What is Necessary

The day is chilly for mid-November in Arkansas, temperatures dipping to thirty-seven with a heavy wind-chill. The fall colors—vibrant hues of red, orange, and green—disappearing leaving all but the towering evergreens bare, their limbs branching out like claws in every which direction. Fletcher Davis doesn’t mind. He is perfectly content with the chill and scraggly branches hanging overhead on either side of the riverbank. He is with his father, sitting behind him in the back of the aluminum john-boat, his gnarled hand draping casually over the throttle of the Mercury outboard.

A family of otters splash in the shallows to the right of the slow-moving boat. Fletcher points them out to his father and turns to watch as they pass, a difficult task with the bulky coat and life vest that his mother insisted he wear. She’d made his father promise to see that Fletcher wore it while on the water. Clyde Davis flashes a brief smile, watching his son instead of the otters, before taking a sip from the can of Schlitz in his hand. He looks back to the river ahead after a moment being careful of the shallowing water as they head farther up river.

Fletcher leans over the cool metal side, his face only inches from the water’s glassy surface. He can see the silty bottom clearly through the rippling reflection of his face. He reaches out to dip his hand into the cool water.

“Don’t get your sleeve wet,” Clyde says slurping from his beer. “We aren’t going back cause you got too cold.”

Fletcher dips his hand in, careful of his sleeve. It doesn’t stay in long. “It’s so cold.”

“Trout like the cold.”

Fletcher nods. This is explanation enough. Further on, past the downed tree with its limbs bobbing on the water’s surface, a buck drinks from the river. The rumbling of the motor startles the animal sending it bolting for the tree line. Fletcher looks back to make sure his father had seen, receiving another smile. The water’s surface is calm, and, despite the chill, the fog rises up from the surface and drifts downstream to meet them. Droplets of water form on the boy’s eyelashes dripping down his cold cheeks with each blink.

The Mercury’s prop bumps bottom, shaking the aluminum body of the boat. It bumps once more, this time rocking the motor upwards to the water’s surface. It gurgles strangely and sends the throttle lever knocking into Clyde’s hand holding the beer, splashing some of the foamy liquid in the boat’s bottom. A stream of curses describing the discrepancy of the motor issues from Clyde. They were beautiful curses. Fletcher hopes to one day curse with such grace.

“How’d you learn how to curse like that, Papa?” Flethcer asks his father from his perch towards the front of the boat.

“Guess from my daddy,” his father replies. “Either that or from the old-timers from the logging company.”

Fletcher nods. “When will I be able to curse like that?”

Clyde Davis slurps down the remainder of his beer. “When you’re older. And never around your mother.” To accent his point, he brings the can back to his lips and taps the bottom, letting the last drops drip onto his waiting tongue. He lets the empty can fall with a metallic clatter to the floor of the boat to roll and rattle with two cans from earlier in the boat ride.

Fletcher looks to the crushed, empty can in the back of the boat and then to his father. Clyde gives him a nod. A cooler rests in the bottom of the boat near Fletcher’s seat. He reaches in with reverence for his task and produces another can from the icy depths, replacing the Styrofoam lid. He reaches for the church-key atop the middle bench seat of the boat where a live-well is hidden by a metal hatch. He uses the key to puncture the can in the proper place before rising, careful not to spill any in the shifting boat, and hands it back to his father. Clyde takes the first sip to test it and nods approvingly, handing it back to his son for the second sip. Fletcher takes the slippery-wet can carefully and tips back a large gulp. He doesn’t care for the taste much, but he’d never let his father know. He takes the liquid down in a single, quick swallow trying to hide his distaste for the bitter, foamy beverage.

The motor rocks upwards once more from bumping bottom before Clyde—muttering his curses—grounds the boat along the left bank. The aluminum bottom scrapes gravel in a grinding crunch jolting Fletcher forward, making him grab for the side to right himself. Without hesitation, Clyde hops over the side of the boat into the calf-deep water soaking his ratty loafers and the cuffs of his trousers. Fletcher shivers at the thought of the icy bite of the water against his flesh as his father drags the boat further onto the bank. As an extra precaution Clyde insists on throwing out an anchor in case of rising water from generation. Greers Ferry Dam being only a few miles upriver, if the Core of Engineers cut the generators on water could rise quickly and sweep away the boat before they could reach it. Fletcher struggles with the rope attached to the hunk of railroad tie used as anchors on the moss-laden waters of the trout streams of Arkansas, particularly the Little Red. Unlike its sister tail waters the White and Norfork, the Little Red was beginning to see an excess in growth of the coon-tail moss that inhabited the river bed. While the sustaining of vegetation was necessary for the food sources of the fish, the overgrowth could soon overtake the shoals where they were to be fishing. This loss of shoals could mean diminishments of “the reds” where trout spawn in the wild. This would devastate the fish population and the tourism for the area alike.

Clyde doesn’t help his son with the heavy slab of anchor. The struggle is good for him. Will toughen him up a bit. It’s Clyde’s job to make sure his son grows into a strong, confident man. There was still time to do that, yet. Fletcher’s face screws up with the effort as he heaves the anchor over the bow, smacking the lip of the boat on the first try. He jumps overboard to tamp it into the soft earth by jumping onto the slab with all his small weight.

Clyde acknowledges his son’s effort with a smart slap between his shoulder blades and begins gathering up the rod cases, reels, fly boxes, and waders. The man looks up river where the water bubbles and churns into shallow rapid-like movement along the reds where the brown trout tend to spawn. He looks to the rays of the morning sunshine breaking over the trees of the same bank on which they are standing, shading his eyes from the brilliance of the first lights of the late-fall day. Fletcher mimics his father, staring towards the sky with his hand blocking the light.

Clyde lights a cigarette and spits at his feet. Fletcher has nothing to mimic this. Instead he puts his thumb to his teeth and bites at the nail.

“Gonna have to cross,” Clyde remarks. He points to the sun over the tree line. “See the sun?”

 Fletcher looks skyward, his nail still between his chattering teeth, and nods in affirmation.

“Shadows’d spook the fish if we start here.” He moves his finger to point at the far bank. “Fish over there in the morning and our shadows won’t fall on the water. We’ll move back to this bank for lunch and the afternoon cast.”

Fletcher nods. He learned about shadows at the Baptist Church School that his mother had wanted him to go to. It wasn’t much of a school really. Not like the public schools in Greers Ferry and Heber Springs. It was really just a bunch of religious families’ children sent there to learn their ABC’s and numbers along with a healthy dose of scripture. The preacher—whom the members of the congregation, and school, called brother which Fletcher didn’t quite understand as he his only brother was three—had told them that shadows were the work of the devil. He’d said that they were servants of Lucifer and that the children should live in the light, in fear of shadows and darkness. This didn’t sit right with Fletcher. Shadows were a production of light. You couldn’t have one without the other. He’d mentioned this during the preacher’s lesson. The “outburst” earned him a whipping and a conversation in the preacher’s private office about how little boys should be seen and not heard. The grizzled old man, who never could quite meet anyone’s eyes, had said that too much knowledge in such a young boy was unbecoming and made him seem pretentious. Fletcher has never liked the preacher anyway. He always hugs the boys a bit too long.

The father and son start across the river a way’s downstream from the spawning fish. Fletcher, having pulled on the oversized, neoprene waders his father had set out for him, wades out into the deeper water as far as he is able before the pull of the current gets too much for him, the water threatening to tip into the top of his waders. Clyde looks back to see Fletcher struggling. Without a word, he picks the boy up and slings him onto his shoulders, the down-jacket he wears soaking up the dripping wetness. Fletcher giggles as the water drips down into the brim of his father’s wide-brim, felt hat.

Clyde sets his son down on the far bank, a steep incline of rock and soil that has pine tree limbs hanging around them. Despite the heavy backdrop, Clyde begins rigging up two rods, a rare occurrence for such heavy cover. Fletcher watches as his father ties on a sow bug to the smaller five weight rod and saves the sow bug with an egg pattern dropper for his own rod. The water is too deep for Fletcher to wade out to a spot with any possibility of success. The boy knows this. Clyde looks to his son stare forlornly at the water as he finishes with the blood knot that tapers his last section of leader to the desirable weight line. Clyde rests his rod against a tree near his equipment bag and grabs the shorter rod in his right hand. He picks Fletcher up once more and rests him sitting upright on his shoulder, wading into the water picking his way downstream a bit before angling towards the middle of the river.

The water gets steadily deeper until it reaches Clyde’s waist with him picking though the slippery riverbed with care. He reaches a nice sized rock that will better suit Fletcher height. It is flat and stable while still allowing the boy fair room to cast into some nice deep pools that swirl with eddies of darker water on the down-stream side. He sets Fletcher down on the rock and hands him the rod he’d carried with them. The cold water compresses the over-sized waders against Fletcher’s legs. The feeling of the wet neoprene against his corduroys makes Fletcher giggle a bit in spite of him trying to shrug the tickling feeling off.

Clyde undoes the hook from its resting place on the rod guide; he looks to the river, mentally measuring the depth and places a strike indicator—a clump of white wool tied to the leader—in the appropriate spot. He pulls a worn, water-stained copy of the King James Bible from an interior pocket of his wading vest, its only use having been the teaching of fly casting for Fletcher’s father. He places the text under Fletcher’s right arm and points his finger a few inches from the boy’s nose. “Don’t drop the Bible.”

Fletcher, Bible firmly tucked into his armpit, begins casting as soon as his father is clear of his back-cast. His movements are calm despite the raging excitement he feels at being left to fish on his own. He brings the rod back in a fluid motion, lifting the pooling line from the water around his knees, and brings the fly forward and upstream from where he stands. He looks back to see if his father was watching and Clyde nods approvingly already slipping down to his long-johns, his waders resting on the flat spot in the bank next to him.

Once his waders are fastened around his waist, Clyde, instead of wading out himself, watches his son staring intently at the floating line pass before him, the wool dipping slightly with the rippling of the current and the added weight of water droplets, waiting until the line has fully straightened downstream before giving the rod tip a slight lift—waiting momentarily for a last-minute strike—before flicking his rod back and aiming the fly upstream for another drift. Such patience, Clyde thinks. He marvels at this quality in his young son. It is so unlike someone of such youth. Clyde tries to remember back to his own childhood to think if he had possessed such a virtue. Surely not, and it was too long ago to remember.

The pair fish as they are for some time; the sun rises fully over the tree line in front of them and moves throughout its path until it rests above the river, giving off a glare that has them both blinking at the radiant light. Clyde looks over to see his son swaying lazily with the current from his exhaustion. He never complained, though, remaining on his rock-perch continuing his casting all morning. Clyde had watched him snap the fly from his line almost an hour back but hadn’t said anything, instead choosing to watch and see what the boy would do. He’d continued as he had been since being set upon the rock, oblivious to the loss of his lure stolen by the branches behind him, his eyes remaining intensely upon the bobbing indicator in the water.

Clyde reels in and hooks the fly to his rod. He sloshes out to where Fletcher stands on his rock. He doesn’t notice his father’s approach, nor does he turn as the man stands and watches him for a few minutes. The boy brings back the rod quickly to recast upstream and would have hit Clyde between the eyes had he not caught the fiberglass length on the back-swing.

The rod catching startles Fletcher a bit to wear he almost loses his footing on the rock. Clyde’s steadying hand catches him and sets him right. He smiles down at his son who returns an exhausted smile back up at him.

Clyde stretches his back and yawns for an effect of tiredness. “Think I’m getting a bit tuckered. How ‘bout we break for some dinner?”

Fletcher looks to the pooling line to his right and manages a nod. Clyde takes the rod from his son’s hand and reels it up to where the leader reaches the top eyes and rests the hook in the bottom hold near the base of the reel. He cradles his son this time, instead of placing him on his shoulder, carrying him the short distance across the water to the bank where the boat waits. He doesn’t put him down once he’d be able to stand, instead carrying the full distance, up the gravel bank, and sets him on a soft patch of grass overlooking the river with as much sunlight as possible for the chilly day. Fletcher rests his back on a large tree root while Clyde heads back across to retrieve their equipment. By the time he returns from the short trip across Fletcher is curled up in his down jacket sleeping soundly in the warming light of the November sun.

Clyde lets him sleep while he takes a few more casts from the different vantage point. He catches two rainbows and hooks into a nice brown, losing it after the fish darts underneath a heavy tangle of moss that he can’t coax the fish out from inside. He loses an egg pattern and a nice olive-colored midge that he had tied the night before and decides that this might be the signal for him to take a break to get dinner cooking on the fire.

He builds a small fire in a grove of trees a few yards from the river, close enough where he can keep a close eye on Fletcher as he sleeps in case he is to wake before the food finishes. Once the fire is going nicely, Clyde puts a cast-iron skillet over the flames on a grill stand that he keeps in the boat for long days on the water. He produces a wrapped, paper package of venison he’d taken out of season a few months back. He hadn’t actually shot the small doe, instead letting Fletcher pull the trigger. Typically, he wouldn’t have taken any game out of season, but Fletcher had never bagged a deer before and they had been in need of the meat. It had been a lean summer after being laid off from his logging job after an accident with a felled tree had taken him out of work for a month on account of a busted shoulder. After two weeks of rest, the foreman decided that the work needed to continue in his absence and hired on a younger man to take his place in the field.

Work had been seldom since then, having done some as-needed carpentry work on the side when he could find it. His family still needed to be fed, however, and the deer had lasted them a good while as he was hunting for work in the fall. He’d finally gotten on with another logging company only to be laid off after three weeks on the job. The next day Clyde had driven into town to sign up for the United States Army. At thirty-four he was still fit enough to carry a gun, and his work in logging had left him in better shape than many young men of eighteen. Besides, Uncle Sam would take whatever he could get at this point. There’s a war going on over in Vietnam, and from what the radio tells him, Washington needs every able-bodied man with enough to sense to aim a gun and follow orders.

Clyde is to leave out for some training in two days’ time. A goodbye, he thinks as he cracks an egg into a cup to dip the venison in for frying, that’s what this is. One last trip with his son before he ships out. He lathers the venison in the egg wash and rolls them in a bag of flour and spices. He puts some oil and grease into the pan before laying the strips in after the oil heats and the grease melts down. He looks to the sleeping form of his son. He hasn’t quite had the heart to him yet. That was another purpose of the trip, to come clean to Fletcher about his departure, try to make him understand. This is necessary. Taking care of him and his brother and his mama is priority. The idea of which is much easier than the actual act of explanation.

The grease pops and the smell of frying deer meat fills the cold November air. It’s a pleasant smell, one that Clyde will surely miss. He wonders as to if there are any whitetail roaming the hills and rice lands of Vietnam. He’s heard there are mountains, and that is a comforting thought. He flips the frying meat and looks about at the island, the trees, breathes in the sweet air of the Ozarks. He will come back. He’ll die in these hills. This is also a comfort.

The venison finishes quickly and Clyde spoons the steaming strips on to some pieces of white bread that he’d brought along. He walks to where Fletcher sleeps after smearing some mayonnaise and sprinkling pepper on the sandwich and wafts it under his son’s snoring nose. The smell slowly brings him back to life, blinking his eyes up at his father holding the sandwich out to him.

“You’re sleeping away the afternoon,” Clyde says letting Fletcher stretch and rub the sleep from his eyes. Clyde holds out the sandwich. “Figured you’d be hungry.”

“Thanks, Daddy,” Fletcher says taking the sandwich and blowing in between the pieces of bread where the meat steams in the cold.

Clyde is a bit taken aback with Fletcher’s calling him “Daddy”. He’d rarely done so for some time now as he has been trying to act as much a grown-up as possible. Clyde has been contributing to this by trying to teach him some of the important lessons that come with growing into manhood. The thought of his young boy transitioning from childhood so quickly makes him feel a sense of melancholy, but it is necessary. God only knows when, or if—he tries to be honest with himself, he will return alive. Someone had to teach the boy enough to get him through. This still does not take the guilt away of ending his son’s childhood so abruptly. He will think about the moment on the riverbank when his son reverted to calling him by a name reserved typically for the young as he hikes the fields of swampy rice in Vietnam.

They eat in silence once they move a bit closer to the fire. The heat from the flames, mixing with the warming food in his belly, seems to bring Fletcher further into consciousness. The mayo compliments the venison well, and Fletcher digs in with the ravenous vigor of a growing boy. Clyde envies his appetite, having taken four bites and already full. The feeling might stem from the fact of eating venison for a solid couple months with only few vegetables as reprieve to the monotony on his pallet. They haven’t wasted any of the meat, but the thought of eating anything else is a tantalizing thought.

Once Fletcher scarfs the final crumbs of his own sandwich, Clyde hands over what is left of his own. The boy takes it with a nod and devours the remainder, sopping up the hot grease from the pan with his last few bites of bread. They stretch and let themselves, and their full stomachs, rest for a few moments in the warming light of the weak, November sunshine. Above the tree line—a few hundred yards downstream—an egret calls. They glance to see if they might make out the bird flying in the distance, but the sound echoes once more much fainter than before, the bird moving down river instead.

It is sometime before either speaks, Clyde reluctantly breaking the peaceful silence. “I found some work, son.”

Fletcher smiles over at his father, blinking a bit from the glare of the sun behind his dad’s head.

Clyde sighs, looking out over the rippling current of the river unable to meet his young son’s smiling gaze. “Means that I’m gonna have to go away for a while.”

Fletcher’s face drops a bit at this. “Where ya going, Papa?”

Just Papa this time. “Gotta leave the country for a bit. Place where there’s some bad people that want to hurt us. Your old man’s gonna go help to stop ‘em.”

Fletcher nods without looking at his father. A job protecting folks seems appropriate for the man who’s always protected him. “How long?”

“I don’t rightly know,” he says working up the nerve to look at his son. “How does that make you feel?”

Fletcher thinks about this for a moment. He feels a lot of things. He knows his father probably expects him to be sad or angry at this sudden abandonment. He doesn’t want to make his papa feel bad, not after such a wonderful day. He banishes the thoughts of sorrow and puts on a half-hearted smile. “It’s a good job for you.”

“I thought so too. This means that you’re going to have to look after your mama and your baby brother, too. You think you can do that for me while I’m away?”

Fletcher nods. “Yes sir.”

Clyde musses the boy’s hair and brings him scooting across the gravel closer to him. He sits with his arm over Fletcher’s shoulders for a minute in silence. “I’ll come back, son.”

For some reason or another, Fletcher’s young mind can’t quite pinpoint the emergence of these thoughts, the stating of this making it seems less true than if it were to have remained unspoken. He also comes to the realization that his childhood has come to an abrupt end with this announcement. He is now subject to the responsibility of making sure the family is taken care of. It surprises him that he feels such a lack of emotion at the idea of this. Particularly speaking, these revelations should inspire some reaction appropriate to the consequences of his father’s coming absence, yet he feels nothing.

Clyde leans back on the soft grass of the riverbank. He takes a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and pulls one out with his teeth. “Why don’t you fish for a bit,” he says handing a rod Fletcher’s way. “Your mother expects us to bring a few small ones home for supper.”

Fletcher accepts the rod and rises from his seat next to his father. “What’re you gonna do?”

Clyde opens another can of Schlitz and inhales a large puff of smoke. “Believe I’ll just watch for a bit if you don’t mind.”

Fletcher nods, unhooking the fly from the bottom guide and wading out into the water. His casts are fluid as he extends the length of the line to a desirable distance, aware of his father’s eyes on his back, and lays the fly flat on the water, uncurling from a beautifully tight loop and sinking below the surface. Fletcher knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t help peaking back over his shoulder to see if his father had been paying attention to his casting. Clyde smiles and raises his beer can from where he sits. This embarrasses Fletcher a bit for needing such affirmation, but, in all honesty, he doesn’t know how many more times he will be able to look back at his father for such approval.

The indicator sinks below the surface as it floats level with Fletcher and he deftly sets the hook. It is a quick fight, the fish only being a small rainbow of indistinct size. Its color is faded as he holds it up for his father to see, a good portion of its left side scratched and gouged up from scraping against the concrete walls of the hatchery. Clyde nods in approval and Fletcher tosses the small rainbow onto the bank next to where his father lounges sipping at his beer. He catches one more, a brook trout, of similar size. He tosses this one on to the bank and recasts upstream. There’s only need for one more as his baby brother Thomas is far too young to enjoy the pleasant taste of trout.

The first several drifts come back uneventful other than one small snag of the indicator on a rock in the riverbed and one bite that sent Fletcher into a state of excitement as he was able to see the large fish in the shallow water take the fly. His exaggerated movements cause him to roll the fish, the flash showing distinctly in the water, the fish spitting the fly and rejoining the other spawning browns on the reds. The sun is sinking lower to where the tops of the trees on the far bank shine in the golden light. The day is almost at its end, meaning Fletcher’s time is nearly finished.

“Clyde finishes his beer and rises from his spot on the bank. “Think it’s about time to start heading back. Your mama will be waiting on us.”

“We don’t have enough fish for supper.”

“We’ll manage just fine I think.”

Fletcher’s head sinks. This is his last few moments alone with his father. Even if they don’t talk, it’s nice to be together. “Can I have a couple more casts?”

Clyde chuckles, looking to the watch on his wrist, then up towards the sinking light of the sun. It will be dark by the time they make it to their house anyway. “Just a couple more,” he says, gathering up some of their equipment to take back to the boat to wait on Fletcher to finish.

Fletcher ignores the fact that his father has left him to fish alone. He figures that he will be doing most things alone after today. He brings the rod back to ten o’clock and down to one o’clock. The line lays out in a manner that for some reason or another he doesn’t care for. He looks to the Bible tucked firmly underneath his arm. He takes it and sticks it in the chest portion of his waders, freeing up his arm to cast more freely. Casting comes much easier now, and Fletcher is able to place the cast a good ten feet further than he has been, exposing the fly to a group of brownish shadows in the water at the head of the shoal.

He doesn’t wait long. It seems that as soon as the fly has time to settle in the water the indicator bobs beneath the surface sharply before he even has a chance to mend. The weight of the tug on the other end and swiftness with which the fish takes off up river nearly makes Fletcher lose his grip on the cork handle of the rod. He gives a small shout of surprise before grinding his feet in the gravel and taking a tighter grip on the rod.

Clyde sees his son struggling with what is surely the largest fish he’s ever tangled with and makes to splash to his side if he were to require assistance. He stops himself after a few steps and forces himself to slosh back to the bank so that he might quietly observe. The boy needs to do this on his own. If his father were to jump in to help it would ruin the experience. But what if he were to lose it? This is surely a fish of a lifetime, one that Fletcher will look back on when taking his own son to the river. Clyde takes a deep breath and remains silently on the bank, watching intently nonetheless.

Fletcher lets the excess line pooling at his feet slip through his index finger gripping the line to the rod until he gets the fish on the reel. Clyde sees what he is doing form his spot behind him and nods approvingly. To fight the fish with slack line would be unwise. Giving it its head with the reel, allowing the drag system to work for you, was the far smarter move. As the last of the line slips through Fletcher’s finger Clyde has a moment of panic. The boy had picked up his father’s rod to use, and Clyde stands back worrying at the possibility that he might have set the drag too tight for a fish such as this. The line holds, however, and Clyde breathes a long sigh of relief for not having ruined this opportunity for his son.

The fish tugs further upstream for a time, Fletcher straining under the weight of the bending rod, before turning back causing Fletcher to quickly reel in slack line as not to give the fish a chance to spit the fly from lack of tension. Once the fish feels the tightness of the line, the hook digging deeper into its jaw, it takes off downstream screaming line from the reel to where there is the slightest high-pitch buzzing coming from the Orvis rig. The line passes by Clyde, just a bit downstream from where Fletcher was fishing, with his son following closely behind, his rod held high over his head and his small legs high-stepping in the water so as not to lose his footing.

Clyde wants very much to shout out to him, coach him thought the process, but restrains himself with great difficulty as Fletcher battles against the heavy tension of the reel. It doesn’t take long, however, before the large fish flashes once more in the water and stops its struggling, exhausted. Fletcher is still careful reeling in the dead weight of the fish so as not to be fooled in case it were to catch a second wind and take off back for the middle of the shoal. It doesn’t, and Fletcher is able to reel the fish in towards the bank close enough for the net to reach underneath its large girth. His father thinks about going over to net it for him, but instead just hands his son the net from where he stands at the water’s edge.

It takes Fletcher two tries to get the net underneath the fish enough to be able to lift it from the water in order to dig the hook from its jaw. On the first try, the fish is startled enough by the net to slap its way back into deep enough water to make a run for it. Fletcher thinks it gone for sure, but is able to get the line and the behemoth to cooperate and drift back towards the bank and the waiting net. Fletcher looks down at his fish gasping from either excitement or exertion. Clyde admires the fish and then looks to his son. He knows the feelings going through him. Awe and pure elation. The fish rests wrapped in the net with its tail hanging up the side and nearly dropping over the wooden frame.

Clyde whistles and Fletcher peels his eyes from his catch to glance quickly at his father. “That was a brilliant fight, son.”

Fletcher only nods, looking back at the fish in the net resting in a few inches in the icy water so it might breath.

“Better be digging that hook from his lip.”

Fletcher nods and jumps into action, holding the net handle between his legs and reaching for the fish’s jaw. The fly is tough to extract from the tough surface of the upper lip. He fiddles with it for a few seconds before his father hands him a pair of hemostats to make the digging of the barb easier.

“That was a beautiful set. Timing must have been perfect. You hooked it exactly where needed to.”

Fletcher smiles as the hook gives way and hands the hemostats back to Clyde without taking his eyes from the colorful brown trout.

“This is your first brownie, right?”

“Yes sir.”

“Hell of a first. You’ll be ruined on them forever now.” He scratches at the whiskers on his cheeks and pulls another cigarette from his pocket. “You know they won’t all be like this?”

Fletcher nods, still looking at the fish.

Clyde lights his cigarette and takes a long drag. He holds in the smoke and blows it out his nose after a few moments. “You should hold it. Let it know the man who bested it. This was probably a first for it. Fish don’t get like that getting caught.”

Fletcher looks to his father uncertainly for a moment before reaching in to the net.

“Wet your hands first. You won’t hurt ‘em like that.”

Fletcher stops, makes sure that the net is securely between his legs, and dips his hands in the cold river water. He shivers a bit from the temperature and his wet hands being exposed to the chill air. He gingerly wraps his right hand around the tail of the fish and sticks his left underneath it close to the base of its head.

“Easy, now.” Clyde comments from behind. “Don’t squeeze it near the head or anywhere on its underbelly; just cradle it there. The firmer grip should be on the tail.”

Fletcher lifts the fist from the net and into the open for them to admire more closely. It’s an impressive catch, one that if it would have been anyone else that caught it Clyde would be rather envious. The boy only stares in awe.

Clyde whistles again and sticks his cigarette back in his teeth, moving closer to get a better look. He points to the bulging stomach of the fish. “That’s a female. See her middle girth bulge like it is?” Fletcher nods, examining the fishes mid-section. “Those are eggs doing that. Probably about to drop them at any time now.” He blows out a cloud of smoke. “Damn it. Wish to hell we had a camera.” He takes one sharp drag on his cigarette and tosses the but in the water at his feet to sizzle out. “Damn fine fish.” He sighs once more. “Well, best put her back in. Don’t want to leave her in the open for too long.”

Fletcher stares longingly at the fish in his hands for a moment. Part of him doesn’t want to let her go. She is beautiful in his hands, slimy from cradling her weight. Her jaw works up and down being exposed to the air where she can’t catch a breath. Despite this, it is purely an accident, a minor moment of the clumsiness of youth that, as he is about to stop to release the fish back into its home, Fletcher’s boot slips on a particularly mossy rock sending him tumbling to his backside in the water. In the process of falling, Fletcher puts his hands out to catch himself effectively tossing the trout into the air. The boy lands smartly with his tailbone hitting a particularly sharp rock. The water splashes around him, wetting his back and seeping into the top portion of his waders immediately chilling his upper body. Fletcher notices none of this: not the shivering of his wet torso, nor the movement of his father coming to aide, the shout escaping from his lips. All Fletcher sees is the sight of the beautiful brown trout arcing over his head towards the bank. The fish flips downward and plummets back to earth with its back striking a rock just above the dorsal fin with a wet smack.

The feeling of wetness streaming down his face is what seems to come back first. Fletcher wonders to if some water had splashed up into his hair and is dripping down his face. When he brings his hand up to wipe the droplets away he finds that they are tears. He doesn’t understand this and it makes him angry. He certainly doesn’t want to be crying in front of his father. He wipes them away angrily, barely feeling the hands under his arms pulling him to his feet. Neither does he notice the over-sized down jacket being placed on his shoulders. He shakes off his father’s hands and moves to where his fish flops in tremors on the rocky bank. Small, pinkish-orange balls litter the ground near its tail and belly. Fletcher bends down to pick them up to discover their fragile squishiness. His father, having come up and put a reassuring or comforting hand on his shoulder mutters something about eggs. Fletcher didn’t need to be told, he knows what they are. He holds it up to see if he can make out a tiny, baby fish inside the jelly-like casing but can only see a small, dark smudge in all the orange.

He refuses to look at the fish, just inches away, lying on its side and making the occasional flop of pain. He just doesn’t think he can take it. His father’s hand leaves his shoulder as he continues to inspect the fish egg. Clyde bends down to the female brown gasping on the rocks. He gently prods the fish with his index finger to see if it will protest, but the eye he can see only spins wildly for a moment in confusion or fear Clyde can’t tell.

The man lets out a defeated huff of breath and spits on the ground. “Shit.”

The curse has Fletcher looking towards his father and the prone form of the fish. His fish. He forgets the eggs in his hand and turns to peer down at her with his dad.

“She’s not gonna make it,” Clyde says lighting another cigarette. He smokes for a moment before bending down and wrapping his hand tightly around the base of her tail.

“What are you doing, Pa?”

Clyde doesn’t look at his son as he lifts the fish off the ground to where its head points downward. Fletcher can see her eye and shivers as he feels her staring accusingly at him.

“Got to put her out of her misery.”

Fletcher looks down confusedly at the eggs littering the bank. “What about the baby trout?”

His father shakes his head. “Won’t make it. They can’t be laid out on the spawning bed without their mother.” Clyde moves to a stump at that projects up to a suitable height along the bank. “Damn shame really. She’s a fine trout.” He lifts the fish over his head.

Fletcher sees this and shouts for his father to wait. He rises from his place on the bank, dropping the eggs that he’d forgot he was holding on to and joins his father near the stump. He holds out his small hand. “I should do it.”

Clyde shakes his head, looking down at his son. “You don’t have to.”

Fletcher reaches out his hand again persistently. “I do.”

Clyde thinks about this for a moment, seeing the resolve in his young son’s eyes. He doesn’t particularly like that look that he sees, but thinks that perhaps that it is for the best if Fletcher is the one to end it. He shrugs, handing the fish over and puffing on his cigarette, making sure to step back a few paces to be out of the way.

Fletcher looks to his fish once more, cradling it large head gently. The eyes are blank and expressionless looking up at him. Fletcher stares right back for a few moments before noticing her gills have stopped opening and closing. He assumes she is dead and thinks for a moment that it might not be necessary at all. Looking back towards the eye he finds that it already seems to be producing the milky hew signaling the end of the fish’s life. He dare not look back to his father for advice, Clyde would only take that as an unwillingness to perform the deed, a weakness. The boy closes his eyes and whips the fish over his head and brings it slapping against the stump. He lets it hang lifeless at his side and turns back to his dad.

“What are we gonna do with her?” He tries not to let his voice sound emotional.

“Guess we’ll take her back for supper. Gotta be around thirty inches. Probably could feed all three of us on her alone. Won’t taste worth a damn unless we fry her. Fish that big typically don’t taste good.”

Fletcher nods his head as if this is the most obvious sentiment. He leaves his father where he stands and takes the fish to the boat, dropping it next to the two small ones from earlier. Clyde gathers the rod and joins Fletcher at the boat. The boy takes his seat inside next to the dead fish and equipment as Clyde undoes the anchor and shoves them gently into the current. He wades out to the back of the boat, the water near his waist, before hopping in an cranking the starting chord. The Mercury roars to life with the throttle turned high to warm the engine a bit before Clyde shifts it into drive and points it down river towards home. They ride in relative silence for a time with only the puttering of the outboard cutting noise into the world. Fletcher shivers, quite cold now having felt his wetness and the chill in the air.

Clyde stares at his son’s back, his shoulders slumped and shivering. He lights another cigarette, throwing the nub of his previous one into the floor of the boat at his feet. He tries to get as many as he can in while on the water as his wife doesn’t want him smoking up the house. He feels for his son, wishing the boy would have let him kill the fish. The boy, however, had done well. Clyde had expected tears. He tells Fletcher how proud he is over the hum of the motor.

Fletcher hears this but pays it no mind. It’s what his father almost has to say in these situations. He looks down to his feet where the large, lifeless fish lays in the bottom of the boat. He places his foot gently on her middle and tiny, orange eggs spill into the bottom of the boat. Earlier today this would have made him quite sad. Now it does nothing for him. He watches as the squishy balls of aborted trout roll through the rivets of the metal boat and thinks about how doing what is necessary isn’t as hard as one might think.