The fishes in the Lake of Venus, being called by the Temple-keepers, presented themselves, enduring to be scratched, gilled, and men’s hands to be put in their mouths.
Samuel Purchas, Pilgrimage, p. 335 (1613)
Sam and Armen spent most of the next day fishing up and down the river.
While Sam was working his way upstream from below camp, he noticed the cowboy sitting with his legs and feet naked in the river and his dog resting nearby. The river’s roar drowned out the sound of Sam’s footsteps, so Walker and Buck didn’t notice Sam coming closer. Sam stopped and watched the cowboy remove his Stetson and dip his forearms in the stream. He seemed to keep his arms underwater too long for any practical purpose. After what seemed like an hour to Sam, the cowboy suddenly snapped his arms underwater then pulled them to the surface. He had a fish in his hands—a trout. The cowboy held the trout up to his nose, then laid the fish back in the river for a moment and released it.
Trout Tickling in The River Chess, England, 1946
Sam had never seen such a way of fishing, if fishing was what it was. He slipped back out of view, and sat for a while in the shade of a cedar to process what he’d just witnessed. After he decided that he had been wasting time trying to understand something he knew nothing about, he turned up the hill to return to camp.
The fishing had started slow, but there was plenty of trout to be had by suppertime: one golden and a couple of rainbows. The boys cooked up the trout, with a couple tips from the cowboy. After supper, Walker played his guitar and one or both of the boys would sing along whenever they happened to know the words.
Armen’s curiosity would occasionally get the best of him. He turned to the cowboy. “Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, how much time do you spend up here?”
“Oh me? Oh, just as long as there’s grass,” the cowboy answered.
“You—been doing this for long?”
“Yeahp.”
“How long?”
“Dunno. Lost count. It’s like a man once said: time’s just a stream I go fishin’ in.”
“Alone?”
“Just me and the animals; and Kokoro.”
“Kokoro? Who’s Kokoro” Armen asked.
“Kokoro. Kokoro is … Kokoro. A friend.”
The man seemed uncomfortable saying much about this Kokoro, so Armen changed the subject.
“You know anything about the old Hockett Trail?”
“Well, sure. Of course. I know what I’ve heard.”
“What’s that?”
“Oh, this and that. What do you want to know?”
“Why?”
“O’course. Why. Started with the Gold Rush, I hear.”
“It’s a Gold Rush trail?”
“Nearly. Some 49ers from Kansas and other parts east got lost out on the desert, wanderin’ through that maze of basins and ranges. Good thing it was mid-winter at the time. They could find a little snow here and there, but they wandered into Death Valley and nearly saw themselves dead, but they found a way out, and just after they crossed the Panamints, what d’ya know—somebody found silver, though later they didn’t exactly agree on who it was that found it.”
“They couldn’t agree on who found it?”
“Yeah. Maybe they were just greedy; each puttin’ his own claim down on a mirage. Then again, maybe they each dreamed it a little different. It happened more than once with those pioneers. They’d get tired and hungry and thirsty and weak, then they’d eat the livestock and maybe each other, and before you know it they’d start seeing precious metals. Not water, not food, not even women, but metal.”
“But they survived.”
“Yeah, all but one. They finally made it to L.A., and one of ‘em got work up at Tejon where he told a well-to-do man there named French about the silver, and this Colonel French followed that 49er out to the Panamints and the Cosos in search of silver, and go figure: those boys found it. And the merchants in Visalia, they kept in touch with ‘em and when the news got back that there was gold and silver in the Cosos, well Visalia got to trailblazin’.”
“So that’s how this trail got started?”
“More’r less. First there was a trail that a prospector by the name of Dennison blazed, though he likely didn’t blaze anything but just followed Indian trails. Well Dennison got shot by his very own bear trap, and that was it for him.
“Then there was Captain Jordan. He found his own way out to meet Dennison’s trail from his ranch, and then he followed Dennison’s trail to the desert. Then he turned back to Visalia to declare his mission accomplished and he drowned in the river.
“Then came Hockett. He was a Visalia shopkeeper who picked this here way across the Range, and he got the Union Army to help him blaze the trail, seeing as the Army needed a way across so they could fight the Paiutes. Word has it Hockett made a buck or two on the trail before the railroads came up to Owens Valley from L.A. Wasn’t long at all before the army had their way with the Paiutes. Since then it’s been just shepherds, cowboys, loggers, hunters, mountaineers, and fisherman.”
“I see,” replied Armen. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
The cowboy and the boys turned to the fire, and the cowboy declared, “I do believe I’ve worked up an appetite!”
They got the mess together and ate a little trout with the cowboy’s beans. They sang by the fire, and then they hit their beds and talked skyward regarding their plans for the morning, watching the stars multiply until their eyes closed.