Orchard Writing

Dusk descended upon the lake almost like a slow, wide eyelid closing for the night. Judge new that the eels would soon slither from the muck at the bottom, making the fishing all but impossible as they would feed voraciously on the spent worm he dangled over the side of his canoe. His father had always taken the hook from the eels when Judge was a boy and then toss them into the bait bucket to clean and eat when they got home. Judge, however, hated the eels; their flavor and greasy texture, the way they felt in his hand as they tried to wriggle free, and that they reminded him of what he had loved and hated about his father.

Judge looked down through a clutching haze of gnats schooling just above the inky water and slowly began to reel his line in. As the clear filament emerged and ran up through the first guide loop of his cheap, Walmart rod, droplets formed and ran down the line into the reel. Judge stopped winding the reel and put a finger on the line. He could feel the subtlety of each small bead melt into his skin. A loon called out, then another replied, and Judge missed his father a little bit more. The sound of it was close. He looked up to a small island thinking he might be able to see the pair.

The evening air was clear and the sun shone bright red as it slowly waned in the distant horizon. Judge heard the small plane before he saw it. Its engine revved a little before settling down as he watched the pilot guide it around to approach the longest run of open water. In the diffuse light Judge could barely see the white wings of the plane; only the deep blue body, clear windows and small head of the pilot stuck out against the evening sky.

Reaching the far end of the lake, the plane began its descent. The engine grew louder and as it passed over a copse of short pine trees rimming the lake, he thought the plane may be going too fast and coming in too high. The engine throttled back and the pilot nosed the plane down bringing it to an angle that made it appear as if the leading edges of the pontoons would dig into the water rather than skim along the surface. Judge tensed as the plane passed out of sight, lost behind a thicket of hardwood and pine trees growing on the small island, and then reemerged less than one-hundred feel in front of him. The nose of the plane had edged up making it look as if it might splash down rather than glide in.

The pilot again toggled the nose down and leveled the pontoons as the plane’s momentum faltered. The pontoons kissed the water hard and then floated again for an instant before the pilot dropped the throttle all the way back and the plane splashed into the water and skidded across the surface. The water grabbed hold of the pontoons slowing the plane.

The propellers kept the plane gliding forward as the pilot used two small tillers on the back ends of each pontoon to steer toward a small dock jutting out at the end of a long wooden pier. The pilot cut the engine just before it reached the dock and he stepped from the plan onto a pontoon and then to the dock as it and the plane gently collided. As he tied the plane to a mooring cleat a woman stepped onto the long pier and two small children darted ahead of her toward the man at the end of the dock.

As Judge watched he felt a small tug at the end of his line that he instinctively knew was an eel. He thought of his father with a most profound sadness and missed him deeply.