Charles D'Ambrosio - The Dead Fish Museum

Later Donny woke up and asked, Where are we? Mr. Cheetam said, You see that river there, Donny? That’s the Quinault River, and we’re going to hike up along what’s called the High Divide, and when we get to the top we’ll be at the source of that river. You’ll be able to skip right over it, he said, so remember how big it is now. Donny asked, What if we see the Sasquatch? I said we’d be famous, if we captured it. Or took a picture, Donny said. But I don’t want to see it, he added. We parked at the ranger station and signed in. It was silent and we could hear our feet crunching the gravel. We cinched up our pack straps and looked at each other. This is it, Mr. Cheetam said. He looked up the trail. This is where we separate the men from the boys.

After about an hour, we cut off the main path and headed toward the river. This is where I buried my dad, Mr. Cheetam explained. I always visit once a year. Right beside the river was a tree, hanging over the water and shadowing everything. Initials were carved in the tree on the side facing the river. BC is Billy Cheetam, Donny said. That’s my grandpa. Is he under the tree? I asked. No, no, Mr. Cheetam laughed. He was cremated and I scattered his ashes in the river. But this is the spot, he said. The river was deep and wide at that point. Mr. Cheetam asked if he and Donny could be alone to think and remember and I hiked back out to the main trail. I sat against a fallen log until Donny came back. He talks to him, Donny said. What’s he say? I asked, but Donny didn’t know.

Our first camp was disappointing because we could hear Boy Scouts hooting and farting around, a troop of about sixty in green uniforms with red or yellow hankies around their necks. It was like the Army, with pup tents everywhere. Mr. Cheetam said not to worry, higher up there won’t be any Scouts.

We found wood and lit a campfire and made dinner — beef Stroganoff — and I sopped up all the gravy with my fingers. We washed the pots and pans with pebbles and sand in the river. Mr. Cheetam drank whiskey from a silver flask, wiping his lips and saying, Aaahhh, this is living!

The Boy Scouts sounded off with taps. Donny and I shared a smokewood stogie — a kind of gray stick you could smoke — and when it was quiet Mr. Cheetam cupped his hands around his mouth and moaned, Who stole my Golden Arm? Whoooo stooole my Goool-den Aaarm? You could hear his voice echoing in the forest. Whoooo stooole my Goool-den Aaarm ? You did! Mr. Cheetam shouted, grabbing Donny. We crawled into our tents and I started laughing and Donny got hysterical, too. Mr. Cheetam had a different tent and told us to shut up.

Donny whispered how he hated the Japs and never wanted to be captured by them — they knew how to make you talk. I told him about the Inquisition and all the tortures they’d invented for getting confessions.

They had this one thing called the press, I said. If you were accused of a crime and didn’t make a plea, the King ordered you to lie down. Then he piled rocks on you until you confessed the truth or got crushed.

How big were the rocks? Donny asked.

I don’t know.

What if you had thirty — what if you had a hundred — no, wait, what if you had a thousand rocks on you and then you decided to tell the truth?

You could, I said. But if you said you didn’t do anything, the King didn’t want to hear that, and he’d just go ahead with another rock, until you admitted you did do it.

Donny hesitated, and I thought I understood.

I know, I said. I know .

At the next camp, only two people were around, a man and a woman, who were sitting naked on a rock in the river when we first arrived, but kept to themselves afterward. Donny and Mr. Cheetam fished for a while but quit after Donny’s hook got caught in the trees too many times. Mr. Cheetam said, Don’t worry about it, Donny. It’s no good down here. Higher up the water’s colder and we’ll catch tons of rainbows, maybe some Dolly Varden.

We ate a great meal of dehydrated chicken tetrazzini and pilot biscuits and chocolate for dessert. Donny and I shared more smokewood. Now and then we added sticks to the fire and the light breathed out and made a circle around us. I love getting away from it all, Mr. Cheetam said.

He tipped back his flask and in the bright curved silver I could see the fire flaming up.

Once upon a time, Mr. Cheetam said, there was a boy and girl who were very much in love.

Where was this? Donny asked.

Oh, Mr. Cheetam said, it doesn’t matter, does it? Love’s the same everywhere you go, so let’s just make up a place.

How about the Eurekan Territory? I said.

Okay, Mr. Cheetam said. The Eurekan Territory, that’s where they were in love. It was a small place, and everybody knew everybody else, so eventually people figured out this boy and girl had a thing going. You know what a thing is, right?

Donny said he did.

Good for you, Mr. Cheetam said. Well, this thing was frowned on by everyone. People took different sides, against the boy, or against the girl, everybody blaming everybody else. But the boy and girl were madly in love and you can’t stop love, not when it’s the real thing.

He went to his pack and pulled out a big bottle and refilled his flask. When he came back he said, You know what that’s like, to have a real thing?

Donny said, Yeah, I know.

I mean really real, Mr. Cheetam said.

How real? I said.

Mr. Cheetam ignored me. To hell with what anybody thinks, these kids, these lovers, said. So one night the boy meets the girl on the edge of town and they drive up a dark winding road to a lovers’ leap. They can see everything from up there, but they’re not looking. No sirree, Bob. The boy and the girl sit in the car, spooning, as we used to call it back in the days — making out, and listening to love songs on the radio, until one of the songs is interrupted by a special bulletin. A prisoner has escaped!

Does the prisoner have hooks instead of hands? I asked.

Yeah, Mr. Cheetam said, that’s the guy.

How’d you know? Donny asked.

I knew because the story wasn’t true. The girl hears something outside, and the boy says, Oh, baby baby, don’t worry, we’re way up here above everything, we’re safe. The boy tries to get at the girl, and the girl keeps hearing something outside, so eventually it’s no fun, and they go home. When the boy opens the door for the girl to drop her out he finds a hook clawing and banging at the door handle, just clinging there, ripped right off the prisoner’s arm. Mr. Cheetam didn’t scare me, but Donny was scared.

We were quiet for a minute, and then I told them about when my dad was driving in his car. The other car came out of nowhere, I said. And my dad was hanging half out the door. His foot was stuck under the clutch and his head was banging on the road. He was dragged about two hundred feet. He was in the hospital for a month. My mom died.

No one said anything, so I added, That’s a true-life story.

You don’t think mine was? Mr. Cheetam asked. He looked at me strangely and winked.

Well, I said, yeah, I do. I know it is. I heard about those lovers before.

Mr. Cheetam stood up, stretched, and fell down. Donny and I looked at each other, then we got in our sleeping bags.

Your dad sure enjoys whiskey, I said.

In the middle of the night, Donny said, Hey, you hear that?

Come off it, I said.

I swear I heard something.

There’s nothing out there, I said, but Donny went over to sleep in his dad’s tent anyway.

We reached a sign that pointed different ways: the High Divide and the Low Divide. We took the high, up and up. There were fewer trees, and we climbed on loose rock called scree, and the air was thinner. Donny had an ugly blister on his heel and complained, and Mr. Cheetam got impatient with him. Just pull yourself up and get going, he said. Don’t fall behind. Finally we crossed a field full of pink and yellow wildflowers, and at the far end, where the path ended, was a lake. The surface was perfectly clear and placid and we could see ourselves.