CHAPTER 4
We hiked downstream. The tall trees protected us from the hot, sinking sun. My heart stopped beating so hard. I turned to Vernon and said, “The funny thing is, I wasn’t scared while most of it was happening.”
“Sometimes God hides fear from us when He needs to. Sometimes—Amanda, you got real courage. Maybe you’ll never need a drink.”
“Vernon, I’m sorry for yelling at you. That was stupid of me.”
“I would have yelled, too.”
“I bet you Grandma is fishing the pool where Grandpa died.”
“It might be her way of feelin’ real close to him.”
“I’m still scared that maybe she took her gun because she doesn’t want to come back.”
“Look at what just happened. A woman out here by herself is smart for takin’ a gun.”
“She never took one before.”
“Maybe God told her there was a bad man out here.”
“How? God doesn’t talk to people.”
“In His way He does. We’ll find your grandmother real soon. You’ll see.”
I desperately wanted to believe him, at least about finding my grandmother. And so I did.
Our steps quickened into a march. Soon we reached the treeless meadow. The sun felt real hot again.
“Vernon, did you ever think of leaving your family for another woman?”
“Being scared of God is a good thing.”
I didn’t understand how we’d gone from looking for my grandmother to talking so much about God. I wanted to put an end to it, but I felt I owed Vernon for coming with me. I decided to encourage him to have his say. “My mother was never scared of God.”
“Then I feel sorry for her, and for the man who tried to steal your rod.”
“Do you think they’re evil?”
“The Lord put evil in everybody.”
I thought of my mother and wondered if there was evil in her. I said, “Did the Lord put evil in my grandmother?”
“Well, ah, evil can grow in all of us, the way weeds can grow in a beautiful garden.”
“If they do then the garden stops being beautiful. If there’s evil in people, then they’re evil.”
“Look at it this way: If there’s no life in one pool, does that make the whole river bad?"
“Then what about God? Is there evil in Him? Is that why there’s war and sickness?”
“God isn’t a person.”
“What is He?”
“I'll never know. He might even be a She.”
I liked the idea of God being a She. I wondered if I should end the conversation when I was sort of ahead. Instead, I asked, “How can you believe in something you can’t ever know?”
“Because believing, loving just feels good.”
I thought of how loving Shana felt good. Though I still didn’t believe in God, at least Vernon was making more sense. I looked at him and wondered, Was he once good-looking, like the bad man who tried to take my fly rod? Is it the drinking that makes him look so old? I said, “Maybe God is like an angler trying to find more ways to catch fish.”
“God don’t need to find ways.”
Whether God did or didn’t, I felt it was time to stop arguing with Vernon. I asked, “Do you want to rest?”
“I’m fine.”
“Thanks for coming, Vernon.”
He smiled. “You’re welcome.”
We left the meadow and reached the tree-lined Hourglass Run. The cool shade felt good again, and I was grateful for the giant, umbrella-like trees. A pod of trout saw us and streaked like bullets toward the far bank. For a second the fishing instinct exploded inside me, and I thought of casting my Adams to the trout. Then I remembered I didn’t have time to fish.
I heard the splashing of Ruth’s Falls, a six-foot-high waterfall on land that had once been owned by a rich banker, who had named the pool after the poor, immigrant woman he loved and married even though his family disowned him. When Ruth died from tuberculosis, the story goes, the banker went back to school, became a doctor and treated poor people in the slums of New York. I loved the story, so to me the Falls, and the pools up and downstream of it, were still drenched in love and history. They were my favorite places to fish.
“Vernon, we don’t have far to go.” I marched faster.
“Slow down. I’m old and fat, remember?”
“You’re not fat—heavy, maybe.”
The pool below the falls was deep and wide. Joe McGlinn fished its mouth. Joe, I knew, was more like a crazy scientist than a happy angler. He was obsessed with using the right fly, so he spent more time changing flies and leaders than he spent fishing. But he must’ve known what he was doing, because he wrote a weekly fly-fishing column for a local newspaper. Even I could see his sentences were beautifully written, and seemed to change speeds and flow like a river. In person, however, Joe was so shy he rarely looked you in the eye and never said more than a few words at a time. Because he was a lonely bachelor, I felt sorry for him; and that’s the real reason I sometimes fished with him, not because he always gave me one of his secret flies.
“Where are you heading?” he yelled out.
“Vernon’s house. I’m going to set up his new fly rod.”
Vernon stared at me.
I whispered, “Not all lies are bad.”
“It’s about time Vernon became a real fisherman,” Joe said.
“He already is!” I looked at Vernon and whispered, “I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes I think Joe will rub off on me, and I’ll grow up and be as lonely as him.”
Vernon laughed, but didn’t say anything.
I felt stupid. “Why do you think he never married?”
“Could be a lot of reasons. Maybe a woman really broke his heart.”
“I wish broken hearts healed like cuts.”
“Not always.”
Yes, death broke Vernon’s heart so it couldn’t heal and instead pumps so much hurt. When I grow up I hope I’m as good as he is, even if I don’t believe in God.
We reached Ruth’s Falls, and then we baby-stepped down a short, steep hill. Above the waterfall was a gap in the overhanging branches. The sun poured through the gap, making the tumbling, splashing water shine like bouncing diamonds. As always, I was mesmerized by the beautiful sight.
“Amanda, we got no time to stop and look at things.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right.”
Below the falls the Junction flowed into the long, narrow pool named Devil’s Valley. The pool was called that, I was told, because most of it was deep, fast and rocky, so only a few courageous humans risked fishing it. Besides, the banks lining most of the pool were too steep to climb down, so the pool was almost always deserted—left, according to legend—to the devil to fish.
We had to get around the pool, so we headed into the woods, and then we circled the bottom of a hill and headed west. I looked at Vernon. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me, but I thought he was starting to look taller. I was very grateful he was with me. The trees, I noticed, were so tall that I hoped one day they would grow even higher and link heaven and earth.
Shana saw a squirrel, bolted, and almost pulled Vernon’s belt out of my hand. I pulled her back, wrapped the belt around my palm and clenched my fist.
We turned north.
“Vernon, how old do you think the Junction River is?”
“I guess about as old as the earth itself.”
I knew he was wrong, but I didn’t want to tell him so. “Why do some people call fly fishers anglers?”
“Because of a woman, an English writer, I think.”
“I didn’t know there were famous fishing writers who were women.”
“And maybe one day you’ll be become a fishin’ writer.”
“I don’t like to write. I want, I want …” Afraid he would laugh at me, I couldn’t finish my sentence.
“You want what?”
“To be in movies.”
“You’re pretty enough. Why do you want that?”
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br /> “So I can be famous.”
“What for?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your grandmother told me that your mother left and went to New York.”
“She wasn’t supposed to tell!”
“Amanda, looky here: God made us so that deep down inside we want love.”
“Love has nothing to do with it! I want to make believe and then make people laugh and cry. If you believe in God so much then why do you drink so much whiskey?”
“Maybe I should just go back.”
“Why don’t you? I’m almost there.” I knew he wouldn’t, especially with the bad man lurking around.
Vernon stopped walking. Shana barked and tried to pull me back. I didn’t let her. Is she telling me not to leave Vernon? Why did I say such a bad thing? Ashamed, I cursed myself and turned away from Vernon. I looked at the river and thought of how lucky it was that it would never lose its beauty and get old. I listened to the river murmur. Suddenly, it seemed to sing a hymn. I heard Vernon breathing heavily and walking behind me. Comforted, I walked to the bank. I stopped and waited for Vernon. Shana drank from the river.
“Amanda, if you want to become a famous movie star that’s fine, but just remember: no one will ever leave you alone when you fish.”
“Well, maybe then I’ll make sure I won't become too famous.”
“Amanda, the truth about me is that I was drinkin’ almost from my start. I never even knew my father. Lookin’ back, I guess I wasn’t like you. I was afraid to ask why, so instead I just tried to believe in and wish for things that I knew probably wouldn’t come.”
“Like what?”
“Like after my boy died, I wished that my father would show up and tell me he wanted me for a son, but he never did. And still I wonder: Is he alive anymore? For some reason God won’t give me an answer.”
I never knew anyone who didn’t know his own father. “Vernon, you had it worse than me. You’re a good man. I just wish you were my age and could be my friend for life. If you want some whiskey now it’s all right by me.”
Vernon took his whiskey out of the creel, took off the cap and raised the bottle to his lips. “If … if my boy were alive he’d hate my drinkin’.” Suddenly, he poured the whiskey into the river. “I ain’t makin’ any promises, except no more whiskey for today.”
“Now the trout will get drunk. Vernon, if your boy were alive he’d love you.”
“How do you know?”
“Girls, women, just know things like that.”
Vernon smiled. We hiked downstream, past the long stretch of knee-deep riffles. I thought it was strange how, even though the water kept flowing, the riffles kept their bubble-like form, as if they were made up of two parts, a part that always changed and a part that always stayed the same. But then I remembered that after a heavy rain, or a drought, the shape, or at least the size, of the riffles changed. I looked for trout. Though I knew they were in there, I didn’t see any; then I wondered if there were things in the universe, like the reasons things happen, that hid from us like children playing hide-and-seek or trout trying to stay alive in a stream.
Vernon and I hadn’t spoken for a few minutes, I realized. The funny thing was, there didn’t seem to be a silence, or even a breakable glass between us.
Maybe Vernon, in spite of his age, is a real friend. “If I buy a spinning rod will you teach me how to fish with worms?”
“As long as you teach me how to fish with flies.”
“You got a deal. Do you mind if I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“How did your son die?”
“God gave him a bad heart when he was born.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Just like we can’t know the Lord, we can’t always understand Him.”
His answer again sounds so simple. But with everything Vernon went through, I have no right judging him. Besides, maybe simple answers can be right.
I asked, “Do you ever have times when you believe less in God?”
“Yeah, but I always come out of it.”
Circles popped on the water. The circles, any angler knew, were signs of feeding trout.
Wouldn’t it be funny if I weren’t an angler and thought the circles were caused by big raindrops, raindrops not falling from the sky, but somehow shooting up from the bottom of the river?
We hiked around another sharp bend. From behind a tree, the man in the army jacket stepped out. He stood as still as a statue. His arms were at his sides. He pointed a black revolver at the ground. The gun’s handle was broken and wrapped with black tape.
My heart beat like a throbbing fly rod.
Shana barked.
“You’d better close that two-tone creature’s mouth or I’ll close it for you.”
“At least she has all her teeth.”
He thought a moment, and then laughed, like a howling coyote. “That was pretty good, Blondie.”
I took his remark as a sort of apology and a sign that, bad as he was, he wouldn’t shoot anyone. I held Shana’s mouth shut. She shook her head and tried to wiggle out of my grip. I wouldn’t let her.
The bad man said, “You think you made a fool of me, so I’m going to teach you a lesson and take that real fine rod and that fly box.”
I asked, “What would make you steal a fly rod from a girl?”
“You don’t know the things I come from.”
“That goes both ways.”
“You really are a smarty.”
I stepped back, pulling Shana with me.
“Hey, my new fishing friends, where are you going?” he asked.
“Looky here,” Vernon said. “I too once had to square myself with the Lord.”
“I don’t believe in such easy ways out.”
“You don’t have to worry,” Vernon stated. “The Lord don’t always mark his way.”
“Be quiet, black man. If it wasn’t for that stupid painting of a trout I’d take that creel.”
“That’s my grandfather’s painting.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t good, just that, to me, it’s stupid.”
I glanced downstream. The river curved sharply. I couldn’t see most of the pool my grandfather had died in.
Grandma, please be there. Please.
“Blondie, give me that rod.”
I looked into his blue eyes, then again glanced downstream. A green fly line flew out from behind the bend. The line’s tight, perfectly formed loop unrolled. The fly turned over, floated down and landed on the water like a gentle kiss. Few people, I knew, could make a beautiful cast like that. My grandmother was there! Maybe there really is a God, or at least some sort of one.
I decided not to show fear. I stared into the bad man’s deep eyes. “Look at that gun. I bet you it doesn’t even work.”
“You want to find out?”
“Be quiet, Amanda,” Vernon pleaded.
“Even if it does work, I don’t think he’s brave enough to shoot out here where someone might hear it. You want this rod? Show me that your piece-of-junk gun really works and that you have the guts to shoot it.”
He looked behind him. Stone-faced, he pointed the gun at the sky and grinned.
The gunshot sounded like thunder. I jumped back. Shana jerked her head free and barked. I grabbed her mouth again and squeezed it. Shana cried, but I didn’t let go.
“Scared you, Blondie, didn’t it?”
Slowly, I stepped back, pretending I was more scared than I was. “Okay, mister. You win.” I put the rod down, and then stepped into the river. Shana followed me in. I reached into my vest, pulled out my grandfather’s fly box, and made believe it slipped out of my hand. It floated downstream.
“I’ll get it!” the bad man yelled. He picked up the rod. “Now get out of here.”
Shana and I stepped out of the river. With Vernon, we walked upstream about fifty feet. I looked back.
The bad man walked along the bank, following the fly box.
I said, “I’m not going to let him hurt my grandmother.”
Vernon grabbed my arm. I pulled it free and said, “Take Shana. Hold her mouth shut.” I got into a crouch, picked up a big rock, and slowly followed the bad man.
Grandma, I saw, didn’t make another cast. The gunshot, I knew, had alerted her. The fly box floated around the bend, then disappeared. I stood up and walked faster, and closing in on the bad man. Vernon and Shana stayed far behind. Suddenly, I saw my grandmother. She walked towards me. Her hand was under her vest, on the gun, I knew. She stared at the man. Her eyes turned to the fly rod in his hand.
Now! I stood up and threw the rock with all my might. It hit him square in the back. Like a scared trout, I bolted behind a tree.
“I’m gonna get you, you little bitch!”
I closed my eyes, and heard a gun hammer being pulled back.
“Hold it right there, mister,” my grandmother said calmly. “Don’t turn around.”
I yelled, “He’s got a gun!”
“Stay still, Amanda. Mister, whoever you are, you take that gun out real slowly and drop it on the ground. I’ll kill you in a minute if I have to.”
I peeked out from behind the tree. The bad man dropped the gun.
“Now put down that fly rod,” my grandmother demanded. “Get out of here and don’t ever come back.”
The man dashed into the woods like a frightened deer. I ran to my grandmother, hugged her with all my might and said, “I was so scared.”
“It’s all over now.”
“She acted like a real hero,” Vernon yelled. Holding Shana, he walked up to us.
“Grandma, I was scared that, that maybe you weren’t coming back, and that maybe you didn’t want to suffer anymore, and you wanted to die where Grandpa did. Tell me you’re not going to die. Tell me!”
“Amanda, why would I want to die when I still have you to love? Besides, I still need time to teach you how to tie flies.”
That night we went into her room and sat at her desk. I tied my first Adams. To me it looked more beautiful than a real insect. I tied another, and all during the summer my grandmother taught me how to tie Cahills, March Browns, Hendricksons, Blue-Winged Olives and all the other patterns that took trout on the Junction River. With my grandmother watching me, I practiced tying every day, and then, when I felt I had become a real good tier, I started selling my flies on the river. Soon I no longer needed an allowance for money to feed Shana.