At the bridge, Wilson got out and dropped the shaft away from the team and took them down into the ditch, where his first thought was to leave them in harness; then he decided there was no excuse for that and went back to the buggy for the halters and tethering rope. Returning the harness to behind the seat, he took out the leeches and one hand pole and was aware, while climbing down beneath the bridge, of the still unbroken reflection of the moon on the water, like an unblinking eye. Below the wooden planks in the shadows along the bank were Sam and Dave, their gray hats muting their faces, straight sharp gold hooks and spoons sunk farther than the barb into their blocked crowns. Around his neck Dave had lengths of line, some longer than others, and some weighted with shot, making a kind of mane falling down-below his waist. When he moved, the hooks rattled faintly together like frozen teeth. Sam had the gaff and a lantern, and he held it up above his head in order to help Wilson make his way along the bank through the brown stalks of weeds. The water seemed to be not moving at all.
But once in the boat and away from the hard mud, a strong, deep current caught ahold of the bottom of the boat and carried them downstream. And still the surface seemed unruffled. The moon’s reflection stretched out into a thin yellow line in frontof them, coming to one end of the johnboat and disappearing. They fought with the oars and rowed slowly upstream, no faster than a walking dog. Sam had put the lantern in the bow, lighting only the ends of the plants along one bank. Deep, silent strokes of the oars, making noise only from the creaking oarlocks. They passed up the river, around Four-Mile Corner. No talking or moving except for the oars. Here they could hear the shallows. Once in them, the water noise was deafening. Then they kept to the south bank, where it was deeper, and went on. One hundred yards upstream the river broadened and there was a gravel bank extending halfway across. Wrinkled circles of swirling water were lit by the lamp. The noise of the shallows was gone. Wilson, sitting in the stern, saw Dave light a cigar, and every time he inhaled Wilson could see his face.
At first Wilson had felt he would rather not have the lamp, because on the ride from home he’d had the pleasant sensation of slipping unobserved through the night, drawn by sounds which were not his own. At first he’d felt that the light was not fitting and, at the very point where it became of use, became too bright and destroyed the feeling of selflessness and unity. But by the time they had cleared the shallows he’d decided that the light was better—that it was more honest for three men on a river to carry a lantern, confessing their intrusion and adding something which, viewed from a distance, was impelling, mysterious and beautiful. It was a way of offering themselves for inspection, and though they were not, and could never be, part of the natural world of night, by doing it they could feel accepted. It is better to admit that, thought Wilson, and to stay away from fantasy. They heard several ducks get up from an unseen backwater, and a whippoorwill. Bats flying above the surface of the water passed through the wingspread of their yellow light, searching frantically for what remained of the summer’s insects.
A creek willow stood out over the water, and onto several of its branches they tied weighted lines, baited with leeches whichsmaller fish could chew on without damaging them and without hooking themselves. They broke off three dozen branches of varying lengths, and as Dave rowed on farther upstream in the silent, quick water, Wilson and Sam tied on the lines and threaded the brown leeches. Then in places Dave would pull over close to the shore and Sam and Wilson would jab the thick end of one of the limber poles a half-foot into the bank so that the line fell into the water just at the edge. One quarter-mile upstream they were out of poles and lines. They pulled the bow of the johnboat up onto a sandbar and several minutes later had a fire burning next to the water. All of them smoked, sitting on logs. The wood was dry (shag-bark hickory) and it burned clear and bright, and the pockets of air exploding in the dead cells of the wood, sending sparks upward, was the only sound they could hear. The moon was below the trees on the opposite side of the river.
Then downstream a channel cat broke water, and its thrashing filled the silence. Wilson got into the boat and Sam pushed him away from the bank and he floated downstream. The lantern still burned resolutely in the front. He found the fish, anchored, and brought him in with the help of the gaff, unfastened the hook from his mouth and threw the undisturbed leech and line back into the water. Being careful to avoid the horns, he fastened the fish onto the stringer and tossed him into the water. Maybe three pounds, he thought, or maybe less. Then another began thrashing twenty yards upstream and he got that one too, rebaited the line, reset the pole in a new area of the bank and rowed back toward the fire, where he soon saw Sam and Dave, both of them nearly sixty, sitting and looking at the orange fire. The whippoorwill again, then a screech owl, then two. I should do this more often, thought Wilson, it’s foolish not to when the experience is so satisfying.
Dave pulled him back up on shore, and they fastened the stringer to the bank. He had barely sat down when another, louder, thrashing began. Dave took this one, and
