“Yeah,” I’d counter in my defense, “well, I have the handicap of making sure the two of you don’t drown. That’s why I’m always fishing downstream in your leftovers. In case you or your mother comes floating by, screaming for help.”
“Excuses, Dog, excuses.”
“Shall I go upstream then?”
“Hell no!” Aretha would pipe up. “I’m not fishing your backwater!”
In this manner, in a week, we achieved Seattle, where Aretha became nervous and stalled around in a fancy Sixth Street hotel for two days, getting up her courage. We visited the Space Needle and the Science Center, and we ate fresh crab—yes, crab—down around Pike Place Market.
After surf and turf and drinks on the third day, when Aretha stopped at the hotel desk and bought Sneed his own room for the night, I knew it was over.
In the morning, we unstuck ourselves and showered separately. I went outside with them to wait at the curb for Aretha’s mother and her man to pull up. Aretha cried. I tried. Sneed banged his knuckles on a street sign pole and then punched me in the shoulder.
Finally the ride came. Aretha took a huge inhale and a last look at the Hoss-Dog, and they left.
Within an hour I was standing for some unknown reason at the edge of the ocean, a fly fisherman with wet boots and wet cheeks, against water too big to fish, under a heavy sky watching waves roll in.
It was strange, though. All that water, around me, from me, ahead of me, and yet I felt powerful somehow. I felt bigger. I felt afloat. I felt like this, at last, was my turn from the dark deep toward home.
Acknowledgments:
For this book I owe Chris Miller, friend and first-class fishing guide out of Livingston, for his patience, knowlege, and generosity—and for several good days of fishing over the years. Thanks to Miya, too, for loaning me Chris and giving me a place to say. I am also grateful to the Aserlind family for their wonderful hospitality out on Ninth Street Island over the years and to Kristy for her skills as a reader. Jerry Kustich also loaned me his time and expertise in reading an earlier version of this book. Thanks to my neighbors, Bob and Amanda, for taking care of Earl during my writing time, and most of all thanks to my family, once again, for living with a writer.
Author photo by Ya-Ling Tsai
John Galligan lives and teaches in Madison, WI. He is the author of the Fly Fishing mystery series, including the award-winning The Blood Knot. He is also the author of Red Sky, Red Dragonfly, a novel set in Japan.
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Published in Electronic Format by
TYRUS BOOKS
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Copyright © 2008 by John Galligan
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction.
eISBN 10: 1-4405-3239-7
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-3239-9
This work has been previously published in print format by:
Bleak House Books
a division of Big Earth Publishing, Inc.
Trade Cloth ISBN: 978-1-60648-003-8
Trade Paper ISBN: 978-1-60648-004-5
Table of Contents
Cover
Also by John Galligan
Title Page
Dedication
Always the Question
The Radishes Clarify
The Actual Sheriff
A Chump, An Old-Timer, An Uncle
Private Water
Howl
Severe Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
Can Pronghorn Jump?
Hell and Back
Black from Both Directions
We Work for the County
The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Jess
Yes. Now. Jesse.
A Likely Sneed
The Bozeman-Livingston Guide War
Imagine Dentists
Pronghorn Are Not Deer
White Fang and Top Gum
It’s Not Montana Everywhere
Like an Escher Print
Up in the Damn Ponderosa
Long Enough to Hang Him
What Kind of Pie Do You Have?
God Knocked Backwards
Hell on Trespassers
A Traffic Stop
An Avid Fly Fisherman
Trust Me
Chicken Neck Down at the Bottom
They Just Said
A Roomful of Helpless Sumbitch Bear
Let’s Just Go Find Out Why
Looks Like We’re On Our Way
Redundant Security
You All Have a Nice Couple of Days
A Million Pounds of Warer
Flotsam
This is the End of Us
Again and Again and Again
Pretty Good Short Term
We All Drowned in the Canyon
Maybe I Am
That Bastard … That Cheater
World-Record Brook Trout
And Then What?
A Pair of Café Americanos
Dropping Like Flies
Acting Interim Sheriff Russell Crowe
Sudden Inexplicable Death
Let’s Not Go Backwards
I Am Telling You I Am Innocent
Why Don’t We Fish the Roam?
Obvious to a Woman
Immersed, Together, Breathing
Knocked Around in the Clown Barrel Too Much
No Harm Done?
What Real Love Feels Like
Powerful Somehow
Acknowledgments:
About the Author
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