Hippo Butt Bend

July 16, 2021, prompt: "up" 

Sparked by a John Sloane calendar picture

_____

Winter, spring, summer, or fall, Sally Louise was down at Hippo Butt fishing. That's what the locals called the bend in the river because the smooth, round gray rocks looked the picture of rumps. The only hippos in the state of Idaho were at the zoo, still, when Sally was young, she worried that an angry butt might rear up and buck her off.

"Yer fishin' at the wrong time a day, girlie." The locals would say. "Wrong place too!"

Nevertheless, after chores and feeding Gram-Gram, Sally stood on a hippo butt and fished with Old Dog who used to be Young Dog. She'd stay for an hour or two weaving stories from clouds, feeling the breeze and smelling the flowers that sprouted from the seeds Gram-Gram had scattered every spring until this one. Only the yellows and pinks bloomed which mystified them.

The train came at the same time every day. First, her feet vibrated, then she heard the chuffing and puffing and choo-chooo-ing and clickety-clacking. She watched the black billows rise up and kiss pink bottomed, white clouds 'til the locomotive busted round the bend. Sally waved and shouted to the conductor, counted the cars, pulled her line out, and walked home to tend to Gram-Gram and evening chores.

Winter hit hard and Sally didn't fish for two weeks. When the train whistle called, she watched through Gram-Gram's bedroom window and saw the conductor looking around like he'd lost a limb. "Fourteen cars today," Sally said. But Gram-Gram couldn't hear her anymore.

Sally's first day back to Hippo Butt was cold and she was dreary. When the train rounded the bend, the bells clanged and the conductor leaned out the window shouting, "Where've you been?" The answer was etched deep in her face.

The weather warmed and a super-bloom of pink and yellow flowers crammed the banks of the river. Sally traded her work overalls for summer dresses, cast her fishing line, and created stories out of clouds again. Biding time until the train clattered and smoke billowed and the whistle blew and bells rang and the conductor waved and shouted questions.

"Any nibbles today?"

"Yes."

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"Live nearby?"

"Yes."

---

"Do you like cats?"

"Yes."

On a crisp fall day, the chuffs and huffs and clickety-clacks slowed, the whistle blasted five shorts and two longs, bells clanged, brakes screeched. 

And the train stopped.

Sally and Old Dog watched the conductor leap out, zigzag between the few remaining flowers, and nimbly hop across hippo butts until he was five feet away. He looked around to see what she was seeing before gazing into a face that melted his bones.

"Have you ever caught a fish?" His voice smoky like his train.

She said nothing, too busy perusing the laugh lines around his eyes and the care-worn grooves in his brow, the firmness of his chin and his wild black hair.

"Wanna take a ride?"

She nodded and pulled up her pole.

He stared. "No hook?"

"Not needed," she said, reaching out her hand and catching his.