Storms

Written for Montana Woman Magazine, check them out here

I stood on the dirt road and looked up at the Charlie Russell sky. The pastel blues and pinks mingled and cast a faraway glow on the mountains in the distance. Wind blew the grass and somewhere to my left, a rooster pheasant cackled. The bird dog next to me perked up. “Not today Shep,” I whispered to him and gave him a pat on the head.

I walked down the road and set my fly rod in the rod holder on the boat. The boat sat on its trailer–— water still draining from the bilge off the back. Thunder rolled in the distance. The storms were like clockwork coming in over us from the prairie every hour and a half, throwing lighting to the ground and making us race towards the shore.

At one point the lightning did get too close for comfort. We hadn’t seen any in a while, but suddenly my fishing friend and I both got a feeling of danger deep in our bones–— doom was imminent if we didn’t get off the water. I jumped down from the casting platform and hooked my fly to one of the guides on the rod. That nine-foot graphite rod was like a lightning rod in the middle of a barren landscape. As soon as the metal hook on my fly touched the rod, I got a light jolt. I handed the rod down to my friend and as soon as he grabbed, so did he. 

I sat quickly down on a cooler and we ran the aluminum jon boat back to dry land. I saw my friend’s face drop as he looked at me as said “Chloe, all of the hair on your head is standing straight up.” We moved faster to the shore, watching the storm brewing above us. Once at the shore, we quickly jumped out of the boat and left everything behind. The dog could sense our nervousness and wouldn’t hop out,; as we pulled the boat on to the shore, we coaxed him out of the vessel and into the truck. 

We sat in the truck and watched the storm build and build. “Do you believe in Bigfoot?” I asked, “I think I had an encounter once–— but I don’t know.” My friend looked out the windshield and laughed. The storm darkened the sky, and just when we thought the weather would unleash on us, it blew past. 

We decided to call it good on fishing for the day. We had a reasonably successful day and would rather end the day at the bar down the road that happened to be the only “live” building in the otherwise ghost town. We sat at one end of the bar, an older couple came in and sat at the other end. They looked at us for a moment before leaning in to each other and telling secrets. 

We ate our meals and drank our drinks. We told stories from hunting and fishing trips that have long passed. Maybe the older couple down the bar from us thought we were also telling secrets. The only secret here was where we were, a sacred fishing spot. The type of spot where you go to get away from everything else. Where you disappear into the landscape and every obligation or worry you have sinks into the choppy water. You don’t just want to be here, you need to be here. 

Somewhere in between the storms, the angry fish, the secretive older couple, and the dusty washboard road, I learned to love the storms and the calm moments between them–— or was it the calm moments with storms between them? 

I laid in the back of my truck, staring at the flies I had stuck in the headliner. Each one represented a monumental fish. Toothy pike and muskie, dozens of redfish, beautiful trout. Each fly adorned the headliner of my truck like a saint in the Sistine Chapel. Instead of frescoes, they were small creatures made of feathers and craft fur, marabou and flash.

I slowly started falling asleep, wedged between the door and a duffel bag of rain gear. I listened to the deep reverb of thunder in the distance and water lapping at the shore. I wondered what the fish were thinking about and if they too could come to appreciate the storms as much as the calm.