Fishing with Nick by Peter J Barbour

Fishing with Nick by Peter J Barbour

Catching fish was never enough for Nick. If you didn’t trespass, climb a crazy cliff, or put yourself in danger, it didn’t cut it. Fishing was always better where you couldn’t or shouldn’t go. When he proposed another fishing expedition on that hot, late summer’s day in August 1961, I resisted.  

“Joe, nothing bad will happen. I won’t let you get hurt,” he assured me, and it was true he always protected me. “We start Eighth grade in a week. Football will begin. This might be our last chance to fish for a while.”

I hesitated, muttering my protests as I considered our previous misadventures and missed encounters with disaster hoping for a change in direction. All for naught. I shook my head no, then gave in, hung up the phone, and gathered my gear.

I left a note for my mom saying I’d gone to meet Nick and took off on my bike to a park halfway between our homes. It was best not to just disappear or give her too many details. She’d worry.

& & &

“Tom told me about this place where the river widens,” Nick said as soon as I arrived.  “He and Pretzel have been there. He said it’s been stocked with gigantic trout. You can see them just itching to be caught.”

“The place where the river widens is real far. By the time we get there, we’ll have to come right home.”

“Not if we take the shortcut.”

“Shortcut … did Tom tell you this? I can’t wait to hear about the shortcut.”

“Hey, do you want to catch fish?” Nick asked.

I didn’t have to think hard about that. I wanted to catch fish. I loved to catch fish. Nick’s “shortcut,” however, provoked a certain level of concern, but I was already committed.

“I’ll tell you about it on the way,” Nick said.

We got back on our bikes and headed north. Nick had me puzzled. The only road I knew to the river was south, a long winding way ending with a sharp turn before continuing behind a hill that made up the Western wall of the gorge.

That portion of the river, behind the hill, broadened and deepened. We’d been there to swim. I held my protest for the moment.

We rode for several miles before taking a break. It was hot and humid, bright, but hazy. As we sat next to the highway, the aroma of dried grass filled my nose. I wiped the sweat from my face and drank from my canteen. The ice cubes hadn’t melted, and the water was cool and delicious.

“We’ll come to a dirt road just ahead. It cuts across so we can go right to the river,” Nick said.

“Cuts across what?” I said, concerned. “Through the swamp? That’s the great shortcut Tom told you about? You can’t go through the swamp. And how will you cross the river and climb the hill on the other side?”

“We’re not going through the swamp, and we’ll be at the crest of the hill when we get to the other side. And, we don’t have to cross the river, at least not so we’ll get wet.”

There was only one way to achieve that end short of an airlift. I wasn’t happy.

“Nick, I’m not going across the train trestle,” I said with conviction prepared to stand my ground.

Nick got back on his bike without saying anything more and started pedaling. I mounted mine and took off after him to protest further. Nick pedaled furiously. I was in close pursuit gaining on him when he disappeared into the woods by the road.

I left the paved road and continued to follow him, my front wheel bouncing fiercely across the ruts in the path as I weaved around rocks and fallen branches. I spotted him through the trees.

The path began to descend. I shifted my weight to the back of my seat almost riding the back wheel as I gripped the rear brake firmly. The bike slid on the loose gravel gaining speed even though the back wheel was locked.

I thought I was about to lose control when the trail suddenly curved. Leaning into the turn, I took my foot off the right pedal, and let the rear wheel slide out from under me. I maintained my balance and kept to the path that now became a gentle climb. Nick was still ahead.

“Wait up!” I shouted, and he stopped.

Nick sat on his bike at a fork in the road. One branch led up, the other down to train tracks that emerged from a tunnel in the side of the hill.

 The rails stretched across the gorge ending a mile away at the top of the hill. I stood next to Nick and gazed down the tracks. Below, an uneven blanket of green, composed of bushes, low trees, and brambles, covered the marshy area so thick that the river disappeared. I stared back at the railway and tried to measure the trestle’s height.

“Nick, we can’t ride across this. Do you know when the next train is coming? I changed my mind about fishing. It’s Tuesday.”

Nick crinkled his eyes. He wore a frown and shook his head. “What does Tuesday have to do with it?”

“Tuesday? Nothing…I’m afraid of heights.”

“Easy, don’t look down. There haven’t been trains on this stretch of tracks for years,” he said with exaggerated confidence and authority as if saying that willed it so.  “We’ll carry our bikes. Come on.”

Nick took off down the path, stopped to look up and down the tracks, hoisted his bike onto his shoulders, and started across the trestle.  He moved with ease from railroad tie to railroad tie. I secured my gear, lifted my bike onto my shoulders, and followed. I kept muttering to myself, “The trestle is my friend. The trestle is my friend. I will not fall. The trestle is my friend.”

Once Nick looked back and saw I was behind him, he slowed, then stopped waiting for me to catch up. I progressed with caution from tie to tie trying not to focus on the green canopy beneath us. The bitter, acrid, oily odor of tar heated by the summer sun assaulted my nostrils. Sweat ran down my back and my stomach churned. I was sure I reeked of fear and believed Nick detected it.

“Let’s move it, slowpoke,” Nick shouted from fifty feet ahead and laughed. That hardened my resolve to continue.

The ground dropped away, as we approached the midpoint of the trestle. I forgot about the heat, the stink, and the pressure of the bike on my shoulder. All I saw was the next railroad tie and my feet as I placed one foot in front of the other.

Despite Nick’s taunts, I slowed considerably as I became more and more cautious, and Nick got farther ahead. I was so focused on my concentration that I didn’t realize he was no longer taunting me. Then, I allowed myself to look down and froze.

“One more step, one more step, the trestle is my friend. The trestle is my friend,” I kept muttering aloud.

A scream shook me from my trance. My head shot up reflexively and my weight shifted, and with it, the bike. I fell to the left, and in response, leaned to my right, and threw myself forward on my belly. The bike dug into my back, but I was safe. Tar coated my stomach and knees.

The shriek echoed across the gorge. I looked down the tracks. Nick was gone. His bicycle was resting fifty yards ahead, but he was nowhere. I got out from under my bike, scrambled to my feet, set fear aside, and ran to where Nick’s bike lay. Its front wheel, propped up by the handlebars, spun slowly. I strained my eyes as I studied the foliage below. I felt sick.

“Nick, Nick, where are you?! Come on, Nick! Be okay. Be okay,” I called hoping, praying, that he was safe. I leaned over the rail for a better look, and two hands shot up into my face and grabbed my shirt. My body jerked forward as my legs flipped up into the air. I tried desperately to hold the ties and tensed every muscle in anticipation of the plunge into the abyss and certain death. I closed my eyes and prepared for the long descent. I fell all right, but not into the green below. I landed on a catwalk beneath the rail bed.

“Nick! You stupid butt-faced….”  I was too exasperated to finish the sentence. “You could’ve killed me. I thought you were a goner.” He laughed so hard he gasped for breath appearing unable to pay much attention to me and my concerns. He seemed very proud of his little trick.

I regained my composure. Nick, on the other hand, scrambled back onto the track bed to retrieve his bike.

“Here, take the wheel, I’ll fetch yours,” he said as he lowered his cycle to me. The catwalk extended the rest of the way to the opposite side of the canyon. Although narrow, the walkway was protected by a handrail making travel faster and less fear-provoking. I was glad to be done with this leg of the journey.

From the hill to our destination on the riverbank was short. The path was steep but switched back on itself in small sharp turns that made the descent an easy ride. We followed the dirt trail at the bottom along the water until we found a clearing, stopped, and rested.

“We’re here. See the Island?”  He pointed to a narrow strip of land no more than thirty feet from the riverbank. “We’ll wade over to it and fish from there.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why can’t we find a place to fish from this bank?” Nick just looked at me as if I’d asked the most ridiculous question, one that warranted no explanation.

“Anyone,” Nick started, paused, sighed, and started again, “anyone knows that fish, I’m talking major fish, like to sit off the end of these islands waiting for a big meal.”

“Oh,” I replied, “I guess you can only catch them if you’re on the island.”

“That’s right.”

“I suppose you know how deep the water is that we’ll be wading through.”

Again, Nick’s eyes rolled up, and he slapped his forehead.

“I’ll go first,” he said in measured words, patronizing me, as he removed his sneakers, tied them together, and hung them from his neck. He stared at me with a stone unblinking stare.

“Okay,” I capitulated.

We raised our gear over our heads and entered the river. The current pulled at our legs. The water was cool but comfortable and refreshing. Our feet held steady to the gravel and small stones on the bottom making the walk to the island easy. I wondered if this was too easy for Nick. At its deepest, the water rose no higher than my upper thigh.

The slip of land sat in the river like a ship, its prow pointing proudly into the current, and its stern downstream leaving a wake as the stream rippled past. If I watched the water, it was as if we were moving; and I imagined I was on a great vessel headed out to sea.

The island itself was wider than I had appreciated from the shore. Its banks were sharply hewn by the river. Its surface was covered by brambles and tall grasses. Shorter young trees grew toward the prowl, and taller, more mature ones, near the stern.

We made our way to the foot of the island, sat in the grass, and started to fish. Nick proved to be right. The fish began to bite, and I caught quite a few trout that day. We fished for an hour or so before Nick got restless.

“I’m going for a swim. Are you going to join me?” Nick asked, but I was having too much fun catching fish. Nick started to undress when he looked up into the northwest sky.

“We got a problem,” he said in a serious tone.

I turned wondering what was concerning him. Bearing down on us, like an army of angry mean spirits, was a line of dark clouds that blackened the sky and cut off the sun. The wind picked up carrying a pungent sharp odor of ozone ahead of the storm. In the distance, thunder beat out a regular rhythm as lightning danced.

“We’ve got to get out of here now!” Nick shouted

We ran through brambles and brush to where we’d waded to the island. Not fast enough, the storm hit with a vengeance. Wind-driven rain stung our faces and backs as it fell in sheets. We could not see the riverbank just thirty feet away. Nick started to wade across. I grabbed him and shouted above the din. Water filled my eyes and soaked me as if I were immersed.

“Nick, the current has picked up and the river is rising!”

He stepped back out of the water and crouched next to me. The rain continued as the thunder and the lightning passed. Great swirls of wind followed, bending grass and trees.

The river rose fast and soon poured over the deck of our sinking island ship. Its prowl went under first, and water washed across our feet. We sought higher ground near the island’s stern. Water reached past our ankles and clawed at our knees. The strength of the current threatened to knock us down and carry us away.

“Hold onto a tree and try to climb above the water!” Nick called his voice calm and resolute.

I struggled to walk with the flow in Nick’s direction when something hit the back of my leg knocking me over. My arms beat the water, as I tried desperately to reach for something, anything. The river overpowered me, sucking me towards its murky depth.

“Got, ya!” Nick shouted, his hand firmly grasping my shirt, my hand gripping his arm, as the current held onto my legs and played tug-of-war with Nick.

“Come on!” Nick encouraged me as I struggled to stand, rain pounded our heads. Nick clung fast, one hand gripped me, the other wrapped around a tree.

“We’ve got to get higher. We can’t fight this current from here.”

“I’m okay. I’ve a good hold onto the tree.”

He let go of me and shimmied up the narrow trunk. The bough bent as I followed. We held on as water washed over the island’s surface, inundating the tall grasses, threatening to uproot trees, and carrying older decayed material away.

We maintained our grip on the tree as the rain stopped and the storm moved away. We held on as the turbulent raging river, muddied and strewn with debris, passed beneath us.

“You, okay?” Nick asked.

“I guess. I didn’t want to take a swim today, you know.”

“I don’t know how long it will take the water to go down. The river will run brown into tomorrow, I’m sure.”

The waters receded, and we climbed down from our perch and walked to where a tree, felled by the storm, spanned the gap between the island and the riverbank. We waded across holding on to the log.

Once on solid ground, high enough above the flood plain, we retrieved our bikes. Fortunately, we’d chained them to a tree. Minus our fishing gear and shoes, we headed home. Nick didn’t talk much at first as we pedaled at a fast pace. We took the long way, all macadam, no dirt roads, steep hills, or trestles. We stopped for a rest, and Nick finally spoke.

“You sure you’re doing okay? I thought you were about to be washed away.

What will you do someday without me to watch out for you?”

Was he taking responsibility for getting us into a jam?

“I don’t know, Nick. Maybe we ought to learn how to fish from the riverbank.”

“Yeah, but, admit it. That wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun.”

Was that fun?

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Peter J Barbour 2025