The Body in the Bulrushes

The Body in the Bulrushes

Starting when I was a young man, I fly fished a small pond each summer high in the mountains. I can’t remember how I discovered the place but it lay hidden in a canyon fed from summer runoffs and was full of German Browns. A steep climb and close to the edge of the aspen line, my horse could get me only so far before I dismounted and walked the remaining miles. As far as I knew, no one but me climbed the rocky ridges to that isolated water; it was mine alone and I appreciated that gift for many years, never feeling a need to share.

There was one motive for traveling to that secret place each summer, a reason that I kept to myself for fear of being misunderstood. I climbed over a thousand feet because of the man’s body that floated in the bulrushes along the pond’s edge. Some would call it a dream but it wasn’t a dream for I believed I recognized the man; the graying hair, the scar on the back of his neck, the tan waders, and the worn vest. Dreams are usually less specific about identity.

Not many are allowed a glimpse of a life’s end and it was a solemn and serious occasion when I first saw the body floating face down – like praying in church or filling an inside straight. A comfort is the best way I can describe the vision – a flannel blanket when the embers die at three in the morning.

I fished with nymphs, tiny black flies I’d tie during the long winter nights in anticipation of seeing the body in the summer. For many years, excited by my youth, I’d start the climb too early in the spring and the deep canyon’s snow banks would stop me before I was halfway there. In the beginning, I was a mix of false starts and complete failures until I learned to wait until mid-June when the snows melted. There was never a need to rush because my pond didn’t change, always familiar with the log jam holding back the waters, the bulrushes thick as whiskers in the shallows, and the perfect rings on the surface from the feeding Browns.

In my twenties, I’d tie size eighteen hooks with cockle feathers from a red rooster’s neck under a lamp with a sixty-watt bulb. My fingers worked then and I could still knot the flies to my leaders. In my thirties, I needed larger hooks and brighter lights, hoping that the trout’s eyesight was failing as quickly as mine. Glasses helped in my forties but by my fifties, only the trout’s courtesy and willingness to sacrifice themselves kept me from going hungry. When I first discovered the body, I worried about the fish and how the floating man would affect them. My concerns were baseless. I’d fry the trout in butter over a willow wood fire and their flesh was always sweet. Death didn’t change their taste. But to be honest, it was never about fishing. Anyone can fish but seldom are we allowed to see finality suspended in time. That’s the reason I climbed the mountain for so many years.

Upon reaching the pond in summer, I’d pull my tan waders up to my hips and cautiously allow my feet to feel the soft bottom as I skirted the bulrushes. Waders kill more fishermen that coronaries, a brutal statistic in most actuaries – one slip and they fill with water and pull you down. I’d always been careful, though. I’d fish the open water, avoiding the bulrushes until evening. As most fly fishermen know, there is a golden hour at dusk when the trout realize that dinner is served and they lose caution, rise from the depths, and leap into the air for miniature flies. The floating body also appeared at the end of each day, tucked into the bulrushes and still as the evening air as if it also knew that time was limited.

Every year was different. The first summer I saw the body, I shivered and quickly made my way back to the campsite, boiled strong coffee to stop my chills of the inevitable. I fooled myself at first, almost convinced that the body was some stranger who had infringed on my pond and paid for it with his life. But it was obvious even to a young man. I didn’t believe in ghosts but I did believe in what I saw with my eyes. I returned the next year and every year after, growing braver with age. In my thirties, I garnered enough courage to finally say something to the floating body. I asked him who he was but fear took over before he could answer and I scrambled back to the shore. I did not sleep well that night under the stars and never asked him another question.

One year, a young two-year-old heifer on the homestead fell into the creek by the corral and drowned. She was young and unsure of her footing. Having other things to do, I left her there for a month but each time I passed, I’d see the deterioration, the bloating, the rips in her flesh by the coyotes and magpies. Tired of the waste, I wrapped one end of a chain around her leg and the other end around the bumper of my pickup. In four wheel drive, I hauled her out of the water and onto the graveled bottom. It was the decent thing to do and I don’t know why I waited so long. But within weeks, only bones remained until finally, even the bones were carried away by the hungry. A year later, I could barely remember what had happened when I’d pass the scene. Finally, the heifer and everything she’d been was forgotten or put out mind.

At my pond, the body in the bulrushes grew older each year; wrinkles to match the grey whiskers. I knew that made little sense but I couldn’t fool my eyes with reason. Occasionally, I thought of grabbing a handful of waders and pulling the body to the dry ground. But I knew that in the winter, high in the mountains, the pond would freeze almost solid and the trout would hide at the bottom waiting for summer. I imagined the body doing the same, frozen timeless in the ice and I believed that more fitting than a hole in the ground. I questioned my decision often but questions are easier than answers.

With arthritis in my sixties, I stopped climbing up to the pond and tried to be satisfied with my life the way it was. I’ve regretted that and now in my seventies, I’m headed back. I’ve planned it well, set aside the time to take two horses, and climb up and over the ridges. Shouldn’t take more than a week if I go slowly and that’s the only way I can go now. I’m going to pull the body out of the water and bring it home with me. I explained this to wife and she said I was crazy for even trying to walk up into the mountains again.

But I need to do this.