Rohan Peterson stood on the bank of Dragoon Creek with a fly rod in his hands. The sun was rising and he could feel it's welcoming warmth on his shoulders. He addressed a chattering bird that was sitting on a limb just downstream. "Okay, troublemaker, this is my fishing spot--go find yourself another one. Shoo!" The kingfisher made a rasping noise like the metallic click of a fishing reel, but refused to budge from its perch. Rohan considered throwing a stone, but decided to let the bird be.
He pulled several lengths of line from his reel and began to flip the rod back and forth. Each sweeping cast carried a black and white fly farther across the stream until it settled on an eddy along the far bank. "It's all in the wrist," his father had told him while teaching Rohan to cast a fly rod.
His concentration on the drifting fly was suddenly interrupted when the kingfisher dove into the creek. It hit the water with a resounding splash and disappeared beneath the surface. Its abrupt exit from the stream, holding a large minnow in its beak, would certainly ruin the fishing for a while.
Rohan's thoughts were not entirely on fishing, so the interruption didn't matter much. Something else agitated him. He hated loose ends and the reoccurring thoughts of a shocking event had haunted him for months. It concerned the strange disappearance of Doctor John Jackson and his young son, Jon Michael.
What could have happened to them, he had asked himself time and again? They had mysteriously vanished and not one clue had surfaced surrounding their disappearance.
The reason for Rohan's constant concern was his love for Kelli, whose parents, Doctors John and Lynn Jackson, ran the local Health Clinic. Yesterday, Kelli was in Peterson's drug store for an emergency supply of gauze for the clinic. Rohan observed her weeping when he walked into the store. She was clutching a package of her father's favorite pipe tobacco while wiping tears from her cheeks. Until the mystery of the disappearance of her father and brother was resolved, it would leave a void in the lives of Kelli and her mother that could not be filled.
Two years before the Jacksons disappeared, a young man, Roger Faber, also went missing while searching for his stray horse. Was this a twist of fate? Was everyone too blind to see the clues of what had happened to them? Rohan had asked himself these questions many times without arriving at any plausible answers.
Suddenly, a startling buzz of the line coming off the reel interrupted his thoughts. He cocked his wrist and set the hook with a quick jerk. The flexible fly rod whipped and arched as a hooked trout responded by charging downstream. While keeping the line taut, Rohan eased out just enough to tease the fighting fish with a bit of freedom. Before long, a two-pound rainbow trout lay tucked inside his creel.
He glanced at his watch and counted the fish he'd caught. There would be more than enough for supper tonight. He removed his favorite fly from the leader, hooked it in his hat, waded to the bank and followed the trail down-mountain.
I'll take some fish to Aunt Julia and Uncle Bruce and see when he wants me to put up the new shelves in the bakery. He began to whistle a lively tune, which helped to push the disturbing disappearances from his mind.
* * *
Rohan was finishing up the new shelves in Aunt Julia's Bakery--part of the only grocery store in town owned by his Uncle Bruce Peterson.
Clip-clopping hooves and grating cartwheels on the pavement outside interrupted his concentration. He looked through the window--a cart being drawn by a donkey was pulling up out front. He laid aside his hammer and opened the door for Christella Ison who was a peddler that sold fresh garden produce to his uncle. Though she lived just above the Peterson house on the up-mountain side of town, Rohan wasn't acquainted with her.
Christella frowned and glared at him. "Well, don't dawdle, empty that cart. Why is it you young people stand idly by when there is a bit of work to be done?"
Rohan was shocked by her rudeness. For all she knew, he could be a man of importance. However, he doubted that would influence her disposition in the least. Deciding it was best not to aggravate the situation with a comment, he picked up a basket of tomatoes.
"Yes, ma'am," he said. "Where do you usually put these?"
"On the vegetable stand, where else," she croaked. "You're such a stupid lout."
"Yes, ma'am, but I'm not stupid and I'm not a lout. My name is Rohan Peterson."
"Then, Rohan Peterson, if you're not stupid and not a lout, you are certainly impertinent. You should know the vegetables go on the vegetable stand." She shook her finger in his face and then at the stand.
Not knowing the procedure for receiving the produce, Rohan said, "Yes, ma'am--do you have an invoice or list I can check to make sure everything is correct?"
Christella blushed red as one of her tomatoes. "Of all the nerve. Mr. Peterson," she sputtered. "Have you ever known me to cheat you? Do I not deliver everything you order? This young dolt, I assume he is your son, has insulted me. He has accused me of not being honest. He should be thrashed. That would teach him to hold his tongue when dealing with his elders."
"Ms. Ison, Rohan is my nephew. His folks own the drug store. He is here helping me with some carpentry work today. It is customary in their store to receive an invoice with an order of goods. It is quite different from how you and I do business. I'm sure my nephew didn't mean to imply that you would cheat me."
"Certainly not, ma'am," Rohan said. "I'm sorry if that's the way it sounded."
"Humph," was the only comment Christella made. She gave Rohan a disdainful look, finished her business, stomped out and slammed the door behind her.
"Wow, Uncle Bruce. That is one very frustrated lady. Is she always that way?"
She was a genuine grouch. Bruce had never seen her any other way. He had tried to make friends with her, but she ignored every kind word. She knew that besides his being in the grocery business, he was pastor of the Congregational Church. Time after time, she had rebuffed every invitation he made for her to attend Sunday services.
"She delights in her abusing remarks," Bruce said, picking up a broom. "She as much as told me to mind my own business and that she had no use for the prying busybodies in this town. The only time you'll see her is when she is coming or going with vegetables. She is one strange woman."
Rohan lifted a shelf and fitted it onto the brackets he had installed. "No wonder she has no friends if she talks to everyone the way she talked to me. She'd scare the hide off a snake."
"I've gotten used to her over the years," Bruce said, pushing a pile of sawdust into a dustpan with the broom. "The produce is always good quality and fresh. I hesitate to make her angry--she is my only source for vegetables and fruit."
Bruce paid Rohan for his work and congratulated him on a job well done. Now, Aunt Julia would have ample room for her bakery goods. The aroma of newly baked sticky buns wafting through the store tweaked Rohan's appetite, but he hesitated to ask for one. Bruce, observing his nephew's glances toward the kitchen, slipped several buns into a paper sack. "How about some of your aunt's buns in exchange for the trout?"
Rohan grinned and accepted the generous offer. "Thanks, Uncle Bruce. Got to run home now to shower and change clothes. Dad needs me at the drug store."
He had a strange feeling that this would not be his last encounter with the egocentric peddler from the up-mountain side of town.
