“See that?”
Instead of answering, Holly began to strip line from her reel. She had the fly in her hand and blew on it. “I’m just going to cast,” she said. “I’m thinking too hard. How big?”
“Big.”
“Oh, I wish I hadn’t asked.”
“You have the fish marked pretty well?”
“Yeah, here goes.”
Frank could see her false casting, but the fly tailed the loop, turned over too soon and hooked on the line. “Shit!” Holly brought her line back in and cleared the fly.
“You’re rushing, Holly. You’re turning it over too soon. Cast like you always do. Don’t press.” She started again. “Slow, slow.” And she did, resuming her elegant cadence. The curve of line opened. The fly floated down and the fish arose steadily from the depths. “Whoa whoa whoa,” said Frank. “Don’t strike, he’s taking one in front of yours. Let the current take your fly away.” The fish eased up, made a seam as he broke the surface, then sank. Frank heard a pent-up breath escape from Holly while he watched the heavy fish suck an insect down. The fish held just beneath the surface, both the dorsal and tip of his tail out of the water; his gills flared crimson and a faint turbulence spread to the surface from either side of his head.
“Try again while he’s still up,” Frank said, and an instant later Holly’s fly fluttered down from above, right in the feeding lane of the trout. He could see the fly rock around on the bright hackles Holly had wound on the hook last night, slowly closing on the fish. The trout elevated slowly and the fly disappeared down a tiny whirlpool in the water. “There,” said Frank, not too loud, and the thin leader tightened into the air, a pale cool spray the length of it. “You’ve got him!”
Frank stood straight up out of the brush as the trout surged across the pool. Holly held her rod high with both hands and said, “Oh, God God God God God.”
“Let him go.”
“I am letting him go.”
“Don’t touch that reel.”
“I’m not touching the reel!”
Frank got back below the pool and waded out to Holly. The reel was screeching. She was looking straight ahead where the line pointed. There was a deep bow in the rod. She moved her face slightly in Frank’s direction. “I’m dying,” she said. The fish started to run and the click of the reel set up a steady howl. “I am going to die.”
Frank wanted to take some of the pressure off Holly. He moved his ear next to the screeching reel and looked up at her. “Darling,” he said, “they’re playing our song.”
“Daddy, stop it. This is killing me!”
“I thought this was supposed to be fun.”
“It’s torture. Oh, God.”
The fish stayed in the pool. It might have sensed that Frank and Holly were at the lower end, and the rapids above were probably too shallow for a fish this big to negotiate. If it went that way, the light leader would have quickly broken on rocks. All Holly could do was keep steady pressure and hope the fish was well hooked and that none of its teeth were close to the tippet. She was doing her part perfectly. The fish began to work its way deliberately around the pool, staying deep. “I guess this is where we get to see if there are any snags,” she said gloomily. This fish swam entirely around the pool once, an extraordinarily smart thing to do; but it couldn’t find something to wind Holly’s leader around. And it was having increasing difficulty staying deep in the pool. Holly continued to keep the same arc in her rod and watched vigilantly where the line sliced the surface. Finally, the fish stopped and held, then slowly let itself be lifted toward the surface. For the first time, Holly cautiously reeled.
Frank undid his net from the back of his vest and held it in the water to wet the mesh. The fish was coming toward them. “Let me be in front of you, Hol,” he said quietly. When the fish was closer, he held the net underwater toward the fish. He could hear the unhurried turns of the reel handle. He looked straight at the fish from above. It turned quietly around and went back to the center of the pool, accompanied by the steady whine of Holly’s reel. “Oh, how much of this can I stand!” said Holly. But when the fish stopped, she resumed her steady work.
“We’ll catch this fish, Hol.”
“Do you think so?”
“I think so.”
“You’re just saying that, aren’t you?”
“No, I foresee the fish in my net.”
When the fish reappeared, Frank stared hard and moved the net toward it. The fish seemed pressed away by the net. Holly brought it closer and the net pushed it away but it didn’t move off quite the same way. “I’m going for it,” Holly said, and pulled hard enough to move the fish toward Frank; the fish turned and chugged toward the other bank but was unable to dive. Holly brought it back once more, and this time the fish glided toward the pressure of her rod and Frank swept the net in the air, streaming silver and slung deeply with the bright spotted weight of the fish.
“I’m so happy, I’m so happy!” Holly cried as Frank submerged the net to keep the trout underwater. “I never caught such a big fish!” He slipped his hand inside the net and around the slick underside of the trout, unveiling him delicately as the net was lifted clear. With his left hand under the fish and his right hand around its tail, he was able to hold it. The little pale yellow fly was stuck just in the edge of his upper jaw. Holly reached down to free it and the fly fell out at her touch. Frank held the fish head up into the current until the kicks of the tail became strong. “You want to do the honors?” he asked.
“You.”
“Grab,” he said. Holly took the wrist of the fish’s tail just above Frank’s hand.
Holly let go, then Frank let go, feeling the weight of the fish with his left hand and the curve of the fish’s belly with his right. Underwater, the trout seemed to take its bearings and balance itself. Then it kicked free, gliding to disappear into the middle of the pool. They began hollering like wild hog hunters, gesturing at the sky, Frank with his fists, Holly with her rod.
“I’m the champion of the world!” Holly yelled.
There seemed little point in doing anything but contemplate the bewildering size of a trout that must have rarely let down its guard in a long life. They were confident it would never make that mistake again. It was strange to feel affection for a creature finning secretively, almost below the light, disturbing the gravel bottom with an outrush of water from its broad gills. They were silent in the glitter of cottonwood leaves.
Later, as they drove home, they sang. Frank pushed off the steering wheel to belt out his small part and Holly twisted in her seat operatically.
“Hey!”
“Hey!”
“You!”
“You!”
“Get offa my cloud!”
And Holly’s visit home was over. When her plane went off in a shrinking silver spot that disappeared, he felt his chest go all fluid with emotion that rose up through his face before he controlled it. With so many of his family, people he had known, gone, to have someone he loved as much as he loved Holly poised early in her life, facing out onto the flat earth, was overwhelming. Today he had had her attention fully and he knew that wouldn’t always be true. It was hard to take that in.
26
Eileen was in the doorway of Frank’s office, brow furrowed and seemingly reluctant to disclose what was on her mind. She did a lot of this sort of telegraphing with her face and Frank got the sense she would love to go through life with these meaningful dumb shows, like an Indian in a cowboy movie, pointing at things, listening to the night wind, smoke signals from a nearby hill, message tapped out on the plumbing. It was very hard for Eileen to make a direct statement. This never annoyed Frank when Gracie was around, but now poor Eileen stood for business, and anything about business was slipping in Frank’s esteem.