Joy Williams - The Quick & the Dead

Ray had considered carrying a fetish with him, but number one, he didn’t believe in them — he’d seen the carvers bring them in by the gunnysack, like pecans — and number two, his little monkey was fetish enough for anybody. The little monkey had been quiet lately, maybe because it dug the flute music that was always playing in the store. Ray would be grateful, extremely grateful, if he didn’t have to worry about it all the time. The monkey might finally be settling down, perhaps even realizing that it and Ray were one, that this had been the purpose of its sacrifice. Theirs was not a symbiotic relationship, though. The little monkey never had any opinions of its own; say Ray had a girl someday, he didn’t think the little monkey would have an opinion about that. Ray could hardly say, “So what do you think?” He just wanted it not to be distraught. He wanted it to be conscious and not distraught, was that too much to ask? If it were unconscious, or rather if Ray became unconscious of it, matters would be worse. It’s the stuff you’re unaware of that kills you.

Regarding his camping gear, Ray had been canny. He’d ordered a tent, some fancy freeze-dried food, and binoculars from a catalog, received the delivery, and then denied he had, having signed for it in invisible ink. What stuff he’d learned in Cub Scouts! He might as well have gone to grifter school. He’d picked up a lot in those prestroke days. He wished there’d been more of them.

Besides scamming some of the larger items, he’d indulged himself by purchasing a few things as well, such as a knife and compass. He bought a walking stick with the knob carved into the shape of a grizzly’s head (Grizz = hunter, nature’s pharmacist) though he liked the brown bear’s stick better (power, adaptability) because it followed more naturally the whorls and ways of the wood. But he ended up with the Grizz. Who knew the dynamic behind the purchasing impulse, anyway? If he knew that, he could be hired anywhere; he’d be paid for simply not talking to the competition. He bought a snakebite kit that looked a little Mickey Mouse to him (Mouse = servility, conformity), but at least it was a contingency that had been packaged. Seeing as how there wasn’t an antidote to everything, it behooved you to grab whatever you could.

It was his first solo trek, though he truthfully couldn’t consider it a trek: he would never be more than twenty miles from something, some ranch or working mine or trapline shack. He had maps. Still, if it wasn’t a trek itself it might lead to one, and then another, and then the trek would become a true and endless one. There’d be secret knowledge. Fulfillment. He’d come back just to prepare to go out again to remote, empty, and beautiful places where self and sanity had no more meaning than the wind dropping at nightfall. He’d experience the no meaning and he’d feel entire, not all chopped up the way he felt now. The little monkey knew about these things, it knew about the validity of no meaning. Ray gave it credit for that, the little monkey had suffered, and it knew. It existed in no temporal future. The past, the light that shone externally upon it, even when the eyes of monitors and data crunchers had wearied of it, shone still.

Ray was at the ranger station the moment it opened, his stomach burning from too much coffee. The ranger was taking his time displaying a grouping of pop-up books to their best advantage. He pulled the tab on the elf owl lurching out of the saguaro. He pulled the tab on the jackrabbit hightailing it away from the hawk. He pulled the tab on the bobcat swiping at a butterfly.

“I could use a little help with this map here,” Ray said. Rangers peddling merchandise — it wasn’t right. It was supposed to be a dangerous occupation, and here he was fiddling around with kiddie books. The nameplate above his pocket read “Darling.”

The ranger ambled over to where Ray stood. Ray spread out the map and told him his plans. The ranger blinked at him, seemingly unimpressed. “You in good health?”

“Hey,” Ray said.

“My mother, when she had her stroke, her face pulled down just so.” He tugged at his own lip.

“What the hey,” Ray said.

The ranger shrugged. “Here’s a pretty hike for the time you got. Two days in, a day there, two days out. You take the West Fork Trail four miles into Harold’s Canyon, follow that until its junction with Scorpion Flat, take a right on Bitter Biscuit Trail about six miles until it tops out at Bless Your Heart Peak. If you come across the cairn with the red paint on it, you’ve gone too far, that’s the conjunction of Pig Root and Bill Bustard Trail.… There’s a birders’ cabin there.”

Ray snatched his map back. Man made him not want any instruction whatsoever. What kind of idleness was it, naming everything like that? He and Darling did not part on the friendliest of terms. Ray lunged up West Fork Trail at a trot and six hours later didn’t know where he was. But that was fine with him. That was fine.

On the afternoon of his second day he came across the birders’ cabin. He consulted his map. Maybe they’d moved it. The cabin was locked and the windows were shuttered. The lock was a long cylindrical one with letters instead of numbers on the falls. Ray spun “GONE BIRDING,” and it sprang open. People were so transparent, he thought, so suspicious and simplistic and coy. He dropped his pack on the porch, then took off his hat and rubbed his sweaty hair vigorously with both hands. Inside the cabin was neat and had the civilizing touch of womankind, of avid, affluent, educated female birders. It must be nice to come up here, spot the rare birdies on their nests, listen to their songs. Ray knew nothing about birds. There was some dove that said who cooks for you-all , that was about all he knew. Of course the dove didn’t really say that, he knew that too.

The large, open room was filled with bunks and tables, and along the back wall was a glass case filled with avian specimens. The method here was to collect the whole package: mom and dad, nest, eggs, nestlings in various stages of growth. Ray was head-to-head with some type of flycatcher here. Nest made of the midribs of mesquite leaves, quail feathers, and thatch, the tag read, and bound with insect threads. “A unique domed cradle of particular artistry.” “That’s true,” Ray said aloud. The eggs were dappled, all lavender and red. “Clutch,” Ray said. The word just came to him. There was a sudden sizzle in the back of his skull as though a seam were running down it. Of the smallest nestling, the tag’s comment read, “This newly hatched youngster looks little different from the worm it was being fed.” “Where would we be without that valuable insight?” Ray remarked loudly. He picked up one of the adult birds; it was dry and light as a piece of popcorn. This was a little weird, he thought, bordering on the indecent. How would the birders like to have their skulls made into bird feeders? Put it in their wills, show a real dedication to their lifelong hobby. Ray would suggest it to them. He found a pen in a drawer along with lined data sheets. “Fetched another set!” was scrawled on one. A sadistic activity, bird counting. Ray pressed the pen down, but his intention was dissolving like mist. He pressed harder, but the pen didn’t move. Then it made a few quick, unsatisfactory marks. Ray looked up, chastised. There were dried flowers in a vase, a big framed photograph of laughing people in khaki and floppy hats. He had wished harm upon them, had contrived to insult them, his own kind. He had the sensation that the back of his head was splitting open, little fingers curling and pressing the folds of matter back. He looked at what he’d written. His handwriting … he should exercise more caution with it. Discouraging. He found his hat and pulled it carefully onto his head. The hat and the headache got along, he’d found.