• RIGHT • Bag of Ice: Found Full of Feathers 2024 Mixed Media 18”x24” Fly tying was his art—he’d tie elaborate and col-orful flies, some clearly more of an art project than for actual fishing. It was as normal a November day as any in the fly shop when the phone rang. It was James’ girlfriend who lived in Washington. She wanted to know if either Jamie or I had heard from James recently. She hadn’t been able to get ahold of him for a few days. I checked with Jamie, confirmed we hadn’t heard from James, and relayed that if we did, we’d let her know. Jamie sent texts and called James and got no answer. It was bird-hunting season after all, so maybe he was out of service, somewhere on the prairie with Shep. She called back again an hour or so later, this time more worried. Being in Livingston, we couldn’t easily go over the hill to Bozeman to check but said we’d ask my mom to stop by since she was there. My mom went to the house and found his truck in the driveway. She knocked without answer. The lights were on, Shep didn’t bark. She knocked again and waited—nothing. Jamie and I sat in the back room of the fly shop, on the phone with her while she started to check the windows around the house. We prayed and hoped he was just in the shower or on a call, prayed he would pop out from another room and answer the door, but the pits in our stomachs deepened. Mom climbed up on the stack of firewood to peek in a side window. She saw James lying in his living room, and Shep’s greying face appeared and looked up at her. James was 51. Jamie left the shop to go to James’ house. I went home alone. Death arrived, close, profound, for the first time in my adult life . I called my mom and asked what the plan for Shep was, told her he could stay with me if needed. My young Gordon setter, Hiatt, could use an older brother. Shep made himself at home under the blankets of my bed, a place he continues to occupy to this day. My mom and Jamie took charge of squaring away James’ estate. Aside from Shep, I inherited a collec-tion of books, mostly Jim Harrison, Tom McGuane, Cormac McCarthy, Hemingway and myriad other random books on bird dogs, shotguns and poetry. I hung artwork from his house on my walls and stacked a collection of game-bird drinking glasses in my cupboard. I placed feathers, rocks and other earthly treasures from his windowsill on mine. Large black bins of fly-tying materials stacked up in my garage. 092 CHLOE NOSTRANT
The Flyfish Journal The Flyfish Journal 15.3: Page 92
