Catch & Release Read Online Free Page A

here when Lewis and Clark came through. Well, not these exact guys . . .” says Odd, “But there were five billion of the little fuckers. There were prairie dog towns that went for miles . . . miles, Polly,
miles
. A guy could walk all day and never get out of prairie dog town.”
    â€œThey carry bubonic plague,” I say. My dad is a vet, so that’s the kind of thing I know about prairie dogs.
    â€œLewis and Clark caught one. They had all these guys digging and pouring water down the holes. They caught one and kept it with them like a pet. Then they gave it to Thomas Jefferson,” says Odd. That’s the kind of thing he knows about prairie dogs.
    â€œWe could fish here,” says Odd, “Tie some grass or granola bar on the hook and—” He mimes air-casting. “Ga-zing!” He’s got an imaginary prairie dog on the line. “Get the net, he’s a kahuna!”
    I turn my back and walk to the car. I don’t want to imagine a fat, furry animal jerked into the sky on a hook. I can hear the prairie dogs whistling and chirping. They want to keep each other safe from danger. Each other is all they got in a dangerous world. It probably isn’t going to be good enough.
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    One good reason not to fish the hole below the Natural Bridge: steep cliffs. Another: fast water that disappears underground into a giant natural drain here and comes blasting out—oh, I don’t know, somewhere over in the invisible there, maybe. Welcome to certain death dressed up postcard pretty. It is the sort of place a person needs to supervise small children and pets. That’s what the interpretive sign says. That list of those who need supervision should probably include amputees and the visually handicapped too, I’m thinking.
    I am so very not happy.
    I never used to be afraid of heights—not like
afraid
. When I lost my eye I also lost depth perception, and it turns out that the world is scary damn place without it. Now I need to inch along when I’m faced with a sidewalk curb—or a precipitous limestone cliff. Meanwhile, Odd is sort of lurching along ahead of me. My terror is divided equally between the future where I will see him plunge to his death and the future where I plunge to my death. Those seem to be the only two options.
    There is a third, it turns out. We both make it to the bottom.
    It’s a fine, deep pool, but it would be tricky to cast, to let it drift on the current. The force of the cascade stirs up the water, and it’s just not that obvious what’s going on down there. It looks fancy, but it isn’t the fishiest place on the Boulder. I’m inclined to go a little further, at least until I can set myself up to be downstream from my cast. This is it for Odd, though. I don’t know if it is bad judgment about the water and what he can accomplish or even worse judgment in leading us down here, where the best path is often underwater and the next best alternative is rock-hopping from boulder to boulder. Rock-hopping is a thing a one-legged fisherman probably shouldn’t do.
    I am torn between the need to watch out for Odd and the desire to maybe, actually, fish. Polly-That-Was would definitely choose responsibility to others over self-interest. Post-MRSA-monster me says, “Hey, I’m going downstream.” Then I add, “Remember, ‘This reever can keel you in a thousand vays.’”
    Odd gives me a blank look. I guess he’s not a fan of movies about giant people-eating snakes. His loss. Worst case, I’ll see him when he floats by and I’ll tell his parents he died happy, wild, and free. For now, though, I’m just going to ignore him and go fishing.
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    I drink from plastic cups at home because I missed the stream of water coming from the faucet and hit the back of the sink so hard a regular glass shattered in my hand. I was going to sew a button back on, but I couldn’t thread the