But still, throughout the past four years, his utilitarian theory of life was upended, and he wasn’t sure why. It was a lot of effort in order to expend more effort. He loved Annie, but he could not love a child that was not yet conceived. Annie was different. She loved something that did not yet exist. He couldn’t understand it.
Death was much easier to understand than life. Hunting was the perfect expression of the beauty of life’s engineering. Even that night in Coombs’ Gulch when they had found the boy dead, he understood the tragic simplicity of it, the perfect functioning. It was as simple as the pull of a trigger. He could take life apart much better than put it together.
And now he was here, on this mountain, struggling through the trees, following the tracks of his brother, hunting him down the same as he followed deer tracks throughout his life. This wasn’t to end life but to save it, and once again it led to more complications, more gambles, more decisions in which neither option offered a solution. Michael pursued his brother the way his wife pursued a child – with all his physical and mental stamina. The difference, he figured, was that he knew Conner was out there. Conner was a true, living, actualized being who could be found if he just pushed a little harder.
The trees grew thinner as he followed Conner’s tracks higher up the mountain. Not only were the trees more spread apart but they were also smaller. The soil was shallow against the rock of the steep incline. It was easier to see here. There were fewer places to hide, fewer places where his brother could be out of sight, but still there was no sign of him other than the tracks. He wondered how it was that Conner could keep this pace at this distance and this incline. The mountain face was steep, and Michael slipped in the snow, risked sliding a thousand feet down the slope and cracking his head on the trees.
The footprints in the snow led up the mountain, seemingly forever. He stared up toward the peak. Clouds swept across, and it disappeared in the gray expanse. Michael wondered where he was for a brief moment. He put his rifle to his shoulder and looked through the scope, tracing the tracks up the slope, but lost them. He dropped the rifle and looked down into the valley where the meadow ran between the mountains and into Coombs’ Gulch. It was far, far below. Michael didn’t realize how far he’d climbed as his legs burned and mind churned with the machinery of his life. He looked through the scope to see if he could spot Jonathan. He saw a small, dark figure standing at the crest of the meadow. So far away and so high up the mountain, struggling against the slippery snow and rock, Michael suddenly doubted himself. Perhaps Jonathan had been right – not about all his supernatural shit, but about making for the cabin and getting help. Michael suddenly felt stranded, lost and alone on this mountaintop. Somehow, being so high up, he began to feel desperate.
Michael steadied himself, talked himself back into his right mind. This wasn’t hard. This was easy. He wasn’t lost; he knew exactly where he was. He just needed to reach Conner and then go back down the mountain and back toward the cabin. Simple. Michael tamped down his irrational emotions. The tracks did not continue much farther; he could catch up. There was no place left for Conner to hide up here.
Michael breathed deep, strapped the rifle across his back again and pushed on, stepping into Conner’s tracks when he could. He felt dizzy, breathless. He ignored the growing fear in his gut. Did he make the wrong decision? Was he following a ghost? He had seen Conner. Seen his body, his strange, distorted face. He had followed the tracks. The only logical explanation was that he was on the right path to save his brother. Michael looked back down at the meadow one last time and saw a tiny figure moving quickly through the tall, stiff grass toward the tree line of Coombs’ Gulch. Jonathan would be back to the cabin by dusk. He would get help. Michael would save Conner.
Michael kept climbing, struggling. Conner’s footprints in the snow appeared steady, casual even, as if his trip up the slope were a comfortable walk through a park rather than the harrowing, dangerous struggle Michael faced. It was almost as if Conner had floated up the mountain, just touching down his boots in the snow. Michael dug into the snow with his hands to find rocks to pull himself up. His boots slipped. He crawled on his knees, slid downhill several yards and panicked before grabbing hold of a shrub to stop his fall. He pulled himself back up and pushed farther. Anyone following his tracks would see a near-death struggle up a mountain that shouldn’t be climbed without proper gear; they would think he’d lost his mind and his tracks would tell the tale of an insane man. Rescuers would look at each other
