The River - Peter Heller Page 0,51

a sun-warmed morning, and no pupae on the rocks of the bed. Maybe the water was too acidic, they didn’t know, but they picked the flies with more care; they did not confer but reached into their own archives of past summer mornings on slow tannin creeks. Jack had been kept company in the night by a single cold cricket so he tied on a small hopper. He hit the leaves and stems of the grass and asters along the bank and let the hopper bounce off them and fall in like a wayward jump. Wynn used a little wooly bugger which he stripped upstream to mimic a fry or minnow. They began catching fish and they relaxed, and they kept every trout now that was bigger than their clip knives, everything that could offer a couple of bites. In less than an hour they had a panful, and they rustled together a fire and cleaned the fish.

They steamed the brookies in an inch of water in the pot and wondered why they hadn’t thought to pack salt in the emergency box. Jack said, “Ten each? To start?” and they dug in. They speared each fish with their knives and at first laid it in their palms and unzipped the spine with its rows of needled bones. After a few they figured out how to dangle the small fish by the tail and strip the meat off the bones with their teeth. They started slowly and picked up speed. The first few hit their stomachs and it was only then they knew they were ravenous for protein, and they felt nauseous at the same time, which was novel. They were spitting errant bones into the fire and when they finished ten Jack counted and said, “Seven more,” and they finished them. They felt logy and bloated and Wynn gagged but managed to keep the food down, and they grabbed the rods and fished for another hour and made themselves eat again. They didn’t care if it took most of the morning. This time they tried making a grill of willow saplings and roasting the brookies over the coals but found they lost too much of the skin when it burned, so they went back to steaming. They ate another round. They lay back against the rocks groaning and looked at each other, sated and miserable, and Jack said, “You better not fucking throw up. I’m sick of fishing this morning.” And they started laughing so hard they almost did barf. Relief. Just the laughter. It was like a warm rain. A rain that would tamp and douse the forest fire and rinse away the sweat and the fear.

* * *

They did bathe. Before they launched again they stripped and rolled in the shallow water of the brook. It was dark but clear like brown glass and so cold they gasped.

They lay back on the rocks in the sun and let it dry them. Wynn liked to lay one cheek and then the other against a warm smooth stone and smell the mineral heat. A downstream wind poured over their wet skin and raised goosebumps. If one concentrated on one thing and then another—the good things in each moment—the fear wrapped deep in the gut seemed to unswell, like an iced bruise. Still there, but quieter.

As they lay drying, Jack said he understood now how Canadian trappers who had tried to survive through the winter on flour and rabbits had died. Starved for fat. It’s what he craved now. The ones in the camps who made doughnuts in lard lived. He’d give his frigging right arm for a doughnut. A Krispy Kreme glazed in sugar floated across his mind like an angel. It scared him, because they’d barely made a day and had at least a week to go.

But they could live on berries and trout for a week, no problem. Had they been at their leisure it would have been fun to forage every day, to fish for food.

When they were dry and dressed, they sat her up and Wynn held her against him and Jack asked her gently to wake up and eat a little. Drink. She did. They made another of the packet meals—they’d had five left, now four—beef stroganoff, and Jack spooned it into her and she ate half. She chewed slowly, as if in pain, and at one point her eyes flickered open and she saw them. She saw them. Her greenish eyes blurred over