I splash over to where Bon Iver is casting his fly line lazily onto the surface of the creek. I show him where the hook is embedded in my thumb, and he gasps. ‘Baby,’ he says, and I know that I must be strong, because he feels my pain a hundredfold.
He hands me his flask and I take a pull. ‘Are you ready?’ he asks, and before I can answer he has neatly clipped the eye from the shank of the hook, whispered a sort of prayer, guided the hook through the wound, and wrapped my thumb tightly in a handkerchief.
And our hearts are pounding. And the creek glitters, and a brown bird alights on the branch of a swamp white oak tree, and a breeze cools our collarbones beneath the straps of our waders, the whole world oblivious to our miniature drama.
