This is Part II of Cloud-shadow dragons. Part I is here.

Then, from behind a submerged log, an explosion. He had a solid twelve-inch trout on. It was more than a hookup. The line connected them like long-lost lovers. Sure enough, the fish danced on the line like a Rockette. Vince was smiling with a pure joy that no amount of fantasizing could duplicate. He worked the fish quickly across the pool and Paul netted it for him. Vince reached in and deftly removed the fly.

“I thought you might keep it.”

“Throw them up on the beach to suffocate, or bash them with rocks like him? I have lost my taste for it.”

With that he continued downstream, picking up a fish every third cast, but not even netting them before he let them go. Only when they were about a hundred feet apart did Paul start to cast. He put his sinking line at forty-five degrees and let it swing. Vince had already reached the end of the pool and rolled up when Paul got his first strike. Per Vince’s earlier musings, he never saw the fish until just before he captured it in the net. It was seventeen inches, the biggest fish yet. Paul threw it on the bank and let it flop around, while he returned to fishing. Vince clenched his fists and said nothing.

Paul finished the run, then went back and made a nest of grass for the bottom of his pack. He put the expired fish in the nest. He walked down to his brother. “It’s pretty much log jams for a while.” He shrugged. “There may be some big fish, but they are hard to get to. We’ll cut into the woods here and across an old meadow and the fishing gets easy below.”

Vince just glared at him so Paul continued to lead on, through a stand of cottonwood. They continued in stony silence until Paul stopped suddenly and Vince ran into him. Paul stepped aside. “Sorry, this has completely changed since last winter. Last time I was here, this was a meadow.”

The river had cut a new channel straight through it down to a layer of glacial debris. What had been an oxbow meadow surrounded by forest was now a rocky wasteland with old growth tree trunks littering the landscape, making it look like a boneyard for giants. Even lying down, most of the old growth logs were taller than the brothers. It would take them hours to walk over and around the logs.

Vince stepped up and looked. They were on top of a four-foot bank. There was a narrow beach on the right where the water had dropped from its high, beyond that the river roared by in a series of rapids. Vince shrugged. “Well, I had no expectations, so I’m not disappointed.”

Paul grunted in acknowledgement and led them down to the beach, where he took off his pack and dug through to take out two sandwiches wrapped in wax paper. Vince bit into his and smiled. “PB and J.” He sat on a stool-sized rock and Paul did the same.

“Because it never goes bad in the heat.”

Paul pulled two bottles of Coke out, popped them with a church key, and handed one over. They chewed quietly for a while, each lost in his own thoughts.

Vince slid off his rock onto the stony beach and was leaning back on the rock, face to the sun. He closed his eyes and his face relaxed. Paul finished his sandwich, bit his lip, and then blurted out, “Why did you do it?”

“I didn’t do it.” Said Vince without moving anything but his lips.

“You know what I mean. The case was completely circumstantial. Why take the plea deal?”

“They found a towel with his blood type in my trunk.”

“Which is also your blood type.”

“And yours.” Vince opened his eyes and looked at his brother. “I assumed since none of you came to visit, it was obvious.”

Paul looked at him and shook his head side-to-side almost imperceptibly. “I got you a lawyer before I had to leave.”

“A lawyer who wanted to close the deal, not get mired in a case he wasn’t getting paid for. Mom already paid the price for sins she didn’t commit. Paige was out of the house and engaged. You were on the way to the army.” He shrugged. “Somebody did it. I had the least to lose. Take the manslaughter plea, get out when I was twenty-one. Seemed logical.”

“Did you ever think he just left?”

Vince laughed. “Leave fish to find fish? He was too lazy for that.” He picked up his rod and moved on, ending the conversation. Paul packed up and followed. Vince was having a good day on the water, that’s what counted. The clouds helped, and the trout seemed hungry for his dancing instruction. Paul caught the occasional fish, but could not concentrate on the fishing. He lost over a dozen flies to the far bank and was constantly rerigging. Over the day, Vince vanished around the bend.

Vince was not used to the wind and the sun. They made him tired, so he once again sat with his back against a rock to watch the cloud shadows racing like roaring dragons across the hills on the far side of the valley. Getting lost in his own thoughts was a habit he had gotten used to over the years. A haven. He could see how primitive man could attribute whole mythologies to the beasts on the hills. Perhaps he and Paul had raised the elder gods after all. He shook his head. Five years locked up dreaming about fishing, and here he was chasing cloud shadow dragons.

He stood up and walked around the corner to the next run, a long flat pool. An afternoon hatch was coming on, and he could see trout sipping at the surface. He looked in the fly box Paul had given him and chose a Parachute Adams. He tied it on carefully and cast it into the foam line. He fed line into the drift until the fly started to drag and swing towards shore. He started to lift the rod to recast, when suddenly the line went taught. He could tell from the bend in the rod that this was his biggest fish of the day. They entered into a pas de deux with Vince first gaining and then losing on the fish. It took him downstream to the exit of the pool, but Vince fought him back, fearing he could not keep up with the fish in the rough water below. He was rewarded with several leaping runs as he fought to put the slack on the reel. All the while the fish kept rising around them unperturbed.

When Vince finally pulled the fish in, it was bleeding from the gills. He had taken the fly too deeply. He slid the net gently under it. A tear trickled down his cheek. He watched the fish in the net for a while, righting him several times. But the third time the fish rolled onto his side, Vince put the net down and broke the fish’s neck.

As the gloaming came on, Paul reeled in and went looking for Vince. He found him sitting on a rock, skipping stones across a placid pool. Fish were rising everywhere they could see.

“All done?”

“Thought you’d never get here.”

Paul smiled and relaxed a little. Vince stood up. He had already broken down his gear and he held out the dead fish to Paul who looked at it, started to say something, and then thought better of it. He put the fish in his pack, nestled on the bed of grass against the one he took. Paul waved Vince on.

They backtracked to the remains of the oxbow meadow. Vince had to put his gear on the vertical bank and find footholds blindly for his feet. He stepped on a round white rock and it popped like an egg, momentarily trapping his foot. He kicked free and finally made his way up the bank. Vince reached the top of the bank, and looking down, offered Paul a hand up. Paul stepped in the places his brother had, taking care to twist his foot and crush the remains of the white rock.

“It’s been a good day,” said Vince.

Paul looked at him. They still gripped each other’s forearms. “A good day.”