Free Holding Lies by John Larison

and called a bunch of them.” Hank had heard that through Caroline a couple weeks back.
    â€œThat’s what Andy has been saying,” Danny muttered.
    â€œYou don’t believe him?”
    â€œNo, I do. It’s just, well, I’m not telling you this because I’m interested in the particulars.”
    A step down, a new cast.
    Danny aimed his rod to a point across the river. “Strip out another five feet and throw it on the same angle.”
    â€œReally? All the way to the bank?”
    â€œI swam that ledge last week. There’s a shelf just off that tuft of grass. There was a hog on it.”
    â€œYou’re kidding.” Hank pulled out the line and came around: The fly smacked the surface just off the grass, broad wakes behind it. Nothing, not today. “Not interested in particulars?”
    Danny spit. “I’ve just got a bad feeling about this whole thing. Can’t shake it, that his going missing was no accident.”
    â€œThe guy wasn’t quick to make friends.” 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.
    â€œTimes are tight, least for the younger guys. That isn’t making the situation any more friendly. Bookings through the shop are way down.”
    â€œPeople know the fish aren’t here like they used to be.”
    â€œMorell, 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.”
    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, “I bet he turns up sooner or later, a knife in his back.”
    ***
    A FTER FISHING WITH Danny, Hank couldn’t 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 he’d watched the punk inch to the edge of a cliff and, despite knowing better, hadn’t warned him to step back.
    What bothered him now was that he couldn’t muster more than some trivial compassion. He could say, “What a waste,” but then again, wasn’t he glad the kid was gone?
    Case in point, the first time Hank encountered Morell guiding the river. Hank’s 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 boat—and his clients who were fishing Montana-style, one in the bow and one in the back—to the far bank. They shared a nod as Morell passed, and that’s when Hank noticed the earphones in the kid’s ears. He was listening to music while blessed with the splattering aria of the Ipsyniho? As if this wasn’t insult enough, in the center of the run, Morell pulled back offshore and instructed his clients to cast to the center boulder, precisely where Hank’s client would be fishing in another couple minutes. They didn’t 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 wasn’t an isolated incident. After a while, Hank started referring to low-holing as “Morelling.” The kid’s 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