Shots Fired: Stories From Joe Pickett Country

Blood Knot

Fourteen-year-old Hattie Sykes was awake when her grandfather cracked the bedroom door ajar and said, “Ready to hit the river?”

Because he was deaf he spoke loudly, assuming everyone else was deaf as well. She could see he was wearing his fly-fishing clothes: old chest waders held up by suspenders, a thick red shirt, a fishing vest, a short-brimmed Stetson.

She said, “It’s not even light out yet.”

“Hell, I gave you an extra thirty minutes.”

“What time is it?”

“Five forty-five. Damned late.”

Hattie moaned. The room smelled of her brother Jake in the next bed. Nothing smelled as awful as a sixteen-year-old boy in a closed room.

“Anyone else coming?” he asked.

“No, they said they’d rather sleep in.”

“I’m not surprised!” he boomed.

She watched as he missed with the egg. Instead of cracking it into the pan, the runny yolk and white slithered onto the burner. He cursed, caught himself, and said, “Sorry.”

“Let me do it,” she said, getting up from the table.

“My eyes don’t work until they’re warmed up,” he said, stepping aside.

While she scrambled eggs on a clean burner and cleaned up the mess, he shuffled around the kitchen with a cup of coffee. She didn’t like coffee but she liked the smell of it in the morning, especially in her grandfather’s lodge. Especially before they went fishing.

Her two older brothers, Jake and Justin, were still sleeping downstairs. Justin was the oldest and landed the spare bedroom to himself. Her parents were in the master bedroom on the top floor. Her grandfather had given them that room because he no longer liked climbing the stairs. Plus, they liked to sleep late after a night spent emptying the liquor cabinet.

The sun broke over the mountains and lit up the dew on the grass like sequins. Her grandfather walked haltingly toward the river with his fly rod and she followed. He was a tall man with wide shoulders, but from the back he seemed to be caving in on himself. She’d seen photos of him when he was young, before he started his company, married her grandmother, raised her mother, and got rich. He was brash and dashing, with jet-black hair and high, almost Indian cheekbones. Those high cheekbones now made his face look skeletal, and his once-sharp eyes were filmy. A fleshy dewlap under his jaw swayed as he walked. Since her grandmother died the year before, he’d turned into an old man and he preferred to live at his lodge on the river rather than at his big house in town.

“I wrote a story at school,” Hattie said. “I called it ‘Fishing with My Grandpa.’”

“Did I catch a lot of big fish in it?” he asked.

“Well, one.”

“I hope you got an A.”

“I did.”

In the car on the way to the lodge her parents had talked softly, assuming the three children were all sleeping. Hattie was faking it, and listened.

“I won’t miss this annual pilgrimage to visit the old coot,” her father said.

“I know,” her mother agreed.

“This is probably the last year we can make the boys come,” he said. “With no Wi-Fi or video games, what are they supposed to do? It’s ridiculous.”

“Jay…”

“Every year we pay homage,” her dad said. “I hope to hell it’s worth it for us in the end. Just another year or two, I think.”

“It means a lot to him,” her mother said.

“It better mean a lot to us.”

“Hattie still likes it.”

“She’s going to grow up, too. And then what?”

She watched as her grandfather struggled to tie the tippet to the leader of his line. His fingers were long and bony, the backs of his hands mottled with spots. He couldn’t see well enough to make a knot.

“Can I help?”

“Do you know how to tie a blood knot?”

“Yuck,” she said, taking the two strands.

He laughed. “There’s no blood involved.”

He told her how to cross the lines over each other, twist the ends around the opposite length, and pull the tips through the loop to secure it. She was surprised at how well the knot turned out.

“It’s not about blood,” he said, thanking her, “it’s about the knot.”

He cast gracefully. He told her fly-fishing was an elegant sport, and she agreed. There was a V-shaped braided current in the river created by a rock. There was usually a fish there, but he wasn’t presenting the fly far enough upstream.

She said, “More to your right.”

He shifted his feet and squared his shoulders, cast again, and the fly drifted through the braid. She saw the trout come up out of the depths and take it.

“Fish on,” he said, raising the tip of his rod to set the hook. She clapped her hands and was surprised when he handed the rod to her.

“Bring it in, Hattie,” he said. “You can do it.”

After landing the rainbow trout — it looked metallic and beautiful in the morning sun — she released it back into the water. She was thrilled, and when she stood up he slipped his fishing vest over her narrow shoulders.

“It’s yours,” he said. “The rod, too. Now catch another one.”

As they walked back to the lodge at midmorning, her parents were out on the deck drinking coffee in their robes. They looked disheveled. Her brothers weren’t to be seen.

Her grandfather said, “The lodge needs to be stained every five years. The decks need to be painted every three. All the paperwork is in my desk.”

She stopped and squinted at him.

“The keys are in the pocket of the vest,” he said. “Maybe your mom and dad will come visit you once a year.”

Hattie realized what was happening, but she couldn’t speak. Her eyes stung with tears.

“It’s not about blood,” he said, brushing her cheek with the back of his hand. “It’s about the knot.”