I wasn’t fond of slugs for bait, either. They really were slimy. And they tended to leak their guts when I put them on a hook, leaving not much more than skin and slime behind, but I hadn’t brought a spade to dig for worms, and I didn’t like to use salamanders with their big, glossy eyes and their little hands. So I said, “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” and, gritting my teeth until my jaw ached, threaded the slug onto the hook as quick as I could, and dropped it in the pool, my end of the line wrapped around a good, strong stick, and waited.

Some fish were as unimpressed with slugs as I was, but a trout will take a slug, and soon one did. I yanked the line up and away, hooking the fish by the mouth, sorry as I did it, sorry as I wound the line around the stick and pulled the trout up to the rock, sorry as I beat it senseless with a rock, sorry as I put a fresh slug on my hook, sorry as I sent it down into the pool.

I shivered with their pain. Cringed as they died. But none of that stopped me from doing what I had to do.

“Let me try,” Samuel said, reaching for the line.

He was only newly big enough for this, and I myself was newly sad that my father would not be the one to teach him, but I gave Samuel the line and taught him how to hold it in two hands, how to move it slowly so the slug seemed to swim though it was dead, how to wait, wait, wait, and then yank hard to set the hook. No good hesitating if you meant to do a thing like that. Do it and be done with it, good and quick. That’s what I told him as the fish took the bait. That’s what I told him when the fish thrashed and fought so hard to be free that I had to hold on to Samuel and the line both, regardless of how determined he was to do it on his own. That’s what I told him when we hauled the trout up onto the rock, its gorgeous scales flashing in the sun, its eye wild before I beat it to death. That part I spared Samuel. That part . . . I’d never done that part before my father went to sleep. But I had done it ever since then, never without being sorry.

Samuel yammered about how much nicer his fish was than mine, and I hoped that meant he’d eat some of it. Muscle came from meat, and Samuel was so little. I wanted him bigger. Stronger. Tougher.

Some fresh fish would do him good.