Bitch Creek (2 page)

Calhoun didn't need to look at the logbook. He already knew that both he and Lyle McMahan were available to guide. Kate, who had become something of a striped-bass guru in the past couple of years, had left before sunrise to take a couple from New Jersey up to the Kennebec.

Calhoun should take Fred Green trout fishing. It was his turn. Lyle would come over to mind the shop.

But the truth was, Calhoun couldn't conjure up any enthusiasm for leading Mr. Green on a tromp through the woods to one of the secret little spring-fed trout ponds he'd discovered in the woodsy Maine hills west of Sebago. It would be a day of pushing through alders and briars, slogging through marsh and swamp, lugging the lunch basket and both his own and Fred Green's rods and waders and float tubes, swatting blackflies, and stopping every ten minutes while this old Florida boy sat down to catch his breath.

Well, the full truth was that with the right company, that could be a helluva good day, Stoney Calhoun's kind of day. But he reckoned that Mr. Green would be mighty disappointed if all that slogging and sweating and scratching didn't pay off in a few trout, regardless of how hard the guide worked at it. None of his secret trout ponds was a sure bet in the middle of a sunny day in June, and Calhoun had had his fill of unappreciative clients.

Anyway, a man—even a fishing guide—didn't share his private brook-trout ponds with just anybody.

Calhoun had pegged this Fred Green from Key Largo as a blow-hard. He knew it was a character flaw, but he judged people quickly and rarely felt compelled to reverse his judgment. He had no tolerance for blowhards, and he knew if he spent much time with Mr. Green, he'd inevitably cut him down with sarcasm. Kate always worried about Calhoun's sarcasm. Bad for business, she said, regardless of how thick he laid on the accent when he was doing it.

No, he just did not want to spend a day with Fred Green. He'd rather mind the shop, tie some flies, find some Bach or Sibelius on the radio, and be there when Kate got back to help her unload, and afterward they'd put their feet up on the fly-tying bench, have a Coke, and she'd tell him about her day's adventures with the folks from New Jersey.

Calhoun looked up from the logbook. “You're in luck,” he said to Fred Green. “Lyle's available, and he's just the man you're lookin' for. Registered Maine Guide. He's lived around here all his life, knows every creek and pothole in York, Oxford, and Cumberland counties. Anybody can catch you a wild brookie, I reckon it's Lyle. Stick you in a float tube, paddle you out onto a little pond. Like I said, pretty short notice. But I'll give him a call, see if he can shoot over and make a plan with you, if you want.”

“Lyle,” said Green. “I think that's one of the names they mentioned to me at the hotel.”

“Lyle McMahan,” said Calhoun. “He's got a good reputation hereabouts.”

“You mentioned a float tube,” Green said. “You mean a belly boat? One of those canvas-covered inner tube things you sit in? I've never done that. Are they safe?”

“Oh, sure,” said Calhoun. “You'll enjoy it.”

Green rubbed his hands together. “Well, it sounds good to me.”

Calhoun picked up the portable phone and pecked out Lyle's number. Lyle McMahan, who was a graduate student in history at the University of Southern Maine, shared a big, run-down rented house in South Portland with an ever-shifting mixture of students and their boyfriends and girlfriends and assorted hangers-on. Calhoun couldn't keep track of Lyle's housemates.

This time a sleepy female voice answered with a muffled, “Yo?”

“Lyle there?” said Calhoun.

“Hang on, mister. I'll take a look.”

A minute later she came back on the line. “He's coming.” She paused. “Hey, is that you, Stoney?”

“Yep. Who's this?”

“It's Julia.” She dragged out her name, giving it three distinct syllables—
Joo-lee-yah.
“Remember?”

“Sure,” he said. “Of course. How're you doing?” Actually, Calhoun couldn't remember whether Julia was one of the several little athletic blondes who shared Lyle's commune, or the tall gal with the red hair.

“Doin' just fine,” she said. “Well, here he is.”

“What's going on, Stoney?” said Lyle a moment later.

“Got a job for you, bud,” said Calhoun. “Mr. Green, here, up from Florida, would like to catch himself a gen-u-ine Maine brook trout.”

“It's your turn, man. What's the story?”

Calhoun glanced up. Fred Green was standing in front of him, watching. “Good,” he said into the phone. “Haul your butt right over here, son. Your client's itchin' to go. He's askin' for you personally.”

“This dude another one of your rejects?” said Lyle.

“Ayuh. That's about it.”

“I'm telling Kate that you're pullin' rank, old buddy.” Lyle laughed. “Sell the man some flies. Tell him that story about how George Smith's wife got stuck on the toilet seat he'd just varnished. I'll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Calhoun disconnected and looked up at Fred Green. “You're all set. He's on his way. How're you fixed for gear?”

“I hope you can rent me what I need,” said Green. “I didn't bring anything with me.”

“Lyle will set you up when he gets here,” said Calhoun. He waved his hand around the little shop. “There's coffee in the back. Poke around. See anything you like, let me know. Twenty percent off all the clothing.”

He went back to his fly-tying bench, dismissing Fred Green, feeling only a little guilty that he wasn't trying harder to sell something to the man.

Calhoun had tied two more bunker flies by the time Lyle breezed in about a half hour later. He looked up to catch Green's reaction. Lyle McMahan was a gangly six-and-a-half-footer with a wispy goatee, a hoop in his ear, and a ponytail that was held back with one of those rubber bands they use in restaurants to clamp shut the claws of lobsters.

If Fred Green had expected Lyle McMahan to look like a stereotypical Maine guide—red-and-black-checked shirt, bushy black beard, dead cigar butt clamped in his teeth, maybe—he didn't show it. He shook hands with Lyle and the two of them huddled for a few minutes. Then they moved around the shop assembling some equipment, and after a few minutes, Lyle lugged it out to his ancient Dodge Power Wagon and Fred Green followed along behind.

Calhoun watched through the front window as they stowed the equipment in the back. Then Lyle pulled out his gazetteer of topographic maps, which he kept under the driver's seat, and opened it on the hood of the Power Wagon. He and Fred Green bent over it, and after several minutes of chattering and turning pages and poking at it, Green with his forefinger and Lyle with a pencil, they lifted their heads and grinned at each other.

When Lyle came back in to make his entry in the shop's journal, he said, “Ol' Mr. Green and me, we're gonna have some fun.”

Calhoun looked up and smiled. “Ayuh, I expect you will.”

“He's actually a pretty interesting guy,” said Lyle. “He's fished all over the world.” He finished writing and dropped the pen on the counter. “He even knows a place.”

“A place, eh?”

“Yep. This here's a no-lose proposition, Stoney. Someone told him about a top-secret hotspot, and I think we found it on the map.” Lyle grinned. “He wants to try it. If it works out, I can just add it to my list. And if we get skunked it ain't my fault.”

“You trying to pull a Tom Sawyer on me, sonny?”

“Nossir,” said Lyle. “Mr. Green and I are gonna have us a helluva good day, and he's gonna lay a monster tip on me when we're done. Too bad, Stoney. You could've had it, but this here's my gig.”

“Well,” said Calhoun, “tight lines, then. You two lads go on, have yourselves a day.”

C
ALHOUN HEARD
K
ATE'S
old Chevy Blazer coming a full minute before it pulled into the pea-stone parking area out front. He'd have to crawl under it sometime and give that tailpipe a few more wraps of duct tape.

He glanced at the clock radio on his fly-tying bench. Nearly six-thirty. She'd met the New Jersey folks at five in the morning. Another typical thirteen-plus-hour day for the fly-fishing guide.

Actually, he was a little surprised she hadn't kept them out there for a second go at the turn of the tide, which had come around eight in the morning, and would, therefore, happen again about eight in the evening. Kate knew exactly where the cow stripers holed up at the bottom of the tide, and more often than not, the clients yelled “uncle” before she was ready to quit.

He pushed himself up from his chair and went outside. Kate had backed her boat into its slot and was bent over the trailer hitch, cursing softly.

“Let me take a whack at it,” said Calhoun.

Kate straightened up, put her hands on her hips, and arched her back. “Damn thing keeps jamming on me.”

Calhoun gave the crank a few more turns, thumped it with the heel of his hand, then lifted the trailer off the truck's hitch. “You've got to hold your mouth right,” he said.

“You've just got a way with machines,” she said. “Too bad you're not so good with people. Hold it up here for me.”

Calhoun lifted up the front of the trailer while Kate slipped a plank under its front wheel. Then he went to the side of the shop, turned on the outside spigot, uncoiled the hose, and brought it over to the boat. Kate opened the plugs and Calhoun hosed it down, first the inside and then the outside.

She scrubbed at some blood stains with the big boat sponge. “We had us a day,” she said.

“Bet you did.”

“They were on sand eels all over the mudflats the entire last two hours of the outgoing and well into the incoming. My folks couldn't throw much beyond the tip of their rod, but we dropped anchor there and they were sloshing and churning all around us for three solid hours.”

“Schoolies?” said Calhoun.

“Mostly. But we had some fun.”

“Any keepers?”
Keep-ahs.

“I think Charlie had one on earlier, but she came unbuttoned before we got a real good look. You know that rip off the tip of the island?” 

“Where the black dog always comes out on the dock to bark at you?” 

“That one. This fish was lying there with her nose pointing at the rocks, and Charlie threw one of your bunker flies up into the wash. That old cow sucked it in, and Charlie hit her, and she hightailed it for Boston. He panicked, tried to snub her down, and—”

“Ping!” said Calhoun.

“Busted that ten-pound leader like it was a trout tippet. I think it must've got nicked on a mussel shell.” Kate grinned. “I thought the poor man was gonna have a heart attack.”

Calhoun always marveled at Kate's undiminished enthusiasm. She had owned Kate's Bait and Tackle for eight years and had been guiding for nearly five. Every day was still an adventure for Kate, and every client was a new friend. For a while, the first-time sports had tended to look at the ground and shuffle their feet and mumble when they realized they'd hired a woman to guide them. But it didn't take long for the word to get around: Kate Balaban had a nose for fish, a limitless repertoire of shaggy dog stories, and twice the stamina of any man. She could repair a dead outboard in the rain while her customized Boston Whaler bounced on heavy chop, she could cast a sink-tip line eighty feet into a ten-naut breeze, and she fixed an old-fashioned Maine shore lunch—an ice chest full of beer and fruit juice and soft drinks, fresh bluefish fillets (if they'd caught any, sirloin steaks if they hadn't) grilled over an open fire, with smoked oysters for appetizers, a big tossed green salad, slabs of extra-sharp Maine cheddar, fresh-baked bread from Sally's next door to the shop, and a wedge of Sally's apple pie for dessert.

Besides, Kate was a spectacular woman who didn't mind the fact that men liked looking at her. She usually wore her black hair in a long braid that reached almost down to her waist, and she knew how to apply subtle touches of makeup to emphasize her high cheekbones, her big black flashing eyes, and her wide mouth. Kate usually wore walking shorts, T-shirts, and sneakers when she guided, and after a few weeks in the sun her Irish half disappeared and she looked like a full-blooded Penobscot Indian.

She was an inch shy of six feet, most of it in her legs. In shorts, she never failed to stop Calhoun's breath. She looked about twenty-five, except for her eyes. Her eyes betrayed more troubles than anyone could ever accumulate in twenty-five years. Kate Balaban was, in fact, three years older than Calhoun, who was thirty-eight.

Her wedding band had failed to discourage more than one optimistic client, but Kate had a way of putting them in their place without offending them.

He helped her unload her gear from the back of the Blazer, and while she hosed the salt water off the rods and reels, he lugged the rest of the stuff into the shop. When she came in a few minutes later, he had a cold Sam Adams on the counter for her and a Coke for himself.

She picked up the beer, took a long swig, then bent to the logbook. “Humph,” she mumbled. She looked up. “Where'd Lyle go?”

“He didn't write it down?”

“Nope. All it says here is: ‘Mr. Green's secret trout pond.' ”

Calhoun summarized his encounter with Fred Green from Key Largo and how he had turned the client over to Lyle McMahan.

“Well, hell, Stoney,” said Kate. “It was your turn.”

“The man seemed pretty pleased with Lyle, and Lyle was happy to get the job. He and Mr. Green seemed to hit it off. Anyway, Lyle needs the money more'n me.”

“That's not the point. We've got a system here, and none of us are supposed to pick and choose our clients. I've told you that before.” 

“Sorry, ma'am.” He shrugged. “I didn't like the man. What can I say?”