I went on. Nevertheless. With the hair kinda standing up on my neck.
When I got to the stream I turned down it and followed an easy trail along the bank. Tall grass here, tiny white asters like daisies, Indian paintbrush. Wild strawberry, penstemon. Huge ponderosas, the smell of cold wet stone and vanilla. White moths circling each other over a gravel bar. Mating. The first date thing: that was history. My heart was still racing but not for that. I saw the moths flitting, three then two, in and out of sunlight, and thought: Hig, mating is probably not in the cards not this round. Not ever probably.
When you get to the short cliff at the top of the meadow, the one with the waterfall, when you swing down onto that tree ladder and put your back to Gramps, he is gonna shoot you dead with a delicious grunt. So there. Think this is a game, punk? You-are-not-a-pheasant-Correct:-you-are-a-dead-man. Write that on your little sheets. Bang. You just wouldn’t leave us alone. Bang. Stop twitching will ya? Bang.
Bangley:
Hmph. Whatever quandary I was in before I was just as much in now. That’s what I saw as I moved fast down the stream. Another thing: he, they, could’ve climbed up the tree ladder into the upper creek in two minutes flat and could now be waiting for me in the willows behind any tree and ambush me at leisure. I froze.
Did not want to die. Not now.
I could be in his sights as we speak. Goosebumps again this time not from the chill.
Scanned down the creek. A box elder at water’s edge, leaves the color of limes. A few cottonwoods below. When the wind pulsed, their leaves turned back, brightening like the palm of a hand held up in sunlight. Stop. They could be crouched behind those thick shaggy trunks.
Stop, Hig, Stop. Reconsider the folly of mere human connection. Listen to a tree.
When you fished, that’s what you were seeking huh? Connection. Think of the cost to the fish. The fish did not want your connection and if a trout could have killed you with one gulp he would have. Gramps is that fish. He can swallow you.
Huh.
I backed up, got my body flat behind a tree. The creek was about thirty feet below me, the current already running clear and shallow enough to wade across. Low water for this early in the season, maybe thigh deep at the deepest. Scanned up the opposite bank. It was a slope, steep, of new grass and flowering weeds running up under an open glade of ponderosas. Toward the top of the ridge, crumbling rimrock broke through like moldering ruins, walls and parapets.
Perfect hiding place. Them. I mean a perfect spot to ride out the end. From here, upstream, you’d never have a clue that the stream would open up into such a wide deep hole, such a meadow. No reason ever to come down here, to follow the water. It wasn’t the easiest going and the old track above, the road I’d landed on, would take you more quickly north and east. To places where the road crossed the little river without effort. From ground level at the top you couldn’t see the hole, the canyon, at all til you were right on it, right on the edge. And I bet that the way up from downstream was beset by waterfalls and cliffs. It was perfect. A hideout. Outlaws of old would covet.
How did they get the cows in there? Only way in was the ladder. That occurred to me.
Why when I was in the most critical spots did my mind wander to curiosities? Bangley would not approve. Bangley would say
I did. Backed up the slope ten paces into the cover of a thick juniper that grew to the ground like a shaggy bush. Snuggled in behind it, pushed in to where I could sit and see through branches down the slope. Stiff twigs brushed my scabbing face stung. The scent was heady. It was like being inside one of those sachets. Why did she do that? Dusty blue juniper berries rained to the ground. Think this is what they made gin out of. Really?
Now what? I was safe. So what have you gained?
Crouched in a mass of prickly twigs. I was a troll who lived at the base of a tree. Looked at the world through a scratchy scrim of needles and branches. Lived on rain, on bits of song and memory.
I lay the rifle on the ground, hugged my knees, leaned into the thicker branches.
Exhausted. To the bone. The untethering that took such an effort. The flight over already seemed like another life. And the airport seemed like a dream. If the airport was a dream, then Jasper was a dream behind a dream, and before before was a dream behind that. Within and within. Dreaming. How we gentle our losses into paler ghosts.
Wait til nightfall that’s what. In the dark I can walk downstream. Watch them. Climb down the ladder in safety. One benefit of so many nights fishing, fishing obsessively into the dark: I know how to trust feet to find the way.
A trout could see the smallest fly on the surface in the darkest night. The sky always luminous, luminous to a trout and the bug silhouetted against it. I loved catching fish in the dark. Often just the sound in a quiet pool, the blip, the tiny hyphenated splash then the tug. I loved it.
Darkness. Nothing. Sharp smell of warming needles. Sleep. Okay a few minutes. Sleep.
Up.
Huh?
Up. Back out. Touch that rifle you’re a dead man.
Hard and sharp hard sharp thing against back of neck. Stick. Yup a stick. A long pole. At the other end a man with a gun. Fuck. Fuck. Good one Hig.
Hands on ground. Back out. Crawl.
Crawl. Slow. Now flat, lie flat. Hands behind head. Now!
Knee in back hard. Hand roughly pushing under jacket relieving me of the belted Glock. Hand running down my back, up again, down legs, expert, swift.
Roll over.
Same with the front, fast frisk, relieving me of the grenades. Into the pockets of his own barn coat.
Younger than. Or not. Leaner. White haired. Hard like shoe leather. Creases. Creased lines deep from cheeks down. Grimace lines. Spray of creases from corners of the eyes, outside corners. Gray eyes sparking. Used to sparking back at the naked sun. No bullshit at all. Every movement sure and swift.
Not sure why: up close I felt less afraid. Didn’t feel panicked at all. Which was probably dumb right now. Gramps was not the least afraid of me, not a shred. Somehow I reciprocated.
Over again. Roll over.
Knee hard in back, sharp needles stinging right side of my face. Watched him from the corner of my eye. Shrugged a circle of coiled rope off his left shoulder, shook it out one handed, bound my hands tight. One handed.
Must be a rancher, I said. Can tell by your hat.
Shut up.
Ten-four. Kinda nice not to make idle conversation.
Didn’t say that, didn’t say anything.
Knee hard down on the knobs of my spine, hurt as he yanked up, tightened the knot.
You shoulda kept on. Nobody bothers us here.
I did, I can tell.
Shut up.
Knee grinding ribs. He stepped back, five steps sideways, uncoiling rope, reached down, picked the AR out of the tree and slung it.
Now stand.
Didn’t even give me a chance. One jerk hard on the rope yanked me to my feet, about ripped out my shoulders.
Walk.
I walked. And.
A relief to do what someone said. Someone who knew exactly what he was doing. Just follow orders. It occurred to me as I stumbled down the hill that if he had wanted me dead I’d be dead. Just like me before when I was on the rim and they were cowering below. Reciprocating. He was reciprocating now. A perfectly reciprocal relationship. Damn.
