If that story gets spread to papers outside Missoula, Haines Outfitters will have fly fishermen lined up at your door wanting float trips.
Sun-shot water droplets falling from the nylon tippet sparkled like liquid glass as the fly rod cut through air over the boy’s head. False-casting on a rock-strewn stretch of sand and bank-side aspens, alders and pines, he dropped the fly softly into the riffles at the head of a hole in the Bitterroot River.
Fifty-nine-year-old Farley Haines stared at the 22-year-old, wondering how he could be that good coming from New York where, to Farley’s knowledge, there were no rivers or streams that matched those in Montana. Maybe the boy had lessons, he thought.
Haines Outfitters was 33 miles south of Missoula, set back deep in timber at the base of the Sapphire Mountains. Guest cabins, outbuildings, pack mules, horses, float-boats, tons of equipment for winter/summer guided hunts and river trips, and a log home he’d hand-built and shared with his wife of 40 years, sat on 11,000 acres of land.
Farley waded out to stand near the boy. “There’s fat rainbows and browns up yonder that love to torment fishermen and add delicate, hand-tied flies to their collections. Lord knows, they have plenty of mine.”
Terry grinned as he opened the wicker creel to reveal curled-up heads and tails of four, 20- to 23-inch rainbow trout resting on wet river moss. “Not today,” he said, as he waded ashore. “I’ll go clean them for supper, if that’s okay?”
“You bet. Give them to Mary Beth, and tell her to put them on ice for supper tonight, and then saddle the appaloosa. We’re going to load four horses in the trailer, fill the truck bed with supplies, drive to the Salmon River and spend the next six days riding it. That river tends to run swift and bank-full from spring snow-melt, and there are places that can get a man in trouble. I’ll point out campsites, too.”
Farley hooked the horse trailer to his truck, then headed to the kitchen to make bologna sandwiches for their lunch. He happened to glance out the window as he was spreading mayonnaise on white bread. Throwing the butter knife into the sink, Farley groaned and shouted, “Mary Beth, get my shotgun and some shells. I’m going to blow that boy’s brains out. My God! Come take a look.”
She rushed into the kitchen, still not accustomed to his shouting when things went south, and especially since Terry Donovan came to work and live with them for the summer. As Mary Beth stared past him, her right hand flew to her mouth to suppress a laugh.
“It’s his first time, Honey. He’ll get it right, once he sees his mistake.” She giggled then, couldn’t help it. “You make him nervous with your size, strength, shouting and ordering him around. And you’ve got to remember that he’s never worked on a ranch before. For that matter, he’d never been out West until a few days ago.”
“Mistake! You call that a mistake! Any five-year-old would know better. It don’t matter where he came from, he’s seen people on horseback in books, TV and movies — everybody’s seen that.”
“Farley, give the boy a chance. You said yourself he’s the most skilled fly fisherman you’ve ever seen, and he’s an expert river runner and swimmer. He’ll turn out to be the best river guide you’ve ever hired — you’ll see.”
She kissed his cheek and said, “The trout he brings to the supper table are much fatter and longer than the ones you catch,” and then smiled innocently.
Ignoring her comment, he said, “You best get out the telephone book, see if you can find a horse psychiatrist, or one of them whisperers. Dollar won’t make water now unless she goes behind a bush. I reckon she’s that embarrassed with that saddle on her backward.” Without waiting for rebuttal, he stormed out the door to the corral.
“Boy, take off that saddle, turn it around, cinch it down proper and then you stand in front of Dollar and apologize for your stupidity for the next 30 minutes, you hear what I’m saying?”
Terry grinned. “I didn’t put it on right, did I?”
“At least you can see that much, although I had to point it out to you. We’re down to three weeks before folks show up expecting to live in western luxury, with scenery to die for while catching log-size trout on float trips down the Salmon River. Now there’s a heap of things to do; can’t you understand that? Every job I give you, no matter how much explanation goes into it — gets done wrong.”
Farley stopped to breathe, lower his blood pressure and then plowed on. “After we get back from the Bitterroot, we’ve got to get rafts ready, buy supplies and fix the cabins so our guests will want to come back next year. Damn, boy, it’s my livelihood you’re trying to destroy.”
Farley stormed into the house again to finish the sandwiches, fill ice chests with a week’s supply of food, find his truck keys and kiss his wife. When he went out again, the boy and horse were gone.
Back in the cabin, he shouted, “Mary Beth, call his father. I want that boy on a plane and back home by sundown tomorrow night.”
“What’s wrong now,” she asked, as she hurried into the kitchen again.
“What’s wrong? I told that boy we were fixing to load horses and pack mules to ride beside the Salmon River for a week, and he’s up and gone — him and Dollar.”
Farley fumed for the rest of the day, and Mary Beth tried to console him. “I told you to calm down before you went out to speak to him about the saddle. You made him mad — Honey, you embarrassed him. He’ll get over it soon and come back.”
“I didn’t embarrass him near as much as he shocked my horse.”
When Dollar ambled into the ranch yard without the boy near sundown, Farley went cold inside. He thought of bear, mountain lions, bull elk or the horse spooking, throwing the boy off and stomping him into dirt — or worse — the river.
Walter Donovan, Terry’s father and Farley went back a long way — best friends growing up together — staying in touch ever since, so when Walt called and spoke of how Terry was about two jumps away from a jail term, and asking if Farley would take the boy under his wing to see if he could straighten him out, Farley had reluctantly agreed. If something bad happened to the boy, how would he explain that?”
It was too dark to trail the horse by tracks, but Farley set out walking with a flashlight — he had to. “Mary Beth, you stay here in case he comes back, and fire two rounds through the revolver if he does. I’ll hear them,” Farley said.
She knew he wouldn’t, but read fear in his eyes and on his face, and kept quiet.
A quarter moon lay over the heel of the mountains, and Farley was still tracking at midnight, or thought he was, when the telephone rang back at the ranch.
“Sorry to wake you, Mary Beth, it’s Si Jacobs. Do you have a young man about age 20 working for you?”
“We do. Name’s Terry Farley and his father are best friends. When Terry’s father called and said the boy was close to getting into serious trouble, he asked Farley to take him and try and turn him around. Why?”
“Put Farley on. I need to talk to him.”
“Farley’s out looking for Terry. Dollar came back to the ranch near sundown, but the boy wasn’t riding her.”
Si cleared his throat, pulled the phone away from his ear and swore softly.
“If that story gets spread to papers outside Missoula, Haines Outfitters will have fly fishermen lined up at your door wanting float trips.”
Mary Beth heard him. “Si, what happened?”
“Do you remember my granddaughter, Gretchen?”
“Of course I do. She must be about 20 now, isn’t she? What’s wrong?”
“Twenty-one. Mary Beth, this is going to be hard to do, but I’ve got to tell it the way it happened, and I’ve got to tell it now.” Without waiting for an answer, he plunged on. “Gretchen was down at the Bitterroot this afternoon, swimming. When she was a little girl, and for several summers after, she’d swim naked at that spot.”
Mary Beth cleared her throat.
“Are you still there?”
“Si, go on.”
“Yes, well, she said she was getting ready to wade into deeper water when a damn fool boy rode out of a stand of timber not 30 yards away and just stared at her. She was stark naked — water up to her ankles, you understand.”
Mary Beth laughed, as she pictured the scene.
“Hello!”
“Si, I’m still here.”
“Well, she said she screamed and tried to cover herself with an arm and a hand, but that fool boy just sat on the horse with a grin spread all over his face until she got mad, forgot her nudity, bent down, grabbed a cold river stone about the size and authority of a hen’s egg, and threw it at him.”
“Good for her,” Mary Beth said, while trying to suppress another laugh.
“Yeah, well, wait until you hear the rest of it. She said she never thought she’d hit him, but she did — right in the middle of his forehead. He went backwards off the horse, landed hard, his head coming down on a small boulder that cracked his skull. Right now he’s in intensive care at the Missoula Hospital with an inch split in his head, getting two pints of blood pumped into him for what he lost at the river, and he has a nasty concussion.”
“Oh dear! I hope he’ll be alright?”
“The doctor said he’d have to stay there for at least four days for observation, maybe longer to make sure his brain doesn’t swell and then he can be released. I’m paying the bills, since it was my granddaughter that caused his injuries.”
“Farley’s still out with a flashlight trying to track Dollar’s prints. I can signal with two revolver shots, and when he gets here we’ll head for the hospital. Are you there now?”
“I am, but there ain’t any need for you to come. You wouldn’t be able to get close to his bed anyway. Mary Beth, before Gretchen threw that rock, Cupid’s arrows must have hit two hearts there on the stream. She and that boy can’t seem to take their eyes off each other . . . her fussing over him, holding his hand, giving him sips of water through a straw, feeding him and sitting on the side of his bed — both laughing at how they met, her inquiring if he thought she was pretty standing there in her birthday suit, and him, still grinning with his head wrapped in bandages, telling her he was so taken with her beauty, he couldn’t think and her stroking and kissing that egg-size-lump on his forehead.”
“Oh my!”
“Yeah! There’s more. After Gretchen called me on her cell phone, I called 911 and the Medi-flight helicopter got there in pretty short order. When the paramedics arrived, Gretchen was dressed, but she’d used her bra and pink panties to cover the back of the boy’s head trying to stop the blood flow. Well, that story took on a life of its own: her bra fastened around his head holding her panties in place, the two cups partly covering his ears and all.”
“Si, you’re not funny. What else would she have used to stop the bleeding?”
“Well, Mary Beth, those Medi-flight fellows thought it was downright hilarious; said they’d never seen anything like that, but it’s right embarrassing for a man like me. Gretchen’s father thinks it’s funny, too, but her mother, my daughter, doesn’t seem to like me much anymore for letting her daughter swim naked, like I was supposed to stop a twenty-one-year-old young woman — and a beautiful one at that — from doing that kind of thing.
“By the way, what did you say his name was again? I’m a little rattled over this?”
“Terry Donovan. I can’t wait to see Farley’s face when I tell him. Terry did not want to come here, so he’s made every effort to get himself sent back home by doing everything Farley asked him to do — but wrong. He put the saddle on Dollar backwards today, hoping that would be the straw that sent Farley over the edge. My husband can’t see what the boy’s doing, but I can.”
“My God! He saddled a horse backwards?”
“He did.”
“Tell Farley I’ll be over to help him get ready for his river trips. The boy won’t be any good to him for awhile, if he intends to keep him on.”
“Si, if what you say is true about the infatuation between them, I’d say Terry will do just fine. He might have to take it easy for a week or more, but he’s the best fly fisherman Farley has ever seen, and he’s an expert swimmer and river rafter. You’re granddaughter spends the summer with you, doesn’t she?”
“She does.”
“Well, if she’s here and he’s here — don’t you get the picture?”
“I reckon. There’s one other thing, the newspaper picked up the story, because some damn fool at the hospital saw humor in what the rescue guys said about her bra tied around the boy’s head holding a pair of pink panties over the wound. They’re headlining tomorrow’s edition, “Nymph on the Bitterroot River.” If that story gets spread to papers outside Missoula, Haines Outfitters will have fly fishermen lined up at your door wanting float trips, and standing three deep to get one.”
“Oh Lord! Thank you for the call.”
Mary Beth hung up and went outside. She fired two rounds through the barrel of the Colt revolver, and was surprised to see Farley huffing up out of the dark 10 minutes later.
“What happened,” he gasped as he tried to draw air into tortured lungs unaccustomed to his moving so fast.
“Now Honey, I want you to promise not to get riled up like you usually do. Can I have your word on that?”
“Mary Beth, how long have we known each other and been married.”
She smiled. “I get the point.” Then she told him about Si’s telephone call, and waited for Farley to erupt like an Old Faithful geyser.
Farley surprised her, collapsing onto the porch steps, laughing so hard with tears streaming down his cheeks at the picture she’d painted and from relief, and Mary Beth ended up beside him, laughing too.
With his arm around her shoulder, and a half-moon filling the clearing with pale light, Farley sighed and said, “Do you suppose there’s any Mescal. Mary Beth? We need to toast Terry and Gretchen, and to Montana. Hell, where else but in Big Sky Country, where everything is bigger than life, would you find a story the likes of this?”
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the the 2007 May/June issue of Sporting Classics.
In Tales of Woods and Waters, well-known outdoor editor Vin T. Sparano has collected thirty-seven of the greatest, most enjoyable, and most well-written outdoors stories to have been published. Experience the tension of hunting in the jungles of Tanzania in Jim Carmichael’s “Kill the Leopard,” the joys of your first .22 in Garth Sanders’s “My First Rifle,” the nuances of river fishing in Frank Conaway’s “Big Water, Little Men,” and the enduring challenge of turkey hunting in Charles Elliott’s “The Old Man and the Tom.” Spanning the world and its varied forms of wildlife, these stories demonstrate that no matter where one hunts, shoots, or fishes, the outdoors will always be an important place to form memories that last a lifetime. Buy Now
