I am hiding behind the front seat of my mother’s Rambler with my cousin Nancy, because my father has come out of the house. He is standing on the porch by the kitchen door in his underwear, looking around. It is the middle of the afternoon. The last thing I want is to be seen...

By the time they slid out of the cooler and onto our front porch, the ice surrounding their slippery bodies was nearly melted. “Six silver Steelhead. Fresh out of the Klamath River,” announced my mother. They were sterling, pewter, and black. Yellow-eyed and long as my legs. My mother pulled out a buck horn knife...