Clay Bennett, 58, retired U.S. Forest Service ranger, had spent the last six months badmouthing Maren Hale to anyone who’d listen. The new county parks and rec director had pushed through the catch-and-release ban on the public stretch of the Blackfoot that he’d fished since he was 12, and he’d called her everything from a pen-pushing bureaucrat to a tree-hugging idiot at the local hardware store, the diner, even the monthly volunteer fire department meeting. He was stubborn to a fault, had refused to so much as make eye contact with her since the ordinance passed, still wore the homemade “Maren Hates Trout” sticker on the back of his beat-up 2008 Ford F-150. He’d been alone since his wife Susan died of ovarian cancer seven years prior, had convinced himself any kind of new connection at his age was childish, a waste of time better spent restoring vintage fly rods or clearing deadfall from his 12-acre property.
He was manning the fly-tying demo table at the annual Blackfoot Trout Festival beer tent when she walked in, the sticky vinyl floor squeaking under her scuffed work boots. The air smelled like fried catfish, cheap lager, and citronella, the bluegrass band on the nearby stage grinding through a fast version of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.” She was 56, he’d heard, divorced three years, had moved to the valley from Boise to take the parks job after spending a decade working in Idaho’s backcountry. She walked straight for his table, and he tensed, ready to snap at her about the regs before she even opened her mouth.
She leaned in, close enough that he caught the scent of pine soap and cherry seltzer on her breath, and nodded at the half-tied woolly bugger between his calloused fingers. “I’ve been trying to learn to tie those for three months. Keep ruining the marabou.” Her elbow brushed his when she reached for a spool of peacock herl on the edge of the table, and he flinched like he’d been burned. He almost told her to go bother someone else, but then he looked up and met her eyes, hazel, crinkled at the corners like she spent most of her time laughing, and the snark died in his throat.
He grumbled something about bad technique, and shifted his stool closer to hers, his knee brushing hers under the table when he demonstrated how to wrap the thread tight around the hook shank. When he covered her hand with his to correct her grip, he felt a thin, raised scar running across her wrist, and she laughed, soft, when he paused to glance at it. “Ski accident, 2021. Broke my wrist in three places, still messes up my grip when I tie.” He found himself listening when she explained the ban, how the native cutthroat population had dropped 60% in five years, how she’d had to push the ban through to get $2 million in federal restocking funding, how the ban would be lifted in two years once the numbers bounced back. He’d never bothered to ask for context, had just been mad that someone had messed with his routine.
He was torn, half furious at himself for not hating her as much as he’d told everyone he did, half giddy that he was having a conversation that didn’t revolve around firewood or rod blanks for the first time in months. When the festival wrapped up, the stage lights dimming, the last of the crowd drifting to their trucks, she asked him if he wanted to walk down to the river with her, and he almost said no, almost made up an excuse about having to feed his old hound dog before it got dark. He said yes instead.
The river was cold, the surface turning pink and gold as the sun dipped behind the Bitterroots, crickets chirping in the willows along the bank. She kicked off her boots, rolled up her khakis, and dipped her feet in the water, shivering when a small wave lapped at her calves. He admitted he’d called her a bureaucrat at the hardware store, and she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, and said she’d heard him, had thought about leaving a stack of $120 citation notices on his truck seat as a joke. He leaned against a cottonwood tree next to her, and when she tilted her face up to his, he didn’t pull away when she kissed him, slow, her lips soft, tasting like cherry seltzer and mint. For a split second he felt guilty, like he was betraying Susan, then the feeling faded, replaced by a warm, quiet thrill he’d forgotten existed.
They sat on the bank for an hour, talking about the times they’d both fished this exact stretch as kids, about Susan’s habit of falling out of the drift boat every time she hooked a big trout, about her ex-husband leaving her for a yoga instructor in Bozeman. When they walked back to the parking lot, he asked her if she wanted to come out on the river with him Saturday, bring her rod, they’d catch a cutthroat and release it anyway, risk the fine. She grinned, tucked a strand of wind-tousled blonde hair behind her ear, and said she’d bring the cherry seltzer.
He watched her taillights fade down the dirt road, and for the first time in seven years, he didn’t feel guilty for looking forward to something that didn’t center on a dead wife’s memory.
