Thomas McGuane - Nothing but Blue Skies

Frank wanted to take some of the pressure off Holly. He moved his ear next to the screeching reel and looked up at her. “Darling,” he said, “they’re playing our song.”

“Daddy, stop it. This is killing me!”

“I thought this was supposed to be fun.”

“It’s torture. Oh, God.”

The fish stayed in the pool. It might have sensed that Frank and Holly were at the lower end, and the rapids above were probably too shallow for a fish this big to negotiate. If it went that way, the light leader would have quickly broken on rocks. All Holly could do was keep steady pressure and hope the fish was well hooked and that none of its teeth were close to the tippet. She was doing her part perfectly. The fish began to work its way deliberately around the pool, staying deep. “I guess this is where we get to see if there are any snags,” she said gloomily. This fish swam entirely around the pool once, an extraordinarily smart thing to do; but it couldn’t find something to wind Holly’s leader around. And it was having increasing difficulty staying deep in the pool. Holly continued to keep the same arc in her rod and watched vigilantly where the line sliced the surface. Finally, the fish stopped and held, then slowly let itself be lifted toward the surface. For the first time, Holly cautiously reeled.

Frank undid his net from the back of his vest and held it in the water to wet the mesh. The fish was coming toward them. “Let me be in front of you, Hol,” he said quietly. When the fish was closer, he held the net underwater toward the fish. He could hear the unhurried turns of the reel handle. He looked straight at the fish from above. It turned quietly around and went back to the center of the pool, accompanied by the steady whine of Holly’s reel. “Oh, how much of this can I stand!” said Holly. But when the fish stopped, she resumed her steady work.

“We’ll catch this fish, Hol.”

“Do you think so?”

“I think so.”

“You’re just saying that, aren’t you?”

“No, I foresee the fish in my net.”

When the fish reappeared, Frank stared hard and moved the net toward it. The fish seemed pressed away by the net. Holly brought it closer and the net pushed it away but it didn’t move off quite the same way. “I’m going for it,” Holly said, and pulled hard enough to move the fish toward Frank; the fish turned and chugged toward the other bank but was unable to dive. Holly brought it back once more, and this time the fish glided toward the pressure of her rod and Frank swept the net in the air, streaming silver and slung deeply with the bright spotted weight of the fish.

“I’m so happy, I’m so happy!” Holly cried as Frank submerged the net to keep the trout underwater. “I never caught such a big fish!” He slipped his hand inside the net and around the slick underside of the trout, unveiling him delicately as the net was lifted clear. With his left hand under the fish and his right hand around its tail, he was able to hold it. The little pale yellow fly was stuck just in the edge of his upper jaw. Holly reached down to free it and the fly fell out at her touch. Frank held the fish head up into the current until the kicks of the tail became strong. “You want to do the honors?” he asked.

“You.”

“Grab,” he said. Holly took the wrist of the fish’s tail just above Frank’s hand.

Holly let go, then Frank let go, feeling the weight of the fish with his left hand and the curve of the fish’s belly with his right. Underwater, the trout seemed to take its bearings and balance itself. Then it kicked free, gliding to disappear into the middle of the pool. They began hollering like wild hog hunters, gesturing at the sky, Frank with his fists, Holly with her rod.

“I’m the champion of the world!” Holly yelled.

There seemed little point in doing anything but contemplate the bewildering size of a trout that must have rarely let down its guard in a long life. They were confident it would never make that mistake again. It was strange to feel affection for a creature finning secretively, almost below the light, disturbing the gravel bottom with an outrush of water from its broad gills. They were silent in the glitter of cottonwood leaves.

Later, as they drove home, they sang. Frank pushed off the steering wheel to belt out his small part and Holly twisted in her seat operatically.

“Hey!”

“Hey!”

“You!”

“You!”

“Get offa my cloud!”

And Holly’s visit home was over. When her plane went off in a shrinking silver spot that disappeared, he felt his chest go all fluid with emotion that rose up through his face before he controlled it. With so many of his family, people he had known, gone, to have someone he loved as much as he loved Holly poised early in her life, facing out onto the flat earth, was overwhelming. Today he had had her attention fully and he knew that wouldn’t always be true. It was hard to take that in.

Eileen was in the doorway of Frank’s office, brow furrowed and seemingly reluctant to disclose what was on her mind. She did a lot of this sort of telegraphing with her face and Frank got the sense she would love to go through life with these meaningful dumb shows, like an Indian in a cowboy movie, pointing at things, listening to the night wind, smoke signals from a nearby hill, message tapped out on the plumbing. It was very hard for Eileen to make a direct statement. This never annoyed Frank when Gracie was around, but now poor Eileen stood for business, and anything about business was slipping in Frank’s esteem.

“Yes, Eileen.”

“Someone to see you, Mr. Copenhaver.”

“I believe this has happened before, Eileen. Any reason you can’t show him in?”

“It’s Mr. Jarrell, Mr. Copenhaver.”

This was the ranch, the unimproved heritage. “Have him come in,” he bayed. He looked at his papers without seeing them. For once, Eileen’s mugging amounted to something. Frank rested his hand on the phone. Boyd came through the door and closed it behind him on a glimpse of Eileen craning inward. Frank noticed that he was empty-handed. Boyd nodded. Frank nodded. For some reason he found himself saying, “Haven’t seen you since the night of the suds.”

“Yeah.”

“Skip a couple of showers after that, ay?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, today is another day, and what is it I can do for you?”

“I went out to the ranch yesterday and had a look around. It don’t look very good at all.”

“We haven’t found a new man. You kind of left us in midstream.”

“Alfalfa all burning up, deer gone through the fence —”

“I believe Mike has taken out an ad in the Agri-News .”

“— place where the RV boys shot off the lock on the east pasture, just riding around in there and flattening the grass.”

“Like I say, I’d have to check with Mike and see if we’ve had any responses.”

“But when I got to the troughs and the salt was completely gone, I realized —”

“What did you realize?” Frank asked because Boyd had paused.

“I realized we’d got our deal backwards. It don’t matter about you and me. Cows have got to have their salt.”

“So, what are you telling me?”

“I’m starting back in today.”

“And what about — what about our conflict, Boyd? Be honest.”

“We’re going to have to set that aside, Mr. Copenhaver. Like I been trying to tell you, the cows are out of salt.”

“One thing you should know. Mike and I have decided to sell the place.”

“You ain’t gonna do no such of a thing.”

Frank thought for a minute. Boyd was a perfect cowboy. All he cared about was cows, but he did care about cows. He could see a sore-footed one from almost two miles off, as Frank had one day found out. He was as kind to cows as he was unreasonable to people. Frank might well have been more assiduous in staying out of his way. Boyd once clobbered Mike with a frying pan, but Mike thought everyone was crazy anyway and didn’t take it personally, though his nurse complained that he staggered around the office for two and a half days and may well have suffered a concussion. Frank thought about the cows being by themselves, without Boyd tending to them. Big, easygoing, helpless creatures dragged onto this prairie by white folks, always pregnant and always out of something they needed. There had to be someone who tried to close that gap between cows and an environment not always friendly to them. He had to admit to himself that there was real satisfaction in seeing Boyd ride through a herd of cattle, knowing that when he got out the other side he’d have learned as much about them as the graduating class of the average veterinary school. If I knew that much about anything, Frank thought, I wouldn’t be nice to anyone. But I’m so ignorant I have to go on treating people decently.