by Ron Day

Well...maybe not quite the entire creek. There was that one stretch that was fenced in, with NO TRESSPASSING signs posted. It was owned by a farmer named Walter Hall.

Walter Hall was our nemesis. We'd heard rumors that he actually fed the trout which stayed on his property, and as a result they grew to huge proportions. It was said that just one of those monsters would be enough to feed a man for an entire month, and each month Walter would do just that, catch exacty one, for his monthly consumption.

Now, of course, it was also rumored that he was always laying in wait with a shotgun, hiding behind a bush or a barn on his property, just waiting, it was said, for kids like us who would try to steal his trout from him.

Quite naturally, we were always scheming for ways to fish those legendary waters without getting shot at.....or even caught.

One summer afternoon my cousins, Bruce and Brian, and I were fishing our way upstream from our homes. We'd always try to fish upstream one day and downstream the next so we wouldn't catch all of the fish on one outing. This was an upstream day and we were nearing Walter Hall's property, where we'd have to either quit fishing and go home, or circumvent it. Circumventing was hard work, and it caused us to be away from water for long periods of time. We didn't like circumventing. As we usually did, we hunkered down and crept close to the fence, where we could look past it, staring in wonder, our mouths drooling, at the water we'd never fished before.

But there was something different on this day. For the first time ever we knew exactly where Walter Hall was at. He wasn't hiding in the bushes with his shotgun, and he wasn't in his barn, either. He was on his old FarmAll tractor, plowing a field nearly a quarter mile away. By lying on our bellies and crawling up a slight hill next to the creek bank, we could see him working away in the distance.

"Do you think it's really him?" Brian asked, shading his eyes as he peered across the bare field at the moving tractor.

"Yeah, Im sure," said Bruce, "see that straw hat? He always wears that straw hat. That's gotta be him!"

We slid back down the bank to the creek, remaining on our bellies as we looked through the fence again, all of us thinking the same thing.

"You guys wanna' try it?" Brian finally asked as he sat up, still hunched over.

I turned my head and looked towards Walter Hall's property.

The creek was as pretty as a picture postcard, winding around the huge elm trees lining its grass covered banks, then disappearing around a bend in the distance. A few short yards away from me it widened magnificently into a large, deep pool, a current flowing gently through it on the right side. It was a dream hole, that's for sure, and even as I looked I could have sworn that I saw a thirty-inch Rainbow trout swim past, just under the surface, next to the current.

And beyond that first pool were other pools, each one as inviting, and as tempting, as the first one. I answered Brian's question in the only way possible.

"Did you see the size of that trout!?" I whispered loudly.

After a brief discussion we decided to crawl on our hands and knees from hole to hole, using the slight embankment plus occasional clumps of brush to conceal our movements.

"But what if he sees us?" Brian asked, still not to sure we were doing the right thing.

"If he sees us and starts headin' this way just jump up and start runnin' for the fence," Bruce advised him. "He's too far away to recognize us in a line-up anyway."

"Not me!" I said beligerently. "If he sees us I'm jumpin' into the creek! He don't own the creek and he can't do nothin' to me if I'm standin' in it!"

My companions looked at me for a moment, their heads cocked and their eyes squinted.

"Naw," they said in unison, "we're headin' for the fence!"

"Watch that middle strand, it's electric," Bruce hissed a moment later as he lifted the bottom wire of the fence for Brian and I to crawl underneath.

"Yeah, I know!" Brian said as he slid along on his back, "I heard he plugs it right into his house! It has like 500 volts or something like that!"

When we were safely on the other side we began slithering like snakes toward that first hole where I'd seen the thirty-inch rainbow. We'd nearly made it too, when we noticed that the sound of the tractor was rapidly growing nearer.

Brian chanced a quick glance over the top of a mound of grass. "HOLY COW! He's coming after us! What should we do?!"

Bruce didn't hesitate, he just jumped to his feet. "RUN FOR IT!" he shouted out as he sprinted toward the fence.

Brian, of course, followed his older brother's lead. And after they had crawled back under the fence to the safety of the adjoining property they both paused, quite briefly, to watch as I, true to my word, bravely jumped into Ahtanum Creek.

The water was a little bit deeper than I had anticipated....well, actually it was a lot deeper. The only part of me that remained visible was my head and shoulders, and the very tip of my fishing rod. As I stood there fighting against the current to keep my balance I noticed my breath was coming in short, irregular gasps as the icy cold water swirled around my chin.

It was just about then that Walter Hall's straw hat and angry face appeared over the rise on the creek bank.

He didn't say a word, just stood there, silhouetted against the sun, looking down at me as I struggled to remain upright in the deep water. For just a moment I looked back at him, then, afraid of losing my balance, I took a tenative step downstream. But my feet went out from under me anyway and I quickly went under, rolling end over end along the rocky bottom for several yards as the current swept me along with it.

He was still there of course, when I finally surfaced once again.

Standing on the creek bank, hands on his hips, he was shaking his head back and forth ever so slightly. After he was sure I'd remain standing he pointed with his finger at the ground beside him. I dutifully followed his silent instructions, grasping his offered hand as he helped me climb onto the bank where I stood silently before him, cold, wet, and muddy.

He looked me up and down real good a few times, then, still not speaking, pointed his finger once again, this time towars the fence. I was more than happy to follow his instructions, of course, and sprinted away, grateful that he had not killed me, or even worse, called the sheriff.

In my haste to escape, however, I'd forgotten about the electric wire on the fence, the one with 500 volts of electrcity surging through it. It was the very first thing my soaking wet clothing touched. I may have hesitated, but I sure didn't stop scrambling over that fence as electricity pulsed through my body. I was gonna' make it over that fence if it was the last thing I did.

"Yahhhhhhhh!! Ahhhhggghhhhh!! Ohhhhhh!! Yawwwww! Yowwwwwieeee!!!" I shrieked loudly as I landed face first on the other side, my limbs still twitching involuntarily from the electricity.

When I at last managed to roll over and look back at Walter Hall he was standing on the other side of the fence, biting down on his lower lip with a funny kind of look on his face, still shaking his head back and forth.

Finally, he asked with a quivering voice, "Havin' a hard time with currents today aren't ya' son?"

"Huh?" I replied weakly.

"You know," he said, "Currents!" There's crik currents and 'lectric currents and you learned a little somethin' bout both of them just now, didn't ya'?"

Then, with a quiet chuckle, he turned back towards his tractor and was gone.

For a few minutes I laid there on my back, looking up at the clear blue summer sky, thinking about what had just happened to me. A strange feeling came over me. Like I'd learned something just now. Something besides how to do more stupid things.

And then it suddenly dawned on me! Of course! I'd learned something very important! Something about Walter Hall himself.

He wasn't such a bad guy after all!