Summer's Amplitude

A Short Story

[Note: Today, to celebrate the end of summer, I have something a little different than usual: a short story I wrote a few years ago. It’s about an ordinary guy, kind of a misfit, who manages to do one heroic thing with his life, as though he were appointed to that, and that alone. Enjoy.]

“You gonna do some fishin’?”

My brothers and I looked at each other and tried to stifle our laughter.

Herb Baxter’s voice was so funny. It was high, squeaky, and nasally; it got lost somewhere in his nose and never quite made it out. He levelled us with dull eyes.

“That was the idea, yeah,” said David.

“I dunno about that,” returned the man, staring us down from inside his battered blue pick-up. The quavering, meandering voice defied the serious, I’m-not-taking-any-of-your-crap expression on his face.

“Why not?” I asked, trying to sound as confident and relaxed as Dave, who was two years my junior but always somehow seemed older.

“This is my land,” Herb returned.

“Oh, is it? I wondered ‘bout that. I thought it might be,” Dave began with a warm smile. “But, you see, this map shows all the trout stream easements that folks have sold to the DNR.” He held up the document in question.

Herb squinted at it. His truck was still running, a threatening purring sound, his hand still curled around the wheel. A shaggy, liver-colored dog poked its head out from behind him and sniffed at us. There was a marked similarity between the two occupants of the pickup. Herb snatched the map from David’s fingers and looked at it. The dog barked.

“Shut up, Cal,” Herb said.

None of us moved while Herb studied the map. Brilliant, early morning sunlight flooded the valley, and a gentle fog rose from the stream where it glided under overhanging logs and around the cool, mossy rock walls at the base of the bluff. Drowsy caddis flies drifted across the ruffled and wimpled water, which was pure and cold from where it welled up in the inner chambers of the earth. Under its clear surface, water plants waved, rocks wore smooth, and trout held steady in the current, all limned with light. It was a forbidden kingdom.

Luke, the oldest brother at twenty, stood with his arms crossed over his chest, fly-rod resting against his shoulder. “We should just leave,” he murmured. I took one last look at the stream and turned to go, but David didn’t move, and there was a glint in his eye. It wasn’t that he had to fish this particular stream—there were plenty of others—it was that he wanted to justify his actions to the old man, prove that we were upstanding boys who had done nothing wrong, maybe even make Herb look a little foolish. Every family has the one—you know what I mean—the one. The child who doesn’t quite fit with the rest, who has all the overflowing personality, all the mischief and brilliance and courage, the one everyone expects great, and maybe terrible things of. Davey was the one.

Herb must have realized that the map did in fact show an easement along Sycamore Creek, where we were standing, because at last he said, “Well, this map’s all wrong. I never sold any easement to the Department of Natural Resources.”

“But—” David began.

Herb fastened his dull eyes on him and shut off the pick-up. He swung the door open and stepped out. He was a lanky, knotted man, bony and sun-toughened, but he looked wiry-strong. We all took an inadvertent step back. “You boys must not know me real well.” Though still squeaky, his voice didn’t seem funny anymore. “Around this valley, people don’t just walk all over my land without permission. It’s not the way it works.”

My heart-rate became awfully energetic.

“Everyone knows that if you go on Baxter’s land, he might shoot ya. Or maybe just get you thrown in the clink in Caledonia.”

“OK, sir, we understand,” said Luke, using a terse, formal voice.

“I’m not sure you do.” Herb leaned in and gripped Luke’s shoulder.