The boy stood knee deep in the rushing Madison River waters, pants rolled up to his thighs and shirt discarded on the rocky shore not ten feet behind him. He had been motionless for nearly fifteen minutes, his spine curved forward, permitting his hands to hover just inches above the violent surface. On this particular day, the sun was beaming down with uncharacteristic strength for a Montana spring. He could feel the rays soaking into his bare shoulders and staying there. It burned slightly, a paler companion to the cold burning of his lower legs in the furious torrent. But these sensations were periphery. The boy was focused on a submerged boulder in front of him. Rather, he was focused on the fish congregating in the calm provided by the current obstacle.
This immobile state had tranquilized the adults’ surveillance of him. His mother, father, grandmother and uncle were completely engrossed in their game of Shanghai Rummy. Summer upon summer, this was the cycle. The cabin and its adjoining porch provided an idyllic locale for their picnic-table tournaments. “Ooh—May I?” his Alabama granny’s voice cried out twangy, demanding the card shown. Her voice did not reach above the sound of water over limestone. The boy was no more aware of the adults than they were of him.
But the girl was aware; she saw everything, she always did. From her perch atop a boulder surrounded by fluorescent purple Fireweed, she had remarked the boy’s peculiar behavior and also the fact that their elder supervisors had not made the same observation that she had. In fact, the boy’s frozen position in her periphery had been odd enough to fully interrupt her game. She had grown accustomed to her cousin’s almost constant motion. Her My Little Ponies were all but forgotten now, as was the elaborate plot she had invented amongst the seven brightly colored figurines.
Lining up her playthings neatly along the base of her roost, the girl scampered across the greenery, dodging large wildflower clusters and trampling smaller ones underfoot. Her father glanced up briefly as she came into side view and immediately glanced back at his hand of cards. “Why, no Mother, you may not!” He grabbed the ace of hearts, discarded one card and flopped open his spread, showing two runs and one set of fives.
“Now wait just a minute—we’re on two sets, one run, aren’t we?”
“Uh-huh, nice try Momma. You know Jesus hates liars just as much as any other sinner.”
“Well aren’t you just as happy as a pig in a shit-house!” The grandmother hated losing but loved the southern idioms that allowed her to swear without guilt. The girl passed the scene and smiled. She loved catching adults swearing where she could hear. The grandmother winked at the girl and her dad shook his head as the others began counting their remaining cards.
The girl reached the boy and plopped herself down behind and slightly to the right of him. Right where he could see. He showed no response to her presence. The girl remained silent for a minute or two, becoming progressively more perturbed by her cousin’s lack of reaction. She hated being ignored.
“What are you doing?”
The boy inhaled deeply, letting out an exasperated sigh.
“I’m catching fish.”
“I don’t see any fish.”
“Well I was about to, then you showed up.”
“What?”
“It’s your shadow. The fish get scared.” The girl looked at the water but didn’t see anything—no fish and no shadow.
“Whatever—that’s not how you catch fish.”
“Like you know anything about catching fish.”
“Well I know you can’t do it with your hands, Stupid!”
“I’ll show you if you get your fat ugly shadow out of here!”
“Fine—but I’m gonna catch two fish and I’m not gonna do it with my hands!”
The boy smiled to himself and repositioned his body into a crouch over the water as the girl stormed off. Everyone knew that girls couldn’t do anything but curl their hair and paint their nails and walk around in funny shoes that go “click-clack.” He would catch his big trout right out of the mean water that challenged him, roaring like a steam engine, and then he’d wave it smack in her face. He’d make her squeal and run away and he’d slap her with its dead tail and get her all slimy and she’d smell like fish and cry.
The girl was stomping mad. She walked right over to her neat little line of ponies and kicked them into the Fireweed. Purple petals flew everywhere, some landing on her red and white gingham dress, some in her pig-tailed honey hair. She remembered her dad and uncle going to a lake. Earthquake Lake, they called it. Sometime a long time ago the ground shook so hard it broke down the mountain and stopped up the river and the valley filled up with water. People that were camping died and in the lake you could still see sideways cabins that slid down the slopes. Dead tree tops reached out of the water like 100-foot skeletons. Her dad and uncle would go to this lake to fish, leaving around dusk when the flies were starting to fill the air like little black tornadoes. They’d come back after dark with lots of fish all strung up on a chain. She remembered they always had a big green net with a long metal handle; a big green net to scoop up all those great big shiny trout, a big green net she’d seen propped against a wall in the entryway of the cabin.
Fully outstretched, the net was taller than the girl, but she quickly realized that the handle could retract into itself, making its length more manageable. She slipped sideways through the cabin’s creaky tattle-tale screen door, making as little squeak as possible and slinging the apparatus over her right shoulder. The girl peeked at her nasty little cousin, still leaning over the water like some ridiculous stone gargoyle. She adopted a smug, self-satisfied simper and turned away from the boy, the cabin, and the card game. Instead of joining her cousin at the riverbank, the girl had a better plan. She would find her own place along the water and once she had caught her two fish—maybe even three—she would return like a conquering hero and watch his face fall in disbelief while she laughed and laughed and the adults all crowded around her and called her their little hunter, their little golden child. Maybe they’d even lift her up on their shoulders and parade her around while she held her fish out like trophies.
A little upstream there was a large tree fallen across almost the entire length of the river, creating a walkway over the racing current. The deluge surged up and forward over limestone boulders that stuck up out of the river in places, like broken jagged teeth in a shark’s smile. The spray hitting the tree was a power washer hitting concrete, the massive trunk shivered and recoiled as though it were a sapling. The girl headed out on the makeshift bridge, holding the net across her chest like a tightrope walker and wobbling her way out to where the trunk narrowed to the point it became impassible. Here she plopped herself down, her skirt fanning out around her leaving her legs bare against rough bark. She didn’t notice the scratchy seat. Underneath her airborne feet she could see trout, their scales flashing in the shadow of the fallen timber. Oh sure, shadows scare the fish. The girl snickered, making a downturned grimace in imitation of the boy.
The boy’s ankles were beginning to ache from the strain of resisting the steady beating of water, his hamstrings and calf muscles complained but he refused to give up. Having stood still for nearly a half hour, the trout had begun venturing closer and closer to the boulder sanctuary. They were coming into the range of his poised hands. The boy’s mouth opened and he stopped breathing for a split second as a mammoth trout came right under him, just inches in front of his grasp.
The girl stretched the net pole it to its maximum length. From her seat, with the device fully extended, she could reach the water and with some effort scoop below its aggressive surface. As the girl positioned the net above the river, the fish scattered in unison. It was movement, not shadow. The boy was so stupid. As the minutes wore on, the fish began to return to their shady respite, their memory-lacking pea-brains no longer cognizant of the looming threat. The girl’s mouth opened and she stopped breathing for a split second as a mammoth trout came right under her, just inches from her grasp.
In this moment the world halted. The girl tensed her fingers around the net pole. The boy leaned ever so slightly forward and held his breath. He could see the rainbow scales of his target. The boy’s mother had her lower lip caught between her teeth; she thought she had a winning hand. The grandmother was plotting the disposal of several extra cards she snuck out of the bottom of the deck. The boy’s father, whose hand was absolutely dismal, let his mind wander to that evening’s fishing trip. The girl’s father was waiting on an eight, any suit, just a damn eight.
And then the girl swung for the fish. The net hit the water and thereupon shot forward with the force of the river’s flux, sending the girl sailing through the negative space between wood and rock and river. And then the boy lunged for the fish. His unbalanced torso was suddenly a marionette with no supporting hand. Algae-lubricated rocks took his feet out from underneath him and his whole body submerged. What is rock? What is river? There was no distinction.
“Ha! Rummy—I win!” The girl’s father had just drawn his eight.
“Damn! Almost had it.” The boy’s mother tossed her cards down, face-up.
“Maybe we should check his pockets.” The grandmother frowned, staring down her youngest son. She cheated as a rule and hated being beaten.
“Chaos theory, Mom.”
“Who dealt that load of crap? And what the hell do you mean, chaos?” The boy’s father slid off his bench seat, cracking his knuckles and looking at his brother. The riverbank was empty. The girl’s father began gathering up the cards to shuffle them.
“Every pattern’s broken sometime.” The girl’s father smiled, lifting an eyebrow at his brother, then his mother. “Can’t explain it—chaos.” He chuckled and resumed shuffling.
“Poppycock. Let’s see those sleeves.” The grandmother’s eyebrows were lowered but her mouth grinned now, crooked.
The boy’s father turned from the table, walking to the edge of the porch. There were only two hands left. Maybe he’d have more luck on the lake. The hatch was already up and looked to be good. He leaned on the railing, gazing up to the darkening cerulean sky and down to the impressionistic blur of wildflowers amongst the green of the bank. He heard something high-pitched. Glancing back at the table he could see it wasn’t coming from them. The boy’s father frowned and looked around again. Downriver, maybe a hundred yards, there was something breaking the water. It didn’t look like rock.
“Oh my god, is that—” He set off running downstream. The other’s caught on quick, the germs of panic airborne, infecting them. Soon they were all sprinting down the Madison.
The boy was half unconscious, clutching with twin-claw hands to a rock that jutted from the water. His parents flung themselves into the current, struggling against the force as they pulled him from the river and stumbled to shore. The three crumbled onto the drier rocks, bedraggled and stunned by the freezing runoff. The girl’s father took over, hoisting the boy as his parents regained balance and all five ran back towards the cabin.
The grandmother went in first, running to the bathroom and turning the faucet on full-blast to get the hot water going. The boy’s mother stripped off his sopping shorts. The boy was shaking, eyes closed and arms curled into his chest. No one spoke. The boy’s father lifted him up, carrying him into the bathroom and laying him in the tub. As his body submerged, the boy’s skin developed a sickening splotchy red and white pattern. He began to cry. The boy’s mother stroked his head, cooing to him as tears streamed down her cheeks. They left white lines down her red face.
Minutes passed. The boy stopped crying. His eyes were open now.
“Go get yourselves dry. We’ll stay with him.” The grandmother stood up from the tub and ushered out the boy’s parents. Puddles had pooled underneath them both. The grandmother turned back to her other son. His face was pinched on itself, a stress-wrinkle between his eyes as he watched the boy’s breathing normalize. The grandmother sat on the edge of the tub with him and laid the back of her hand against the boy’s cheek. It was getting warmer. She smiled, relieved. Suddenly her eyes opened wide, a sharp gasp retracting into her lungs. She turned and faced her son.
“Wait—where is your daughter?”
Lauren Patridge is a writer and wilderness-addict currently based out of wherever in the West she can find rocks and mountains to inspire her. A recent graduate of Northern Arizona University’s creative writing master’s program, Lauren now works as a Senior Editor for Eat Your Serial, Inc., an online publishing house. When she’s not busy poring over bits of prose or obsessing over line-breaks in her poetry, Lauren spends most of her time rock climbing or on a trail somewhere, simultaneously soaking in and storing away artistic fodder for her next piece.
