"The upper bend," I said. "You mentioned cutthroats."
"Above the second riffle. There's a game trail from the pull-out on the mining road—look for orange ribbon on the willows." She leaned against the counter. "Don't go into the left channel. Looks wadeable."
"But isn't."
"Shelves off fast right where the gravel bar makes it look safe." She said it flat, like a measurement. "I know because I wasseventeen and my waders filled. I had a very long walk back to the pull-out."
"How long a walk?"
"Long enough that I'd rehearsed my entire explanation to my father before I got there." She paused. "And then he didn't say a word. Just handed me a towel and started packing up the gear."
"That worse or better than if he'd said something?"
She thought about it honestly. "Worse. He saved it for the drive home." She looked at me. "You fish with your father?"
"Used to."
She heard the past tense and didn't push on it, which I noticed.
"Rowan said you're doing half-day wades," she said instead.
"Full days too, when the booking's there."
"You like it?"
The question was direct enough that I considered it the same way. "More than I expected to," I said. "Reading water and reading people use the same instincts."
She tilted her head slightly. "What instincts?"
"Patience, mostly. Knowing where to look. Not pushing when things are moving in the right direction already."
She was quiet for a second. "That's a very specific way to think about guiding."
"Or about most things."
She held my gaze for a beat, and there was something in her expression—not guarded, not forcing anything, just thinking. Then Mae called her name from the kitchen and she pushed off the counter and went. I sat with my coffee and finished the sandwich and tried to run the math one more time.
It kept coming out the same way.
I left a bill on the counter and stood, and she glanced over from the far end and lifted her chin—a small acknowledgment—and I walked out into the morning.
I sat in my truck and let it run.
The math said stay away. Don't make yourself someone she'd notice if you left. Keep your head down, do the work, move on when moving on became necessary.
The math was sound. I'd checked it three times.
The problem was that she'd stood in my river at 5:30 in the morning and told me I was wrong about something, and she'd been right. She'd shown me—like it was the most natural thing in the world to fix rather than just point out. And then she'd handed me a fish like it cost her nothing.
In twelve years of work where everyone wanted something, that was not a thing that happened.
I put the truck in gear and drove toward the water. I let the question sit where I'd been putting it for three weeks, in the back of my mind where things went when I didn't have an answer for them yet.
It wasn't going to stay there much longer.
3
MIA
