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The Devil’s Arse
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
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76 The Devil’s Arse The state isn’t im por tant, nor is the year or the name of the river. Say sim ply that the cel e brated water I had driven half way across Amer ica to fish is in the West, the time was sev eral years ago, and the river’s trico hatches in re cent years had be come so famed they’d begun to draw in suf fer able hordes of an glers every Au gust. I’d fished it for a decade, re mem bered the way it once was. I doubt that I would oth er wise have paid the slight est at ten tion to the grav elly voice from across the dimly lit room. “No body ever used them damned things in my day.” The place was one of those all-purpose lit tle haunts you still oc ca sion ally find in the out back, sell ing gas, beer, and cheap tour ist cu rios in grime-streaked glass cases that hold even a few sta ples for des per ate fly fish ers. I’d stopped to gas up and pee— bought the dusty packet of strike in di ca tors only be cause of a moment’s un cer tainty whether I’d no ticed any in my vest when I packed for the trip a couple of days be fore. The grouchy old-timer had said noth ing until I paid the girl be hind the coun ter, slipped the packet into my shirt. “A man don’t need ’em if he watches his line and can rec og nize a strike.” He was seventy-five or eighty, spi dery, his knuck les bulg ing like mar bles below the frayed cuffs of his too-large sweat shirt. A beer bot tle was clutched in his hand like a weapon. I glanced at the girl as she handed me my change. She smiled know ingly, gave a sar donic roll of her eyes. 77 The Devil’s Arse I should have ig nored him and walked out the door. But some thing in his eyes, the way they glinted at me be hind the wisps of gray hair, got under my skin. “You don’t look like a man who can rec og nize much of any thing any more,” I said. It was an in sult I in stantly re gret ted, how ever ac cu rate it might have been. I am not by na ture a com ba tive per son. In the icy si lence that filled the room, my em bar rass ment was strong enough I turned abruptly back to the girl and or dered a pair of beers. The gee zer said noth ing as I car ried them to his table in the cor ner— set one down by the empty he still clutched in his bony hand. “Look, man,” I said, drop ping into the chair across from him. “I’m sorry. You prob ably know a lot about fish ing in these parts.” “You can bet your sorry ass I do,” he hissed, the rheumy eyes bor ing into my face. I don’t know how long I sat there in the gloom, sip ping the beer, star ing at him across the pock-marked table. I don’t know why I sat there. His eyes held me, that’s all I can say, as did his voice when at last he spoke again. Maybe it was the beer I’d brought him, or the gen u ine re morse he saw in my face, or sim ply the fact I re mained there so long even an angry, lonely old man sof tened a lit tle. What ever it was, he pro ceeded to tell me about a place so mes mer iz ing I couldn’t have risen from the chair if I’d wanted to—a piece of water that set the blood pound ing in my chest. He said that he could count on his hands the num ber of fish er men who knew about it—tally on one those who had ever walked it hold ing a rod. Yet it was less than thirty miles from where we sat talk ing, no more than an hour from the blue-ribbon river I and so many other an glers came to fish every year. He said he once caught a...