Peter Heller - The Dog Stars

Something like laughter. That a flower could be this small, this fleeting, that a snowflake could be so large, so persistent. The improbable simplicity. I groaned. Why don’t we have a word for the utterance between laughing and crying?

And I was suddenly very hungry. Took my eyes off of my left sleeve and looked around the col. The rock ridge and peak above me obscured. What the fuck are you doing here? Hig, what the fuck were you thinking? Why are you this high, this late in the day?

Shouldn’t be. Benighted above treeline. Storms that move fast this time of year migrating like everything else. The cold. Exposed.

An old panic rose in my chest. The panic of nightfall, of storm, of being alone on open ground. Surprised the shit out of me.

Had to get down, get lower.

I mean the panic was familiar the way a dread nausea or hangover is familiar but so long absent I thought it banished. Like stuck between living and dying there is no use for panic. It wasn’t. Banished I mean. Not a stranger at all. Panic close and familiar with its own smell, its own way of compressing the edges. I picked up the pull rope on the sled. Looked back at my own tracks over a field of crusted leftover snow. At the dark that thickened with the flakes. Too late to move. Fuck.

One thing is that Jasper always calmed me down. He didn’t get too excited by much except maybe a wolf track, so I didn’t either.

But it was calm. Without wind there was no danger. I could make a lean-to of the tarp against a boulder and snuggle into the bag and sleep. Tomorrow morning if the snow was not too deep I could head down and gain the shelter of the trees without trouble, I could fish the creek easy within half a day. A few hours down.

I had eaten all the jerked venison. A hunger deep, ravenous, alive. Had I not thrown out the other meat, Jasper’s, I would have eaten it now. Who to judge? What matters if it is he or I, we are the same. But I had emptied the bags on the trail days ago.

Alright. There was water. There was a boulder pile on the other side, the slope side of the lake. I tugged on the sled and took a step and stopped.

There was a shadow on the ridge. All of this was very close: lake, slope, tumbled scree, sharp ridgeline behind it climbing out of the snowstorm and straight into the low lid of cloud. Just there on the razorback of the spur, just where it disappeared into cloud, a large dark shape. I rubbed the ice out of my eyelashes with the back of my arm and when I focused on the ridge again it was gone.

Made a slant roof of the blue tarp against a rock, tossed out the smaller stones to make a smooth place to curl up, and covered myself and slept. Slept without dreams, without whelming grief, slept to wake in near absolute darkness to hear the ticking of the snow on the plastic sheeting to sleep again. Woke thinking the shape was large enough to be an elk. Thinking that I had seen no sign and wondering whether it was a good thing or a bad thing to wish for things that aren’t there.

Tenth day out when I beeped Bangley on the walkie talkie. Early morning. I wasn’t worried much about being covered for the few miles in the open, of being shot or followed out of the trees, but it was our ritual. Also it gave him a little time to readjust to me landing back in his world, maybe a couple of hours to remember how to be human. Maybe. Also if he was scoping the perimeter from the tower in the mansion which he would do every hour, it might save my butt from being fodder for friendly fire. How I go one way or the other never much concerned me but somehow that was one way I refused. I mean the thought of it: Bangley’s mistake. Or maybe not. Maybe a half mistake, unacknowledged like poor old Francis Macomber. That was it. Didn’t want to be him in the Short Happy Life. So I turned on the unit for the first time and squeezed the mike button twice.

Had two deer in the sled. They were smallish does, but there were two of them, enough maybe to justify the time gone, probably not. Didn’t give a shit. He could say what he liked. Wasn’t his rodeo anymore, wasn’t mine really either, when I thought about it I knew less every day. Didn’t know a goddamn thing.

One minute, less, then static, and

Well well. Prodigal Hig. Thought you’d croaked on me. I really did .

Hi Bruce .

Considered pause, kind of long. Stops him in his tracks every time. Reflex like pushing a button. Maybe his mom the only one who ever used the name. When she was mad.

Have some trouble?

No irony now. Which surprised me. Bangley almost sounded concerned. Hard to tell, though, over the walkie talkies.

A little .

Okay. Glad you’re back in one piece .

Pause.

Are you? In one piece?

I held the hand radio out and looked at it. Bangley sounded like a frigging human being. Must be the reception, the static, something in the bending of the radio waves, some kind of solar flare kinda thing, distorting. What he meant was: Do you need help getting across?

Yup one piece. Legs arms, everything .

Okay give me ninety minutes .

10-4 .

Hig?

Yuh?

You take a fucking vacation?

Ah, the old Bangley.

I keyed the mike. Ninety minutes. Out .

It was already light. I was squatting in my spot below a slope of ponderosas—a thicket of willows and poplars at the base of the first hills where the creek swung to the south and our trail continued straight east. Across open ground. If I’d had my ducks in a row I would have been set up hours before dawn and not make Bangley walk across to the tower in daylight. He carried the CheyTac .408 which was a light sniper rifle as light as something with that much power can be. His pride and joy, made for walking if you have to walk and still be able to shoot someone in the lungs a mile away.

I waited ninety minutes with the sun full in my face, which to tell the truth was not the best stratagem, to walk into it half blind, and I was glad to know he was up there in his tower, sun at his back with a clear view to the first trees in perfect light. Had had trouble three times. The one was the girl with the knife which was no trouble at all. I was thinking how trouble was really the last thing I expected, how warm at dawn, fresh with the smell of new grass and early flowers, when I started to walk. I walked for more than an hour the load heavy on the level, both does quartered and piled in the sled, and I was more than halfway to the tower, laboring against the harness, pulling hard, when the radio strapped to my chest came alive.

Hig you got company . Urgency. A rare alarm.

Okay. Company .

I dropped the bridle and spun around. Back along the trail nothing. Tall sage, rabbit brush, gamma grass already knee high. Yellow and white asters blooming, fat bees already feeding, the trail smooth and empty behind me. Heart hammering.

Hig, they are stalking you. Quarter mile back. Read that? Quarter mile, a little more .

Okay. Okay. Got it .

Say 10-4. Repeat back the info. You’re a pilot for chrissakes .

Jesus Bangley .

Trying to get you to calm down. Focus on the details. One at a time .

Mother of christ. Who spawned this guy?

Pause.

10 fucking 4. Quarter mile. I am focused .

Good. Okay, turn back around. Now. Turn back! Look at me. Grab a water bottle. Stretch. Make like you are taking a break. NOW!

Okay, okay, got it .

There is no way they can hear us, Hig. The wind is them to you. They are upwind. Look natural. Stretch. Drink. Key the mike like you are scratching your chest. You are all alone out here. As far as they are concerned, Hig, you are solo. Single prey .