Chapter 20
Even if I could describe my and Sarah’s heavy, dull-bladed grief, I wouldn’t want a written version of it to spill over and afflict you; so, keeping most of my grief within myself, I’ll tell you that minute after minute, day after day, I wondered why Everett had put eggs in the river, and why he had cut the hook off his fly. Though I knew Everett’s death was connected to the war, I also wondered exactly how much I was to blame. Had I stood up to the Hermit, had I competed against Jake Bender, Everett wouldn’t have seen me as a coward, wouldn’t have felt the need to prove his courage and to enlist.
Sarah tried to get me to stop blaming myself, but she couldn’t.
Should I have told her that I could have tried harder to talk Everett out of enlisting?
Maybe. But deep in my heart, I knew even a thousand beautifully sculptured words wouldn’t have changed Everett’s mind.
How is it, I soon wondered, that I took up fly fishing and moved to the Catskills to escape the death and destruction of the wide world, but instead I was followed and bludgeoned by it? Does something in me need punishing? What makes me unworthy of the world’s unconditional love that Sarah believes in?
Often I sat on the bank of Junction Pool, staring at the swirling eddies, praying that when Everett went under he was too drunk to feel pain or fear. Sometimes I tried to hear Everett’s voice in the gurgling water, or to see his reflection in the smooth tail.
I never did.
And always, though I didn’t try to, I saw the pool with angry, self-hating eyes—eyes blind to nature’s beauty, to season-changing images I had relished and often wanted to become a part of; and always I wished the upside-down reflections could flow backwards and take me back in time and into my mother’s boundless love.
They never did.
October: The leaves fell, landed on the water as gently as Everett’s fly, and flowed drag-free downstream. Nature never had to mend, seemingly.
The branches bared and looked like crooked pins stabbing the sky. As if in pain—a pain I felt it deserved—the sky howled winds that slapped and stung my face, then seeped like icy water through my clothes and pressed against my flesh like cold steel.
Shivering, wanting to punish myself, I never ran.
Again and again I obsessed: What if I had never seen the fly-casting tournament? What if students hadn’t assassinated Franz Ferdinard? ...
What if? ... What if? ...
Were the what-ifs—the random events in my life and in world history—a reflection of the random movement of subatomic particles? If so, wouldn’t I and the world be better off if gravity and space-time affected events? That way, I wouldn’t hate God for throwing events like dice.
But my hate, my anger, couldn’t flow upstream and reverse time, no matter what Einstein said. And so I wished I had never held a fly rod and swore I never again would.
Sarah and I talked about changing our scenery, so to speak. Then one evening George La Branche, whose son was wounded in the war, stopped by, offered condolences, and then suggested we go down to the Florida Keys and stay in his winter home.
“Ian, the bone fishing is out of this world.”
I thanked him and said Sarah and I would consider his generous offer. I looked at his gray hair and mustache, at his slightly wrinkled face, and tried to impose his younger face on top of it, the face I wanted to always remember.
I said, “Sometimes I think about the day you and Mr. Gordon had that fly-fishing experiment in the Covered Bridge Pool. The world looked so beautiful that day. Who could have ever visualized two horrible world wars?”
“No one.”
“And who—did you ever think your book would change the course of fly-fishing history?”
“Not in a million years.”
“I guess sitting with you is the closest I’ll ever come to being with a great writer.”
“Great? I wouldn’t go that far. Funny thing is, sometimes I look back and wonder why, like a madman, I conducted my dry-fly experiments, day after day, year after year. I guess I was just possessed, for better or worse. Time goes by so fast I wish I would have enjoyed more of it.”
“How does it feel to be immortal?”
“After the war, what I did, what I am, seems so damn insignificant. I’m just glad that this world is full of real heroes, like Everett.”
“Thanks for stopping by, George. And I really like your safari jacket, even though I’ll always remember the well-tailored suits you wore on the Beaverkill.”
“To tell you the truth, I’m glad suits on a river are a thing of the past.”
Sarah and I considered George’s offer, but we finally decided that nursing and teaching, our ways of doing good, were keeping us sane.
Sarah often went to church with other grieving parents. One Sunday, she put on her black dress, but twenty minutes later I found her sitting on the front porch, crying and staring out into space.
I sat next to her and held her hand.
Without looking at me she said, “That first day we met on the river, maybe you were right that my belief in a loving God was an easy way out. Back then I didn’t care. Today I wish I could still not care. Does that make me weak? Should I feel ashamed? Maybe you’re the one who, all along, has been courageous enough not to believe.”
“Still I wish I could keep the promise I made to my mother and--but didn’t you say that going to church made you feel less alone?”
Sarah nodded.
“If you want I’ll drive you to church and hold your hand and go inside with you.”
Sarah looked at me, finally. “All right Ian. We’ll go together.”
Christmas Time: Sarah and I were having a particularly bad day. Our house became a tomb again. Eagerly we waited for Ross and his new girlfriend, and for my sister and her family.
Again I went into Everett’s room. I opened his fly box. It was filled with flies—about twenty Quill Gordons and about ten of Doc’s streamers. Some of the streamers were tied backwards.
If there are ghosts, I thought, I hope that Doc, Theodore Gordon and Everett fish together.
I opened Everett’s fishing diary somewhere near the end. His beautiful handwriting flowed like an artist’s. I read:
May 15, 1938: The tail of Barnhart’s Pool, about ten feet from the north bank. The water is fifty-two degrees, clear and moving at about four feet per second. The sky is partly cloudy.
It is about five p.m. I’m fishing a March Brown, size twelve. I’m using a 9-foot, 5X. leader. On my fifth cast to the same seam, I hook a fourteen-inch brown.
Someone knocked on our door. I yelled, “I’ll get it.” I ran downstairs and opened the door. A young man and woman stood in front of me. The woman held a baby. Surprised at seeing strangers, I asked, “Yes, may I help you?”
“Is dhis de Mac Bride residence?” the young man asked. He was almost as tall as I. His eyes and thinning hair were dark.
“Yes.”
“Dhank God we’re finally here. We had a hard of a time finding de place, especially widh de snow and all. Dhis is my wife, Maria and our baby son, Michael.” The young man spoke as if he were from the bowels of Brooklyn.
“And you?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m Sal, Licata. I served with Everett. I always said I’d drive up and visit him.”
His words punched me.
“Did I say somedhing wrong?” he asked.
“Come inside.”
Sal walked with a limp. He and his wife sat on the couch.
I looked into Sal’s eyes and said, “I don’t know how to tell you this, but Everett didn’t survive the war.”
Sal flinched. “We sailed home togedher.”
Forcing words out of my mouth, I told them what had happened.
Sal stared at me with frozen, spaced-out eyes.
Sarah served tea.
The baby cried. Maria apologized.
I said, “I like
the sound. It’s the sound of life.”
Maria rocked the baby to sleep.
I said, “The thing I still can’t figure out for the life of me are the eggs and the hookless fly.”
“I dhink I can,” Sal said. “Mr. Mac Bride, de reason I drove up here is because I—we owe a lot to Everett. Did he ever tell you de story of what happened to us near Dinant, at de Meuse River?”
“No, strangely Everett never described any fighting he had been in.”
“But he sure loved to describe de beauty of fly fishing, but I guess you know dat already. Anyway, seven of us were on night patrol. It was foggy and we lost our way and de next dhing we knew we near de bank of de river. All of a sudden a Jerry machine gun on de oder side of de river opened up on us, killing two of our guys, Steven and Mickie. Luckily dere was a big bomb crater which we jumped into. At first our plan was to wait and hope de fog would get dhicker and dhicker, as it often did, and den we’d be able to crawl out of de crater widout de Jerries seein’ us. But soon de temperature dropped like a rock, and de fog was drifting up like smoke. If we stayed put, we’d freeze to death. If we made a run for it we’d get shot.
“Now strange dhings happen, Mr. Mac Bride, when men dhink dey’re facing death. One of de guys just broke down, and cried, and said dat all he wanted was to get home and see his wife and son again. Everett, however, seemed to turn into some sort of zombie. He didn’t say a word for de longest time, den suddenly he told us how sick and tired he was of war and killin’; and dat if he ever survived de war he would never kill anyding again. Suddenly he seemed about to cry. He told us he couldn’t count de number of trout he killed. Aldhough I don’t fish, I told him when it comes to killin’, trout don’t count. He looked at me and told me I was wrong. I didn’t see de point in arguing back, especially when for all I knew he was right.
“Den he told us he had a plan. We were to start firing our guns at de Jerries. Wid dem distracted, Everett would make a run for de woods.
“ ‘Den what?’ ” I asked.
“ ‘I’ll sneak downstream, cross the river and get de Krauts.’
“ ‘You’re crazy,’ I said. ‘Maybe we can survive de cold, and when daylight comes, de Jerries might pull back. If dey don’t, maybe our planes will get dem.’
“ ‘I don’t like dose odds,’ Everett said.
“ ‘Even if you make it to de woods, how are you going to cross de river?’ I asked.
“ ‘I’m a fly fisher, remember? My father taught me how to cross fast, rocky rivers.’
“And so we followed Everett’s plan and opened up on de Jerries. Everett broke for de woods. At first de Jerries didn’t see him, but den dey turned dheir guns on him. We hoped and prayed Everett had made it into de safety of de woods.
“The ground got colder and colder and seemed to harden into concrete. To keep warm, we huddled togeder and waited for what seemed like an eternity. I wondered to myself: if I was de one who made it out of de crater, would I have de guts to try to take out de Jerry machine gun? Or would I just find my way back to our lines and try to get help?
“I decided I would try to get help, even dhough I might not be able to find de way back to de crater.
“Shiverin’, we assumed Everett was dead and soon we would be too. I tried to imagine what deadh was like. I mean, would deadh seem as if de whole world came to an end just because I wasn’t dere to see it? Now I’m not a smart or educated man, but de world seeming to come to an end didn’t seem possible. After all, what does one man really amount to? A speck of de world’s sand?
“Suddenly we heard a small explosion, den gunfire, den quiet, a long, deep quiet, dat is, if quiet can be deep.
“ ‘Hey Yanks, get out of dere!’ It was Everett’s voice.
“We jumped up and hugged him as if he had scored de game-winnin’ touchdown. Now de funny dhing is, when we got back we told Everett dat we were goin’ to see to it dat he got de Silver Star. But Everett insisted dat we didn’t say anydhing to our officers, and dat he would never take a medal for what he had done. I asked him why, but he just turned and walked away.
“So Mr. and Mrs. Mac Bride, here’s de way I see it: Everett cut de hook off because he was finished killin’ fish. Instead he wanted to feed dem and help give dem life.”
I said, “Like Doc.”
“Who?”
“A lifelong friend.”
“Here’s what else I see,” Sal said. “If it wasn’t for Everett, my son and I wouldn’t be here, and neidher would de five guys on our patrol unit. Luckily all of us survived de war, dhough Bill Jacobs lost a leg. So Everett also saved de lives of all our children and grandchildren.”
Proud, I held Sarah’s hand. We cried.
The baby opened his eyes, looked at us and smiled.
“Sal, I’ll be right back.”
I walked up to Everett’s room, took his F. E. Thomas fly rod and brought it downstairs. “This is Everett’s favorite fly rod. I’m sure he’ll want your son to have it. I only ask that when he’s older, you tell him Everett’s story and then make him promise—no. Let the story help him make up his own mind.”
“Dhanks Mr. Mac Bride,” Sal said.
“My son Ross will be here soon. I want you to meet him and stay for dinner.”
“Sure,” Maria said. “We’d love to.”
Sal’s story deepened my pain. More than anything I wished I hadn’t taught Everett to overcome his fear and to wade across Cook’s Falls. As I had after Billy’s death, I again wondered how my trying to do good turned into my doing bad, but as time rolled on, as winter’s icy winds weakened, I often tried to determine just how many more babies would come into this world because of Everett’s heroism.
Twenty? Thirty?
And what if humanity inhabited the earth for 100,000 more years?
A million babies?
I had no way of knowing.
The first warm day of spring: I still had no desire to pick up a fly rod. I sat on my porch and graded compositions. Finally, I came to what I thought was the last one.
It was a letter signed by all my students. It read:
Dear Mr. Mac Bride,
We all just wanted to let you know how blessed we feel for having one of the greatest English teachers in the world. Because of your passion, when we read beautiful language we’ll always hear the rhythm and melody of great music.
When we read Don Quixote we’ll always see his wanderings as noble as Moses’s and Christ’s; so if we get lost in our illusions, or even spun and dropped by windmills, our ideals won’t shatter.
When we read Hamlet we’ll always hear his deep questioning about the meaning of life as noble as Einstein’s and Newton’s; so if we get lost in our darkest night, or even chased and scared by ghosts, our faith will burn brighter.
Your eternally grateful students,
All my students signed the letter. I showed it to Sarah. She read it and said, “Ian, we have to frame this and hang it in Everett’s room.”
“Yes, that’s what he would want.”
A few months later, I walked down the school steps. A man with messy gray hair stood on the sidewalk. He had a cleft chin. He wore a pressed denim shirt and pants. He carried a small, cherry-stained case.
“Mr. Mac Bride?”
“Yes.”
“Do you recognize me?”
“I can’t say that I do.”
“I shaved my beard off. I’m known as the Hermit. I want to apologize for what happened many years ago on the stream. I should have let you and Everett fish. You’re certainly welcome to fish it now, though the man-made waterfall didn’t hold. I’d be honored to fish with you.”
“Thanks, but fishing is now in my past.”
“Death affects us in strange ways. I lost a child too.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I want to thank you for being his good friend.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Mr. Mac Bri
de—”
“Call me Ian, please.”
“Okay. Ian, you see, Billy’s mother was married to someone else. She and I used to run into each other in the library, where she worked. Well before long, things sort of happened on their own. We fell in love. We decided that love outside marriage was wrong, but then, then, well I guess love is something we can’t always control. In short, she became pregnant with my child, with Billy. We decided not to tell anyone, and that she’d try to fool her husband into raising Billy as his own. But when Billy got older, her husband saw he didn’t at all look like him. He got suspicious; then one day Billy’s mother came back from church and told her husband the truth. He left and never came back, hurting Billy terribly. By then, well I think you know what happened to me; so Billy’s mother made me promise not to tell him the truth until he was at least twenty-one. Though I didn’t want to, I kept my promise. That’s why I grew a beard, so Billy could never see the truth printed on my face.
“Now Billy was a good boy, but he didn’t always do things right. I told him that stealing fly rods to take them apart and see how they’re built was wrong. Who knows, maybe someone caught him stealing and killed him. I guess he felt stealing was okay if it led to his building great rods that anglers would cherish like art for the rest of their lives. After Billy died his mother gave me the last fly rod he made. I think it’s one of his masterpieces.”
The Hermit opened the case. Inside was a beautiful, three-piece fly rod. “It’s a nine-and-a-half-foot trout rod. I want you to have it.”
“I can’t take it.”
“It’s what Billy would have wanted. We have to honor the wishes of those who passed on.”
He closed the case and held it up. “It’s a five-weight.”
I looked into his face and saw Billy. I took the case.
“Ian, do you think I did right by not telling Billy the truth?”
“You did right.”
“Thanks.”
“May I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“After everything that’s happened to you, how do you make peace with it all?”
He nodded, then grinned. “You see, Ian, I learned—too late in life, I regret—that when I really get right down to it, the most important thing is to love a shimmer-less flow of time, to love a faceless God, even though they seem deaf to my pleas, to love them the same way I love a beautiful, beautiful river. I think that’s what Billy, wherever he is, wants me to do.”
I stared into his eyes and—this might sound strange—felt love, or something like it.
“Do you still believe in Einstein?”
He smiled. “Billy told you?”
“Yes.”
“It’s amazing how the more that’s revealed about the world, the more Einstein is being proved right.”
“So you don’t believe God plays dice with the world?”
“No.”
“But what about the randomness in physics and in history?”
“It’s there, but I think for a reason.”
“What?”
“That, Ian, is the big question.” He turned abruptly, walked away, and then looked back. “Hope I see you on the stream.”
“What’s your name?”
“The Hermit.”
“Nice to meet you, Hermit.”
I took the case home, opened it and ran my fingers over the fly rod’s smooth-as-glass, light-orange finish. I put the rod together. Compared to mine, it felt as light as a feather. I screwed on my Orvis reel, but abruptly I took it off. I put the rod back in its case.