Rainbow Troutby Joshua AllenHoward thinks about his wife more often than not thesedays. The buzz of the reel when a fish is hooked and makes a runreminds him of the way his wife Sara used to hum to every song.She never sang the words.

You don't know the words to a singlesong in all of recording history, he would tease. Happy birthday to yooou

, she would start, but somewhere around the third "happybirthday" she would revert to humming. He would always hum rightalong with her.He rolls one more cast upstream far enough away in the deepwater that he can only assume his fly is dancing below thesurface on the end of his invisible leader. The orange piece ofyarn he has tied halfway up the leader produces no telltalestall. So, he reels in the thick green fly-line to try a newspot.

Do you love fly-fishing more than me? she would ask.Depends

, he would say with a grin,

how much do you love fly-fishing?

She slapped his arm.

Do you? she would persist.Absolutely,

he would respond as he pulled his vest out of the

closet.

Prove it

, she would roll lazily away from him, onlybreaking her gaze at the final moment.Sometimes he would try harder than others to prove how muchhe adored fly-fishing, but in the end he was never the die-hardhe pretended to be. He used to ponder how great it would be toarrive at the river before dawn, like he'd planned. Now, as hehooks his fly into the cork grip of his rod, he wishes she werestill around to make him late.He looks upstream and considers the terrain. The easy routeis the shore, but he still has enough pride to wade up thestream. Besides, getting back in is always loud, disruptive. Hedecides, despite the river's early season depth, to wade. On theoccasions when his father had taken him on his fishing trips toNavajo Lake (always when all his father's friends were out oftown), he used to sit in his dad's Chevy pickup and trace thissame river with his eyes. He followed it inch by inch as theycurved along the road. Sometimes he would have to strain to keepit in view; sometimes the river would dip behind a tallembankment and all he could see was grass, maybe a few twistedtrees. On the right, as they ascended the hill to the spillway,the Navajo emerged, dotted with specks of the sun and boats. Theoccasional bald eagle would circle at the far end, near thethicker trees, waiting for its eye to catch its next dive-bombvictim. On the left, the San Juan River flowed out like a leak

sprung from the massive concrete structure. They passed over thedam on the way to the boat ramp, and if he sat high on his seat,he could see the slope that pointed to the river, a giant stonewater slide."I heard some teenagers tried to slide down that last year.They never found the bodies." His dad said this as an afterwordto the car ride, a foreword to the day of fishing; it was how heknew they had arrived. He always added, as a postscript, "Maybesome day I'll teach you how to fly-fish. Would you like that,kiddo?"

I heard some kids tried crossing down here earlier thisweek. One of them caught some water in his waders and was sweptdownstream. Happened so quick, his friends didn't realize whathad happened.

He inches forward towards the deeper water,testing the depth with the end of his pole. He sees the kiddragged under, blinking out of existence while his bewilderedfriends call his name to the banks.

Little steps, that's thekey. Kids these days are always in such a hurry.

He steps downand the water goes from knee-deep to almost above his chest-waders. It pushes him, insisting that he is going the wrongdirection. Tons of water flow against his entire left side,attempting to correct his mistake.This is one of the few places of solitude on the river.Upstream not five hundred feet is at least a dozen fishermen.