by Joshua Allen

"Ron, I've told you I hate 'Howie,' haven't I?" Howard had tied a new fly to his leader.

Ron's waterproof camera had dropped to his side. "Oh man, it broke your line after all that?"

Same size fly, same size leader as that day, Howard thinks as he trims the excess line with his clippers.

He stuffs them in his pocket and takes the rod midpoint, bending the tip to within reach. He stretches to reach the tip, leaning over the deep water. He grabs it at the same moment his clippers spill out of his pocket, sink quickly and come to rest on the edge of the ridge. Howard sets the rod on the shore, then rolls up his sleeve as far as it will go. He takes a deep breath, eyes locked on his clippers, and plunges his hand into the water. His elbow follows, then his shoulder, and finally his face comes to rest on the surface of the water. It feels like ice rushing across his cheek. Howard's sleeve unrolls into the water as his hand turns into an icy claw.

He slaps around the riverbed for a second before locating his clippers. As soon as he is certain they are in the grip of his fingers, he slides his arm out of the water. He slips the clippers back into his pocket and starts rubbing the feeling back into his arm and fingers. The screaming pain begins to dull in the sunlight.

Bright red, his claw melts back into a hand. The water is cold enough to freeze, his father used to say. Only the motion of the current keeps it liquid. In fact, the water is so cold, if you were dragged under, you'd probably die of hypothermia before you drowned.

When his left hand is warm enough, he picks up his pole and begins stripping off several yards of green line. He grabs the leader, minding the hook, and pulls the line through the eyes of the pole, letting the current help it along. With his line several feet downstream, he lifts the tip of his rod and moves it upstream, loading the rod. The rod finally snaps forward and the line shoots up and out, just above the spot where the king waits. The leader, invisible to the fish trails behind the thicker line. The tiny worm passes the rock without event. He repeats the roll cast a few more times and each time the line moves steadily downstream.

It should be hitting this fly.

"You're so stubborn, sometimes." Sara would tell him, back when she still had reasons to laugh. A smile touches his face, "Just like your Dad."

He pulls his line in and swaps the small orange worm with a small chamois worm tied to the same size hook. He lets out the line again and flips the fly to the far side of the rock. As it passes, the piece of orange yarn floating on the surface hesitates, uncertain it should proceed. The water drags past it, leaving a light V on the surface of the water. He gives the rod a quick flick, pulling the line with his free hand simultaneously. The line pulls back as the fish shoots out of his kingdom into the open terrain of the river. It jerks and sweeps across the river, moving upstream sideways like an oar. Howard fights the king, but not for long. The fish surrenders, in the end, easily. When he brings it to his net, he finds out why.

"Swallowed the hook."

He thinks of the first time his dad said those same words, when he was eight. At the time, he thought that fish was the biggest in the lake, but it had been probably no bigger than the size of his grown-up hand. It was a silver and black crappie that had been hiding underneath an overhanging tree, feasting on gnats that came to close to the water's surface. The worm Howard'd had on his hook had been much more appetizing and much less mobile. The fish had it swallowed before Howard had felt a twitch. His dad had tried to free the hook with a pair of needle nose, but wound up ripping its guts out. Howard remembered puking into the lake, seeing the fish with its intestines hanging from its mouth in their live well.

Howard's leader disappears into the fish's mouth, the tiny hook buried somewhere in its gullet. He could try to free the hook, risk disembowelment, or simply cut the line and risk starving the fish. He certainly was a king, greedy to the last. He takes out his pliers and tries once to free the hook. The fish jerks at the most inopportune moment and the pliers tear into his fragile gills. Damn. Howard unsheathes his fillet knife and picks the fish up, belly-side down. With a flash he brings the dull edge of the knife down on the king's skull. It seizes, then goes limp. Working quickly, he inserts the knifepoint in the fish's belly and opens it up to the jaw. With one pull he frees its gills and bowels, tosses them on shore for the raccoons or coyotes to enjoy. He slips the fish in the large mesh pocket on the back of his vest. As he's putting the knife back into its sheath, he fumbles and the knife dives into the water. On its way to the riverbed, the razor sharp edge plunges into the soft rubber of his waders.

The water, sensing with its inexorable algorithm of pressure, the breakdown in Howard's protective gear, fills all the open space it is able to so quickly he has no time to react. The force and weight of the water is more than Howard can resist as it pulls his leg down and deep. The water hits his chest and his lungs clamps shut, forbidding his breath. More water rushes into his waders and Howard begins to thrash and tear at the suspenders as they cut into his shoulders; he fights to keep his head above the water.

He feels the pressure suddenly give from his left shoulder. He stops moving, but has no idea why. He realizes that his right hand, somehow above water, is locked onto an overhanging branch. The strap cuts deep into his right shoulder as the river, quite insistent, continues to drag his waders and his body. If my grip slips, it wouldn't be suicide, not really. No one could blame me, not if I just couldn't hang on anymore. I could finally be with Sara again.

She lay on the sterile green sheets, wasted. Cancer had beaten and raped her once-beautiful body. Her eyes fluttered halfway open, fighting the teary discharge squeezed out in sleep, in pain. He wiped them off with a soft linen handkerchief. Her eyes were open, but buried in shadow; her sockets looked empty.

Her lips cracked apart and a breath escaped her lungs. "Please kill me, Dad."

"It's Howard," he took her hand, "it's me."

"Please, Dad . . . don't hurt me anymore."

The machine that pumped breath into her was an arm's reach away. He moved his hand in its direction. It wouldn't be murder, not really. He could never murder his wife. He would be ending the suffering of a beautiful rainbow trout that had been gill-hooked, left for dead.

A song occurred to him, their song. He started to sing, growing louder as his hand settled back into his lap. Another noise crept into the song. Sara was humming along with the song, staring in no particular direction at all, but seeing something he wished he could see. His singing turned into humming and as the song ended, he realized he was humming the song all by himself.

He strains with his left hand to grab the branch his right hand is clutching. When he gets a grip he lets his right hand go and the suspender is finally able to pull off his shoulder. His head shoots out of the water. With this newfound breath of air, he pulls himself onshore before he can start to feel the pain. Curling into a ball, trying to will the pain away, Howard hopes he has not come to rest on a fire ant hill. He doesn't know how much time passes before he is able to pull out the fish from his vest. He lays it out on the ground, trying his best to wipe the wet sand off its body.

What if I were as pretty as a rainbow trout? She had asked him once, right after she found out. Well, then, I'd never have to go to the river. She had smiled, absently humming some old tune from their days in high school. Would you finally love me more than you love fishing?

As Howard lays the grass in perfect rows across the trout's body, he hears a distant hum. He rolls over on his side and presses his lips against the trout's fading red stripe. He feels the river flow over his body, but it is no longer icy cold. It pulls his eyelids down. The distant sound of humming, from far in the back of his throat, soothes him toward sleep. He covers the trout's body with his hand and lets the river carry him away.

*** END ***