Mia couldn't believe her good fortune. She quickly scooped up her notebook and pens, grabbed her purse, and followed Phyllis to the comfortable seating area she had admired earlier. Sitting in a cushy armchair under a large window was an elderly man slumped slightly in the shoulders, bent over a book. When they approached he lifted his eyes from the page. They were a very pale blue, almost opaque.

"Hello, Daddy," Phyllis said in a voice more tender than Mia would have thought possible from the stern woman. "I'd like you to meet someone." She turned and waved Mia closer. "Speak loudly," she said in a whisper. "He's hard of hearing and never wears his darn hearing aid." Turning back to her father she said with respect, "Mia, this is my father, Phillip Pace. Daddy, this is Mia. She wants to hear stories about your old friend Kate Watkins."

At the name of Kate Watkins, the old man's rheumy eyes sharpened. "Kate Watkins, eh?" he said after they'd shook hands and Mia took a seat beside him. "I won't be talking ill about her," he said in warning. "Nor about that damn nonsense about the investigation neither. Let it lie, I tell you. You won't hear a peep from me about that." His face grew stern and Mia saw immediately the family resemblance to Phyllis.

"No, sir," she quickly assured him. She made mental note of the word investigation. She'd not heard that mentioned before. "I'm more interested in the young Kate. Phyllis tells me that you were a friend of hers?"

His face relaxed with memory. Seeing him settle in, Phyllis gave a quick wave of her hand and hurried back to her desk, where a patron was waiting.

"I was that," Phillip said with a slow nod.

He looked out the window for a moment and went very still. Mia thought for a moment that she'd lost him. But he turned his head back and his eyes had a new clarity of vision.

"It was a long time ago," he began. "The summer of nineteen sixteen, if memory serves. I was younger than Kate by some years. More a tag-along friend, if you will. It was my older brother, Eddie, who was part of the gang. But she was good-natured about it. They all were. We fished together, you know. Me and Eddie, Kate, Henry Harrison, and Lowrance Davidson. Didn't matter if she was a girl. Hell's bells, she could outfish all of us. 'Cept maybe Lowrance." He rubbed his jaw, smiling to himself at some memory. "Nobody in the county could outfish or outshoot Low."

Mia seized on this, remembering Kate's diary. Lowrance knows the names of all the plants, of course. But he's older than me.

"I heard that name before, Lowrance. Who was he?"

"Low was her cousin!" he snapped, surprised she didn't know such a basic fact. "Everybody knows that. Low and Kate, they were like two peas in a pod. Always jotting notes down in their journals. Always with their heads together over something. Low, he had a microscope and sat bent over that thing for hours on end. He said how he was going to be a...what's the word? A botanist, that's it. Those two went collecting leaves and critters and you name it. She liked the critters, especially. Said it helped her be a better fisherman. I never got into that. I mean, I know how to read the water just fine without having to draw some critter in a book! Pshaw..." He worked his jaw like he tasted something unpleasant.

"I reckon I was just a mite jealous of Low getting so much of Kate's time. Lowrance, you see, he was more than just her cousin. He looked out for her, same as Eddie did for me. I guess you could say he was her best friend. We all knew none of us had a chance with her. By the time she grew up, just about every man in the land of sky was in love with her. Yes, me too. Even though I was wet behind the ears. But that Lowrance," he said more loudly, jabbing a digit into the armrest of the chair to make his point. "That's a man that well and truly loved Kate. And I daresay she loved him, too." He shook his head with sorrow. "It's a damn shame how it all ended. Things would've turned out different for our Kate if he lived, that's for sure."

"Tell me about him," Mia said, and moved to the edge of her chair.

Phillip Pace sat clutching the armrests, lost in his memories. Then, gradually, his face eased and he loosened his grip on the chair. The leather creaked as he leaned back against the cushion.

"Ah, Kate," he said in a faraway voice. "I was just a kid. Hardly big enough to tag along with the boys-but I did. I don't remember much, but I remember Kate. Did you hear the story about how she used her dancing lessons to help her cast?"

Summer 1916 War was on everyone's mind that summer. In the barbershop the men talked about nothing else 'cept the battles and death tolls in the trenches. The wives and mothers in town were worried sick about conscription. They spoke of little else in the beauty salon. My mother didn't allow war talk at the dinner table, though. She said it upset the digestion and from what my friends told me, their mothers banned the topic, too. Maybe mothers throughout the county-maybe even the nation-laid down the same law. We boys used to laugh that our mamas thought war talk would give us mustard gas.

On one hot summer afternoon, we fellas were playing soldier in the woods. We were marching in single file like a troop, using our fishing rods as guns, that sort of thing. Just fooling around. But in our hearts, we were ready to sign up and go to war. We thought it would be an adventure and we could fire real guns and be heroes, like in the movies.

We'd been waiting on Kate to meet us. She had dance class every Thursday, which never sat well with her. Her Aunt Grace and Mrs. Hodges had ganged up on the Reverend and told him in no uncertain terms that Kate needed to learn to be a lady. I guess they thought dance lessons were part of feminine schooling. That summer she'd turned sixteen, almost full grown. For years she'd taken dance lessons and for years we'd waited for her.

Anyway, we were out playing soldier when all of a sudden we see this rock come flying at us and hear a voice calling, "Bombs away!" First we ducked, then we swung our heads around, fists at the ready.

Kate was standing on a rise a few yards back with her hands on her hips and her face red and scowling.

"You boys quit playing soldiers, hear?" she called out. "You're not going to some stupid ol' war. President Wilson said so. Not ever!"

Lowrance straightened and began walking toward her. He was the undeclared leader of our troop. He was also the tallest, which gave him the edge. And the oldest. But mostly, he had this even-tempered way about him that made folks want to listen to what he had to say. His thick hair was the color of sand but he had the dark brown eyes of the Watkins line.

"Kate! You're late," Low called out.

Low was the only one who could talk to Kate that way. She just smiled in a sly way that made my heart do a little leap whenever I saw it. I knew Low felt the same, too, 'cause I could see it in his face. It'd always been that way between them. Like they had some secret that only they shared. Then Kate sat on the ground and pulled off her stockings. This wasn't anything unusual. She liked being barelegged in the summer.

Mrs. Hodges told Kate she was prone to what she called "moments of excess exuberance." But sometimes Kate just liked to show off. Kate came running and when she got near the small creek that separated us she went and hitched up her skirt and cried, "Look at me! I'm a ballerina!" She leaped across the creek, throwing one leg ahead and the other behind, stretching them far out and flinging her arms out to the side. We all watched agog and damn if she wasn't just like a dancer I've seen in some magazine.

She landed on the other side of the creek, laughing and catching her breath. Low's face had grown still and his smile was gone. He leaned close when she came up and put his lips near her ear.

"You ought not to be flinging your dress up like that, showing your bare legs. Not in front of the boys."

Kate looked over at us. Henry and Eddie ducked their heads and kicked their feet in the dirt, embarrassed. I started looking at anything I could as long as it wasn't at her bare legs.

"Aw, Low, you know I hate it when my stockings pick up beggar's-lice from the prickly weeds. Besides, they're not boys. They're just Phil, Henry, and Eddie."

Eddie looked stricken but Henry snickered and said, "Why are you taking those stupid dancing classes anyway?"

"Yeah," Eddie said. His ears were as red as his hair. My brother was seven years older than me. I was the youngest of eight Pace children and each of us a redhead. Yet I was only the second son. With six sisters, was it any wonder I clung to my older brother like a kudzu vine? So if Eddie took a side, I did, too.

"Why're you doing that?" I asked Kate. "Dancing is for girls."

The boys flicked their eyes at Kate before they threw back their heads and commenced hooting and hollering. Most girls would've glared at them, but Kate tossed her head back and laughed as hard as the rest of them. Then she came up and ruffled my hair. I was only a boy, but I felt special being singled out by Kate like that.

"I am a girl," she told me like it was an admission. "But I'm not like any girl you've ever met or are likely to meet."

"She's one of a kind, our Kate," Eddie said. We all knew he was head over heels in love with her.

"But she still is a girl," Henry said. "And silly girls have to do things like learn to dance and cook and play the piano so they can catch a husband. We all know girls aren't supposed to go catching fish. So maybe you better dance on back home, little girl, and let us men go on to our fishing."

Now Henry was nice enough, but we knew he was the type that liked to egg someone on. He had shrewd little eyes and when he taunted someone, he always made me think of a snake.

Kate spun around to face him, her face coloring. "At least I don't go marching around playing soldier like you boys. I saw you poking and jabbing in the air." She crossed her arms and said in a haughty tone, "I might be a girl but I know the difference between a rod and a gun."

"We weren't playing, we were practicing, just so you know," Henry said, coloring. His small eyes got smaller. "There's a war going on and we're going to be fighting soon. Not play fighting, either, but real combat. With real guns. And you won't be able to come. Do you know why? Because you're a girl, that's why."

"Well," she sputtered, balling her hands in fists at her sides. She looked ready to fight us all to stop us from leaving Watkins Mill and going off to war. "I may be a girl. But do you know what you are, Henry Harrison? You're a boy. Not a man. A boy! And everybody knows you have to be eighteen to join the army."

She lifted her chin high and looked at the other boys, her eyes blazing, daring them to challenge her. Henry's face turned beet red because he couldn't refute that he was only sixteen and all his bluster wouldn't make any difference because we all knew he would have to wait until he turned eighteen before he-or any of the other boys-could enlist.

"Besides," she said, twisting the dagger. "That ol' war will be over by the time you're old enough."

"It will not!" Henry fired back.

"Henry," Lowrance said in a warning tone. "You're talking crazy. We should all pray that the war is over soon."

Eddie nodded his head in agreement. I took a step closer to my brother and leaned against his leg.

"I'm not talking crazy," Henry shouted. "They say the war is going to sweep across Europe like wildfire."

"Fine. Then go on and fight fires in Europe," she said, exasperated with the whole conversation. "I'm going fishing."

"She's right," Eddie said, picking up his gear. "The fish will be biting."

"I don't know if I want to fish anymore with a girl," Henry said.

We all knew he was a sore loser, but Low puffed up his chest and told Henry to take it back. Things got a little tense then on account of Henry was a big fella, even as a boy, with a quick temper. Low was slow to rise, but when he did, look out. So if they fought they were evenly matched. It was going to be a whopping.

Kate would have none of it. She stepped smack between those two roosters. She was a fearless creature to behold, standing there with her long, dark hair blowing in the breeze and her eyes blazing. She was almost eye to eye with Henry but as lean as a reed. Kate gave Henry a cocky glare and said she was a better fly fisher than he was.

Henry snorted and said something stupid, like "Let's have a match right now."

Kate put her hands on her hips and told him she would meet him at the Fly-Fishing Tournament being held the next week in Asheville. She was fixing on competing in the distance category. She figured that would shut up not only Henry but all the men who looked at her funny each time she cast a fly in local water.

Phillip chortled then and slapped his knee. Mia laughed a bit herself, enjoying the memory as much. Mr. Pace was a natural storyteller and had her wrapped around each syllable.

"So what happened at the tournament?" she asked.

"What do you think happened?" he asked, astonished. "She won, of course. Just like we all knew she would. Tradition being what it was back then, the angling clubs were for men only. They didn't even allow women in their building for meetings. Her daddy, the Reverend Watkins, was so well respected a fisherman in these parts that they let his daughter enter the fly casting distance competition on his behalf. More a courtesy. Land alive, were they surprised when she beat them all!"

Phillip's face softened and his pale eyes grew misty. "I tell you, Kate was a picture that morning as she stepped out in the field. I can still see her in that kelly green skirt and stout shoes, and over her long hair she wore her favorite tam-o'-shanter hat with dry flies stuck in it. There was grumbling, to be sure. More from the fine Asheville ladies than the men. I mean, it simply wasn't done. But I tell you this slip of a girl walked onto that field of men with the confidence of a queen. She parted the waters. You know, she used to tell me that she had the blood of Scottish royalty in her veins. My brother, Eddie, didn't think that was true but he said it didn't matter, because in our town, just being a Watkins was high enough.

"Now here's the thing and I don't want to miss telling you that's most important. It's not just that she won, but how she won that stole our hearts-men and women alike. Bear with me because I'm old and I know I'm not going to explain this right."

Phillip shook his head and worked his jaw a bit in thought. "I can see it in my mind clear as day, but my words won't do her justice. When Kate Watkins cast that rod, why it was like watching her dance. Does that make sense? I mean to say it was pure grace and timing in motion. Yes, ma'am, watching her extend her arm forward and pointing her foot behind, her long line slicing the air in a tight loop to land far, far off in the water, she was as dainty as any ballet dancer. You could hear the whole crowd gasp.

"And that's when it hit me. I laughed out loud because I remembered how Kate leaped across the stream that day and cried out 'Look at me! I'm a ballerina!' Our clever girl was using her dance lessons to create her own style of casting. Not a man's casting or a woman's casting. Just better, because any fool could see she was more than a fisherman. She was an artist.

"I was just a kid back then and didn't know nothing, but I learned what great casting was by watching her." His eyes misted and he looked down at his shoes. "They took the award away from her. She set a record for man or woman, and they went and disqualified her because she was a woman." He shook his head. "That never set right with me and I hold a grudge against the club even still. The whole town did. From that day forward no one gave Kate Watkins the business when she fished in a river. Truth be told, I don't think the award mattered to her much. She told me later that it meant more than the award that Henry came up to her straightaway and apologized. 'Bout killed him to do it, but it honored her."

"So Kate Watkins never earned the recognition she deserved?" Mia asked.

"I didn't say that," Phillip said, bringing his head up. "Our Kate was famous in her time! Why, folks use to come in on the trains just to meet her and fish with her. They'd all read her articles, I reckon."

"Articles? What articles?"

Phillip screwed up his face and cast Mia a doubtful glance. "You sure don't know your history, do you? I'm talking about Kate's newspaper articles. The ones that went out all across the country." He scratched the back of his neck, muttering, "Now what did she call it?" He dropped his hand and his eyes lit up. "'On the Fly.' That's it. Never missed a copy. It was published right here in our own newspaper, too. I'll just bet they have copies of them lying around somewhere."

Mia was electrified by this new lead. She made quick notations in her notebook. Yet her mind kept coming back to Lowrance and Kate. She couldn't reconcile the sweetness between Kate and her cousin as children and the tragedy that would come later. There seemed to be such love there. What could have happened that led to murder?

"Forgive me, Mr. Pace, for asking. But I'm confused. What happened between Kate Watkins and Lowrance Davidson? They seemed so devoted to each other."

His eyes grew cloudy and his expression sad. "Yeah. Well, the war brought tragedy to so many families."

"The war? I don't understand."

"Lowrance Davidson went off to fight in World War I along with my brother Eddie and Henry Harrison. They all enlisted together, just as soon as they turned eighteen. Got sent over in, oh, the spring of nineteen eighteen, I believe. I remember Henry was nervous the war would end before he got there. Well, he got there, all right. They all did. My brother was wounded. He made it back, but the influenza killed him like it did my sister and my mother. Henry Harrison lost his arm. It was his casting arm, too. It soured him, but that's another story."

"And Lowrance?"

The old man sighed heavily, his chest sinking. "Lowrance Davidson died in the trenches in the fall of nineteen eighteen. Kate was never the same. I reckon Kate's life would've turned out different if he'd lived. Who's to say? But the fact is Lowrance never returned to Watkins Mill."

"Then who did Kate Watkins murder?"

Mr. Pace drew back in his chair and his mouth fell open in outrage. "Murder? Kate never killed anybody. I thought you knew that or I wouldn't have spent five minutes with you telling you my stories."

Mia drew back, stunned and confused. "I'm sorry. I only heard-"

"Lies, that's what they are. A pack of lies. You best not be saying things like that to me, young lady. I'll set you straight. You got that?"

Chapter Nine.

Catch and Release is the practice in fly-fishing of catching a fish then returning that fish unharmed to the water. In some places it's mandated for conservation. But I always figure it's more satisfying to choose life over death. Plus, the fish you release to reproduce will create more angling opportunities in the future.

-STUART MACDOUGAL.

One camp in fly-fishing believed that the sport was all about casting. Another camp felt that catching the fish was what brought anglers back to the water. Mia was in the dawning stage of learning the sport and she was happy just to go to the river. It was too easy to stay indoors where it was comfortable. For months after her chemotherapy, complacency had become too familiar. Occasionally when she was alone in the cabin, Mia caught herself sinking under the black pool of depression where Charles's betrayal and the divorce lay at the murky bottom.

Thus for Mia, the river was like Ariadne's thread. She followed it out from the darkness of depression's labyrinth to the light of the river. In the river she felt warmed by the sun, cooled by the water, filled with hope each time she cast her line onto the water.

On one of her treks along the river trail she'd discovered a breathlessly beautiful pocket where swift water broke over scattered white rocks. Mia intended to return this afternoon.

It was a hot day in late June and the water of the river was warming. She'd waited for the late afternoon when the fish would start biting, and she'd packed light, going wet wading. She found she could stand comfortably in the shallow water in her shorts and boots, just not for too long or her legs became numb. In her backpack she stuffed the felt-bottom boots, a bottle of water, and a peanut butter sandwich wrapped in cellophane.

In her zipper pouch she carefully packed all the fishing supplies and gadgets that she'd at last learned to use: a dry fly, floatant to dry the fly during fishing, snips that looked like fingernail clippers to trim the line, forceps to press the barbs flat and to help remove hooks, and polarized sunglasses to protect the eyes and to help see the fish through the water's glare.

She walked through the forest, following the river and enjoying the gentle breezes along the shaded trail. As the trail journeyed deeper into the woods, the ferns grew thick, lush moss cloaked the rocks, and her shoes became damp with dew. She passed a familiar cluster of rhododendron and felt a surge of excitement, knowing her secret spot was just around the bend. She walked another twenty feet, then came to an abrupt stop.

A strange man in waders and a tan vest was standing on her favorite bank. In a relaxed stance, he studied the water. His focus was intense; he did not stir or look over his shoulder as she approached.

Mia was indignant but held back. She knew it would be bad manners to barge in too close. Yet this was her special spot. She felt her sanctuary had been invaded. Scowling, she folded her arms while she deliberated what to do.

From the moment he raised his rod into the air it was clear this man was no beginner. His masterful casts fell into a natural rhythm, back and forth, allowing his line to unfurl longer and longer in a ballet of tight loops. She'd never seen his equal. Not even Belle. While watching this aerial dance her mind flew back to old Mr. Pace's description of Kate's casting at the tournament so many years ago. Mia knew this was what it must have been like for those people watching her. She was experiencing the same wonder and awe at poetry in motion.

Mia found herself moving her arm in sync with his, eager to absorb his seamless motion if only by some cosmic osmosis. Her lips moved as she counted the beats-throw back the line, skip a beat, thrust forward, ease down. When enough line had been released, he allowed the fly to touch the water delicately, as natural as a live insect. A trout rose to take the fly, leaping and splashing in a tremendous display.

Mia warred between resentfulness and admiration. He made it look so damn easy. She'd fished here for two days, spent hours on the river, and tried an array of flies, but she never caught anything but moss. It hadn't mattered to her before. She was content to stand in the river and practice casting. Yet now, suddenly, she felt desperate to catch a fish.

He reeled in the line; then, with a smooth sweep, he captured a large, glistening rainbow trout into his net. The angler removed the hook efficiently and released the beautiful fish back to the river.

Mia realized she had no choice but to relinquish her spot to this man. She walked forward and called out, "Hello! Excuse me. Do you mind if I fish upstream?"

He turned his head and looked at her over his shoulder. She couldn't see his eyes behind his polarized lenses, but he seemed as surprised at seeing another person this far into the backwoods as she had been.

"Go on ahead." He turned back to the river.

Mia had grown accustomed to the townspeople hailing out friendly greetings and coming up to introduce themselves. She should have appreciated his being aloof, but instead it annoyed her. Her boots crunched the gravel loudly as she passed, and she hoped she scared every fish in the pool away. Serves him right for taking my spot, she thought, well aware that these were not the thoughts of the serene sportswoman she hoped to become. A moment later she heard the swish of the water as her uninvited companion caught yet another trout.

Farther up the stream rushed quickly in riffles. Another nice spot, she thought, but not as nice as the one she'd forfeited. Trees and shrubs were heavy along the water at this stretch. She didn't want to feed the greedy trees her dry fly. She sneaked a look downstream at the stranger. He was casting toward a different spot in the river now, using short roll casts. The roll cast was nothing much more than a short push forward and then letting the line fall into the water. Mia figured even she could do that.

She cast a few in one riffle, still not able to get the fly quite where she wanted it to go. She tried casting a few around a large rock. The wily trout were not tempted by her poor presentation. Was she dropping her wrist again, she wondered? Was she extending too far? She grew petulant and wondered why the fish didn't like her little brown dry fly. The sun was slowly lowering but she didn't want another day to end without a strike. She cast again. From down the river she heard the stranger's excited "Good one!" Looking over she saw him bring in another trout to the net. She tugged the visor of her baseball cap lower. She was clumsily hitting the water so hard with her fly that she was like a fool drummer chasing all the trout right to him, she thought meanly.