a story by Todd Westbrook

Terra incognita. Or so he believed.

 

The car, engine ticking towards cool, was hidden from occasional passing traffic by a camouflage of rust and the fern and gorse tufted here and there among the grove of poplar. Some of the lenticel trunks just a couple of years since sapling, the majority more properly described as trees. With all that meant in terms of mid-October torch.

                   

There was no immediate clue to the path. Maybe a bend to the dying-back vegetation, a V of previous passage by creatures four-legged rather than two. But he knew the way.

 

Nature... god maybe... geology probably... had pinched the granite. Taken the terrain by the scruff of the neck and twisted it together in a mess of striations, erosion and captured erratics that channeled the catchment from all points uphill.

 

The unwary were likely to walk straight off the unmarked edge, a quick duck through a pair of heavily-leafed dogwoods and into freefall... a what the hell just happened moment of regret. The initiated – surely no more than a handful, if even that – veered left and down, emerging on a bleached outcrop of stone. Flat like a farmhouse kitchen, but hardly as large.

 

Water golden with minerals from the soil came tumbling nearly unseen from the fissure at what was now the far end of the pool. More heavily after rains, nearly a trickle during the rare periods when the precipitation relented, but always sufficient to keep the level high, the geography and architecture hidden sub-surface, the depths – 14, 16, 20 feet – obscured.

 

A rough circle only 75 feet in diameter, maybe, but significant compared to the remainder of the run, the nearby trickles or rivers, the general lay of the land. Surrounded on three sides by calved verticals supporting a scattered hanging garden of variable, cascading vegetation. Opera box terrariums, he would think when feeling corny, or when the sun traveled in a perfect arc with the current to dazzle off waxy leaves and fractal fronds.

 

Today was drizzle. Fine and insistent. He took a single knee, pulled his hat low on the brow, and assembled the four segments of carbon fibre and the reel. Channeled line through a matryoshka of eyelets, then topped with a deceptive combination of feathers, fur and hook.

 

There were a few overhanging branches on the rear left to avoid but the backcast was otherwise straightforward. And the distances were wristable with the aid of an elbow, rather than requiring a more concerted effort of full arm and shoulder, which helped. The season dictated a sinking line and a wet fly but he had over time developed a feel for the snags, so figured everything would be okay.

 

The initial ripple was drifting back on itself, the line only just being gathered with a pull of the left hand, when he became aware of the shape standing atop the nearly identical tabletop of stone on the opposite side of the outflow. A man. Not old, but definitely older, who must have come down from the other bank. Which the angler didn't even know was a possibility, and which raised a number of questions that would need to be addressed by a good look at the map. Later. But for now: there the man stood, countenance stony, hands in the pockets of a jacket equal parts time-worn and very high end.

 

'Not the nicest morning,' he said.

 

The younger man considered the sky. 'There's been worse.'

 

A shrug. 'And there'll be better... for whatever that is worth.'

 

The fisherman sent out a new cast. The older man took a moment in what seemed appreciation of the technique. 

 

Then:

 

'You know this is private property, yes? So no fishing.'

 

'No fishing?' Smiled the angler. 'By which I suppose you mean no fishing without permission?'

 

The older man allowed a half-smile beneath a moustache of silvering whiskers, a slight twinkle of grey eyes, before settling deeper into his overcoat with a shrug of shoulders. 'Is there a difference? Other than the semantics.'

 

The younger man wiggled the tip of his rod with a slight movement of right hand, pulled the fly from the water with a pop, recast towards the top left side of the pool. An unfolding of line addressing the water in a soft caress, a gentle arrival, a perfect placement. He turned to indicate the action with his eyes. 'Appears so.'

 

A slight tilt of head to acknowledge the point, before: 'Let me rephrase... it is illegal for you to fish here without express permission.'

 

'According to?'

 

'Well among others, but perhaps most importantly in this circumstance, my esteemed employer.'

 

'And he owns the fish? Is that even possible?'

 

'He owns the land on both banks. Which conveys control of the water. And yes the rights to the fish. But I imagine from your tone... that ever so slight placement of tongue in cheek... that you are already aware of how this works. In any case – we've had a bit of a problem with poachers of late.'

 

The younger man stopped to consider. 'But this is just me. Whatever I catch, I then release. So it is more casting than fishing. And definitely not poaching. If you look at it that way.'

 

Two raised eyebrows – a salt and pepper stubble of dismissal – served as a reply.

 

The younger man began to crank his line into the reel with an accompaniment of mechanical blur but, because there was a point to be made, paused after a moment. 'Your position is ridiculous in any case,' he said. 'How can anyone control water? That's not a thing, it's a circle, an ever-moving and shifting hydrologic cycle... and fish? They swim, they travel: up and down the watercourse, maybe out to sea and back, into and out of the property lines that your employer is so protective about.'

 

'That is a puerile argument which, again, I suspect you well understand. The law is clear. And not because my employer, as it happens, owns the entire catchment. From the source – up there – to the ocean. Down that way. The law is the law because that is the world we live in, the rules that we, as a society, have decided are appropriate. For you and for me and for my employer. No exceptions. Which boils down to this: anyone fishing without permission is poaching.'

 

'And who, dare I ask, is in a position to obtain this permission?'

 

'Sporting interests. Largely.'

 

'Sporting interests? Suspect there aren't a lot of locals who qualify under that rather grand definition of a rod and reel.'

 

'These waters have something of an international reputation.'

 

'Even though,' and here the angler looked across the surface of the pool, began the respooling of his line, 'there aren't really a lot of fish in here. At least not enough to engage any meaningful level of sporting interest.'

 

'Perhaps blame the poachers.'

 

'With which you've had a bit of a problem. Of late.'

 

The older man folded his bottom lip beneath its counterpart. Nodded.

 

Which was the moment when the rod bent. But not with the tentative twitching parabola of a fish, more the insistent and unforgiving arc of a catch. A snag. 

                                             

'We should take that as a sign,' said the older man with a glance towards the spot where the line disappeared into the water. 'Call it an omen.'

 

The fisherman manipulated his rod tip this way and that, hoping to dislodge the hook from wherever it had stuck. 'What kind of omen,' he said. Without diverting his attention away from the immediate task at hand.

 

'That the time has arrived to end this particular misadventure and the unnecessary debate. To cut that line and go back the way you came.'

 

'Magnanimous.'

 

The older man said nothing. 

 

'Would your illustrious employer approve?'

 

'Given he spends much of his time attending to other matters, in other locations, I have traditionally had some leeway in these matters. We largely, after many years, operate on the basis of trust.'

 

A swirling kiss on the surface at the far end of the pool, a small tumult of feeding, drew the attention of both men.

 

'Here's the thing,' said the younger man, turning to meet his counterpart's pending disappointment. 'I only tied that fly yesterday. The one down there. And am quite taken with it. Just something about the nature of the thing, the way it sits. And if I'm not 100% mistaken, there is the slightest give in this line, the resistance is less than absolute. So maybe just a branch. Or some waterlogged brush. Which I can dislodge. Retrieve what's mine. Even under your definition that cannot be considered fishing. Illegal or otherwise.'

 

The suggestion was greeted with a shallow shake of the head. 'Let me be clear. You are in the wrong, undeniably and flagrantly, for which you could and perhaps should be punished in every court of the land. Whatever your philosophy or opinions. So cut the line. At the cost of your beloved fly. Be on your way. Up that hill and off this catchment. Forget about this pool. For good.'

 

'I can't do it... look, I can feel the movement.'

 

Proven by an upward drift of the tip, a successful crank of the reel. And then another.

 

The young man toed the edge of his flatrock perch. Peered into the water as more line was gathered. As the patterns in the depths shifted, as he carefully judged the right amount of pull, the right bend of rod, the careful retrieval before what he already understood would be strategic retreat. Live to fight, to fish, another day.

 

'I think it is a log you know,' he said to the other man without looking up from the task at hand. 'Although...'

 

He dropped the rod and recoiled as the form tumbled through 180 degrees, as a knot in the wood revealed a collection of teeth already stained with the caramel of the water, barely containing the remaining soft tissue of what was once probably a tongue, as the foliage wisped further into hair, as the branch assumed four fingers and a thumb. Which offered a futile wave at the surface as the weight – freed from its trawl – returned towards the bottom of the pool.

 

'Like I said,' said the older man, 'we've had  a bit of a problem with poachers. Of late.'

 

The fisherman found he had stumbled backwards onto his backside, hands scuffed, the meat of one thumb bleeding, left foot in the squeezed outlet of the pool, his rod dragged away – a scrape on the stone and then a nearly soundless slide into the golden water – by its unfortunate snag. 

 

A look to the left, a plea for explanation, for reason, offered some clarity. The revolver in the man's right hand. The comfort with which it was held. The blue-black metal of it. The obvious age. Service piece, probably.

 

The angler's final thought – 'where the hell does he even find the ammo' – was never vocalized.

 

The current flowed into the pool at the top end. It exited at the bottom. As it always had. As it always would.

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