There wasn’t a suit, or tie, or teary eye among them as they gathered at the river’s edge. Alec Hume’s shoulder ached under the weight of Stebbo’s ashes. Even in death, Stebbo was a pain to his fellow anglers, who murmured in hushed tones while eyeing the promising dimples on the river’s surface. They shuffled back and forth on the slick, water-rounded, rocks. Whether that shuffling was due to the uncertain footing or their decidedly senior citizen status was hard to say.
“One of us should say a few words,” offered Hume, shifting the weight in his arms. “Seems appropriate.” The large plastic bag he held contained the remains of Charlie “Stebbo” Stebbins. That Stebbo had been morbidly large in life was all that mattered to Hume at the moment was trying to remember if there was Alleve back at the clubhouse.
Win Chandler over. “You should Hume, don’t you think? You knew him better than anyone.” Chandler knew Stebbo as well as Hume but wasn’t keen to admit it. All three had been former presidents of the Metacomet Anglers Club, a venerable organization of like-minded conservationists. The stated goal, per the charter, was the protection of cold-water fisheries. The unspoken objective — at least to the public — was to catch trout: as many as possible, the bigger the better, wherever their budgets and whenever their wives would allow.
The term “unspoken” was, of course, a misnomer. Catching fish was the only thing spoken about within the confines of the club’s tight membership. True, there was the occasional donation to like-minded causes such as Trout Unlimited, Ducks Unlimited, Salmon Unlimited, and if there had been a Striped Bass Unlimited it, too, would have received some largesse. Once a year the all-male club hosted a “Ladies Day” event when it would leave its doors ajar to permit women in for a day of fishing, a light lunch, and a determined close with hugs, waves, and a relocking of the gate. The hosts returned to the clubhouse where to their clubhouse where they circumcised the ends of cigars and sipped some very aged whiskeys.
They’d fished all over the map: from bonefish in the Caribbean, trout in New Zealand, salmon in Russia, char in the Arctic, and everywhere in between. For a group whose second favorite activity was arguing, there was one agreement; the best fishing spot was on the very private homewaters — all four miles of it – accessible only by membership. That is where they gathered this spring day to quickly pay their respects and get on to more important things. The air was filled with hope and flies. The river was filled with alluring dimples as trout started to feed.
The only holdback was the appropriate words for Charlie Stebbins.
Hume was thinking more about his throbbing shoulder than he was about any eulogy. The pain reminded him of that day, years ago, when he’d been fishing this very stretch with Stebbo. He’d seen a big boil on the far side. It had rained that week and the water was flowing hard and fast; Hume had been slipping on the rocks all morning. He hesitated in crossing until Stebbo said, “Well if you’re not going for him, I will.” He said that just as the fish broke the surface to take a large Hendrickson, size 12.
The trout had to be 18 inches; a fat, solid, 18 inches. If Stebbo caught it, the fish would be announced as 22 inches, four pounds if it was an ounce, before he released it. No one could prove he was a liar, which they all were, especially when it came to size — he didn’t have a ruler and the only scales he had were on the fish — and number, of fish he caught.
“Hell with that,” said Hume. He popped open his wading stick and forced his way through the current, leaving a wake behind him. The fish wasn’t daunted by his approach, nor were at least a dozen others nearby. A cloud had moved past the sun, improving the hatch and triggering something in the fish that made them gorge on nature’s bounty.
“Hume!” yelled Stebbo from the bank, less than 15 yards away. “You gonna cast or just kick ‘em to death?”
Hume muttered something under his breath. “Didn’t catch that,” said Stebbo. “Sounded like buckeroo.”
Hume adjusted himself into a stable casting position. He let out some line, false cast to measure the distance, then landed the fly a few feet ahead of the rising fish. Then, BAM. The fish, a good-sized brown rose through the film, opened its mouth, and took the Hendrickson. “Got it!” screamed Hume as if anyone could mistake what was going on. He brought it to his net, held his rod under his arm, and lifted the fish with both hands to show it off. Stebbo applauded. “Not bad Hume. What 14, 15, inches maybe,” he said. From his fingerless glove, Hume lifted his middle finger four times. “That’s an inch for each flip of the bird,” he said. “Do the math.”
Stebbo was hurtling through the current, his larger girth giving him decent perch as he came within Hume’s casting range. “Seriously, Stebbo?” he said as he waded to get away. That’s when he got his foot caught under a rock, slipped, dislocating his shoulder and tearing his rotator cuff as well as dropping the rod when he tried to get up. It was a good rod, too, and he would have noted how well bamboo floated with the strong current if he’d been paying attention. He never did find that rod.
“Alec, you with us?” Chandler limped closer, leaning on his hickory wading stick. He gestured toward the water with his chin. “Look there – caddis hatch staring. You might want to put a little hurry up in this.”
“Give me a minute,” Hume muttered, shifting the weight of the ashes. “My damn shoulder.”
“Your shoulder can wait. Those fish won’t,” Win said already reaching into his fly box. “What do you think, elk hair caddis, 16? Or an emerger?”
Win’s limp had gotten worse over the years ever since that June 6 day in Normandy. He was scrambling up a slope and slipped on the shingle covering that stretch of beach tearing his ACL badly. But the stretcher-bearers carrying him off also slipped on the shingle, dropping him hard on the rocks. Win claimed he suffered from PTSD though the June 6 in question was in 1974. He’d just made partner at his law firm. The trip was, naturally, a boondoggle with clients; Normandy has some excellent trout streams to say nothing of free-flowing calvados.
His injury, fortunately, came after the fishing. It healed nicely until one day of fishing with Stebbo. The two were looking into a pool down at the bottom of a steep embankment. Stebbo went first of course. He eased himself down, offering to help Win when his instincts shifted to the splashy rises in front of him. Win, in turn, rolled down, holding the rod up for its protection, and again tore his war-weakened knee just as Stebbo hooked a hook-jawed rainbow which he characteristically inflated to several inches more than it was. He did return to help Win, though not before he caught two more. “Can’t waste a good hatch,” he said jovially. Win writhed on the bank.
Had the gathering been more a roast than a funeral, there would have been plenty of anecdotes that didn’t portray Stebbo in the best light. He boasted that he was a direct descendent of a Stebbins kidnapped by Algonquin Indians in the Deerfield massacre. That Stebbins had escaped on the trek to Canada. The escape might have made him a hero had he not earned the opprobrium of the survivors for having left his wife and four children behind. “And it wasn’t even fishing season!” Stebbo would say. He was the only one laughing.
Chas Hallowell wouldn’t have said anything, anything at all. He took over as President from Stebbo, very much a volunteer job, and spent his two-year term fighting to recover gear Stebbo had borrowed. That included a cane rod by a famous master donated for an auction, rare books, and a vintage Land Rover upon which he’d added several thousand miles. “A chick magnet,” Stebbo said when he eventually returned the vehicle. “Even at my age!” He tossed the keys onto Hallowell’s desk adding. “I filled her up. No need to thank me.”
Hallowell never spoke to Stebbo after that, though he did mount a whisper campaign to have him kicked out until Stebbo made a generous donation to shore up the club’s stream-side bunkhouse, desperately in need of repairs. Stebbo also insisted on the large bronze plaque dedicated to his generosity near the entrance. He added a little extra to the donation to pay for it. Now that he was gone, and figuratively still warm in his grave though he was cremated, the board decided it was too soon to discuss removing the plaque. That could wait until next week, it was agreed.
Hume had to shift the sack straining with Stebbo’s remains as he tried to come up with appropriate words. Stebbo, a large man to begin with, had put on considerable weight over his final years. It was the second heart attack that did it. After the first one, most men battle the inevitable depression but soon enough move to acceptance with a will to hold on as long as they can. The effort inevitably includes a better diet, exercise, and the end of smoking habit that had survived explicit warnings from the Surgeon General, their doctors, and family. Given the demographics, the club now offered vegetarian options at dinner and a small bowl of olive oil next to the butter plate. Only one vote was against the change in the menu: Stebbo’s.
Mrs. Stebbins might have had a more healthful impact on her husband’s habits. Though a formidable force, she met her premature end jumping a stone wall on a spooky horse spooked by a black labrador retriever whose name was Spook – it was the only obstacle she failed to overcome. Stebbo recovered well from both his wife’s accident and the heart attack. With the cavalier attitude of “life is too short” he found comfort in food, smokey whiskeys, and fine cigars housed in a mahogany humidor. “The hell with gout,” he’d declare while reaching for another indulgence.
His cigars—Churchills, specifically—were almost obscene in their proportions, thicker than a man’s thumb and nearly as long as a forearm. When his fellow anglers complained about the acrid cloud surrounding him on the club’s porch each evening, Stebbo would simply shrug.
They drive away the mosquitos,’ he’d counter with a self-satisfied puff. He was quite right about that. They also drove away fellow anglers. As did Stebbo.
“Ummm, I guess, well I’ve been asked to say a few words about a fellow angler, a long-time member, as is customary when one of us…umm…moves onto a new pool. Stebbo we know, is only the latest of us…”
As he spoke those words, in front of the small group fish were rising to a blanket hatch. The consensus was tan caddis, size 18, acting jittery on the film. It may have been the first caddis hatch of the season as the fish were aggressive. Chandler said to no one and everyone, “I love this. Just when I think we need to restock, these guys arise from nowhere.”
Murmurs of agreement followed. And a warning. “It won’t last long. Never does. Not like this.”
Hume struggled in his twisting turn to the water, hurting his back again, as he tore open the bag. “What would Stebbo do?” he yelled over the hatch. “He’d empty this goddamned sack and fish!” The group behind cheered, slapping their waders for effect and sounding like a herd of seals announcing the sighting of a foraging polar bear. Only the barking was missing.
Hume tried to rip open the bag with his feeble, arthritic hands. “Hurry,” someone urged from behind. Desperate, he took a corner in his teeth, bit down, and tore it open like a wolf at a fresh kill. The resulting rip was enough to allow Hume to pepper the river with Stebbo’s remains. He dribbled out the weighty contents feeling relief as the ashes emptied and relief to have the task nearly over without a tendentious eulogy over someone who elicited, at best, mixed feelings.
The ashes flowed in the current. They swirled with the eddies around pocket water. They clouded small pools behind rocks which had hidden the abundant fish that were rising. A breeze picked up carrying ashes further until they settled to rest, eternally, in these home waters of the Metacomet Anglers.
The dust fell. What had been the gin clear water, clouded with the dull grey remains of one Charles Stebbins. What had been a blanket hatch came to an end. The heretofore-feeding trout returned to their hidey holes.
The men stood quietly by the river’s edge, watching as their fishing day dissolved as surely as Stebbo’s remains. Hallowell had to laugh. He said, “Even dead, that old bastard wrecks my day.” They nodded in agreement and one by one started to head back to the clubhouse.
Hume stretched out his aching arms and stepped deeper into the river, allowing the flow to wash away ashes that had fallen over his hands and waders. He looked out over the sleepy creek, slowly nodding his head.
“You got me again, Stebbo.” There was a hint of respect in his voice. “Well done.”