A GUIDE’S LIFE
•
BY HAYDEN MELLSOP
Looking Back and Ahead
W
ith no room left in the cab, we created something of a hollow in the truck bed by rearranging oars, dry bags, and coolers, and settled into a couple of softer crevices between—hunkering low out of the wind that had picked up from the south; it sighed through the boxelders and cottonwoods, and whipped up clouds of dust that swirled off into the distance. The potholed road stayed parallel with the river for the first half mile, offering glimpses of its silt-tinged waters through the foliage, before climbing steeply onto a plateau of drab adobe, where rounded hills separated by crumbling arroyos formed the remains of what had once been an ancient inland sea. As we gained elevation, the river and its surrounding countryside was revealed it for what it was - a thin and fragile ribbon of green cutting through a landscape parched and timeless. The last of the evening’s sun drew forth the yellows and ochres of the sandstone, while several miles upriver behind us, the canyon itself appeared little more than a dark smudge against the darkening sky. It is, I mused, a countryside de30
High Country Angler • Summer 2020
manding both thick skins and slow metabolism of its inhabitants, offering long stretches of torpor and economy which are interspersed with brief periods of succor, survival depending on equal parts luck and tenacity. I took a slug of water to rinse some of the dust out from my mouth, and turned toward my friend. “So, what do you think? What will your tell your fishing buddies back east?” He was silent for a time, scratching the stubble on his chin, eyes fixed on the horizon, and then shrugged. “I’m not sure. I'll show them a few photos, some of the fish we caught, but I'm not sure anything I can say can do this place justice. I guess I'll just have to tell them they need to get out here and see for themselves.” I nodded. "Unless you've been here, smelled the river, felt the heat and tasted the dust, there are really no words to adequately describe it. I know I can't." “One thing for sure… I want to come back. I wish I’d discovered this place twenty years ago. Not just this river, but the West in general.” I mulled over his words. As
the road turned again and we caught one last glimpse of the river, it was difficult to shake the feeling of leaving behind one world and moving into another. “I sometimes wonder about that - the timing of life. Where we’re born and when we’re born and what happens to us and what we do with it all. There’s lessons I wished I’d learned earlier, places I wished I’d discovered, mistakes I wished I hadn’t made, but then I certainly wouldn’t be here and now, and I can’t imagine being anywhere else.” He nodded, massaging his casting shoulder, still staring off into the distance. “Yeah, I know. Still, when you get to my age, it’s easy to get preoccupied with what is already behind you, what you’ve left still undone. For me that list seems longer than what I’ve achieved.” I thought again of the last three days, of the towering walls of granite carved by time, of the lilt of the canyon wren in the fleeting cool of dawn, of the stoneflies that had swarmed the river and crowded the bushes and trees in the heat of afternoon, drawn to the cool and the shade to quietly go about their business of www.HCAezine.com
