Fear No Evil

Chapter 81

We heard a bull elk bugle at dawn, an otherworldly sound that seemed to float through the trees and across the sky only to be joined by the howling of wolves in the distance. While I got a cup of coffee, Sampson went back down by the river to try his hand at casting again.

Ten minutes later, as I chatted with Bauer and his wrangler, who were already packing for their long ride back out, John returned with his line hopelessly tangled.

“How am I supposed to fix this?” he asked.

“Cut the leader off above that rat’s nest,” Bauer said. “Put a new leader on and a new fly, and you’ll be good to go. Oh, and count on this happening at least four or five times before you get the hang of it.”

“People actually get the hang of it?”

“They do, and the South Fork’s a great river for beginners. The fish are not selective at all. Just get a fly on the water with the leader upstream and they’ll smash it. In the meantime, you should finish breakfast and get the rest of your stuff into your dry bags. I want to be rolling west in an hour after watching you safely start downriver.”

Bauer and the wrangler were riding out, with Pork Chop in front, an hour and ten minutes later. We were already on our raft, floating downstream through an area known as Grand Prairie with Sampson on the oars and me up front looking for boulders. We traveled along a single channel through a long, broad sage flat with scattered spruce and aspen groves. To either side of the river, mountains towered and loomed.

The sun at that altitude was intense even early in the day. It beat down on us, hotter and hotter as an hour went by and then two. We reached an area where the river broke up into multiple channels that braided back and forth across one another. In several of those places, the water was too low, so we had to get out and drag the raft.

Thankfully, these events were all short-lived, and by midmorning we were both relaxing into the rhythm of floating through God’s country, seeing bald eagles, a herd of mule deer, and a black bear sow and her cubs running across a far hillside.

I took over the oars around ten thirty and soon got the hang of using them to pivot and angle the raft so it rode the deepest water. Sampson was up front, taking it all in with a bittersweet smile.

“Gorgeous spot,” I said.

He looked back at me. “Only thing missing is Billie.”

“Who says she’s missing?”

John thought about that and then nodded. “Yeah, I guess that’s the point.”

“You said you were bringing some of her ashes.”

“And I did,” he said. “I just wish she could have seen this, Alex. She would have loved it. The scenery. The animals. The silence.”

“It is incredible. I haven’t heard anything but the river for the past three hours.”

“I’m hoping to hear nothing but the river for the next five days,” Sampson said. “It’s hypnotic. Good for the head and the soul.”

“I feel you, brother.”

Around noon, we stopped on a sandbar for lunch and looked at our position on Sampson’s phone. He’d bought an app from a company called OnX that allowed us to download a satellite map of the entire river between Gordon Creek and the takeout. It looked like we had only a two-hour float to where the broad sage flat ended and the river wound into a long, narrow canyon with swifter water.

“See Burnt Creek, about mile seven? Above the canyon?” Sampson said, pointing to it. “Bauer said the fishing’s always good where a creek meets a river. He showed me pictures of the area. It’s beautiful, a fitting place for Billie’s ashes.”

“Then that’s as far as we’ll go today.”

We packed up and got back on the river, with me at the oars in no hurry whatsoever. Just happy to be alive.

“I appreciate you being here, Alex,” Sampson said after a long silence.

“I would not have it any other way, my friend. What do you think of bringing Ali and Willow out here in a few years?”

He looked over his shoulder at me and nodded. “I’d like that. I think the kids would like that too.”

“I’m sure Ali would be going out of his mind right about now,” I said and laughed.

“Especially if you had to take another butt soak in the river.”

“Hey, you can’t show those pictures to anyone.”

“Really?” Sampson said. “I was going to get one framed for Bree for Christmas.”