trapped? After all, less than thirty yards away was my eventual way out of the world of the Beaverkill: the railroad tracks. But for better or worse, for the next two days I had no other world to go to.

  I set up my Leonard and tied on a Green Drake wet fly. I decided, however, to go after Clay’s monster trout later on. I walked back upstream, pulled line off the reel, and cast over the neutral plain. The eddies grabbed the line like a thief and wouldn’t let go. I pointed the rod up and tried to mend. The eddies pulled more strongly. I pointed the rod lower and fed line through the guides. The fly sank.

  No take. I retrieved and cast a few feet downstream. The eddies left the line for dead, surprisingly. To give life to my fly, I slowly pointed the rod up and down, up and down.

  Again no take. Again I cast, landing the line between two eddies. The smooth water grabbed the line.

  An hour later I still hadn’t induced a take. Discouraged, I walked to the pool’s tail. The sliding water glowed brighter than a sun-reflecting marble floor.

  Was the Beaverkill, or at least what I saw of it, more beautiful than Penn Station?

  Not sure, I waded into the tail. The rocks on the bottom were flat, as if the moving water had shaped them so people could walk on them. The water rushed gently around my legs. Instead of trying to push me back or to knock me over, it seemed to caress and welcome me.

  A cloud blocked the sun. The water’s glow faded and, like a chameleon, turned into the upside-down reflections of trees and the mountain. I thought it strange that less light brought out more images. The reflected trees and mountain looked as if they were sinking into the earth. Suddenly I didn’t know if I was in the bottom of a wide valley or at the top.

  Or was I in both places at once?

  I wished every time something bad happened, I could look at a reflection and the world would be upside-down. And then if I could also change the river’s direction maybe I could bring my mother and all the dead soldiers back to life.

  But unlike flowing water, the reflections seemed cemented in place.

  I looked at the rushing tail. Instead of a marching army, I saw shattered, foamy glass.

  A take! I snapped the rod up and back. The line went limp. I had jerked the fly out of the trout’s mouth. I cursed myself, again cast, then thought of how the Forks was made up of four different faces: the marching armies, the eddies, the two-way avenue, the sliding glass. Did the Beaverkill have as many faces as Fifth Avenue had mansions?

  Probably not. Still, the river was as beautiful as the avenue. And yet I still felt so alone. Was it because I had no one to talk to or listen to?

  I listened to the world of the river. The wind-rustled trees sounded like the cymbals of an orchestra. Downstream a bird sang but only the same two notes. On the near bank a bird shrieked, out of key with everythin
g else in the river world. A third bird sang a soft note at different tempos. The notes sounded like Morse Code. If it was code, the bird surely wasn’t signaling the other two birds because they didn’t seem to answer. Unlike the blinking stars in Doc’s story, different birds didn’t seem to be on speaking terms.

  I waded downstream. Though I knew I couldn’t, I wanted to try to cast all the way to the far bank. I false cast, shooting more and more line, then cast forward and let go of the line.

  The fly landed about a quarter of the way to the bank. Not even Izzy could have come close to reaching the bank. The fly drifted downstream. The sun shined down again, the reflections on the water faded back into a glow, and the small world was right-side-up again. I pointed the rod up. The line tightened, then glided toward the far bank. A take! Smoothly, I pulled the rod up, piercing the hook into the trout’s soft mouth. I reeled up slack line, then pointed the rod lower and let the fish run. The reel clicked, then shrieked like a bird. The trout’s will to fight surged through the line. My beautiful Leonard seemed to throb with the heart of a beast. I clenched the rod handle. The trout slowed, finally. I tried to point the rod up but couldn’t raise the tip more than a few inches. I tried to point it to the side. Surprisingly, I could. The trout broke for the near bank. Again I tried to point the rod up. I couldn’t. Gently, I inched the rod tip to the side. The trout turned suddenly and broke for the far bank. I tried to turn the reel’s handle. The trout yanked back, bending the rod into a half circle.

  Back and forth he swam, never jumping, never taking more line, never letting me point the rod higher and bring him closer.

  So he had a strategy: to not fully fight and tire himself out. Somehow he knew to do this. How many fights had he been in before?

  I decided to match his strategy and not exert all my energy. In effect, we were in an extra-inning tie, with neither of us trying to hit a home run. Inning after inning I turned the trout. He swam bank to bank and, seeming to acknowledge the standoff, he pulled back steadily. My Leonard rod seemed to throb in sync with my beating heart.

  Was I in a game without an end? But in fishing, games weren’t called because of darkness. I had to gamble and try to win.

  Or lose.

  “Need help!?” someone yelled out.

  I glanced back. An angler stood on the bank. He had long gray hair. He was stocky and of average height. He wore a green jacket and what looked like a gray baseball cap.

  I answered, “Sure.”

  The angler jogged downstream. I turned the trout toward the near bank. The angler stepped into the river, held his net just below the surface, waited, then lunged. The big brown trout was in his net. The tie was broken. But I had help; so did I really win?

  I waded to the bank. The trout had two Green Drake flies in his mouth.

  “Thanks, mister.” The man’s cap wasn’t a Confederate hat.

  The angler pulled out my fly. “A monster brown.”

  “Someone told me he likes Green Drakes.”

  The angler held up the trout. “He’s one for the wall.”

  The trout opened and closed his mouth, as if gasping for air.

  “I’d like to let him go.”

  “A fish like this?” The angler had a creel.

  “A fish like this deserves to live.” I pulled out Clay’s Green Drake and put it in my fly box.

  The angler held the trout underwater, then let him go. “I’m Ray.”

  He looked a little older than my father. His shallow, grayish eyes didn’t seem to have sockets. His round face was as flat as a frying pan. He looked like the man in the moon.

  “I’m Ian.”

  “I watched you. You’re a hell of a caster.” His voice was rough, as if sandpaper lined his throat. He glanced at my Leonard rod. “You from New York?” he asked coldly.

  At least he wasn’t drunk. “Yes, I am. The rod was a gift.”

  “Welcome.”

  His top teeth were as white and as straight as a picket fence, but his bottom teeth were stained and crooked.

  His top teeth, I assumed, were fake. “Sir—”

  “Ray.”

  “Ray, I’m looking for an old friend of mine. His name is Izzy.” I described Izzy, then added, “He’s the greatest fly caster I ever saw.”

  “No, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him.”

  “Do you know the man upstream, wearing the dark suit?”

  “Mr. La Branche? I’m a carpenter. I once worked on his fishing club’s house. He’s a strange bird, a rich guy who’s in love with trying to prove that you can take trout on fast, riffled water with dry flies.”

  “Can you?”

  “In England the rivers and streams are slower and smoother. But here, how can trout see a dry through riffles? To me, La Branche’s theories are profane. And so is buying up land and closing it off from the public. This river is God’s. What if a minister bought pews and closed off part of his church? That too would be profane, damn it!”

  He spoke forcefully, as if possessed. To be fair, however, not as possessed as a vote-hungry politician or a devil-fearing preacher.

  If he is so against the fishing clubs, I thought, he shouldn’t work for them and accept their money. And I should hide that my father is sort of rich.

  I asked, “What about the lower Beaverkill? Has anyone closed off parts of that?”

  “The Barnharts. Their long pool is probably the most beautiful pool on the whole river. When I was younger I poached it a few times.”

  “Were you ever caught?”

  “Once. They threatened to have me locked up, so a week later I poached it again.” He laughed, but not as loudly as Clay and the drunk hooligans.

  “Where does the Beaverkill start?”

  “It starts from rain water as a tiny brook about two thousand feet up between Graham and Double Top mountains.”

  Maybe, I thought, mountains were created to form rivers.

  “Twelve miles later,” Ray went on, “the brook meets Alder Creek and becomes a little river. The little river meets more creeks and gets bigger and bigger. I guess that’s why the Lenni-Lenape Indians, who lived near these very banks and fished for shad, called the river the Whelenaughwemack, which means the river that washes itself clean.”

  “What happened to the Indians?”

  “Some were killed by the first white settlers. Then the Indians and the settlers made peace and tried to become friends. Ironically, the friendship killed even more Indians. You see, Ian, the settlers didn’t bring just guns, they also brought germs and diseases that the Indians couldn’t fight. Since the Indians had no way of knowing why they were dying, many assumed their gods had cursed them for becoming friends with their enemies; so they sold their land to a fellow named Hardenbergh, and they moved up into the mountains. Over the years more and more Indians migrated to the West, where their ancestors came from. Besides an untarnished forest, the Indians left behind the names of some of the rivers and creeks. In 1751 Hardenbergh broke up the land into lots and sold them. After the Revolutionary War, white people, including my grandfather, were drawn to the region’s beauty and settled here. But the beauty, or maybe the Indians the settlers killed, was also a curse that attracted timber companies. The companies cut down much of the beauty, poured sawdust in the river, and floated the timber on rafts down to the Delaware River. Before long most of the usable Hemlock near the banks was gone, so the timber companies started closing down, especially when the railroads came. My father may have been the last rafter thrown from his raft and killed when he hit his head on a rock. That happened right there in those rapids.” He pointed to the rushing water at the end of the tail. “The next day I came here to say good-bye to him. A man was fishing right here. I told him what happened to my father. Then he gave me a quick casting lesson and let me fish for a while. I’ve been fishing ever since; and after all these years, every time I fish this tail I feel close to my father, as if the rushing water is really him talking to me.”

  I thought of how
I too often wondered if my mother was with me when I fished. Maybe my wondering wasn’t so crazy after all.

  Ray stared at the rapids. He seemed hypnotized.

  I wanted to know more about the Beaverkill, but not wanting to break Ray’s spell, I too stared at the rapids and listened for voices.

  I didn’t hear any.

  “And so, Ian, the rafters left, but the curse remained. The tannin in the young Hemlocks along the feeder creeks attracted a new industry. Tanneries popped up like measles and polluted the river with chemicals. Like vultures, the tanneries ravished the hemlocks. Starving for tannin, the tanneries also had to leave; and we anglers were sure the river would again wash itself clean, but I guess it couldn’t wash off the curse’s stain. Today we have these damn acid factories that many of us wish would burn to ashes and leave things the way God made them.”

  No wonder, I thought, he doesn’t like haircuts. But if it wasn’t for treecuts, he wouldn’t have wood to build things. But I didn’t come to the Beaverkill to take sides, even though I find it hard to believe in the curse.

  I wanted to change the topic. “What’s the next pool downstream like?”

  “Ferdon’s Eddy. Even though it’s private land, the family lets anglers fish it.”

  “How can I get to it?”

  “Walk. I’ll show you.”

  We left the Forks and turned onto the dirt road. The densely packed trees blocked most of the sight of the river, but little of its roaring sound. The marching army comforted me like music, maybe because I knew that, instead of flesh and bone, the soldiers were made of riffles and foam and would never get shot.

  We walked down a steep, narrow road and into a dirt clearing. In front of us was Ferdon’s Eddy. The pool was narrower than the Forks. The far bank was the bottom of a long, curving mountain. Way downstream, the top of the mountain sloped down, like a line of a giant triangle.

  The roaring water marched into the pool, slowed but never surrendered completely. From mouth to tail, the water was riffled gently. Ferdon’s Eddy, unlike the Forks, wore only one long face.

  “You can take the best water,” Ray said. “Just below the mouth.”

  I waded into the pool. The water, suddenly up to my waist, didn’t try to knock me down or, for that matter, to caress me. It seemed neutral about my being there.

  “Don’t worry,” Ray said. “It doesn’t get much deeper.”

  I waded farther out. The dirt-brown water was the color of tea but not dark enough to hide the small rocks on the river bottom. The rocks weren’t dissolving like cubes of sugar. Streaks of reflected sunlight flowed past me. The streaks looked like an invasion of electricly-lit caterpillars.

  Ray waded directly downstream of me, about thirty yards away. At the same time, we fed line into the current. Ray cast with the rod pointing out, like B. L. Richards. The line formed a wide loop and unrolled behind him. He cast the rod forward, smoothly and effortlessly, and landed his fly across and slightly downstream, about 35 feet away. 

  I didn’t want to show up Ray and try to cast all the way to the far bank. Instead, I duplicated his cast and also landed my fly about 35 feet downstream. Because the pool was one current, I didn’t mend as my fly swung downstream.

  I retrieved and cast, again and again. No takes. I watched Ray. Almost by magic, we cast in unison. When Ray waded five feet downstream, I did too; so though Ray and I didn’t speak, I felt our motions did.

  The Beaverkill no longer seemed so big or scary.

  I looked at the riffles. Though made from flowing water, the riffles were locked in place, as if an unchangeable form, some sort of cookie cutter, shaped the water.

  Ray’s line tightened. He swung the rod up and back, smoothly. A rainbow jumped about three feet. Ray lowered the rod and reeled in slack line. The rainbow shook his head, plunged and broke toward the far bank. Ray waded downstream, pointed his rod at the trout and let him run. As soon as the whirring sound of the reel slowed, Ray, still wading downstream, turned the trout and reeled in line, then again let the trout run. Ray repeated his fish-fighting tactic, again and again. Though he didn’t speak during the fight, his calm motions told me he had fought and beaten hundreds of trout.

  The rainbow was at Ray’s feet. Ray landed the rainbow in his net.

  “That one is for my wife!” Ray pulled out his fly. Using his net as a hammer, he banged the trout right between the eyes. The trout lay still. Ray put it in his creel.

  “Three more to go!”

  A half hour later, Ray landed a second trout. “That’s for my daughter.”

  The sun, I noticed, had retreated behind the mountain. The water was now mud-brown, the color of coffee. The electric caterpillars had vanished. Taking their place were thousands of small flies in close formation. The flies’ opaque wings stood straight up. Like the riffled water of the Beaverkill, the flies also looked like an army, or maybe I should say a miniature, floating navy.

  How was it all the ships appeared at the same time? Did they have a way of talking to each other, of signaling each other?

  The flies seemed glued to the water. They weren’t ready to fly. To me it didn’t seem right that nature, in effect, made them sitting ducks—that is, if Mr. La Branche was right.

  I looked for trout rises. I didn’t see any. Ray, not Mr. La Branche, was right.

  A trout grabbed my fly. Calmly, I swung my rod up and set the hook. Wading downstream of the trout, I turned him several times, bringing him closer and closer. This fight, I knew, wasn’t going to be a standoff. A few minutes later, I landed a sixteen-inch rainbow in my hand. I pulled my fly out of his mouth and thought, Don’t trout eat living things? Why shouldn’t I give him to Ray? I owe him for welcoming me. Feeding his family can’t be wrong. But look how the trout gasps for air. To him, am I uglier than the four-eyed monster?

  I let the trout go. A few minutes later, Ray caught a third rainbow, then reeled in line and waded toward the bank.

  The flies were still stuck on the water. A trout rose and sipped one. I reeled in my line and saw another rise. Mr. La Branche was right, after all. Nature, it seemed, was unfair, unless it formed riffled water to make it harder for trout to see flies.

  I waded to the bank.

  “Three fish ain’t bad for an hour’s work,” Ray said. “Especially since fishing sure beats sawing wood.”

  “I guess you have two kids?”

  “Two girls. One can’t fish for a damn. You fishing tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll meet you at the Forks, say about nine?”

  “Sure.”

  “Where you staying?”

  I told him.

  “You’re gonna eat there?”

  Was he inviting me to dinner? Even though Ray wasn’t an immigrant, I knew I would feel out-of-place eating with his family, especially without my mother. Besides, what if Ray asked if my father was rich?

  I decided to lie. “Yes, I’m meeting someone at the Lodge.”

  “Their Shepherd’s Pie is real good.”

  We walked up to the dirt road.

  “Well, I go that way.” Ray pointed behind him.

  “Thanks, Ray.”

  “For what?”

  “For, for making me glad I came to the Beaverkill.”

  “Don’t get soft on me. The Beaverkill has a way of growing on people. Don’t know why, but it always has and always will.”

  I walked back to the lodge, wondering if I should keep Clay’s lucky fly.