Fires. Essays, Poems, Stories

off his reel and made a nice cast upstream.
    As he fished, he began to feel some of the old excitement coming back. He kept on fishing. After a time he waded out and sat down on a rock with his back against a log. He took out the cookies. He wasn't going to hurry anything. Not today. A flock of small birds flew from across the river and perched on some rocks close to where he was sitting. They rose when he scattered a handful of crumbs toward them. The tops of the trees creaked and the wind was drawing the clouds up out of the valley and over the hills. Then he heard a spatter of shots from somewhere in the forest across the river.
    He'd just changed flies and made his cast when he saw the deer. It stumbled out of the brush upriver and ran onto the little beach, shaking and twisting its head, ropes of white mucous hanging from its nostrils. Its left hind leg was broken and dragged behind as, for an instant, the deer stopped, and turned her head back to look at it. Then she went into the river and out into the current until only her back and head were visible. She reached the shallow water on his side and came out clumsily, moving her head from side to side. He stood very still and watched her plunge into the trees.
    "Dirty bastards," he said.
    He made another cast. Then he reeled in and made his way back to the shore. He sat down in the same place on the log and ate his sandwich. It was dry and it didn't have any taste to ; c, but
    he ate it anyway and tried not to think about the deer. Frances would be up now, doing things around the house. He didn't want to think about Frances, either. But he remembered that morning when he'd caught the three steelhead. It was all he could do to carry them up the hill to their cabin. But he had, and when she came to the door, he'd emptied them out of the sack onto the steps in front of her. She'd whistled and bent down to touch the black spots that ran along their backs. And he'd gone back that afternoon and caught two more.
    It had turned colder. The wind was blowing down the river. He got up stiffly and hobbled over the rocks trying to loosen up. He thought about building a fire, but then decided he wouldn't stay much longer. Some crows flapped by overhead coming from across the river. When they were over him he yelled, but they didn't even look down.
    He changed flies again, added more weight and cast upstream. He let the current draw the line through his fingers until he saw it go slack. Then he set the brake on his reel. The pencil-lead weight bounced against the rocks under the water. He held the butt of the rod against his stomach and wondered how the fly might look to a fish.
    Several boys came out of the trees upriver and walked onto the beach. Some of them were wearing red hats and down vests. They moved around on the beach, looking at Mr. Harrold and then looking up and down the river. When they began moving down the beach in his direction, Mr. Harrold looked up at the hills, then downriver to where the best water was. He began to reel in. He caught his fly and set the hook into the cork above the reel. Then he started easing his way back toward the shore, thinking only of the shore and that each careful step brought him one step closer.
    "Hey!"
    He stopped and turned slowly around in the water, wishing this thing had happened when he was on the shore and not out here with the water pushing against his legs and him off balance on the slippery rocks. His feet wedged themselves down between rocks while he kept his eyes on them until he'd picked out the leader. All of them wore what looked like holsters or knife sheaths on their belts. But only one boy had a rifle. It was, he knew, the boy
    who'd called to him. Gaunt and thin-faced, wearing a brown duckbilled cap, the boy said:
    "You see a deer come out up there?' The boy held the gun in his right hand, as if it were a pistol, and pointed the barrel up the beach.
    One of the boys said, "Sure he did, Earl, it ain't been very long," and looked around at the four others. They nodded. They passed round a cigarette and kept their eyes on him.
    "I said—Hey you deaf? I said did you see him?"
    "It wasn't a him, it was a her," Mr. Harrold said. "And her back leg was almost shot off, for Christ's sake."
    "What's that to you?" the one with the gun said.
    "He's pretty smart, ain't he, Earl? Tell us where it went, you old son of a bitch!" one of the boys said.
    "Where'd he go?" the boy asked, and raised the gun to his hip, half