Brothers In Arms

[Bimmer]

Note: This is only an excerpt of a short story that I wrote a couple of months ago for a writing class. It may just very well turn into the final chapter of a novel. I hope you all enjoy it and I certainly welcome any comments and suggestions!

The traffic had thinned considerably as Preston drove deeper into the woods. Suddenly, from out of nowhere Preston found himself bearing down on something in the road. He down-shifted into second gear, eased his foot to the brake and came to an abrupt halt just a few feet from a large elk. Parental instinct caused him to stretch out his right arm across the passenger seat, protecting his son from being hurdled forward.

He looked over at Skyler and said, “You okay, son?”

Skyler looked up at his father with sleepy blue eyes and said, “Yeah, Dad, I’m okay.”

The denizen of the woods wandered off the road and back into the pitch blackness.

“Are we there yet Dad?” Skyler inquired.

“About another hour son,” his father told him.

Skyler slid up in his seat so he could see out the window better, as his father slid a CD into the player. The lyrics came on softly. Skyler recognized it was the voice of Sarah McLachlan;

I will remember you, will you remember me?

Don’t let your life pass you by

Weep not for the memories

Remember the good times that we had?”

After a few moments, still looking out the window Skyler said, “Dad?”

“Yes, son,” his father replied.

“Why did Austin have to die?” Skyler asked.

The question pierced Preston like a dagger before the sentence was even finished. His father replied, “I miss him very much too, son. But we have to remember that dying is something that God tends to keep a mystery. For now, we need to be content that it brings more meaning to our own life when someone dies. That’s why we should choose carefully how we live our own life and honor those we love who have passed, by living our life to the fullest. Remember also, son, that he died for something he believed in, and that was protecting the other soldiers in his unit from harm. Your brother is a hero. There is no greater sacrifice than the man who lays down his life for that of another.”

Skyler pondered this and he looked up at his father and said, “I hope to be just like him dad.”

His father looked away from the road for a moment and looked into his son’s eyes and said, “I love you son, and I will always be proud of you.”

Skyler wasn’t sleepy anymore and they spent the rest of the drive to the lake just talking and even took turns recounting all the campfire songs they knew.

By early next morning, Skyler and his father were stepping into the small boat with their fishing tackle and fishing poles. The water on the lake was lending itself to a slight breeze and it sparkled in the sun as if someone had thrown jacks made of diamonds across the surface. Preston quietly rowed the tiny boat to a cove some hundred and fifty yards to the east. When they reached a spot about thirty feet from shore, his father tied the boat off on a stump that was protruding from the surface of the water. Skyler carefully manipulated the art of crafting a worm onto a hook. He cast his rod in the direction of an outcrop of water lilies. As the line began to sing out of the reel, the bail suddenly closed on him. The line snapped and the remaining line, hook and sinker most likely soared into the next county.

“I hate it when that happens,” his father said.

They both giggled and Skyler rigged up another line. Another worm on the hook, and he carefully cast in the same direction as before and this time the sinker went plop, in the water just at the precise edge of the outcrop of water lilies. He waited until the line had stopped running along the surface of the water. The sinker had hit bottom. No sooner had he clicked the bail shut and started to take in some slack that the line quickly became a tight-wire and his rod was pulling desperately to fly from his hands.

“Set the hook, son!” his father exclaimed.

But before he got the words out, Skyler had already set the hook with a quick jerk of the rod and was reeling while keeping the tip of the rod pointing up, as his father had once taught him. As Skyler reeled, his father reached for the net to keep at the ready until he needed it. The deep burgundy rod bent nearly in half, the place where the line met the water was plowing the surface of the lake as if an invisible ice skater was carving circles and long crisp lines in directions all around the boat. After a few minutes of reeling and relenting line, Skyler was making progress getting the fish closer to the boat. He could see momentary flashes of silver as the fish was exhausting everything in its bag of tricks to escape. Just a few more turns of the handle on the reel and the fish began breaking the surface. Its tail flapping, in desperation to elude the inevitable, sent sparkling splashes of water into the air. Skyler managed to get the fish up close enough for his father to retrieve it from the water. In one quick swoop, the net came out of the water and into the boat. Once inside, his father held the fish up and the glistening body gleamed in the sunlight. The long and yet thickly sleek body was a beautiful silver with an array of tiny black spots and the most beautiful thin purple line that ran from the gills to the tail. Its mouth gaping at the air as if actually breathing, the gorgeous rainbow trout displayed all the magnificence of its wonderfully created colors. The eyes were huge and appeared as gold platters serving as a backdrop to Prussian blue orbs staring up into the sky in submission.

“Let’s get a picture, son!” his father exclaimed.

Skyler dislodged the hook with a pair of needle-nose pliers and struggled to hold the fish with both hands and not let it wriggle away. The fish was easily thirty inches long and all of twelve pounds.

Several pictures later and his father asked, “What would you like to do with him, son?”

Skyler replied, “Let’s put him back Dad.”

“You sure?” asked his father.

Skyler said, “Yeah, Dad, he probably has a brother out there somewhere.”

[Trout Commander]

Good story. Way better than anything I could write. Where did you say this lake is? LOL

[jdmidwest]

Good story, kinda points out the fact we should not reintroduce Elk back into MO, he almost hit it with the truck........