OPEN WATER EVAC CHARLIE RIGHT “Jeff Rodgers secures tomorrow’s dinner high in the trees along the South Fork of Montana’s Flathead River. Throughout the week we had seen a handful of bears and were constantly trying to outdo one another with how high we could get our food stash in the air at night.” Photo: Tim Romano Charlie’s run of luck had been poor since he got It was bleeding good. I pieced it back together, packed the worst bleeder with QuikClot and applied a compression dressing. There were multiple lacerations along his back and thighs, but nothing that was going to kill him anytime soon. out in 2012. A divorce and foreclosure within months of each other set the ball rolling downhill. Steady work didn’t come, and for a guy who had developed a body style suited to an office, daily labor for the oil compa-nies or around a construction site helped to fuel nightly pain killing. Charlie was a happy drunk. It wasn’t awful to have him around, but it was sad. We fished whenever I didn’t have anyone booked. I wasn’t sure I could carry Charlie out. Rowing had kept me in reasonable shape since my discharge, but I wasn’t at my prime and Charlie wasn’t at fighting weight. I told him he was going to have to help me get him to the boat. He wailed, rising to one knee, his arm flailing for mine. In a miracle of perseverance and character that I wasn’t sure existed, he was on one foot, his arm around my neck. “Mondays are rundays,” he said. “High speed,” I said. A shriek gurgled in his throat with each step as we hobbled toward the river. I wanted to look back for the bear but I dared not. Like all bad news, if it was gonna come, it would come. No sense finding it before it’s time. 038 THE FLYFISH JOURNAL
The Flyfish Journal Volume Eight, Issue Four: Page 38
