Hutch
A Hallowe'en Story
by Warren Masten
I met him in a cafe in Fort Smith, Montana. He sat, alone, in the dark,
smoke-filled recesses of the place, nursing a half-empty cup of coffee. His
hazel eyes were focused on a blue hat, a cap, actually, sitting on the table
in front of him. His expression was one of a man who had worries on his
mind. I caught his attention and told him I'd seen him working the islands
at Three Mile that afternoon, and was quite impressed with his results. In
fact, all the flyfishers on that stretch of the Big Horn had been buzzing
about the guy in the blue hat who was knocking them dead through the entire
day. I asked if I might sit and pick his brain for awhile, since my day had
been somewhat of a bust. He nodded, extended a hand and introduced himself
as Hutch.
He waited, inanimate, a sustained length of time, fixing me with his gaze
and looking as if he were making his mind up about something. Then he spoke.
He told me that there was no real secret to his skill. The fly patterns he
used, he said, rested in a battered metal box beneath what he called his
"Dead Man's Good Luck Cap". I asked about the strange name he had for his
cap, as I lifted it to find a small, battered, metal box. He said it had
belonged to a man, an excellent fly fisherman, he had met once while fishing
the Fire Hole in Yellowstone. That man had disappeared one day while they
were fishing above the gorge. Hutch had found the man's cap and box of flies
resting on the bank about one hundred yards down-stream from where he had
been fishing. He kept these for, superstition not withstanding, while he
used the flies and wore the cap, his fishing skills and luck had increased
monumentally. As an aside, he told me that the man's body had never been
recovered.
The old fly box contained only a few flies, standard patterns that I
didn't usually use. What particularly held my interest was the expertise
with which they were tied. I asked if he had tied them. He said he didn't
tie flies. These were what remained of those that had originally packed the
box. I grunted and slid the box back under his blue cap. I arranged to meet
him down at the islands the next day.
We fished through the day and again, I was in awe of his abilities to
pick up fish when no one else seemed able to touch them. His finess with the
fly-rod was beyond anything I had ever seen...he was a master. I asked if I
might use one of his flies. At this he said, "No," and seemed to retreat
into himself. He said he had only a few left. I let it pass.
We drove down to the grey cliff area above the rapids the following day
and again, I was like a beginner. At one point we were talking about
checking out the rapids. He had just broken off a huge brown and had opened
the old box to select a fly. There was only one left. As he lifted it out,
I noticed his hand shook. He told me he was going to work a section
down-river a bit. His voiced seemed weak and far away. I said I'd follow,
shortly.
It wasn't five minutes later that I heard shouting from the occupants of
a drift boat that was just dropping into the rapids. They were pointing and
gesticulating towards something down-river. A feeling like that of cold
fingers gripped my chest, and I bolted down the island, over boulders and
through the brush along the bank as quickly as the conditions would allow.
About fifty yards down-river two other anglers were returning, with
difficulty, from the deeper, swifter water. Upon arriving, they said they
had tried to reach a man who had slipped and fallen into the rapids. He had
been swept away before anyone could react. It was as if he had been
instantly sucked under. The man had been wearing a blue cap. Hutch! I
rushed as far as I could down the small Island bordering the rapids, but saw
nothing. The men in the driftboat searched back and forth for about fifteen
minutes and then said they would go get the sheriff. I was shaken. My mind
was in a fuzz as I started back up the island towards a crossing. My plan
was to get to the red barn that marked the cliff area so I might meet the
sheriff when he arrived. As I made my way through the thick brush along the
boulder-strewn bank, my eye fell upon a patch of blue at the rivers' edge.
This blue turned out to be a cloth cap, the "Dead Man's Good Luck Cap"! I
paused, and then bent and lifted it up. Beneath it was the old metal
fly-box. I opened it and found it stuffed full of new, expertly tied flies
of my favorite patterns. I closed the box, and my hand, as if it had a mind
of its own, slid it into my vest, and place the cap on my head. A wave of
euphoria swept over me as I waded to a section of the rapids, selected an
Adams parachute from the box, tied it on, and deftly rolled a cast I had
never tried before, across to a difficult lie behind a claw-like snag,
midstream. One mend and I was into a heavy fish. I no longer felt a need to
go to the red barn. And as I let the fish take me into the backing, I seemed
to hear the rush of the water in the eddys whisper, "It's your turn."
HEH....HEH...HEH
