Fourteen THE GUIDE KNOWS EVERYTHING
The tender tone of this late story is quite different from the rough-and-tumble of such earlier pieces as “The Last Buffalo Drive,” with its coarse and violent mischief. Tex’s regard for Father Moriarty shows that although hunting or fishing prowess was a crucial requisite of true mountain masculinity, ethical qualities and practices were equally important, and perhaps too an appreciation of philosophical and religious values (at least as they applied to animals): Tex cites with quiet approval and no irony the Father’s Platonic or rather neo-Thomist sermon to the fish he releases. The core values of Tex’s mountain masculinity are emphasized by the contrast between the priest’s body (“a paunchy little priest”) and his gentleness (“gentle as a woman”) and his ability with a fly and a rod. The literary allusions to the fisherman apostles, Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler and Grey of Fallodon’s Fly Fishing1 once again betray the broad reading and culture of the author. The story lampoons the tendency of guides to think or behave as if they know everything, ending with another tender moment between Tex and his son Bill.
—AG