THE ALARM IN STONEY CALHOUN'S HEAD jangled at 2:55, five minutes before the redundant wind-up clock beside his bed was scheduled to go off. Calhoun’s internal alarm hadn’t failed him yet, but he still didn’t quite trust it.

He lay there for a minute, looking out the window at the woods and sky. The stars were bright up there beyond the pines, and clouds shaped like cigars were drifting over the face of the gibbous September moon. It was a few days shy of the full Harvest moon.

He focused on the pine boughs. Not a needle was quivering. Not a breath of breeze. With luck it would stay that way for the next few hours, and the Bay would be flat calm, and they’d find fish working the surface. The bluefish and striped bass were on their southward migration. They moved fast and unpredictably, and sometimes the whole damn ocean seemed empty of fish. But when you found them, they were hungry and violent and happy to crash a fly stripped fast across the surface.

Clear skies and no wind in Dublin, thirty-odd miles west of the sea, didn’t mean clear skies and no wind on Casco Bay, of course. But it was a hopeful sign.

Calhoun switched on the light beside the bed. Ralph Waldo, his Brittany spaniel, was curled in a ball and pressing hard against Calhoun’s hip. He scratched the dog’s ribs. “Hey, Bud,” he said. “You want to go fishin’?”

'Fishin’' was one of those many magic words that got an instant response from Ralph. He jerked up his head, cocked his ears, and peered into Calhoun’s eyes to be sure he wasn’t making some kind of cruel joke.

“Hop to it, then,” said Calhoun. “We don’t want to find Mr. Vecchio already waiting at the landing for us. Kate doesn’t like it when the client gets there before the guide.”

Ralph yawned, slithered off the bed, stretched, and trotted to the door.
Calhoun got up, turned on some more lights, and let Ralph out. He switched on the electric coffee pot, turned on the classical music station from Portland, and went back into the bedroom to get dressed. He liked his music loud. Music wasn’t for background. Music deserved to be listened to, even if you had only one useful ear.
Calhoun found himself humming along, but he couldn’t place the composer. Sibelius, maybe. The symphony was lush and melodious, the way he liked it, and he was pretty sure that he used to know it.

A lot of guides packed beer for their clients, but not Calhoun. He didn’t see the point. You could drink beer anytime.He pulled on a pair of old jeans, a flannel shirt, and his Topsiders. Then he let Ralph in and gave him his breakfast. While Ralph was eating, Calhoun loaded his cooler with the ham-and-cheese-on-pumpernickel sandwiches he’d made the night before, a couple of Hershey bars, a few apples, and half a dozen bottles of frozen water. The water served two purposes. You could drink it, and meanwhile it would keep the food cool.

A lot of guides packed beer for their clients, but not Calhoun. He didn’t see the point. You could drink beer anytime.

He filled a Thermos with coffee, poured himself a mugful for the truck ride, clicked his tongue at Ralph, and lugged the cooler outside. He hefted it into the truck bed, then opened the door for Ralph, who scrambled into the passenger’s seat.

Calhoun went back inside to turn off the lights and the music. He stood there on his deck for a minute, looking up at the black starry sky, happy for the isolation of his little house in the woods. Some wispy clouds were gathering over toward the east, which might mean overcast on the coast. The air smelled cool and clean and piney. At the foot of the slope out back, Bitch Creek gurgled over rocks and gravel, another kind of music that Calhoun paid attention to.

A pair of barred owls were talking back and forth in the woods. Who-who-ha-whoooooo. One was calling from behind the cabin, and the answer came from up near the road.

Calhoun put his hands around his mouth and gave his own barred-owl call. Who-who-ha-whoooo. That shut them up. He smiled, thinking of those owls trying to figure out where this third party, some new interloping barred owl with an attitude, suddenly came from.

He checked the trailer hitch, made sure all the gear was lashed down and the motor was locked up, then climbed in beside Ralph. He turned on the ignition, found the Sibelius on the radio, and cracked Ralph’s window open.

“Let’s go have some fun,” he said.

Ralph didn’t say anything. He was ready to go.

* * *

Calhoun munched a donut and sipped his coffee as he followed his headlights eastward along the empty road. Ralph stood on his seat with his nose poking out his cracked-open window. The Sibelius filled the cab.

Calhoun always felt especially alert and virtuous when he was on the move in the pre-dawn darkness. The roads were empty of other traffic, and no lights glowed from the windows of the scattered houses and gas stations along the roadside. I’m awake, thought Calhoun, and you’re still asleep. I’ve already started living this day. I’ve got the jump on you.

Beyond the reach of the lights, the darkness was absolute. You couldn’t even see the horizon where the sun was supposed to rise in a couple of hours.Passages from novels and essays, and sometimes entire poems, had a way of sticking in Calhoun’s memory, further cluttering his brain. Now he recalled something Thoreau had said. “The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night.”

It was still dark when he arrived at the East End boat ramp. Calhoun didn’t wear a watch. He usually didn’t see any point in knowing what time it was, but when he did want to know, he always could tell, whether it was by the angle of the sun or the moon or just the quality of the light or darkness. Now, according to his internal clock, it was about 4:15. Mr. Vecchio was supposed to arrive at 4:30. High tide was around seven. A perfect morning tide for stripers. The sun would rise a little after 6:15. Calhoun liked to be on the water about an hour and a half before sunrise.

There were a couple of trucks with empty trailers already parked in the lot — fishermen even more virtuous than Calhoun, out on the water already. Or maybe they’d been out all night. Some guys did that, mostly chunkers and deep-trollers and eel free-spoolers. Those guys caught a lot of big fish.

He backed his trailered 18-foot aluminum boat, a Lund Alaskan, into the water, got out, unhitched it, tied it off, and parked the truck. Then he let Ralph out and lugged the gear down to the boat.

Some lights on tall poles cast the parking lot and the boat landing in a fuzzy orange light. Beyond the reach of the lights, the darkness was absolute. You couldn’t even see the horizon where the sun was supposed to rise in a couple of hours. Here on the coast, the foggy air was moist and dense and smelled like old seaweed, and no moon or stars lit up the sky.

Somewhere out there a foghorn honked. Otherwise it was still and dark and silent.
Ralph was staring at some comorants that were sitting on top of the pilings. When he decided they weren’t partridges and were therefore unworthy of his attention, he wandered around the landing, sniffing seaweed and clamshells and seagull shit. He peed on the pilings, then hopped into the boat and lay down on the bottom, trying to be inconspicuous in case Calhoun changed his mind and banished him to the truck.

Calhoun had no intention of leaving Ralph behind. Ralph was good company in a boat, and he loved to go fishing.

Calhoun set up three rods, clamped on reels, strung them up, and tied on flies — a yellow foam Gurgler on the eight-weight floating line for the surface, a tan-and-white Clouser Minnow on a full-sinking nine-weight line for going deep, and a big chartreuse-and-white Deceiver on the nine-weight intermediate line with some wire leader in case they ran into bluefish. He mashed down the barbs with needle-nose pliers and sharpened the hook points with a file. He made sure the foul-weather gear and lifejackets were stowed away in the watertight lockers. He lowered the 40-horse Honda outboard, started it up, listened to its quiet, confident hum, and turned it off. Then he tested the electric trolling motor.

All systems go.

Just about then, headlights swept over the landing. Calhoun figured it was 4:25. Mr. Vecchio was right on time.

Kate kept telling him that he needed to improve his attitude, and Calhoun guessed she was probably right. But it went against his grain, and he never gave it much effort.He climbed out of the boat and walked up to the parking area to meet Mr. Paul Vecchio, with whom he’d be sharing his boat and his dog and his favorite striper holes, rips and flats for the next eight hours. This was an intimate experience, and it mattered a great deal to Calhoun that he liked his client. If he found the man self-important or humorless or bossy, Calhoun became taciturn and sarcastic. He tended to steer clear of his favorite fishing spots with such a client aboard.

Kate kept telling him that he needed to improve his attitude, and Calhoun guessed she was probably right. But it went against his grain, and he never gave it much effort.

So he hoped he was going to like this Paul Vecchio. All Kate had told him about the man was that he was a history professor driving down from Penobscot College in Augusta. He’d written a few books, Kate said, and he was a competent angler, although he hadn’t done much saltwater fishing.

Calhoun knew a couple of writers. He found them to be day-dreamy and cynical and surprisingly uncommunicative, which suited him just fine. A lot of loud talk didn’t go well in Stoney Calhoun’s boat.

He didn’t much care how skilled his clients were. It was always fun to have a good fisherman aboard, but Calhoun liked teaching anybody who knew he needed it and was receptive to learning, too.

By the time Calhoun had walked up the ramp to the parking lot, the man was coming toward him. In the fuzzy orange light Calhoun saw that he was tall and rangy with a long creased face and a dark beard peppered with gray. He wore a Red Sox baseball cap, blue jeans, and a green flannel shirt. He had a couple of aluminum fly-rod cases in his hand, and a black gear bag was slung over his shoulder.

“Mr. Calhoun?” the man called.

“You Mr. Vecchio?”

The man waved and came toward him. Calhoun figured he was somewhere in his fifties.

“So do I call you professor?” said Calhoun.

“Call me Paul,” he said. “Please. Anyway, I’m not really a professor. Just a lowly adjunct.”

“Adjunct,” said Calhoun. “What’s that?”

Vecchio smiled. “A college teacher who better have another source of income.”

“Lowly,” said Calhoun. “So what’s your other source of income, if you don’t mind me asking?”

He shrugged. “I’ve written a couple books.”

“About what?”

“Narrative history. For the mass market. Books that people might actually want to read. I did one about the submarine warfare off the New England coast in the second World War?” He made a question of it.

Calhoun smiled. He hadn’t heard of it.

“They made a PBS movie out of it,” said Vecchio, “brought it out in paperback.” He waved the back of his hand in the air. “More than you wanted to know. The royalties allow me to be an exploited adjunct professor and go fishing once in a while.”

“I’ll have to check it out,” said Calhoun, who once again was reminded of everything he didn’t know, all the stuff he probably used to know before he got zapped by lightning.

Paul Vecchio held out his hand. “I’ve sure been looking forward to this.”

“Yep. Me, too.” Calhoun gripped his hand. It was strong and rough. Not what you’d expect from a college professor, even a lowly adjunct. “You should call me Stoney. So you all set to rock and roll?”

“I lay awake all night thinking about it,” said Vecchio. “Excited like a kid. I literally didn’t sleep a wink. I don’t get fishing enough.”

“Can’t promise we’ll catch anything,” said Calhouon, “but I’m pretty sure we’ll have some fun trying.”

Vecchio grinned. “That’s why they call if fishing, not catching. Suits me fine.”

Stoney Calhoun had a feel for people that sometimes got downright spooky. It was as if he could climb into their heads and know what they were feeling.Calhoun decided right then that he liked this man. He knew that snap judgments and first impressions were supposed to be unreliable, but he relied on his, and he was hardly ever wrong. It wasn’t just the man’s open smile or the way he sort of jangled when he walked or the fact that he liked fishing, though all those things were pluses in Calhoun’s book.

No, it was more than that. Stoney Calhoun had a feel for people that sometimes got downright spooky. It was as if he could climb into their heads and know what they were feeling. When somebody was lying or dissembling or withholding some truth, or just being a phony, Calhoun got a jittery, uncomfortable feeling.

“I got some rods all set up,” said Calhoun. “If you’d rather use yours, that’s okay, but . . .”

“No, that’s fine,” said Vecchio, “let’s use yours. I wasn’t sure what I’d need.”

“Another thing,” said Calhoun. “I got some rules in my boat.”

Vecchio shrugged. “I don’t mind rules. Hell, it’s your boat.”

“So what’ve you got in that bag?”

“This?” Vecchio patted the bag hanging from his shoulder. It was shaped like a miniature duffel bag, and the letters L. L. Bean were stitched along the side. “I got a windbreaker and a camera, pair of pliers, fish knife, couple boxes of flies. Dry pair of socks. Sunscreen and bug dope.” He shrugged. “Is that a problem?”

“Nope. Tie your own flies?”

Vecchio grinned. “I’m not very good at it, but I find it relaxing.”

“Me, too,” said Calhoun. “We can try some of your flies if you want, once we figure out what they’re eating.”

“It’s always fun to catch fish on your own flies,” said Vecchio.

“What about electronics?” said Calhoun. “On my boat, no damn cell phones, no pagers, no laptop computers, no Palm Pilots, no GPS.”

Vecchio reached into his pants pocket and took out a cellular phone. “I understand about the GPS,” he said. “Somebody could mark your secret hotspots.” He smiled. “I guess I understand the rest of it, too. Confounded devices. Incompatible with fly fishing. You mind if I bring along the camera?”

“I got no problem with cameras,” said Calhoun. “Leave the damn phone.”

Vecchio went back to his car, opened the rear hatch, and shoved his rod cases in back. Then he went around to the front door and leaned in for a moment, putting his cell phone away. Then he returned to where Calhoun was waiting, and they walked down to the boat.

Continue Reading "Gray Ghost"   1  2