Often, as I watched from beside the river birch, every cast seemed to me almost purposely designed to slow time, to suspend the present moment for as long as possible. Only the creek mattered and the presentation of the fly, how it behaved on the water, and the way the light came off the surface of the creek in bursts of orange and yellow and white, and how good the wind felt on my face, and the cold water numbing your calves and thighs, and, always, the wary trout. This was what mattered—not yesterday, not even tomorrow, not last year or anything from the past, which the old men refused to be shackled to as fiercely as they avoided being haunted by any vision or portent of what seemed to be a troubled future. What mattered was the momentary certainty of the hills, Starlight Creek, and trout. After that, all they were sure of was that their continued existence, like that of the trout, was a matter of considerable doubt.

The intricacies of fly fishing intrigued and fascinated the old men. After all, the serious fly fisherman had to depend as much on his skill and intelligence as on blind luck. The way Emerson saw it, fly fishing had saved them from the dreary life of subsistence farmers, given them a way to participate in the rhythms of the natural world other than by shouldering a hoe. Too, fly fishing was great therapy. It kept them nearly sane, out of trouble, usually sober, and allowed them to pursue a life that, in imagination at least, had no limits or boundaries.

For as long as I knew them, they never worried once about actually landing a fish. Like every seasoned trout angler, they knew they were, in the end, no match for trout. The contest was unfair from the start: the trout held all the aces. Curiously, it was a comfort to them that they would never get the best of Starlight Creek or its uncanny trout. The challenge never dulled; the thrill never faded. The reward was angling itself, just meeting the trout in its world, on its own terms, feeling the tenuous nature of its life and suddenly understanding the tenuousness of your own.

Of the trout's many excellent qualities, it was its uncompromising refusal to accept the world on man's conditions that enticed Albert and Emerson, lured them to Starlight Creek day after day. How they doted on the trout's piscatorial petulance. No other fish they knew was as irascible, churlish, disagreeable, temperamental, or provocative, loyal only to its own survival. Elias Wonder's passion went deeper still. Like him, trout seemed to have a bilious, splenetic attitude toward life, and a man could experience no greater satisfaction than pursuing an ancient fish that just didn't give a damn about anything but itself. It seemed a puzzling relationship. Trout fishermen revere the trout; trout, on the other hand, unaware of their sublime standing in man's world, revere nothing, including man, a creature they seem to view with special contempt. Nihilism is a rare trait in fish but trout are full of it. The old men liked that. Trout were estimable companions, saying not a word, but speaking instead in motions, wrinkles of water, mystery and surprise.

Whenever I watched the old men on the creek, a feeling, odd yet comforting, swept over me like a chill that settled in my spine and spread, touching every nerve, a feeling that I was witnessing a poignant, intensely private drama, a catechism of life, tension and resolution, played out in an intimate struggle between man and trout. A passion play, a mystery, an extravagance, a morality play, a telling tableau, all of these at once as each of the old men cast, trying not so much to hook a trout as to immerse himself in the trout's wildness.

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