Squaw Creek

We arrived at Mount Shasta, a small, quiet logging town situated between Shasta city and the town of Weed, at 2:00 a.m. Tired from the long drive up California's Highway 50, we hastened to John Lelo's house where we had made arrangements to stay. Will, John's nephew and long standing school pal of mine, was asleep on the passenger side of my 1965 Pontiac LeMans. As we drove up the private driveway to the house, the familiar scent of skunk assailed my nose. "My kind of place.", I thought to myself, as I parked the car.

"Will, we're here!", I said as I pulled my sleeping bag out from under the scads of gear we had brought with us to assail the great outdoors,"Get up!" We dragged our sore bodies back to an old cabin in John's yard and laid out on the floor. With our guns beside us, ears alert to any foreign sound, we slept.

The alarm rang at an early 7:00 a.m. "What did you set that darn thing so early for?", Will asked, the sound of sleep filling his irritated tone.

"What do you mean,'Why did I set it?', I didn't even know you brought the dumb thing!"

"Oh yeah, that's right," said Will in an apologetic tone, "I asked Uncle Johnny to set it when I called him on Sunday." Smelling hotcakes and fried ham wafting from the kitchen window, we decided it was time to roll out of bed.

John Lelo was a stout man of fifty-six or seven. Born and raised in Mount Shasta, he claimed to know every inch of the country. I truly believe he did at one time, however, since he stopped hunting and fishing the area, his memory was getting a little rusty. I asked why he had quit and he told me the following story.

"When my son was a teenager and learning photography, I invited him on the annual deer hunt. The morning of the hunt he walked out to the truck with no weapon, just his camera. 'You use your gun, dad, from now on I'll only hunt with this.',
I never knew he felt that strongly. That was the last hunt for me."

After a thoughtful pause, he popped "Burnin' daylight!, Goin' fishing this morning?, I heard they're jumpin' into the boats up at Toad Lake!"

"Toad Lake?!", squawked Will in his usual annoyed tone, "we want to catch real fish, not skunk bait!"

Sitting down to a hearty breakfast we related to John the reports we had heard about Squaw Creek.

"Squaw Creek?!", he squealed, sounding hauntingly like his nephew while choking on a big sip of black coffee. "No one in his right mind would go out there!"

We had prepared ourselves well for our trek to Squaw Creek. Guns strapped to our sides, poles, food, water, first-aid and snakebite kits on our backs, we started up the long, seldom trod path to the infamous Squaw Creek. Slowly working our way through the bushes, tapping every inch of the way with our snake poles, we progressed. Carefully, slowly, eyes searching, ears listening for the slightest warning of the dreaded inhabitant of Squaw Creek's canyon, we climbed. Will was leading. He froze. Then I heard it. That slow clicking of the Diamondback's rattle had reached my ears.

The rattle of that greenish-brown serpent with lozenge shaped saddles down its back is such an ominous sound that it leaves one dazed for an instant. Such a frightening, yet elusive, sound I had never heard. Where was it coming from?

Slowly, as if some force was controlling the movement of my head, I saw it. Less than six feet from the menacing beast's coiled body, Will stopped. My daze, shattered by my endangered friend's shaky, whispering voice, swiftly left.

"Shoot it.", he muttered in that tremulous tone so common to a frightened child.

I slipped my gun from its holster, took aim, fired and prayed. The snake shot we had bought at the outset of our journey proved to be worth its weight in gold! It was over.

Will stepped on the triangular head of the monster's listless form and sliced it off.

Handing me the rattle from its tail, he said,"I wish I had shot it."

"So do I.", was my reply in the same shaky tone I had heard uttered from my buddies mouth not so long ago.

We walked on.

Squaw Creek was a half mile away when we first sighted it. A small creek that winds its way through the high country, so full of steelhead that we could see our creels full already, it called. So much we had heard, so much we had seen, so much we had imagined, we were there!

Unpacking our gear, we made bets on who would land the first giant of the freshwater fish. Casting our lines into the water, our dreams, in part, were fulfilled. Fresh roe lolling in a deep pool at a bend in the creek's cold, clear water, we waited.

As we sat by the rippling waters, we spotted along the rocky banks of the rolling creek for snakes.

"...five, six, seven I count eight.", I uttered, recalling our close call with fate. I couldn't remember being as scared as I had been when I fired my weapon that day. Was it luck that I hadn't missed?

With another stroke of that same luck, my rod tip bent. Remembering all I had read in my fishing books and recalling my past experience with trout, I let the fish run freely. Hands shaking with excitement, my mind filled with expectation, I fought. After what seemed like hours, I pulled the fish within sight of my companion.

"Don't lose him,", Will choked, "he's a giant!" I pulled the fish close as Will netted it. "I got 'im, I got 'im!", Will shouted in ecstasy as he lifted the prize catch out of the water for me to see

"Whaddya mean you got 'im?" I retorted, "I did all the work!"

Remembering a stanza from Tennyson's 'The Brook'
"I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling."
I examined my prize. Fifteen pounds of pure wild muscle covered in pink spots on an umber base coat, a silver colored head and an angry eye staring, it lay in the net.
Forever, it seemed, it fought to be free. Forever, it felt, I fought to make it mine. I had won. Somehow I had lost. After the excitement, I felt worse than I thought I might had I never seen my catch. At that, I unhooked the fish and set it free. It floated in the water for an instant and disappeared into the ripples.

I sat for a while and thought about the fish. I hoped it survived. Something in me was satisfied in the catching, something else in the letting go.
If anyone should ask, there are no fish in Squaw Creek.