“Three Big Trout”

(from Green Hills of Africa)

“What about time?”

“We’ve got to get out. Make it back tomorrow night if you can. Use your own judgment. I think this is the turning point. You’ll get a kudu.”

“Do you know what it’s like?” I said. “It’s just like when we were kids and we heard about a river no one had ever fished out on the huckleberry plains beyond the Sturgeon and the Pigeon.”

“How did the river turn out?”

“Listen. We had a hell of a time to get in and the night we got there, just before dark, and saw it, there was a deep pool and a long straight stretch and the water so cold you couldn’t keep your hand in it and they kept snapping it up and spitting it out as it floated until it went to pieces.”

“Big trout?”

“The biggest kind.”

“God save us,” said Pop. “What did you do then?”

“Rigged up my rod and made a cast and it was dark and there was a nighthawk swooping around and it was cold as a bastard and then I was fast to three fish the second the flies hit the water.”

“Did you land them?”

“The three of them.”

“You damned liar.”

“I swear to God.”

“I believe you. Tell me the rest when you come back. Were they big trout?”

“The biggest bloody kind.”

“God save us,” said Pop. “You’re going to get a kudu. Get started.”