Chris Offutt - The Good Brother

He studied Botree’s hands in the glow of morning light. Her fingers were long and slim. She pulled onto a narrow lane and parked beneath a cottonwood near the river, and left the truck without speaking. Joe followed, his leg stiff from the ride. She assembled a flyrod, tied a fly to the transparent leader at the end of the yellow line, and demonstrated the three-stroke motion for casting. She gave him a pair of heavy black glasses like safety goggles. She stepped into the river as though it was grass.

Joe stood on a shoal and watched her work. Her posture changed, gaining fluidity and grace as if the act of fishing lent a greater purpose to life. She began walking upstream, weaving an S with the line in the air to keep it ready to cast. The swift whisper of the leader hummed about her shoulders. She jerked her head rapidly to maintain a constant surveillance of the water. She twitched the rod to place the lure beneath an overhang near the bank.

“There’s one over there,” she said.

“One what?”

“Fish.”

“Where?”

“By the log.”

The glasses reduced glare, but Joe was unable to see the fish, the lure, or the log. He walked downstream and prepared to cast. He moved his arm rapidly between the clock positions of ten and two, letting out line on each forestroke. It required both hands, but he couldn’t control the motion of the line. He made his initial cast, snapping his wrist and aiming with his hand. The line shot straight forward, then dropped over his shoulder and doubled behind him. He began reeling. The line zipped past him. He turned away from the river and faced the treeline. His lure was deeply tangled in a bush. He spent the next half hour retrieving his line while Botree caught three fish, gleefully holding each aloft for him to see.

He made a few casts that successfully landed in water, but was never able to see the fly, or a fish taking it. He went farther downstream and his bad leg sank in wet sand to his knee. He set the flyrod aside. Each time he dug with his hands, the sand flowed back into the hole. He had a moment of fear, which was quickly replaced by a determination not to ask Botree for help. He wiggled back and forth as if his leg were a posthole digger and he was trying to widen the hole. His leg rose slowly from the earth. When he regained his footing, the rod had floated away. The leader was wrapped around his other leg and the tiny hook was embedded in his pants. He began hauling in the line, hand over hand. He tried to coil it but soon gave up and let it surround him like a net. By the time he had reeled in his rod, his clothes were wet and cold.

Joe sat on a piece of driftwood beside a head-high stand of cane, watching Botree. She moved in an arcane dance of water and woman, fish and sky, her shadow flowing over the surface of the stream. She tracked fish like a bounty hunter, choosing the particular trout she wanted to stalk.

She waded to shore, casting as she moved, and joined him on the rocky bank.

“How’d you do?” she said.

“No luck.”

“I saw you catch your rod. They’re not that easy to land.”

“The bush was easier.”

She abruptly grabbed Joe and yanked him into the water. After three steps he tried to jerk away from her, but his leg buckled and he dropped to one knee in the swift water. He clenched his teeth as the cold water surged past his waist. The river strained at his legs as if a thousand tiny hands were pulling him downstream. He pushed her away from him and nearly fell.

“What are you doing?” he yelled.

“Look.” She pointed toward the bank.

A few yards behind where he’d been standing, a female moose left the brush and entered the river. Just beyond it came her calf, stumbling over the slick rocks that lined the riverbed.

“They’re damn near blind,” she said. “Lucky for us. She’d have killed you in two passes.”

“Because of the little one?”

“Yeah, they’re worse than bears that way. And faster.”

“Pretty tough mama.”

“They have to be out here.”

Joe watched the moose vanish in the brush. Botree helped him walk and for a short while they stood together, her hand around his waist. The wet clothes outlined her hips. The sun was hot and the river was cold. Botree jerked her rod upright, and Joe realized that she’d never given up her vigil of the water. The line pulled taut. She held the rod over her head, lowered it, and began reeling rapidly, the line spewing a crescent of water. The fish leaped from the water in a silvery arc. She handed the rod to Joe. He instantly felt the pull of the fish, as if the stream were a muscle of the earth. The fish changed directions and yanked his arm like a powerful dog reaching the end of its leash. He was no longer aware of Botree or the cold, the sky or the land. He’d entered the realm of the fish. It pulled one way and then the other, showing itself in a brief flash of silver.

The rod bowed nearly double and he heard Botree yelling for him to let out more line. The workings of the reel were incomprehensible to him, and he passed the rod to her. It was like releasing a wire that pulsed with electricity.

Botree waded toward the bank and brought the fish into her hands. It was long as Joe’s forearm and thicker, a gray sinew with fins.

“Westslope cutthroat,” Botree said. “A ready biter. Prettiest fish that swims around here.”

“I’d hate to see an ugly one.”

“I played this fish too long. It’s not doing too good.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not supposed to tire it out.”

“What’s it do, mess up the taste?”

She turned the fish upside down in the water and worked the hook, but it was embedded very deep. She cut the leader near the trout’s mouth, leaving the hook protruding through its body. She righted the fish, aimed its head upstream, and gently moved it back and forth. When the gills began moving, she released the trout. It twitched its tail and vanished into deeper water.

“What did you do that for?” Joe said.

“It was wore out.”

“I was going to eat that thing.”

“Not that one, you weren’t.”

“Meat’s no good?”

“Meat’s great. Just you can’t keep them because it’s protected. Catch and release is the only good law the government’s got.”

“You mean you get yourself wet and cold and don’t even eat lunch out of it?”

“Oh, we’ll eat lunch, Joe. I got sandwiches in the truck.”

“What about the hook?”

“It’ll rust out.”

“This ain’t fishing.”

“What do you mean?”

“You wear the fish down, leave the hook in its mouth, and nurse it back to health. Then you turn it loose.”

“That’s right,” Botree said. “About like we’ve done with you.”

Wind fluttered the surface of the river, making it glitter like fire. Water drained from the folds of Joe’s clothes.

“You saying nobody’d care if I took off?” he said.

“The kids would care.”

“Anyone else?”

“Coop and them don’t, if that’s what you mean.”

“I don’t know what I mean.”

“When you figure it out,” she said, “you tell me.”

“I guess I was wondering about you.”

“I don’t know, Joe. Not yet I don’t.”

“When you figure that out,” he said, “you tell me.”

The river eddied around their bodies, and Botree extended her hand, the skin red from cold. They shook hands as if to seal a bet. Her eyes were dark and large. He tensed his arm and tugged as gently as possible and felt an answering pull. He leaned forward and the water rose along his chest. He could see it darken her shirt as she moved toward him. Their heads brushed. She was smelling him with quick intakes of air. He pressed his forehead to hers and rolled his face across her face. Their lips moved over each other but they didn’t kiss, as if the skin of their faces needed to become familiar first. They leaned together like birds in wind. The river spread around them, Joe tightened his hand around hers.