and called a bunch of them.â Hank had heard that through Caroline a couple weeks back.
âThatâs what Andy has been saying,â Danny muttered.
âYou donât believe him?â
âNo, I do. Itâs just, well, Iâm not telling you this because Iâm interested in the particulars.â
A step down, a new cast.
Danny aimed his rod to a point across the river. âStrip out another five feet and throw it on the same angle.â
âReally? All the way to the bank?â
âI swam that ledge last week. Thereâs a shelf just off that tuft of grass. There was a hog on it.â
âYouâre kidding.â Hank pulled out the line and came around: The fly smacked the surface just off the grass, broad wakes behind it. Nothing, not today. âNot interested in particulars?â
Danny spit. âIâve just got a bad feeling about this whole thing. Canât shake it, that his going missing was no accident.â
âThe guy wasnât quick to make friends.â Hank took two big steps down, sent another cast to the spot Danny had mentioned. This time after the fly landed, he fed it slack, tugged it, gave it slack. Nothing.
âTimes are tight, least for the younger guys. That isnât making the situation any more friendly. Bookings through the shop are way down.â
âPeople know the fish arenât here like they used to be.â
âMorell, though, he was staying real busy. Maybe it was those articles he was writing. Or maybe he was swiping clients. Whichever, he was too new to be top dog, if you get my drift.â
Hank reeled in, offered the water to Danny, but Danny declined with a nod to the boat. They walked back up the shore. Danny said, âI bet he turns up sooner or later, a knife in his back.â
***
A FTER FISHING WITH Danny, Hank couldnât stop thinking about Morell. Disdaining Morell, really, and then feeling shabby for thinking ill of the dead. There was something else there too, something maybe like guilt. Like heâd watched the punk inch to the edge of a cliff and, despite knowing better, hadnât warned him to step back.
What bothered him now was that he couldnât muster more than some trivial compassion. He could say, âWhat a waste,â but then again, wasnât he glad the kid was gone?
Case in point, the first time Hank encountered Morell guiding the river. Hankâs clients were fishing Sawtooth, one at the top and the other in the tailout. Morell came around the corner and made a showy display of moving his boatâand his clients who were fishing Montana-style, one in the bow and one in the backâto the far bank. They shared a nod as Morell passed, and thatâs when Hank noticed the earphones in the kidâs ears. He was listening to music while blessed with the splattering aria of the Ipsyniho? As if this wasnât insult enough, in the center of the run, Morell pulled back offshore and instructed his clients to cast to the center boulder, precisely where Hankâs client would be fishing in another couple minutes. They didnât move a fish, but that was hardly the point. Morell had low-holed him, and while listening to a fucking iPod.
Hank could have held a grudge about the whole thing, but Morell was young and relatively new to the watershed and Hank himself had made faux pas at that age. Besides, forgiveness was the highest end. So they say.
But this wasnât an isolated incident. After a while, Hank started referring to low-holing as âMorelling.â The kidâs lasting nickname came not long after: Poddy. Walter had dubbed him after watching him shout at a client over music only he could hear.
But now the kid was dead and Hank was looking for an empathetic reading: Morell was just a product of this up-and-coming generation, a whole tribe of youth that had come to expect entertainment at every turn, and of course he would listen to music on the