Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories Page 17

  “Well, there’s but one way to know,” Bascombe Greene said, “and that’s to try and catch the damn thing.” Bascombe nodded at Harley. “What bait was you fishing with?”

  Harley looked sheepish.

  “I’d lost my last spinner when I snagged a limb. All I had left in my tackle box was a rubber worm I use for bass, so I put it on.”

  “What size and color?” Bascombe asked. “We got to be scientific about this.”

  “Seven inch,” Harley said. “It was purple with white dots.”

  “You got any more of them?” Leonard Coffey asked.

  “No, but you can buy them at Sylva Hardware.”

  “Won’t do you no good,” Rudisell said.

  “Why not?” Leonard asked.

  “For a fish to live long enough to get that big it’s got to be smart. It’ll not forget that a rubber worm tricked it.”

  “It might not be near smart as you reckon,” Bascombe said. “I don’t mean no disrespect, but old folks tend to be forgetful. Maybe that old fish is the same way.”

  “I reckon we’ll know the truth of that soon enough,” Rudisell concluded, because fishermen already cast from the bridge and banks. Soon several lines had gotten tangled, and a fistfight broke out over who had claim to a choice spot near the pool’s tailrace. More people arrived as the afternoon wore on, became early evening. Cedric, never one to miss a potential business opportunity, put a plastic fireman’s hat on his head and a whistle in his mouth. He parked cars while his son Bobby crossed and recrossed the bridge selling cokes from a battered shopping cart.

  Among the later arrivals was Charles Meekins, the county’s game warden. He was thirty-eight years old and had grown up in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The general consensus was the warden was arrogant and a smart-ass, especially among the old men. Meekins stopped often at the store, and he invariably addressed them as Winken, Blinken, and Nod. He listened with undisguised condescension as the old men, Harley, and finally the two boys told of what they’d seen.

  “It’s a trout or carp,” Meekins said, “carp” sounding like “cop.” Despite four years in Jackson County, Meekins still spoke as if his vocal cords had been pulled from his throat and reinstalled in his sinus cavity. “There’s no fish larger in these waters.”

  Harley handed his reel to the game warden.

  “That fish stripped the gears on it.”

  Meekins inspected the reel as he might an obviously fraudulent fishing license.

  “You probably didn’t have the drag set right.”

  “It was bigger than any trout or carp,” Campbell insisted.

  “When you’re looking into water you can’t really judge the size of something,” Meekins said. He looked at some of the younger men and winked, “especially if your vision isn’t all that good to begin with.”

  A palmful of Red Mule chewing tobacco bulged the right side of Rudisell’s jaw like a tumor, but his apoplexy was such that he swallowed a portion of his cud and began hacking violently. Campbell slapped him on the back and Rudisell spewed dark bits of tobacco onto the bridge’s wooden flooring. Meekins had gotten back in his green fish and wildlife truck before Rudisell recovered enough to speak.

  “If I hadn’t near choked to death I’d have told that shitbritches youngun to bend over and we’d see if my sight was good enough to ram this spyglass up his ass.”

  In the next few days so many fishermen came to try their luck that Rudisell finally bought a wirebound notebook from Cedric and had anglers sign up for fifteen-minute slots. They cast almost every offering imaginable into the pool. A good half of the anglers succumbed to the theory that what had worked before could work again, so rubber worms were the single most popular choice. The rubber-worm devotees used an array of different sizes, hues, and even smells. Some went with seven-inch rubber worms while others favored five- or ten-inch. Some tried worms purple with white dots while others tried white with purple dots and still others tried pure white and pure black and every variation between including chartreuse, pink, turquoise, and fuchsia. Some used rubber worms with auger tails and others used flat tails. Some worms smelled like motor oil and some worms smelled like strawberries and some worms had no smell at all.

  The others were divided by their devotion to live bait or artificial lures. Almost all the bait fisherman used nightcrawlers and redworms in the belief that if the fish had been fooled by an imitation, the actual live worm would work even better, but they also cast spring lizards, minnows, crickets, grubs, wasp larvae, crawfish, frogs, newts, toads, and even a live field mouse. The lure contingent favored spinners of the Panther Martin and Roostertail variety though they were not averse to Rapalas, Jitterbugs, Hula Poppers, Johnson Silver Minnows, Devilhorses and a dozen other hook-laden pieces of wood or plastic. Some lures sank and bounced along the bottom and some lures floated and still others gurgled and rattled and some made no sound at all and one lure even changed colors depending on depth and water temperature. Jarvis Hampton cast a Rapala F 14 he’d once caught a tarpon with in Florida. A subgroup of fly fishermen cast Muddler Minnows, Wooly Boogers, Wooly Worms, Royal Coachmen, streamers and wet flies, nymphs, and dry flies, and some hurled nymphs and dry flies together that swung overhead like miniature bolas.

  During the first two days five brown trout, one speckled trout, one ball cap, two smallmouth bass, ten knottyheads, a bluegill, and one old boot were caught. A gray squirrel was snagged by an errant cast into a tree. Neither the squirrel nor the various fish outweighed the boot, which weighed one pound and eight ounces after the water was poured out. On the third day Wesley McIntire’s rod doubled and the drag whirred. A rainbow trout leaped in the pool’s center, Wesley’s ¼ ounce Panther Martin spinner imbedded in its upper jaw. He fought the trout for five minutes before his brother Robbie could net it. The rainbow was twenty-two inches long and weighed five and a half pounds, big enough that Wesley took it straight to the taxidermist to be mounted.

  Charles Meekins came by an hour later. He didn’t get out of the truck, just rolled down his window and nodded. His radio played loudly, and the atonal guitars and screeching voices made Rudisell glad he was mostly deaf because hearing only part of the racket made him feel like stinging wasps swarmed inside his head. Meekins didn’t bother to turn the radio down, just shouted over the music.

  “I told you it was a trout.”

  “That wasn’t it,” Rudisell shouted. “The fish I seen could of eaten that rainbow for breakfast.”

  Meekins smiled, showing a set of bright-white teeth that, unlike Rudisell’s, did not have to be deposited in a glass jar every night.

  “Then why didn’t it? That rainbow has probably been in that pool for years.” Meekins shook his head. “I wish you old boys would learn to admit when you’re wrong about something.”

  Meekins rolled up his window as Rudisell pursed his lips and fired a stream of tobacco juice directly at Meekins’ left eye. The tobacco hit the glass and dribbled a dark, phlegmy rivulet down the window.

  “A fellow such as that ought not be allowed a guvment uniform,” Creech said.

  “Not unless it’s got black and white stripes all up and down it,” Campbell added.

  After ten days no other fish of consequence had been caught and anglers began giving up. The notebook was discarded because appointments were no longer necessary. Meekins’ belief gained credence, especially since in ten days none of the hundred or so men and boys who’d gathered there had seen the giant fish.

  “I’d be hunkered down on the stream bottom too if such commotion was going on around me,” Creech argued, but few remained to nod in agreement. Even Harley Wease began to have doubts.

  “Maybe that rainbow was what I had on,” he said heretically.

  By the first week in May only the old men remained on the bridge. They kept their vigil but the occupants of cars and trucks and tractors no longer paused to ask about sightings. When the fish reappeared in the tailrace, the passing drivers ignored the old men’s frantic waves to c
ome see. They drove across the bridge with eyes fixed straight ahead, embarrassed by their elders’ dementia.

  “That’s the best look we’ve gotten yet,” Campbell said when the fish moved out of the shallows and into deeper water. “It’s six feet long if it’s a inch.”

  Rudisell set his spyglass on the bridge railing and turned to Creech, the one among them who still had a car and driver’s license.

  “You got to drive me over to Jarvis Hampton’s house,” Rudisell said.

  “What for?” Creech asked.

  “Because we’re going to rent out that rod and reel he uses for them tarpon. Then we got to go by the library, because I want to know what this thing is when we catch it.”

  Creech kept the speedometer at a steady thirty-five as they followed the river south to Jarvis Hampton’s farm. They found Jarvis in his tobacco field and quickly negotiated a ten-dollar-a-week rental for the rod and reel, four 2/0 vanadium-steel fish hooks, and four sinkers. Jarvis offered a net as well but Rudisell claimed it wasn’t big enough for what they were after. “But I’ll take a hay hook and a whetstone if you got it,” Rudisell added, “and some bailing twine and a feed sack.”

  They packed the fishing equipment in the trunk and drove to the county library where they used Campbell’s library card to check out an immense tome called Freshwater Fish of North America. The book was so heavy that only Creech had the strength to carry it, holding it before him with both hands as if the book were made of stone. He dropped it in the back seat and, still breathing heavily, got behind the wheel and cranked the engine.

  “We got one more stop,” Rudisell said, “that old mill pond on Spillcorn Creek.”

  “You wanting to practice with that rod and reel?” Campbell asked.

  “No, to get our bait,” Rudisell replied. “I been thinking about something. After that fish hit Harley’s rubber worm they was throwing nightcrawlers right and left into the pool figuring that fish thought Harley’s lure was a worm. But what if it thought that rubber worm was something else, something we ain’t seen one time since we been watching the pool though it used to be thick with them?”

  Campbell understood first.

  “I get what you’re saying, but this is one bait I’d rather not be gathering myself, or putting on a hook for that matter.”

  “Well, if you’ll just hold the sack I’ll do the rest.”

  “What about baiting the hook?”

  “I’ll do that too.”

  Since the day was warm and sunny, a number of reptiles had gathered on the stone slabs that had once been a dam. Most were blue-tailed skinks and fence lizards, but several mud-colored serpents coiled sullenly on the largest stones. Creech, who was deathly afraid of snakes, remained in the car. Campbell carried the burlap feed sack, reluctantly trailing Rudisell through broom sedge to the old dam.

  “Them snakes ain’t of the poisonous persuasion?” Campbell asked.

  Rudisell turned and shook his head.

  “Naw. Them’s just your common water snake. Mean as the devil but they got no fangs.”

  As they got close the skinks and lizards darted for crevices in the rocks, but the snakes did not move until Rudisell’s shadow fell over them. Three slithered away before Rudisell’s creaky back could bend enough for him to grab hold, but the fourth did not move until Rudisell’s liver-spotted hand closed around its neck. The snake thrashed violently, its mouth biting at the air. Campbell reluctantly moved closer, his fingers and thumbs holding the sack open, arms extended out from his body as if attempting to catch some object falling from the sky. As soon as Rudisell dropped the serpent in, Campbell gave the snake and sack to Rudisell, who knotted the burlap and put it in the trunk.

  “You figure one to be enough?” Campbell asked.

  “Yes,” Rudisell replied. “We’ll get but one chance.”

  The sun was beginning to settle over Balsam Mountain when the old men got back to the bridge. Rudisell led them down the path to the riverbank, the feed sack in his right hand, the hay hook and twine in his left. Campbell came next with the rod and reel and sinkers and hooks. Creech came last, the great book clutched to his chest. The trail became steep and narrow, the weave of leaf and limb overhead so thick it seemed they were entering a cave.

  Once they got to the bank and caught their breath, they went to work. Creech used two of the last teeth left in his head to clamp three sinkers onto the line, then tied the hook to the monofilament with an expertly rendered hangman’s knot. Campbell studied the book and found the section on fish living in southeastern rivers. He folded the page where the photographs of relevant species began and then marked the back section where corresponding printed information was located. Rudisell took out the whetstone and sharpened the metal with the same attentiveness as the long-ago warriors who’d once roamed these hills honed their weapons, those bronze men who’d flaked dull stone to make their flesh-piercing arrowheads. Soon the steel tip shone like silver.

  “All right, I done my part,” Creech said when he’d tested the drag. He eyed the writhing feed sack apprehensively. “I ain’t about to be close by when you try to get that snake on a hook.”

  Creech moved over near the tailwaters as Campbell picked up the rod and reel. He settled the rod tip above Rudisell’s head, the fish hook dangling inches from the older man’s beaky nose. Rudisell unknotted the sack, then pinched the fishhook’s eye between his left hand’s index finger and thumb, used the right to slowly peel back the burlap. When the snake was exposed, Rudisell grabbed it by the neck, stuck the fish hook through the midsection, and quickly let go. The rod tip sagged with the snake’s weight as Creech moved farther down the bank.

  “What do I do now?” Campbell shouted, for the snake was swinging in an arc that brought the serpent ever closer to his body.

  “Cast it,” Rudisell replied.

  Campbell made a frantic sideways, two-handed heave that looked more like someone throwing a tub of dishwater off a back porch than a cast. The snake landed three feet from the bank, but luck was with them for the snake began swimming underwater toward the pool’s center. Creech came back to stand by Campbell, but his eyes watched the line, ready to flee up the bank if the snake took a mind to change direction. Rudisell gripped the hay hook’s handle in his right hand. With his left he began wrapping bailing twine around metal and flesh. The wooden bridge floor rumbled like low thunder as a pickup crossed. A few seconds later another vehicle passed over the bridge. Rudisell continued wrapping the twine. He had no watch but suspected it was after five and men working in Sylva were starting to come home. When Rudisell had used up all the twine, he had Creech knot it.

  “With that hay hook tied to you it looks like you’re the bait,” Creech joked.

  “If I gaff that thing it’s not going to get free of me,” Rudisell vowed.

  The snake was past the deepest part of the pool now, making steady progress toward the far bank. It struggled to the surface briefly, the weight of the sinkers pulling it back down. The line did not move for a few moments, then began a slow movement back toward the heart of the pool.

  “Why you figure it to turn around?” Campbell asked as Creech took a first step farther up the bank.

  “I don’t know,” Rudisell said. “Why don’t you tighten your line a bit.”

  Campbell turned the handle twice and the monofilament grew taut and the rod tip bent. “Damn snake’s got hung up.”

  “Give it a good jerk and it’ll come free,” Creech said. “Probably just tangled in some brush.”

  Campbell yanked upward, and the rod bowed. The line began moving upstream, not fast but steady, the reel chattering as the monofilament stripped off.

  “It’s on,” Campbell said softly, as if afraid to startle the fish.

  The line did not pause until it was thirty yards upstream and in the shadow of the bridge.

  “You got to turn it,” Rudisell shouted, “or it’ll wrap that line around one of them pillars.”

  “Turn it,” Campbell rep
lied. “I can’t even slow it down.”

  But the fish turned of its own volition, headed back into the deeper water. For fifteen minutes the creature sulked on the pool’s bottom. Campbell kept the rod bowed, breathing hard as he strained against the immense weight on the other end. Finally, the fish began moving again, over to the far bank and then upstream. Campbell’s arms trembled violently.

  “My arms is give out,” he said and handed the rod to Creech.

  Campbell sprawled out on the bank, his chest heaving rapidly, limbs shaking as if palsied. The fish swam back into the pool’s heart and another ten minutes passed. Rudisell looked up at the bridge. Cars and trucks continued to rumble across. Several vehicles paused a few moments but no faces appeared at the railing.

  Creech tightened the drag and the rod bent double.

  “Easy,” Rudisell said. “You don’t want him breaking off.”

  “The way it’s going, it’ll kill us all before it gets tired,” Creech gasped.

  The additional pressure worked. The fish moved again, this time allowing the line in its mouth to lead it into the tailrace. For the first time they saw the fish.

  “Lord amercy,” Campbell exclaimed, for what they saw was over six feet long and enclosed in a brown suit of prehistoric armor, the immense tail curved like a scythe. When the fish saw the old men it surged away, the drag chattering again as the fish moved back into the deeper water.

  Rudisell sat down beside the book and rapidly turned pages of color photos until he saw it.

  “It’s a sturgeon,” he shouted, then turned to where the printed information was and began to call out bursts of information. “Can grow over seven feet long and three hundred pounds. That stuff that looks like armor is called scutes. They’s even got a Latin name here. Says it was once in near every river, but now endangered. Can live a hundred and fifty years.”

  “I ain’t going to live another hundred and fifty seconds if I don’t get some relief,” Creech said and handed the rod back to Campbell.

  Campbell took over as Creech collapsed on the bank. The sturgeon began to give ground, the reel handle making slow, clockwise revolutions. Rudisell closed the book and stepped into the shallows of the pool’s tailrace. A sandbar formed a few yards out and that was what he moved toward, the hay hook raised like a metal question mark. Once he’d secured himself on the sandbar, Rudisell turned to Campbell.