Two Trains Running

“Didn’t nobody tell you ’bout the elders?” With effort, he bent down and plucked a large dead bug out of the bait bucket.

I half-recalled Bobby using the term, but couldn’t recall exactly what he had said.

“Lookit that vine there.” Euliss pointed to a long strand of vine that was hanging into the water about a dozen yards from the ledge. “Follow it on up. Y’see where it goes?”

The vine vanished into a cave mouth halfway up the cliff.

“That’s one of ’em,” Euliss said. “He fishin’ just like us.”

I studied the vine—it didn’t twitch or vibrate, but I could see now that it was different from the other vines. Thicker, and a mottled gray in color.

“What are they?” I asked.

“Old hermits like to fish. Thass all I know. And I ain’t crawlin’ into one of them caves just to catch a look at ’em. They be fishing with that tentacle thing they got all day long.” He handed me a rod—a Shimano. “Don’t be mistreatin’ that pole, boy. Took me most of a year to get Pie to fetch it.” He straightened, heaved a sigh, and put a hand to his lower back as if to stifle a pain. “I figgered you knew ’bout the elders. Don’t nobody ’cept me like fishin’ here ’cause they scared of ’em. Ain’t nothin’ be scared ’bout. Once they touch you up, they know all they want to ’bout you, and they won’t never bother you again.”

The fishing itself wasn’t much of a challenge. We were after the big sluggish fish with tarnished-looking scales that hid out under the rock shelves underwater; once they were hooked, they struggled briefly, then gave out and let us haul them onto the ledge. The bulk of my thoughts turned to the strange creature that had scoped me out with its tentacle, to the impression of age and patience and calm I’d derived. It occurred to me that the presence of the elders suited Bobby Forstadt’s theory that we were constructs in a computer game better than it did the notion that we had passed on. They served no apparent purpose, they were window-dressing, an invention designed to appeal to twelve-year-olds—like mutant Zen monks in their shyness and simplicity, possessed of vast wisdom, bestowing calm and contentment on everyone they touched, even—I assumed—the fish they ate. Or maybe they had a hidden purpose. They might be the secret masters of this bizarre place. I was beginning to wish I’d never learned how to read. Too many ideas started rattling around in your head, and it got to where you couldn’t make up your mind about anything.

“Best thing you can do,” Euliss advised me, “is concentrate on fishin’ and don’t worry ’bout it. People ’round here worry too damn much ’bout what’s goin’ on. Ain’t nothin’ to worry ’bout. It’s just God.”

“God?” I said.

“That’s right! You set here and fish long enough, you gon’ feel Him. He’s all around us—we livin’ inside Him.” He cocked an eye toward me. “I know you think you heard all that before, but what I’m sayin’ ain’t the same as you heard. You quit runnin’ your mouth all the time, you’ll know what I’m talkin’ ’bout.”

Each morning thereafter Euliss and I went out to fish; each evening we would return home and drop off our catch with the cooks. I’d thought that we might become friends, but we never did. Euliss had one topic of conversation—fishing at the gorge—and once he was done communicating whatever information he felt compelled to convey, he would fall silent until next he needed to instruct me on some point of lore. Once I asked him about his life before arriving in Yonder, and he told me he had ridden under the name of Coal Train and he been hoboing for almost fifty years. He didn’t appear eager to expand on the subject, and I guess I understood that. After all the painful remembering I’d done, I had little desire to share my old life with anyone.