Bitch Creek Read Free Page A

never failed to stop Calhoun’s breath. She looked about twenty-five, except for her eyes. Her eyes betrayed more troubles than anyone could ever accumulate in twenty-five years. Kate Balaban was, in fact, three years older than Calhoun, who was thirty-eight.
    Her wedding band had failed to discourage more than one optimistic client, but Kate had a way of putting them in their place without offending them.
    He helped her unload her gear from the back of the Blazer, and while she hosed the salt water off the rods and reels, he lugged the rest of the stuff into the shop. When she came in a few minutes later, he had a cold Sam Adams on the counter for her and a Coke for himself.
    She picked up the beer, took a long swig, then bent to the logbook. “Humph,” she mumbled. She looked up. “Where’d Lyle go?”
    â€œHe didn’t write it down?”
    â€œNope. All it says here is: ‘Mr. Green’s secret trout pond.’ ”
    Calhoun summarized his encounter with Fred Green from Key Largo and how he had turned the client over to Lyle McMahan.
    â€œWell, hell, Stoney,” said Kate. “It was your turn.”
    â€œThe man seemed pretty pleased with Lyle, and Lyle was happy to get the job. He and Mr. Green seemed to hit it off. Anyway, Lyle needs the money more’n me.”
    â€œThat’s not the point. We’ve got a system here, and none of us are supposed to pick and choose our clients. I’ve told you that before.” 
    â€œSorry, ma’am.” He shrugged. “I didn’t like the man. What can I say?” 
    â€œYou can say it doesn’t matter whether you think you like him or not. You can say it’s Kate’s rule that you guide when it’s your turn like everybody else.” She shook her head. “Dammit all anyway, Stoney.”
    â€œI tied two dozen bunker flies and twice that many sand eels. Got to hear Van Cliburn play Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, then the Chicago Symphony did some Bartok. Sold one of those nine-weight Sage rods and an Abel reel, and a couple of ladies come in around noontime and damned near cleaned us out of those discounted Orvis shirts. You think you had yourself a good day? I had a helluva day.” 
    Kate cocked her head and frowned at him. He grinned back at her. She fought it for a minute, then shook her head and smiled. “Sometimes you really piss me off,” she said.
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    â€œYou are incorrigible.”
    â€œAyuh.”
    â€œI don’t know what I could’ve been thinking, hiring on a grouchy old shit like you.”
    â€œI never could figure it out myself,” said Calhoun.
    An hour before sunup on a June morning almost exactly five years earlier, Calhoun had been creeping along the muddy bank of a little tidal creek that emptied into Casco Bay just north of Portland. A blush of pink had begun to bleed into the pewter sky toward the east. The tide was about halfway out, and the water against the banks lay as flat and dark as a mug of camp coffee. A blanket of fog hung over the salt marsh, heavy with that rich mingled aroma of wet mud and decaying kelp and salt water and dead shellfish. Except for the squawks from a gang of gulls eating mussels along the high-water line and the muffled gong of a distant bell buoy, it was quiet and solitary and altogether peaceful, the way he loved it.
    He was still nearly a hundred yards away when he spotted some nervous water along the edge of the eelgrass in the shallow water. He knew they were stripers, and he knew enough about stripers to guess that they could be big ones. He had a small chartreuse-and-white Deceiver tied to a long leader, and he went into a crouch as he neared the fish and began false-casting to the side so the shadow of his line wouldn’t spook them.
    His first cast fell a little short, but as he twitched it back, he saw a wake materialize behind his fly, and then came the swirl and he