Read Online Holding Lies by John Larison - Free Book Online

the coffee. Time to meet the client. His eye glanced across the lone journal on the top shelf, out of order and out of place, and even without opening it, he remembered its words verbatim.
    August 7 1997:
    Fished with Annie this morning on what I thought would be our first drift of many this summer. She didn’t want to fish, so I took the rod and landed one, a fourteen-pound buck. Mint fish. Probably be the best I’ll get this year. She really missed out. Day ended early, when she said, “You mean nothing to me.” Teenager thing, I’m sure.
    I’m not very good at this parenting thing. Trying but I’m starting to fear that I’m missing some essential ingredient. Checked out four books on the subject from the library. Next time she comes, I’ll get it right.
    Tomorrow, after returning from an early trip to the airport, I’ll fish hard. At least there’s something I’m good at.

Chapter Six
    I N THE DAYS that followed, little was learned about Morell’s disappearance. Search and Rescue at first expanded their body search, bringing in a helicopter from Roseburg. The Huey’s chop, chop, chop could be heard echoing up and down the valley as if it were delivering marines to some battle upriver. Looking up at the passing roar, Hank could see three pink faces, helmeted and intent, peering down on his pool. But after a few days, the Search and Rescue coordinator announced the formal search for Justin Morell had ended. “We have little hope of recovering him at this point.”
    That same day, Hank learned through the grapevine that Sheriff Carter suspected foul play. He’d been interviewing people in and around town, but had been focusing on those folks who’d spoken to Morell in the days before his disappearance. Hank expected Carter’s truck to arrive at his house any moment.
    But today Hank was with Danny enjoying a morning off. Danny had this way about him, something that made Hank feel lighter, more agile even. Danny seemed to see the world from a place of fundamental optimism. And if anybody had reason to think poorly of this world, it was Danny. Nonetheless, he had once said that if a guy let go the oars and did nothing else, his boat would eventually deliver itself to the takeout. “Oaring only adjusts the view.” That seemed toencapsulate it all for Danny: This life would be filled with good and bad in more or less equal parts, and either way you would arrive at the end—so why not use your energies to maintain the best vista?
    Danny backed his boat through an eddy and to the shore and dropped anchor. The same move would have taken Hank four or five pulls on the oars, but it took Danny just one. He was easily the strongest man Hank had ever known, a logger by breeding, an oarsman by profession. “Your turn, old man.”
    They were at the head of Big Bend, a long and wide pool for this river, a place where a caster could really open up. A ledge on the far side held most of the fish these days, though twenty, thirty, forty years back they would stack up behind all the pool’s boulders. Hank and Danny knew right where the fish would be, yet they still chose to fish the run the old way, from the top down, a cast to every lie. Big Bend had four generations of custom to guide its angling, and who were they to fish it otherwise?
    â€œI’ll follow you through,” Hank said. “One more fish isn’t going to make or break my life.”
    Danny bit through his leader. “Enough deferring. How’ll I learn your secrets if I don’t watch you fish?”
    â€œI don’t have any secrets left.”
    Danny chuckled. “Fuck you.”
    They both knotted on new flies, and Danny lit a joint and Hank fished out a cigarette.
    It was true that in the last few years he’d become much less stable on his feet. Someday soon he’d have to carry a wading staff like Walter’s, at least while negotiating fast water.