He planned to do this one morning and was up before dawn, although his chances of catching any fish that late in the summer were slim. It was dark when he made himself some coffee and pulled on his waders in the kitchen, his head full of pleasant recollections of other, similar, early mornings; the camp at Langely and skiing—the suffocating heat in ski lodges and the bad food and the running. Drinking coffee in the dark kitchen (the windows had begun to show some light) reminded him of all these things. He got some gear out of the hall closet, hitched his boots to his belt and trudged up the fields, planning to walk to Parson’s Pond and then fish the stream down with wet flies, which were the only flies he had been able to find.
He cut into the woods a little below Parson’s Pond. Other fishermen had made a path. It was humid in the woods and the smell of vegetation was heady and his heart seemed to rise when he heard the noise of water—like the garbled voices of prophets—and saw the first pool. His bladder was full, but he would save that for good luck if he needed it. He was so anxious to get a fly into the water that he had to reproach himself for haste. He had to put on leader and tie some respectable knots. While he did this he saw a trout traveling upstream—no more than the flicker of an eyelid—and somehow determined like a dog at evening with a newspaper in its mouth.
There were rags of mist over the water that early in the morning and what was that smell, he wondered, as strong as tanbark and much finer? He let himself into the brook, making sure of his footing, and made a fair cast. At least he was pleased himself and if he had been a trout he would have struck, his gastric juices flowing freely until he felt the hook in his jaw. He gathered in his line and made another cast, wading so deep in the pool that his crotch got wet, a blessing, he thought, hoping that the cold water would discourage his mind from ever leaving such simple pleasures, for with his maturity Moses had found in himself a taste for the grain and hair of life. He snagged a fly and then tying another waded on through some swift, shallow water into another pool, the prettiest of them all, but one where he had never caught a fish. The granite around the pool was square, like quarry stone, the water was black and slow-moving, overhung here and there with fir and wild apple, and although Moses knew that it was a pool where he wasted his time he could not convince himself that it was not inhabited by trout—whole families of shrewd two-pounders with undershot jaws. From this dark pool he waded through white water again to a place with meadowy banks where Turk’s-cap lilies and wild roses grew and where it was easy to cast. While he was fishing this pool the sun came up and out—a flood of golden light that spread all through the woods and sank into the water so that every blue stone and white pebble showed—flooded the water with light until it was as golden as bourbon whisky—and the instant this happened he got a strike. His footing was bad. He nearly fell down, swearing loudly, but his rod was bent and then the trout surfaced with a crash and made for the logs at the mouth of the pool, but Moses kept him away from these, the fish zooming this way and that and the thrill of its life shooting up into Moses’ arms and shoulders. Then, as the fish tired and he got out his landing net, he thought: What a life; what a grand life! He admired the rosy spots on the fish, broke its back and wrapped it in fern, ready now for a big day, a day in which he would catch his limit or over. But he fished that pool for an hour without getting another strike and then waded on to the next and the next, about as reflective as a race-track tout, but not insensitive to the stillness of the woods around him, the loud, prophetic noise of water and then, by looking down to the pool below him, to the fact that he was not alone. Rosalie was there.
She had come to bathe; she was really washing herself, rubbing soap between her toes and sitting naked in the warm sun on a stone. He snapped his reel so that she would not hear him take in the line and waded carefully, not to make any noise, to the banks of the pool where she could not see him but where he could see her through the leaves. He watched his gleaming Susanna, shamefaced, his dream of simple pleasure replaced by some sadness, some heaviness that seemed to make his mouth taste of blood and his teeth ache. She did not go in for washing much more than her feet. The water was too cold or the sun was too warm. She stood, picked a leaf off her buttocks and went into the green woods; vanished. Her clothes would be there. His head was confused and the smell of the dead trout in his pocket seemed like something from his past. He unwrapped the fish and washed it in the running water, but it looked like a toy. After a decent interval he went back to the farm, where his mother was waiting to ask him to bring water from the well, and after lunch he asked Rosalie to go sailing. “I’d adore to,” she said.
They went down to Travertine in the old car and she knew more about sailing than he had expected. While he pumped the boat dry she put the battens into his sail and kept out of the way. There was a fresh southwest wind blowing and he took the racecourse, running for the first buoy with the wind at his stern, his center-board up. And then the wind backed around to the east and the day darkened as swiftly as breath obscures a piece of glass. He took a wide tack for the second buoy but the water was rough and suddenly everything was sullen, angry and dangerous, and he could feel the pull of the old sea—the ebb tide—on his hull. Waves began to break over the bow and every one of them soaked Rosalie.
She hoped that he would head back for the boat club and she knew that he wouldn’t. She had begun to shake with the cold and she wished she had never come. She had wanted his attention, his friendship, but as the hull rose clumsily and made an ominous thump and another sea broke over her shoulders she had some discouraging thoughts about her past and her hopes. Without a loving family, without many friends, dependent mostly upon men for her knowledge and guidance, she had found them all set on some mysterious pilgrimage that often put her life into danger. She had known a man who liked to climb mountains and as the Tern heeled over and shipped another sea she remembered her mountain-climbing lover; the crusts of fatigue in her mouth, the soreness of her feet, the dry sandwiches and the misty blue view from the summits that only raised in her mind the question of what she was doing there. She had tramped after bird watchers and waited home for fishermen and hunters and here she was on the Tern, half frozen and half drowned.
They rounded the second buoy and started back for the boat club and as they approached the mooring Rosalie went up to the bow. What happened was not her fault although Moses might have blamed her if he hadn’t seen it. As she pulled the skiff toward her the light painter broke. The skiff rested thoughtfully, it seemed, in the chop for a second or two and then eased its bow around to the open sea and headed in that direction, nodding and dancing in the rough. Moses kicked off his sneakers and dived in, striking out for the skiff, and swam after it for some distance until he realized that the skiff was traveling more rapidly on the ebb tide and the wind than he could swim. Then he turned his head and saw the full scope of his mistake. When the painter broke the mooring had been lost and now, with her sails down and Rosalie calling to him, the Tern was heading out to the open sea.
It was foggy then. He could barely see the beach and the lights of the Pocamasset club and he struck out for these, but not hurriedly, for the ebb tide was strong and there were limits to his strength. He saw someone come out onto the porch of the boat club and he waved and shouted but he couldn’t be heard or seen and after floating for a minute to rest he began the long haul to shore. When he felt sand under his feet it was a sweet sensation. The old committee boat was tied up to the wharf and he threw off the lines and headed her out into the fog, trying to guess the course the Tern would take. Then he let the motor idle and began to shout: “Rosalie, Rosalie, Rosalie, Rosalie…”