1.

She followed me down the riverbank, clank, clank, clank—her wading staff struck the rocks. Late July. Slick as hell. I checked on her over my shoulder. “You doing OK?” The top of her wide-brimmed hat nodded. “Yep, I’m fine.”

I leaned on my net, waiting for her to catch up. Then, her hat dropped out of sight like a bird off a wire, and her head was under it. I scrambled over boulders to help her. “I think I’m OK, but I did hit my head.” Vision was OK, no headache, no slurring. Let’s move to easier water—and cell service. Clank, clank, clank—slowly, we made our way back out.

In the truck, she said, “I bet this is your worst nightmare as a guide.”

“Oh no,” I said. “My nightmares are big. No, my worst nightmare is you fall, hit your head and tumble into the river unconscious, and before your waders fill with water, you drift into the mouth of a bear. Then, you wake up and club that bear with your wading staff, escape, and scramble up that ridge, grabbing blackberry stalks with your bare hands, just to get hit by a Rivian, no, a Sprinter van, as you try to flag someone down on the road. All that turns out to be survivable. But we never caught a fish … And, months later, you’re battling flesh-eating bacteria from where the blackberry thorns razed your arm.”

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