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As late as December, schools of stripers and bluefish, migrating south, swam close in to the beaches down the east coast, stocking up on food, chasing the smaller herring. This phenomenon did not occur every year, but the island fishermen knew to be on the watch for it particularly this fall which had stretched long and languorous like a cat sunbathing on hot cement. Randy Baker was the first to see it. On an overcast Saturday morning, he stopped his truck on the little bluff above the golf course and looked through his binoculars down to White Beach. The birds were clustered just above the surface of the water, wheeling and diving for what looked like bait fish. To an untutored eye, it might be whitecaps, but there was not enough wind to raise the water like that. He raced the truck down to the beach and with the door hanging open, ran out on to the wet sand. He didn't need the binoculars to see what this was. It was a school of fish in a feeding frenzy, probably blues and stripers mixed. "Hallelujah," he shouted and got on the radio with a single call. *** The men turned at the sound of slamming car doors and welcomed the doctor. The walls that separated summer from winter people, offislanders from regulars, flyfishermen from spin fishermen, came tumbling down on a day like this. Every fisherman on the island would hit the beach by noon. Today and possibly tomorrow would be their last real chance until early April. "What are you using?" Paul Thayer asked Dennis Lacey as the doctor waded into water up to his thighs between Thayer and Al Craven, "Flies. Good thing here's no wind. What's the tide doing?" "Coming in," Thayer said. "Pushing the fish in front of it." "You barely need a rod, man," Al called from down the way. "The goddamned fish are bumping into my feet." Dennis was pleased with himself. He'd made all the right choices for these conditions, his ten foot graphite rod, the intermediate line that sinks slowly and yellow foam poppers for the blues. He had some slab flies that imitated herring and Lefty's Deceivers if he wanted to go after the stripers. This was the day he'd been waiting for all fall. His first fish hit on the second cast and he remembered to keep his rod tip low, parallel to the surface of the water, and tug on the line with his hand to get the hook to set. The fish wanted to run so he let it go for awhile until the line tightened and he could reel up the extra from the stripping basket at his waist. By that time he had set the drag strong enough to let the fish know its time was up. The blue was big, about fifteen pounds and when he lay it on its side on the beach, four herring tails were hanging out of its mouth. "Greedy bugger," he said to Lauren who came over with a bucket. "Are you keeping it?" Lauren asked. "This one." She used a cloth rag to hold the fish down and a pair of long handled forceps to remove the hook, then popped the fish in a bucket. He was impressed. "I see your nursing prepares you for all sorts of things." She gave him a warm smile and moved down the line to Al who had pulled in a striper. "How do you like our island fishing now, Doctor?" Al called. "It's great," Dennis replied as he checked his fly and cast again. *** Al and Paul Thayer asked Dennis to show them how to cast and a circle of people gathered to watch the lesson. Anna was there, standing next to Annie Slocum. "He certainly is different from the type of doctor we usually get," Annie said. "Yes he is," said Anna and she wanted to tell Annie all she knew about the man, about the little tidal island and the drowned father. But she held her tongue and edged close enough to hear what he was saying. "'Tis a different kind of casting than you do with a spinning rod. A lighter touch if you know what I mean," and as he said this, he lifted his right arm so that the line floated backward in a graceful arc behind him, sailed between his ear and Al's and uncurled itself ever so delicately along the surface of the water. Al was the first to try, but he couldn't get the hang of the thing. "Try using your wrist more," Dennis said. "You don't need the whole arm the way you do with the weight of a spinner on the end of the line." Al tried again, but he handed the rod on to Paul after two more casts that landed in the shallow water a few feet from the shore. He was aware that people were watching. He swaggered back up to where the crowd was standing and draped his arm heavily around Anna's shoulders. "So you couldn't handle it Al," Randy called out. "Sissy fishing, if you ask me," Al shouted back and the crowd laughed. Anna knew that the doctor could hear. Any minute now he would turn around and see Al's arm on her and she wanted him to forget that Al Craven was her husband. She wanted to forget herself. Copyright © 1998 by Elizabeth Winthrop. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the Publisher.