Making peace with the world? How do we do it? After my young mother died from cancer I couldn't, even though my new passion, fly fishing, helped ease my pain; and so when an angler on the Saw Mill River told me how beautiful the Catskill Mountains and the Beaverkill River were, I hoped, I prayed, that being surrounded by them, would help me make peace.
Then I got frightened, frightened of going alone to what seemed like a whole other world. Still, I forced myself into Penn Station and onto the O.& W. Railroad. Three hours later I arrived in the tiny town of Roscoe, NY, checked into the Central House Hotel, walked up a creaking flight of stairs and found my room.
It was tenement-sized, with barely enough space for the bed, dresser and small table. I sat on the bed and again wondered why my mother had to die? Wasn't she a loving mother? A compassionate person who brought food to poor, hungry immigrants? Yes she was. Then why wasn't she good enough in God's eyes? Because she once drank?
What about all the other people who still drink? Why are they worthy of life when my mother isn't? Even if there is a God up there, is he worth believing in?
And why am I here? Already I feel so alone. The Beaverkill is like the major-leagues of fly fishing. Am I really ready for it?
Supposing other anglers see that I'm not? Will they laugh? Well, maybe I don't know all that much about fly fishing, but at least I know, thanks to Izzy, a lot about fly casting.
I put on my waders, took my Leonard fly rod, and walked down Bridge Street, faster and faster. I marched onto the railroad bridge and stood above the upper Beaverkill. From bank to bank the gurgling river was fast, riffled and rocky, and about twice as wide as the Saw Mill. The trees lining the banks had trunks that seemed too thin to support their dense branches. These trees, however, didn't look like the tall, umbrella-like trees Doc, the first angler I ever met, described when he told me about the Civil War battle he had fought in, Cold Harbor. The battle, "hell brought up to earth" he had said, changed his view of life, and ironically helped him give up drinking and decide to save lives and become a doctor.
Why? I wondered, did I see, in my mind at least, Doc's wartime description when I really wanted to see present-time beauty? Was it because I felt I was in foreign, hostile territory and about to do battle with the Beaverkill River?
Suddenly the Beaverkill trees looked like overgrown Christmas trees. Their short branches didn't come close to forming a leafy roof and to closing out the blue sky and the bright sunlight. To me, the Saw Mill was prettier than what I saw of the Beaverkill.
Below me a fly line shot out and unrolled. The leader swung left, as if the caster moved his elbow too much. The fly landed gently, upstream of the line and just outside a swirling eddy. The fly drifted about two feet, then was retrieved. The angler below me wore a black, suit jacket and a gray cap. He cast again, pointing the rod out at angle of about forty-five degrees to the water. The leader swung again, and the fly landed just outside the eddy.
I walked off the bridge and down the road. Following Clay's directions, I turned onto a narrow road, and walked into a into a rocky clearing. The clearing, I quickly saw, was a bank of the Beaverkill. Across the river, the far bank was about six feet high, and tiled with big, flat rocks. Above the bank was a big corn field. Way beyond the field was a mountain. On the side of the mountain was a two-story building, probably as long as the Metropolitan Art Museum. Surrounded by trees, the building stuck out like a set of false teeth.
The angler under the bridge wrote something in a small notebook. He looked familiar. Could he be--yes he was, George M. L. La Branche!
I walked to him. "Mr. La Branche?"
He glanced at me. "Yes?" he said coldly.
"I saw you cast in a tournament."
"I cast in a lot of tournaments." He stuffed his notebook and pencil into his pocket.
"The one in Central Park in 1909."
"Kid, I'm very busy right now."
Busy? Wasn't he was fishing? And wasn't I stupid for starting a conversation with a man with two middle initials.
I walked downstream. The river widened into the shape of a huge funnel. The funnel, I knew, was the Forks. The stem was the Willowemoc Creek. Like the upper Beaverkill, it was riffled from bank to bank, and reminded me of a marching army. But the Willowemoc and Beaverkill armies didn't collide. Both slowed and surrendered and merged into a large plain of neutral territory. The plain, however, was wrinkled by swirling eddies that soon changed directions suddenly, as if they were lost and couldn't find their way.
What formed the eddies? Underwater geysers? The biggest eddy disappeared, suddenly. Where did it go? Had the geyser been shut off, like a faucet? The eddy popped up a few feet downstream. Did eddies, like stars, form out of nowhere and then disappear? Or did eddies, like children, play games, like Hide-and-seek?
Way downstream of the big eddy, the river seemed to widen into a street, like Delancey. At the end of the street was a big, round island, covered with tall, uneven grass. The island looked as if it needed a haircut; then I remembered the tree trunks blemishing mountains. Maybe nature was better off not having a barber.
I walked to the pool's tail. Two currents flowed in opposite directions, like the wide lines of immigrants strolling up and down Orchard Street. Near the end of the tail, the upstream current about-faced and merged with the downstream current. The whole river found it way and seemed to smooth into a football-field-long pane of sliding glass. At the end of the field, in the end zone, the river sloped suddenly, sped up and reformed into a riffled, roaring army, more powerful than either of the armies flowing into the Forks.
Why was it, I wondered, the Beaverkill presented so many different faces of water? Could rivers, like people, have reasons why they did things? If so, was the Beaverkill, like an insecure woman trying different make-up? Or like an exposed army donning different camouflages? The river, however, was not exposed. A mountain protected it like a fortress wall, and enabled the river to quickly surround the island. Instead of storming and sacking it, the river widened and gave way to it, then marched out of my view.
Did the Beaverkill again slow and surrender? I wanted to know. Did the river, or the sky or the mountains want to know about me? Did they care if I stayed or went, or lived or died? Or if I, like the face of the river, was also changed, maybe even into an unloved insect trapped in the vastness of the world? Really, I wasn't changed. I was still a person trapped, maybe, in a different world.
How many different worlds were on earth? As many as stars in the sky? Could people go from world to world and not get lost or trapped? After all, I came to the world of the Beaverkill on my own; and less than thirty yards away was my eventual way out: the railroad tracks. Besides, the Beaverkill was really a small world inside a bigger world I was familiar with: the world of trout fishing. For better or worse, the next two days I had no other world to go to.
I set up my rod, and tied on a Green Drake wet fly. I walked back upstream, pulled line off the reel, stepped into the pool and nearly fell. The pool was a big, deep hole. What if it didn't have a bottom and went all the way to the other side of the earth? Wouldn't it be nice if worlds far, far apart were really connected?
I stepped back on to the bank, and cast over my so called neutral plain. The eddies grabbed the line like a thief and wouldn't let go. I pointed the rod up and tried to mend. The eddies pulled stronger. Were they telling me which way the line should go?
I pointed the rod lower and fed line through the guides. The fly sunk below the water's surface. No take. I retrieved and cast a few feet downstream. The eddies left the line for dead, surprisingly. I had to improvise and give life to my fly. Slowly, I pointed the rod up and down, up and down.
Again no take. I again cast, landing the line landed between two eddies. The smooth water grabbed the line. Was the water wearing a mask and trying to fool me? If so, why? To protect the trout? Was the water, therefore, a different kind of fortress wall? If so, it could still be probed and penetrated.
An hour later I still hadn't induced a take. Discouraged, I walked to the pool's tail. The sliding water glowed brighter than a sun-reflecting marble floor. Was the Beaverkill, or at least what I saw of it, more beautiful than Penn Station?
I wasn't sure. The glowing water hurt my eyes. I looked up and saw what looked like another reflection. Behind the mountain was its mirror image. Because the image was at a different angle, the mountains seemed to merge into a curving fortress wall that didn't close me in. After all, the river had a way out. It turned and marched behind the row of tall trees on the near bank. I wished all my sad feelings about my mother's death could march out of my fortress of grief.
But if I waded downstream wouldn't I run into them again and be back where I started? I waded into the tail. The rocks on the bottom were flat, as if the moving water shaped them so people could walk on them. The water rushed gently around my legs. Instead of trying to push me back or to knock me over, it seemed to caress me.
Was the Beaverkill welcoming me? A cloud blocked the sun. The water's glow faded. As it did, reflections of trees and of the mountain emerged. I thought it was strange that less light brought out more images. Because the images were upside-down, maybe it wasn't strange at all. The trees and mountains looked as if they were sinking into the earth. Suddenly I didn't know if I was in the bottom of a wide valley or at the top.
Or was I in both places at once? I wished every time something bad happened, I could look at a reflection and the world would be upside-down. And then if I could change the river's direction maybe I could bring my mother and all the dead soldiers back to life. But unlike flowing water, the reflections seemed cemented in place. I looked at the rushing tail. Instead of a marching army, I saw shattered, foamy glass.
A take! I snapped the rod up and back. The line went limp. I had jerked the fly out of the trout's mouth. I cursed myself. I again cast and thought of how the Forks was made up of four different faces: the marching armies, the eddies, the two-way avenue, and the sliding glass. Did the Beaverkill have a fifth, sixth or seventh face beyond the tail? Did it have as many faces as Fifth Avenue had mansions?
Probably not. Still, the river was as beautiful as the avenue. Why then why did I still feel so alone? Because I had no one to talk to or listen to?
I listened to the river. The wind-rustled trees sounded like the cymbals of an orchestra. Downstream a bird sang--only the same two notes. On the near bank another bird shrieked, out of key with everything else in the small Beaverkill world. A third bird sang a soft note at different tempos. The notes sounded like Morse Code. If it was code, the bird surely wasn't signaling the other two birds because they didn't seem to answer. Different birds didn't seem to be on speaking terms.
I waded downstream. Even though I knew I couldn't, I wanted to try to cast all the way to the far bank. I false cast, shooting more and more line. Finally, as my back cast unrolled, I lowered the rod tip, then cast forward. I let go of the line and raised the rod handle.
The fly landed about a quarter of the way to the bank and drifted downstream.
The sun shined down again, and the reflections on the water changed back into a glow, and the small world was all right-side up again.
I pointed the rod up and glanced behind me. No one was there.
Had I ever been on the streets of Manhattan for so long without seeing another person? What if I was now the only person alive in the world? Would I want to live? Would I want to--
The line tightened, then swung toward the far bank. A take! Smoothly, I pulled the rod up. The trout yanked back. The hook pierced the trout's soft mouth. I reeled up slack line, then pointed the rod lower and let the fish run. The reel clicked, then whirled. The trout's will to fight surged through the line and made my beautiful Leonard seem to throb with the heart of a beast. I clenched the rod handle. The trout slowed, finally. Trying to point the rod up, I couldn't raise the tip more than a few inches. I pulled the rod and tried to point it out to the side. Surprisingly, I could. The trout broke for the near bank.
Again I tried to point the rod up. I couldn't. Gently, I again pulled the rod to side. The trout turned suddenly and broke for the far bank. I tried to turn the reel's handle. The trout yanked harder than before and bent the rod into a half circle.
Easily I turned him, again and again.
Back and forth he swam, never jumping, never taking more line, never letting me point the rod higher and bring him closer.
So that was his strategy: to not fully fight and tire himself out. How did he know to do this? How many fights had he been in before?
I decided to match his strategy and not exert all my energy. So in effect, we were in an extra-inning tie, with neither of use trying to hit a home run. Inning after inning, I turned the trout. He swam bank to bank, and seeming to acknowledge the standoff, pulled back steadily, weaker than before. My Leonard rod seemed to throb in sync with my beating heart.
Was I in a game without an end?
But in fishing games weren't called because of darkness. I had to gamble and try to win. Or lose.
"Need help!?" someone yelled out.
I glanced back. An angler stood on the bank. He had long gray hair. He was average height and stocky. He wore a green jacket and a gray baseball cap.
I answered, "Sure."
The angler jogged downstream. I turned the trout toward the near bank. The angler stepped into the river, held his net just below the surface, waited, then lunged. The big brown trout was in his net. The game was over. Because I had help, did I really win?
I waded to the bank. "Thanks, mister."
The angler pulled out my fly. "A monster brown. He's one for the wall."
The trout opened and closed his mouth, as if gasping for air.
"I'd like to let him go."
"A fish like this?" The angler had a creel.
"A fish like this deserves to live."
"All right, if that's what you want. "The angler held the
trout underwater, then let him go. "I'm Ray."
He looked a little older than my father. His shallow grayish eyes didn't seem to have sockets or color. His round face was as flat as a frying pan. He looked like the man in the moon.
"I'm Ian."
"I watched you before. You're a hell of a caster." His voice as rough, as if sandpaper lined his throat. He glanced at my Leonard rod. "You from New York?" he asked coldly.
At least he wasn't drunk, I thought. "Yes, I am. The rod was a gift."
"Welcome."
His teeth were as white and as straight as a picket fence, a fence with an opening. Ray was missing a tooth on the bottom.
I wondered if his teeth were fake. "Sir--"
"Ray."
"Ray, do you know the man upstream, wearing the dark jacket?"
"Mr. La Branche? I'm a carpenter. I once worked on his fishing club's house. He's a strange bird, a rich guy who's in love with trying to prove that you can take trout on fast, riffled water with dry flies."
"Can you?"
"This isn't England where the rivers and streams are slower and smoother. How can trout see a dry through the riffles? To me La Branche's theories are profane. And so is buying up land and closing them off from the public. This river is God's--not a fishing club's church. What if a minister bought pews and closed off part of his church. That too would be profane!"
He spoke forcefully, as if possessed. To be fair, however, not as possessed as a vote-hungry politician or to a devil-fearing preacher.
If he is so against the fishing clubs, I wondered, why does, he work for them and accept their money? Should I hide that my father is sort of rich?
I asked, "Where does the Beaverkill start?"
"It starts from rain water as a tiny brook about two-thousand feet up between Graham and Double Top mountains."
Maybe, I thought, mountains were created to form rivers.
"Twelve miles later," Ray went on, "the brook meets Alder Creek and becomes a little river. The little river meets more creeks and gets bigger and bigger. I guess that's why the Lenni-Lenape Indians, who lived near these very banks and fish for shad, called the river the Whelenaughwemack, which means the river that washes itself clean. When the white man settled up here, they began cutting down the Hemlock trees and sending them down the river on rafts. Just before all the usable Hemlock was cut down, my father was one of the last rafters thrown into the river and killed. That happened right there, in those rapids." He pointed to the rushing water at the end of the tail. "The next day I came here to say good-bye to him. A man was fishing right here. I told him what happened to my father. Then he gave me a quick casting lesson and let me fish for a while. I've been fishing ever since; and after all these years, every time I fish this tail I feel close to my father, as if the rushing water is really him talking to me."
I thought of how I too often wondered if my mother was with me when I fished. Maybe my wondering wasn't so crazy after all.
Ray stared at the rapids. He seemed hypnotized. I wanted to know more about the Beaverkill, but didn't want to break Ray's spell, so I too stared at the rapids and listened for voices. I didn't hear any.
I asked, "What's the next pool downstream like?"
"Ferdon's Eddy. Even though It's private land, the family lets anglers fish it."
"How can I get to it?"
"Walk. I'll show you."
We left the Forks and turned onto the dirt road. The densely packed trees blocked out most of the sight of the river but little of its roaring sound. The marching army comforted me like music, maybe because I knew that, instead of flesh and bone, the soldiers were made of riffles and foam and would never die.
We walked down a steep, narrow road and into a dirt clearing. The clearing was the bank of Ferdon's Eddy. The pool looked like a long, one-way street. At the end of the street, the river seemed to tunnel under a mountain. The river, I knew, really sloped downward, turned and flowed again out of my view.
Was the Beaverkill showing me only a small part of itself at a time? Was it calling out to me and asking me to follow and to see it? If so it wasn't fair. I was leaving the next day. I could either fish the river or follow it. I was there to fish.
Ferdon's was narrower than the Forks. The far bank was the bottom of a long, curving mountain. Downstream, the top of the mountain sloped down, like a line of a giant triangle. Were two other lines hiding somewhere? If so, could they really be parts of a triangle?
The roaring water marched into the pool, then slowed, but never surrendered completely. From mouth to tail, the water was riffled gently. Ferdon's Eddy, unlike the Forks, wore only one long face.
"You can take the best water," Ray said. "Just below the mouth."
I waded into the pool. The water, suddenly up to my waist, it didn't try to knock me down or, for that matter, to caress me. It didn't seem to care whether I was there.
"Don't worry," Ray said. "It doesn't get much deeper."
I waded farther out. The dirt-brown water was the color of tea, but not dark enough to hide the small rocks on the river bottom. The rocks were round and certainly weren't dissolving like cubes of sugar. Streaks of reflected sunlight flowed past me. The streaks looked like an invasion of electricly-lit caterpillars.
Ray waded directly downstream of me, about thirty yards away. At the same time, we fed line into the current. Ray cast with the rod pointing out, like B. L. Richards. The line formed a wide loop and unrolled behind him. He cast the rod forward, smoothly and effortlessly, and landed his fly about thirty-five feet downstream, at a three-quarter angle.
I didn't want to show up Ray and try to cast all the way to the far bank. Instead, I tried to duplicate his cast. I too landed my fly about thirty-five feet downstream. Because the pool was one current, I didn't mend as my fly swung downstream. I retrieved and cast, again and again. No takes. I watched Ray. Almost by magic, we cast in unison. When Ray waded five feet downstream, I did too; so though Ray and I didn't speak, I felt our motions did.
The Beaverkill no longer seemed so big. I looked at the riffles. Though made from flowing water, the riffles were locked in place, as if an unchangeable form, some sort of cookie cutter, shaped to the water.
Ray's line tightened. He swung the rod up and back, smoothly. A rainbow jumped about three feet. Ray lowered the rod and reeled in slack line. The rainbow shook his head, plunged back into the water and broke toward the far bank. Wading downstream and toward the shallow bank, Ray turned the rainbow, reeled in line, pointed the rod downstream and let the trout run. As soon as the whirling sound of the reel slowed, Ray, still wading downstream, repeated his fish-fighting cycle: turning, reeling, waiting. I remembered what I had read about wading downstream of a fish to fight it. Though Ray didn't speak during the fight, his calm motions told me he had fought and beaten hundred and hundreds of trout.
The rainbow was at Ray's feet. Ray landed the rainbow in his net.
"That one is for my wife!" Ray pulled out his fly. Using his net as a hammer, banged the trout right between the eyes. The trout lay still. Ray put it in his creel.
"Three more to go!"
A half hour later, Ray landed a second trout. "That's for my daughter."
The sun, I noticed, had retreated behind the mountain. The water was now mud-brown, the color of coffee. The electric caterpillars had vanished. Taking their place were thousands of small flies in close formation. The flies' opaque wings stood straight up. Like the riffled water of the Beaverkill, the flies also looked like an army, or maybe I should say a miniature, floating navy.
How was it all the sailors appeared at the same time? Did they have a way of talking to each other, of signaling each other?
The flies seemed glued to the water. They weren't ready to fly. To me it didn't seem right that nature, in effect, made them sitting ducks--that is, if Mr. La Branche was right. I looked for trout rises. I didn't see any. Ray, not Mr. La Branche, was right.
A trout grabbed my fly. Calmly, I swung my rod up and set the hook. Wading downstream of the trout, I turned him several times, bringing him closer and closer. This fight I knew, wasn't going to be a standoff. A few minutes later I landed a sixteen-inch rainbow in my hand. I pulled my fly out of his mouth and wondered what a rainbow tasted liked. The trout tried to break free.
Holding him tighter, I thought, don't trout eat living things? Why shouldn't I keep him? Will the lodge cook him for me? If not, don't I owe Ray for welcoming me? Can feeding his family be wrong? Look how the trout gasps for air. I hope I never have to.
I let the trout go.
A few minutes later, Ray caught a third rainbow. "Well I guess I'm eating spaghetti tonight." Ray reeled in line and waded toward the bank.
The flies were still stuck on the water. A trout rose and sipped a one. I reeled in my line and saw another rise. Mr. La Branche was right, after all. Nature was unfair, unless it formed riffled water to at least make it harder for trout to see flies. I waded to the bank, but didn't say anything to Ray about the rises.
"Three fish ain't bad for an hour's work," Ray said. "Especially since fishing sure beats sawing wood. You fishing tomorrow?"
"Yes."
"I'll meet you at the Forks, say about nine?"
"Sure."
"Where you having dinner?"
Was he inviting me to his house? I remembered eating cake with the immigrants on Orchard Street. Even though Ray was an American, I knew I would feel out of place eating with his family, especially without my mother. Besides, what if Ray asked if my father was rich?
I decided to lie. "Yes, I'm meeting someone at the hotel."
We walked up to the dirt road.
"Well I go that way." Ray pointed behind him.
"Thanks Ray."
"For what?"
"For, for making me glad I came to the Beaverkill."
"Don't get soft on me. The Beaverkill has a way of growing on people. Don't know why, but it always has and always will."
I walked back to the hotel, thinking of how unfair I had been to compare the river to a long battlefield. I wanted to apologize. But how?
I promised myself and the Beaverkill that the next day I would see the river differently, the way it really was: a beautiful, welcoming reflection of the wider, more mysterious, unseen world.
