I’d been closer than I thought. Maybe two hundred yards to where the creek went over the lip, poured over the twenty foot falls. I could see the top of their tree ladder sticking up to the left of the current. I could hear the cascade hitting the pool at the bottom. It sent up spray and the spray in the sunlight shimmered with a shifting shred of rainbow.
From this angle through the mist the little box canyon looked like Eden. Green and bounded, waterfed, remote from death. How was I going to get down that? Was he going to lower me by my bound arms—up behind me and tear out both shoulders? Or just shove me over the edge, hope the pool is a few feet deep? Break an ankle or legs, cripple me, all the better.
The whistle pierced, I jumped. Jerked around. Could’ve been the peregrine but right in my goddamn ear. She came out of the stone hut. She carried the scoped rifle. Bolt action. Also a small blanket. She sat at a wood slab table, rolled the blanket, propped the barrel on it like a sandbag, sighted upwards, thought better of it, lifted the gun and pulled down a bipod, two legs at the front of the barrel, sighted again. Better angle. On me. She’d done this before, that was clear.
She’s very good. I taught her. You screw up just a little, you die.
He stepped forward and with one tug freed the knot on one wrist, left one tied to the end of his rope.
Climb down.
One handed? I’m afraid of heights.
Which was true. Flying is different.
He kicked me in the ass. No shit. A swift boot. Toe in the buttocks which lurched me forward, almost sent me over the edge. That hurt. Like a bastard. Kinda hurt my feelings. What if I had stumbled over? First time since he woke me up I really wanted to hit him.
Use two hands.
I crouched, clutched the tree with both hands swung down.
My name is Hig.
I was born in the Year of the Rat.
I have no serial number but my pilot’s license number is 135-271.
I am an Aquarius.
My mother loved me. She really really loved me. My father. Absent but. Well. I had an uncle that taught me to fish.
I wrote thirty poems after college, twenty three of which were for my wife.
Jasper was my dog.
No kids. My wife was pregnant.
My favorite books are:
I can cook. Pretty well for a guy.
Profession: contractor. I don’t like it. I hated it. I should have been a high school English teacher or something. A pet groomer. I am free of disease, as far as I know I am healthy. I visit families with the blood sickness about twice a month.
My favorite poem was written by Li Shang-Yin in the ninth century.
Maybe it wasn’t my favorite poem before before but it is now.
I have always been particularly attuned to loss. I guess. Got a bumper crop now.
May I have some water?
He tied me to a post in the yard. Facing the sun. Sat me on one of the stools, hands behind me. Tight. They stood and studied me. I squinted, tried to make them out. Thought of something.
My right jacket pocket.
He stepped forward reached in, dug around, pulled out two fresh cans of Copenhagen. Nine or ten years old, expired, but still. I’d brought them as gifts, so. He stepped to my side so I could see him bent, his head down, looking at me sideways, close. Then he opened one of the cans with that expert tear of the thumbnail, creasing the paper around the tin lid, the quarter twist and pry. He stuck his nose in, breathed. I could smell it. Salt and dirt. The tobacco was dust dry, I knew from Bangley, but he pinched two fingers, stuck a small load in his upper lip. He was an upper lip man. Spat.
Three points.
That all? Two tins. I think six is fair.
He handed her the tins and I was surprised to see her take a dip. He pulled the second stool around to the side of me, sat.
Sun’ll be out of your eyes in twenty minutes.
She stood stock still in front, still backlit. She was tall. I couldn’t make out her face. Could feel the bore of her stare though.
Does she talk?
Whoops. Minus three. Back to zero. That’s where you like to be. That’s what I’m getting.
I like to travel light.
He nodded barely.
That’s good. The dip. Been a while. I don’t give a shit how you like to travel. You could be carrying around a dining room set for all I care. Looked around. We could use one.
If I say anything you’re gonna dock me points right? I mean unprompted. Right?
He nodded. Minus one.
And then I lose my frequent flyer opportunities I’m guessing.
Minus two. Get to minus ten I shoot you dead. No appeal. On the spot. Mention her again I dock you five. Cause now you know better. Tell an untruth, that’s ten points, you’re dead. Shit your pants you’re dead. Piss yourself that’s up to you.
Suddenly I wasn’t having any fun. I heard the thudding of the waterfall, rhythmic like a tribal drum, heard one of the sheep bleat and that’s exactly how I felt. Plaintive and kind of traumatized.
I looked at him.
You know what?
I said that.
Know what? Fuck you. Fuck you and your points. I came here in peace and you tried to kill me twice. I came here looking for something, I don’t know what. I don’t know what, you got that? Not death, though. We had enough of that back at the airport. Enough death.
I sat tightly bound on the stool and I looked at him and I could feel tears streaming down my face, stinging the cuts on the left side.
I lost my dog a week ago. Jasper. I don’t need you or your shit. I got nothing. Go ahead, subtract twenty fucking points, shoot me dead. I’ll be fucking glad. Go ahead.
I could taste the salt of my tears.
Let him up Dad, she said. Enough. Let him up.
Her voice was husky. I blinked up at her straight into the sun. Felt his capable hands loose the rope.
I walked away from them to a cottonwood by the edge of the creek and pissed. I didn’t care. I wasn’t shy. The pour and burble of the stream covered my sobs. Cool in the deep shade. Sobbed so hard I gagged. Maybe they were watching, no, they were definitely watching, fuck them. I just let it finish, then breathed. Knelt and splashed my face, the cuts that were already rashing into a spray of scabs. Drank. Why the fuck was I crying all the time? I didn’t give a shit, not really. I wasn’t cracking up, it’s just what I felt like doing. Nine years barely a drop, then Jasper, now this.
The world opens suddenly, opens into a narrow box canyon with four sheep, and we grieve. Two shepherds, maybe not in their right mind, and we grieve. The relief of company not Bangley, not the blood disease, we grieve. We grieve. That this was once the middle of nowhere and now it’s not even that. And I am not even that. Before I could locate myself: I am a widower. I am fighting for survival. I am the keeper of something, not sure what, not the flame, maybe just Jasper. Now I couldn’t. I didn’t know what I was. So grieve.
I stood in the shade of the tree in the cool breath of the moving water and let the sound, the light breeze
