<P> Norman returns a painfully sunburned Neal home, where Jessie is waiting for them . She is angry that the brothers did not fish with Neal . Norman asks Jessie to drive him home, as he had brought Neal back in Neal's own car, and he tells her that he is falling for her . She drives away angry but a week later asks Norman to come to the train station to see Neal off back to California . After the train departs, Norman shows Jessie a letter from the University of Chicago: a job offer for an English Literature teaching position . Norman asks Jessie to marry him . </P> <P> When Norman tells Paul about the job offer and marriage proposal, he also urges Paul to come with him and Jessie to Chicago . Paul tells Norman that he will never leave Montana . Just before leaving for Chicago, Norman, Paul and their father go fly fishing one last time as a family . Paul catches a huge fish that drags him down the river through a set of rapids before he finally lands it . John proudly tells his son Paul what a wonderful fisherman he has become, and how he is an artist in the craft, much to Paul's delight . They pose for pictures with the huge fish for their mother . </P> <P> Soon after the fishing excursion, Norman is again contacted by the police . They tell him that Paul has been found beaten to death in an alley, and that all the bones in his right hand have also been broken . Norman goes home and tells his parents the sad news . The story then jumps ahead a few years to a sermon being given by John with Mrs. Maclean, Norman, Jessie and their two children in attendance . The narrator mentions that John dies soon after this sermon . The last scene is of Norman as an old man, back in the Montana river where he used to fish with his family many years before . He mentions that nearly everyone from his youth is dead, including Jessie, and that he is haunted by waters . </P> <Ul> <Li> Craig Sheffer as Norman Maclean </Li> <Li> Brad Pitt as Paul Maclean </Li> <Li> Tom Skerritt as Reverend John Maclean </Li> <Li> Brenda Blethyn as Clara Maclean </Li> <Li> Emily Lloyd as Jessie Burns </Li> <Li> Edie McClurg as Mrs. Burns </Li> <Li> Stephen Shellen as Neal Burns </Li> <Li> Joseph Gordon - Levitt as Young Norman Maclean </Li> <Li> Vann Gravage as Young Paul Maclean </Li> <Li> Nicole Burdette as Mabel </Li> <Li> Susan Traylor as "Rawhide" </Li> <Li> Michael Cudlitz as Chub </Li> <Li> Rob Cox as Conroy </Li> <Li> Buck Simmonds as Humph </Li> </Ul>

Old man at the end of a river runs through it