‘Yes.’
‘What do you call it? I mean its secret name.’
‘Well,’ Daniel stalled, ‘it’s sort of ridiculous.’
‘Let me judge that. I’m an expert.’
‘I call him “Mudflaps.”’
Wild Bill laughed helplessly, catching his breath only long enough to shriek in delight, ‘Mudflaps! Mud … Flaps.’
‘I’m glad you find me so amusing,’ Daniel said.
Collapsing to his knees, Wild Bill managed to gasp, ‘Me too.’
Daniel turned and walked out the door.
The next day Daniel ignored Wild Bill. He did his meditations and his work, but with an air of bored efficiency and chilly indifference. That night Wild Bill surprised him again.
‘Three holy men were traveling together. One was an Indian yoga, one a Sufi dervish, one a Zen monk. In the course of their journey, they came to a small river. There had been a bridge, but it had washed out in the winter flood. ‘Let me show you two how to cross a river,’ the yogi said – and damned if he didn’t walk across it, right on top of the water. ‘No, no, that’s not the way,’ the dervish said. ‘Let me show you guys.’ He starts whirling in a circle, faster and faster until he’s a blur of concentrated energy and all of sudden – bam! – he leaps across to the other side. The Zen monk stood there shaking his head. ‘You fools,’ he said, ‘this is how to cross the river.’ And with that, he hiked up his robes and, feeling his way carefully, waded across.’
Daniel waited.
‘Now the night’s question is this: What’s the point of that story?’
Daniel said without hesitation, ‘The river.’
Wild Bill looked startled. ‘Maybe,’ he said. He considered a moment and then repeated, ‘Maybe.’
Daniel said, ‘Volta claims that’s high praise from you.’
‘He does, huh?’ Wild Bill said distractedly. ‘You know, I should piss you off more often.’ He smiled. ‘Mudflaps. It’s all I could do to keep from laughing all day.’
Daniel smiled with him.
The next morning Wild Bill surprised Daniel yet again, announcing, ‘It’s my turn to quit. Actually, I’m going on vacation for awhile, which means you’re on vacation too – free to do whatever you want as long as you pull your weight on the ranch.’
‘I must have done really well or horribly poor last night,’ Daniel said, finding himself unsettled by the sudden changes.
‘Naw, you’re just ready for other angles, and we’re both tired and need to unbend. Like it says in the book, “Take care, from time to time, to unbend your mind from its sterner employments with some convenient recreation, otherwise your spirits may be weighed down, and you might lose heart for the continuation of the work.”’
‘What book is that from?’
‘The Ordinal of Alchemy.’
Playfully, Daniel said, ‘I didn’t even know you could read.’
‘Used to all the time, but I started losing heart so bad I almost destroyed myself on the “convenient recreations.”’
‘Are you going to see Volta?’
‘I hope not,’ Wild Bill said. ‘Jenny Sue is more like it.’
An hour later Wild Bill set out down the dirt road, his banged-up rucksack on his back, humming a marching song for the occasion, a lyric that made up in heartfelt emotion what it lacked in scansion:
Jenny Sue, ooooooo Jenny Sue,
Ain’t nothing in this whole gloriously sweet and delightful world
That little gal won’t do …
In Wild Bill’s absence, Daniel, like most students, screwed off. He converted the morning and dream meditations into sleep, and the evening meditation was reformed into fishing. In his free time he tied trout flies, read among his promiscuous selections from the library, or played cribbage with Owen. May warmed into June and June drowsed into July without word from Wild Bill. Then, on the fourth of August, what was left of him returned.
Daniel grimaced when he opened his cabin door and saw Wild Bill sagging against the frame. Both eyes were black, his left ear hideously swollen, a front tooth was chipped, and there was a neat row of stitches above his left eye.
‘Holy shit,’ Daniel blurted. ‘What happened?’
‘Aww,’ Wild Bill mumbled, ‘bunch of guys stomped the piss outa me.’
‘Why?’
‘’Cause that’s what I was trying to do to them.’
‘What about Jenny Sue or whatever her name is – your girlfriend?’
‘Last time I looked, she was helping them.’
‘Do you want me to take you in to the hospital?’
Wild Bill touched the stitches on his forehead. ‘I just got out.’
‘You want to come in and lay down? You look like you could use some rest.’
‘Kid, any more rest would fucking kill me. Pack up whatever you plan to live on till next spring. We’re going to the mountains.’ He reached into his shirt pocket with a scab-knuckled hand. ‘Here’s a list of stuff you’ll probably need. Another thing – we ain’t comin’ back for visits, so you’re not gonna be hearing from Volta or anyone else. You can call Volta tomorrow to see if there’s any news. You’ll be wasting your dime,’ cause you’d of heard if anything was happening. If you don’t want to go, I’ll go without you and we’ll call the teaching done. If you want to go, be ready in the morning.’
‘What about Owen and Tilly? They need a hand around here.’
‘There’ll be folks along to take care of that.’
‘Why the mountains? Are we hiding out?’
Wild Bill snapped, ‘No. We’re getting serious.’
His vehemence startled Daniel. He didn’t reply.
‘You want Volta’s numbers or not?’
‘No,’ Daniel said, ‘it’s okay.’
‘Get shaggin’ then. I want to get the fuck out of here.’
‘Not till you tell me what happened. What the fight was about.’
‘No secret. I said the bottle never ran dry. The bartender and his buddies said it did.’
‘I guess it did, huh?’
‘No shit,’ Wild Bill said. ‘Always.’
Tilly drove them north the next morning to the Huta Point trailhead at the edge of the Yolla Bolly Wilderness. Along the way she and Wild Bill figured out the resupply plans, deciding on a monthly interval, with the food and equipment to be cached in two metal footlockers near the old crossing on Balm of Gilead Creek. She hugged them briefly in farewell. Tilly was the last human being Wild Bill and Daniel would see for six months – besides each other, of course. They would see plenty of each other.
Daniel followed Wild Bill down and then up dark slopes of old-growth Douglas fir. He refused to ask where they were headed. Wild Bill didn’t offer a destination. He remained uncommonly silent, applying his breath to the trek, maintaining a steady pace.
They camped that night on the Middle Fork of the Eel. Each had brought his own tent. Wild Bill had explained, ‘I hired on to teach you, not sleep with you. And anyway, I’ve been known to do some late-night meditating that your snoring wouldn’t encourage.’
They finished pitching their tents as the last light faded. Daniel, ravenous, was eager for dinner, but Wild Bill told him that they hadn’t done their sunset meditation, which they were now adding to the other three. Its purpose was simply to sit and let the river roll. While he was on the subject, he informed Daniel that meditations, by ancient tradition, were doubled in duration while in the mountains.
‘That’s six hours a day!’
‘Eight for me. I normally do a half-hour at midnight and another at two. You probably should be doing eight hours yourself, but I’m easy.’
‘Does the question-time get doubled to ten minutes?’
Wild Bill ignored the sarcasm. ‘No. Five minutes is already too much work.’
Daniel had tried not to anticipate the question, but he had assumed it would be perceptual, not personal, and was caught slightly off guard when Wild Bill poked the fire and said, ‘Why haven’t you asked where we’re going?’