The floor started to tilt, going vertical on me, and I leaned back against the wall. I couldn’t tell her why I didn’t want to go on the hunt, because everything would come apart.
“I’m going out with Carol, probably won’t be back ’til late. Don’t worry, we’ll take a cab if we drink too much.” She kissed me deeply and held me close. “What’s the matter, honey, still don’t feel good? Why don’t you see a doctor?”
From the window I watched her get in the car. She looked happy. When she’d driven off, I measured away from the window frame along the wall. Then I punched it as hard as I could, breaking through the sheetrock. My hand came out still in a fist, dragging chunks of plaster that fell to the carpet. I licked the re-opened cut on my big knuckle and gradually released the fist. It hurt good. But one of these times my luck would run out, and I’d hit a stud behind the sheetrock.
I patched the hole with joint tape and compound, waited until it dried, and painted it to match the wall. I knew my work; I could hardly find the other places in the walls myself. The vacuum picked up the plaster fragments from the carpet, and the open window let out the latex fumes. Maybe that was why the floor was tilting on me—all those years of breathing paint and clean-up fumes. I decided to see the doctor tomorrow morning; maybe he’d say I was too sick to go hunting.
If not, at noon I’d go meet Davis in the restaurant, to make our plans. If I did go hunting, at least I’d know where he was. As long as I didn’t open it up and could keep patching, it might all hold together. And maybe one time when I checked it wouldn’t be there, like a dream. Be like it was before, with Cindy and I.
Or maybe one of us wouldn’t come back from the hunt.
We camped the first night near a small lake about five miles from the coast. Davis had brought a tent, but I said I wanted to sleep under the stars. The night was cold and clear, and I lay in the bag watching my breath plume toward the sky. I had been born with perfect vision, and spent many a summer night as a kid on our lawn in that Madison suburb looking for constellations and the early satellites. Now, far from any interference from city lights, I could see the universe with clarity and depth. To the north and west the aurora trickled pale green streamers overhead, and in other directions I found familiar constellations as well as star clusters I had never seen. I fell asleep counting satellites passing overhead.
Traveling was easier the second day, further from the coastal underbrush, and after the first good night’s sleep I’d had in days. We skirted the north end of the lake and came to a broad, rocky streambed coming down the valley. The glacier-tinged stream ran low, banks scattered with rotting pink salmon carcasses. We made good time staying on the streambed.
The mountains ahead, which from the sea had looked low and gentle, grew steep and imposing, rising straight out of the valley without foothills. We came within half a mile of the mountain to the south when I spotted white specks in a patch of green, high up.
“Aren’t those goats?”
Davis looked up and I could tell from his silence I was right. A flash of what looked like disappointment crossed his face: that I had been the first to spot game. He reached over his shoulder, unzipped a pack pocket, and took out his binoculars.
“Yeah, but they’re not ours,” he said, after studying them a moment. “I don’t see any real good horns up there.”
“If they’re legal, why go any further?” I wanted to get this over with.
“That’s what everyone else says, so these goats here get picked over every year. The ones we want are back in, near the glacier to the north there.” He pointed to the edge of blue-tinged ice showing from the head of the valley.
Clouds covered the sun by noon. We had made a few miles up the valley, and were looking for a place to climb. Davis kept walking slower, studying the mountain to the north. The glacier at the head of the valley grew larger, filling the top of the steep bowl ahead. If we kept following the stream we’d have no choice but to climb straight up to that mass of ice. Davis finally stopped.
“God, we’d need rock gear for most of this, and all I brought was a hundred feet of climbing ribbon. But it looks like we might be able to walk up here.”
I’d never tried to climb such an abrupt mountain. It started at about forty degrees right out of the stream bank and only seemed to get steeper above the alders. Most of it showed sheer rock face, but the stretch above us held the green of vegetation going up out of sight. A tiny spring ran out of the mountain’s base there, so I filled my water bottle.
“Why bother?’ Davis said. “There’s a snowfield just over the top, according to the map. We should make it before dark.”
I wasn’t so sure, but his canteen was his business. We started up, fighting for a route through the alders.
Just above the trees, below a huge rock sticking like a wart out of the grassy slope, we found the crypt. What I saw, first, was a tattered strip of faded tarp hanging over a low cave at the base of the rock. Stooping carefully under the weight of my pack, I looked inside. A corroded pack-frame lay near the entrance of the shallow cave. As my eyes adjusted, I saw a human skull and bones lying in the back.
“Jesus—” I started to say.
“God, look at those horns!” Davis shook loose of his pack and crawled into the cave. He came out just as quickly, dragging something. “This ain’t a goat, it’s a damned African oryx!”
I didn’t know much about goats, but this one’s horns and skull looked huge, and oddly misshapen; instead of running straight back from the nose, the cranium bulged behind the horns, canting them forward slightly.
“Can I pick a hunting spot, or what?” Davis said.
“There’s a dead man back there, Rick.” Reluctantly, I shed my own pack and crawled in, careful of where I placed my hands. There’s something disturbing about touching an old animal bone, as if your skin fears the contagion of death; I knew human bones would be worse. Less than half the man’s skeleton was there, the rest probably scattered by animals. A few rusted camping implements lay in the leaves and debris on the floor, but every bit of fabric must have rotted away or been taken by ground squirrels to line their nests. The air smelled dank and musty, and I wanted out of there very badly.
I was backing away when I noticed the scratching on the rock face above the skull. I rubbed away the lichen cover until I could read:
CUB BLOWN OFF MOUNTAIN ONTO GLACIER BRUNNER KILLED OFF CLIFF BY DEVILS I GOT HORNED IN THE GUT CANT WALK GUESS DAMN DEVILS GOT ME TOO
SEP 14 ’67 JONATHAN HAYES
“Hayes was a guide,” Davis said, when I was back outside. “I think I read about him. He disappeared with a client in his Super Cub. Everyone figured it was just another plane crash no one would ever find.”
“What do you think he meant about ‘devils’?”
“He must have fallen on this trophy he took, and got delirious before he died. A gut wound like that would cause a raging infection. What a way to go.”
“We’d better get out of here and report this.”
“Hell, we can do that after the hunt. He’s been here twenty-five years, another week won’t hurt him.”
I now had a good reason to call off the hunt, and we argued for some time. But Davis was unrelenting, and eventually I gave up; we shouldered our packs and continued the climb.
I didn’t look at him or think about anything but the steady toil, where I’d next put my feet or hands. We had trouble getting toeholds in the slick grass, and whenever I slipped I usually wound up grabbing hold of a thorn bush. By late afternoon the air grew still under the clouds, and we were attacked by small biting flies, red bodies showing like dull rubies under flat wings. The only way to swat them, hanging on to the mountain, trying to climb, was to wait until several started feasting on my hand, then smash them against my forehead. The flies stayed with us until the temperature dropped at dusk.