Boobytrap

5

The road that led around the east end of the lake into the wilderness was narrow, heavily pitted in some places, rock-strewn in others. My old car wasn’t right for it; I had to do some fancy maneuvering to keep from tearing up the undercarriage, maybe puncturing the oil pan and stranding myself out there. Three miles in, the track was so narrow and tree-hemmed that an oncoming vehicle of any kind would’ve created a two-car gridlock.

I bumped around a sharp left-hand turn and finally emerged into a small grassy glade. According to Judson’s map, this was as far as you could drive. It surprised me a little to see a beat-up, ten-year-old Chrysler LeBaron and a Chevy four-by-four already parked there. I’d left the cabin at first light, and the sky was still pale and the shadows long and deep under the pines. So much for the idea of stealing a march on anybody else who might be headed for Two Creek Bar.

I slanted in next to the four-by-four and popped the trunk lid. Preparations first. I was wearing a thin cotton shirt under a heavy wool Pendleton that I could strip off when the day warmed, heavy cord pants with my fish knife sheathed at the belt, the high-topped work shoes, and my old slouch hat; I added a lightweight canvas creel on a strap slung over my shoulder, then buttoned a couple of nutrition bars into one shirt pocket and a flat plastic case into the other. The case held six lures — nothing fancy this first time out, just a pair of Royal Coachmans, a pair of Light Cahills — #12 and #14 — and a Gray Hackle and a Spider. When you fish mountain streams, particularly ones you’ve never seen in unfamiliar territory, you’re well advised to keep one hand free to help you move from rock to rock, around trees and other obstacles. And the fewer items you have attached to your clothing, the better the odds against snags and torn fabric.

The bamboo rod and Daiwa reel came out next. I’d already rigged a leader and hook to the .009 monofilament line, tied off with a blood knot; I made certain the reel’s bail was thumbed-down tight and then hefted the rod, made a few practice flips to test its resiliency. It felt fine in my hand. Some of the old sportsman’s excitement began to work in me. I’d almost forgotten how much pleasure a man could derive from being out in the woods like this, on his way to a trout pool.

Two deer trails led off at angles from the glade, like spokes from the hub of a wheel. The one to the northwest was the way to Two Creek Bar. I set out along there, through ferny underbrush, walking carefully and watching the tip of the rod. Break your favorite rod the first day out and you might as well quit and go home because you’re in for miserable luck. Fisherman’s superstition, one I’d never argue with.

The trail led gradually, then more steeply, up to higher ground. The first half to two-thirds of a mile was through dense forest, mostly lodgepole and tall, straight sugar pine; after that the trees thinned and the terrain opened up into a long, sloping meadow spotted with boulders and outcrops. Yellowed grass, dusty and pungent, with a deadfall at one end. High fire danger here. But this country was loaded with deadfalls and tinder-dry grass and brush. Every summer would be just a little nerve-wracking for anyone who lived in the more remote sections of the Sierras.

I quartered downslope to the west. Birds chattered now and then; otherwise, the morning held an almost preternatural hush. The sun had bobbed up now, its light dazzling on the distant peaks, a rich mellow gold on the meadow grass and across the tops of the pines at higher elevations. The air was thin and sweet and cold. It burned in my lungs, had me panting even though I was not setting much of a pace. Come on, fats. Nils Ostergaard’s got twenty years on you and he could probably hike five times as far without breaking a sweat. The thought kept me plodding onward instead of taking a rest stop.

The ground continued to slope downward, through more woods. I heard the stream before I saw it, the good icy rush of water tumbling over rocks. Another fifty yards and the first silvery flashes appeared among the shadows; another fifty after that and I was out onto its bank, grinning at the stream as if it were Dr. Livingstone and I was Mr. Stanley.

Twenty feet wide at this point, the stream was clear and shallow and fast-moving. And clean, literally above pollution. Still grinning, I headed upstream with the creek’s voice in my ears. Trees and undergrowth clogged the bank in places, so that I had to wade through the chill water. For the most part, though, it was an easy hike, past small pools and riffles, shallows and eddies, flats and glides.

At the end of a quarter mile the creek hooked left, and when I came around the bend I was looking at a wide, deepish pool. Above it, on higher ground where runty digger pine grew, a second creek, quick and narrow, joined this one from the east; at the juncture there was a curling gravel bar that had given the spot its name. Sunlight glinted off bits and pieces of mica rock along the bar. I wondered if maybe there were flakes of gold there, too, washed down from the higher elevations. Gold collected in such bars, sometimes in quantities large enough for backcountry prospectors to eke out a living. Not here, though, or the spot wouldn’t be on Mack Judson’s map. Gold hunters are considerably more jealous of their favorite haunts than fishermen are of theirs.

I waded out to a flat rock at the pool’s edge, squinting against quicksilver flashes coming off the surface, and hunkered down to peer into the depths. Clear all the way to the bottom, three feet or so here and likely deeper in the middle. Trout in there, all right, even though I couldn’t see them. You can feel their presence in pools like this one, shadows moving among other shadows beneath the light.

I took out the lure case. The Gray Hackle struck me as my best bet in water like this, with the air as still as it was; I tied it on and made my first cast, downstream toward where a lopsided pine jutted out from the far bank. It didn’t get me anything, so I reeled in and made another cast, this time dropping the fly in the pool’s center. I drew it along about a foot below the surface, slowly, letting the water give it plenty of sideways twitch and sway. Nothing. I tried again, a little farther down and to the left of the canted pine.

Small tug on the line as I reeled in, then another, harder bump. I snapped the tip of the rod upward, striking against the bite. The rod jerked and shimmied in my hand. In the next second I saw the fish just under the surface, a darkish movement coming my way, and then he was out, hanging and twisting, his square tail slapping the water so hard spray went flying halfway down the pool.

Oh, man, he was a beauty. A big cutthroat, eighteen or nineteen inches long and at least two pounds, maybe as much as three — a brilliant orange and brightly speckled, with a bullet head and a broad tail.

Gone again, then, and the rod bent and the reel made a ratchety buzzing noise before I could snub the line. He was heading for a stony riffle at the far end of the pool. I hauled on the rod, got him turned; he jumped again, arching, throwing spray. But he was hooked good. The rest of the struggle was brief, almost anticlimactic.

I brought him out and caught him with my left hand, held him around the middle. Then I worked the rod into the crook of my right arm and used the fingers of that hand to remove the hook. Some fine fish. I could work this spot and a dozen others the entire week I was here and not snag another of this size. Pure sweet luck to take such a prize in the first five minutes.

The feel of his body was hard and firm, the kind of mountain trout whose flesh flakes like a cracker when it’s cooked. The best eating there is. My mouth began to water just thinking about it. And yet I couldn’t seem to take the next step, which was to un-sheath my knife and kill the fish by bashing its head with the weighted handle. I kept standing there, holding him, feeling him squirm, feeling the life in him, watching his mouth and gills open and close, open and close as he sucked air.

Come on, I thought, get it over with.

Yeah, I thought. Breakfast right here in your hand, meal fit for a king.

Aloud I said, “Fish, we’re both lucky as hell this morning,” and I leaned down and released him. Quick flash of orange and he was gone for good.

I sighed and straightened up. For about five seconds I was mildly disgusted with myself; then a kind of elation began to work in me and all of a sudden I felt fine, really happy. So happy and free and full of life, like that beauty of a trout swimming around somewhere beneath the sunbright surface, that I laughed out loud — a laugh like the bark of an old sea lion. That was me, by God, an old sea lion sunning its fat on a rock—

“Hey, you okay down there?”

The voice came from behind and above me, close enough to make me jump and then twist around. A guy carrying a fly rod in one hand and a polypropylene tackle box in the other was standing on an outcrop about twenty yards away. Had been standing there, anyway, no telling how long; now he stepped off and made his way down over a scatter of loose rock and gravel toward where I was.

I went to meet him on the bank. At first I took him for a stranger, but when we were close enough I recognized him — another of the first-timers, the pale-eyed Mr. Average. Jacob something; I still couldn’t remember his last name.

He said in his medium voice, “What’d you do it for?”

“Do what? Oh, the fish.”

“Looked like a nice cutthroat. You’re not one of those catch-and-release types, are you?”

“No.” At least, I thought, I didn’t used to be.

“So how come you let it go?”

I shrugged. “Momentary whim.”

“Why’d you laugh like that, afterward?”

“No particular reason. Just feeling good.”

“I thought maybe you were having some kind of attack.” He seemed puzzled by what I’d done, as if he couldn’t conceive of anyone behaving that way. It made me a little uncomfortable. A touch embarrassed, too, in spite of myself, as if I’d been caught performing an unnatural act or exhibiting signs of an acute mental disorder.

“One of those mornings when you’re glad you’re alive,” I said. “I figured the trout deserved to enjoy it, too.”

“Why? It’s nothing but a fish.”

“A fish is something. One of God’s creatures.”

“You should’ve killed it,” he said.

“But I didn’t.” Strayhorn, that was it. Jacob Strayhorn. “My business either way, right? I’m the one who caught it.”

He stared at me for a few seconds, then made a movement with his head, a kind of cranial shrug, and said through a small, pale smile, “Sure, that’s right. Your fish, you could do whatever you wanted with it.”

To change the subject I asked, “How about you? Any luck this morning?”

“Not much. Couple of brookies.”

“Well, it’s early yet.”

“You going to keep working this pool?”

“For a while.”

“If you hook that brown again, what’ll you do?”

One-track mind. “Chances are I won’t.”

“But if you do. Let it go again?”

“Why does it matter so much to you, Strayhorn?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m just curious.”

“I don’t know what I’d do. Does anybody know exactly what he’ll do in every situation?”

“Some people do,” Strayhorn said. “I do.”

“Every situation, every time?”

“That’s right.”

“Circumstances, intangibles — they don’t matter?”

“Not when you’ve got a definite purpose.”

“Like fishing.”

“Fishing, hunting, whatever. You ought to be that way, too, the kind of business you’re in. How can you be a cop and not be sure of yourself, what you’re doing every minute?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t know what I was doing. I said I don’t always react the same way. It’s a mistake to equate purpose and dedication with an inflexible mind-set. A good cop keeps an open mind.”

“The way you did with that fish,” Strayhorn said. “Momentary whim, no real purpose or objective.”

He smiled to take the sting out of the words, but they annoyed me just the same. He annoyed me. In not much more than five minutes Mr. Not So Average had pried open the drain on my high good mood.

I said, “Suppose we drop the subject, okay? Get on with what brought us out here.” I hefted my rod and started to turn away from him.

“Answer one question first,” he said.

“All right, one question.”

“You ever do anything like that with a lawbreaker?”

“Like what?”

“Let him go. Somebody you caught, somebody who committed a crime. A man instead of a fish.”

It threw me for a few beats. There was no way he could know about recent events in my life, but in his irritating fashion he’d managed to cut straight to a still-tender nerve. “No,” I lied. “Never.”

“But you might someday. You’re capable of it. If the circumstances and intangibles are right.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I wouldn’t. No matter what.” He laughed abruptly and then said, “I think I’d make a good cop myself. Maybe a better one than you.”

“The take-no-prisoners kind? The kind that uses fists and nightsticks instead of reason and common sense? I don’t think so, Strayhorn. Whatever you do for a living, I hope like hell it has nothing to do with law enforcement.”

“It doesn’t,” he said, and laughed again. Then, as I swung away from him, “Nice talking to you.”

“Yeah.”

He let me get out onto the rock again before he offered up his parting shot. “I still think you should’ve killed that fish,” he said.

He went off downstream without a backward glance. Leaving me to stand there with a sour taste in my mouth and nothing left of the good-to-be-alive feeling except a memory.

It was ten-thirty when I got to Judson’s. I parked in the lot and walked around to the gas dock with the five-gallon can I’d found in Zaleski’s boathouse and put in the car earlier. Hal Cantrell, the talkative glad-hander, was there ahead of me, pumping unleaded into the Johnson outboard on his rented skiff. He gave me a rueful smile as I came up.

“Man,” he said, “you see the gas prices here?”

“Not yet. Pretty stiff?”

“Three bucks a gallon.”

“Well, it’s a long haul in here from Quincy.”

“Still. Three bucks a gallon.” He shook his head. “Any luck out at Two Creek Bar?”

“Not much,” I said. I hadn’t done much more fishing after the episode with Strayhorn, and what little I’d indulged in had not produced another catch. Just as well. I’d probably feel like going out again tomorrow, but for today I had lost my taste for the sport. “How about you? Find a good spot?”

“Fair. Little inlet on the east shore. Don’t tell anybody, but I’m the lazy kind of fisherman. Rather find a shady spot on the lake, sit in a boat and drink beer for breakfast and contemplate my sins.”

“Doesn’t sound bad to me.”

“It’s not. I work hard enough at home — my wife sees to that. The one week a year she lets me off by myself, I take full advantage.”

“Where’s home?”

“Pacifica. Not far from your bailiwick.”

“I know it well.”

“Not a bad little town, but the fog gets to you after a while. That’s why I come up to the mountains on my fishing trips. I’m in real estate, by the way. I’d give you one of my cards, but I don’t suppose you’re in the market for coastal property?”

“Not right now. Someday, maybe.”

“Well, look me up if that day comes. San Mateo Coast Realty, Pacifica. Put you on to something nice and affordable.”

“I’ll remember that.”

He finished with his outboard, shut off the pump, and peered at the total. “Thirteen-sixty,” he said, shaking his head again. “Pay inside. Judson’s on the honor system.”

“Faith in his fellow man.”

“Wish I had it,” Cantrell said. “I’ll bet he gets underpaid or stiffed altogether more than a couple of times a season. At three bucks a gallon, I’m tempted to under-report myself.”

“But you won’t.”

“Nope. I’m not into petty crime.” A grin stretched the broad oval of his face. “The big stuff, now…”

“Big stuff?”

“You know, major scams. That’s what I’d get into. If you’re going to run a risk, you might as well do it for the biggest possible return.”

“And the biggest possible penalties.”

“If you get caught.”

“Most scam artists do.”

“But not all of them,” he said. “You don’t think I might’ve already taken the plunge, do you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “You tell me.”

Another grin; he put his right hand over his heart and said solemnly, “In the famous words of a famous man, T am not a crook.’ “

“A famous man who didn’t get away with it.”

“No? He got caught, sure, but then he was pardoned and handed plenty of money and a comfortable retirement and a library to house his papers, and when he died he was eulogized as a great statesman by a bunch of other statesmen who claimed they weren’t crooks, either. Who says crime doesn’t pay?”

Cantrell wandered off to pay his tab, and I thought as I unhooked the hose: Another strange bird. Deep Mountain Lake seemed to attract them; something in the thin air, maybe — a migratory lure similar to the smog or whatever atmospheric mixture brought wackos from all over the country flocking to L.A. I wondered how many more of the apparently well-wrapped folk I’d met last night would turn out to be flakes once I got to know them better. I wondered if Nils Ostergaard and Marian and Pat and even Chuck would turn out to be flakes. I wondered if I’d wound up at Deep Mountain Lake because I was a strange bird myself.

After that, I stopped wondering. There are some avenues of speculation that are better left barricaded with Do Not Enter signs.