A Gentleman’s Correspondence
Louis Schellbach sits in his study at home and meditates on the Texas longhorn skull above his desk. It seems to resemble him in ways he never considered before, in ways he was blind to. What brings a man to fruition is neither ordinary nor extraordinary—bones, flesh, blood, and a riot of chemicals. He must admit, the same can be said for this cow.
Before him lies a pile of old correspondence, a stack of carbon copies that his job this morning is to read and discard with a ruthlessness to which he is not suited. His wife, Ethyl, is taken with the notion of running a tight ship. He’s tried to argue that her ship and his are two different vessels, that she commands the navy while he’s just a fisherman hauling in his nets. But as she points out, his nets tend to drift beyond the bounds of his study, so an innocent guest searching for jam might come upon a dead snake stored in the icebox. What that has to do with a clean desk, he’s not entirely certain, but in order to maintain peace in the region, he has chosen this day to sit and review his past. The fact that the past can be so easily removed—a toss into the wastebasket—intrigues him. Is it really so?
At the top of the pile is a letter from the great naturalist John Garth, who named a butterfly for him, Speyeria atlantis schellbachi . Some day it will be said, Schellbach muses, that he left a trace of himself in the world of butterflies, though the truth is quite the opposite—those evanescent creatures have filled his days for as long as he can remember, and all but carried him on their wings. They know what sort of man he is. He loves his wife and a mule named Dark Eyes. He’s curious about every living thing, as well as rocks, weather, water, and briarwood pipes. There is only one area that holds no interest for him whatsoever, which he assiduously avoids: the realm of human psychology. And tragedy in particular. Unlike Ethyl, who attracts the downtrodden, the trials and tribulations of his fellow human beings largely pass him by. He does not sightsee nor rubberneck should he happen to encounter another man’s misfortune. He has two children, two boys, and knows in a little-used part of his brain that planted in his sons are innumerable adolescent misfortunes, from which all the butterflies in the world cannot save him.
The next letter causes him to pause as he revisits the state of agitation in which it was composed, as well as the balky U key on his old Royal typewriter:
Dear Mr. Dunhill,
It is with great sadness and regret that I write to you today to inform you of the death of your brother, Lowell. He died in an accident while serving the park he loved so well. All of us here at Grand Canyon mourn him as our own, and take comfort only in the fact that he died in the place where he was happiest, surrounded by the natural beauty he gave his life to protect. He was an accomplished photographer and a great outdoors-man, admired by all. We shall miss him. As we have no knowledge of Lowell’s wishes for burial, please advise about these matters with due haste. My deepest sympathies go out to you and your family at this time.
Stapled to the first is a second letter:
Dear Mr. Owen Dunhill,
Allow me to extend my sympathy to you at this unfortunate time. I am certain you are reeling from the shock of your brother’s death, as are we here at Grand Canyon. Regretfully, we still have no instructions as to the disposal of his body and feel it outside the bounds of our jurisdiction to make such decisions, which are rightfully the family’s. It is with some urgency, therefore, that I write to request once again that you make your wishes known to us, so we may do everything within our power to lay your brother’s body to rest in the way you deem suitable.
That was a disagreeable business if there ever was one. It was the summer of 1938, his first season as chief park naturalist. He was new and green, yet from the evidence in his hand, tactful as a man could be. Had he abandoned diplomacy and said it straight, it might have sounded like this: “Dunhill, you fool! Death isn’t pretty. Come and get the poor soul, come and bury your brother. Have you no human decency? A man like Lowell deserves a better lot!” But the family never came, never uttered a peep, and the very next day the unclaimed body walked out of the house, Schellbach’s own house, and disappeared! Not a sign, not a trace, no twenty-one guns, no flag-draped coffin—Lowell had his way even in death. If the sheriff knew of a corpse gone missing, he decided against the paperwork, and the county coroner was a sad Norwegian on a bender. Schellbach diligently hopes (though he fears otherwise) that the whole unsavory mess hasn’t come back to haunt them. He has his own theories about the skeleton in Emery Kolb’s garage, theories founded on things he doesn’t believe in, like intuition.
What he remembers most about that summer of 1938, before the incident, is the appearance of a comic-book character, a recent immigrant from the planet Krypton, a young fellow by the name of Superman. Plagued by insomnia, Schellbach would make his way to the kitchen in the wee hours of the morning, drink a glass of milk, and eat a plate of cookies while he pored over his son’s Action Comics. There was something fresh and raw in those pages that he found nowhere else in his life, not even out in the field. It was a guilty pleasure he sought, as he had once sought romance, though soon enough the guilt disappeared, leaving in its place a simple enjoyment, a rest and reassurance found only in the company of fallible superhe roes. And then one day, as if to test his powers, the pack mules hauled up something other than garbage and dirty linens from Phantom Ranch. It lay in the mule barn, a recognizable human shape wrapped in a sheet. By the time he got there the stench was unmistakable.
As he backed the car to the door of the barn to retrieve the body, Schellbach reviewed his rationale for this course of action and found it to be sound. There was no good reason to leave the poor man here. In Schellbach’s home, packed in ice, the bundle (easier to call it that) might happily await the vultures of law enforcement whose probing and prodding, slicing and eviscerating would confirm what he already knew: identity and cause of death. He knew both without having laid eyes on the man. Accelerating cautiously backward, he wondered at the circumstances that made him, Louis Schellbach, what he was—Homo sapiens, living and breathing—while the other fellow was suddenly a bundle. The answer was love, the circumstances of love. But might he not have done the same, followed his heart—unto death if necessary? Certainly had he been a bachelor, in the days when he was Don Juan Schellbach . . . But wasn’t every man, married or unmarried, prone to the same appetites? And apparently some women as well? (He still found it troubling, the identity of the woman involved.) What was it that made one man resist the onslaught of love and another succumb to it? And who was the better man in the end, the resister or the succumber? Which one would evolution smile upon, the living celibate or the dead lover? Or perhaps there was a narrow path in between, where walked the gentleman.
His breakfast suddenly pirouetted in his stomach—two eggs over easy and a buttered English muffin with marmalade—as Oliver Hedquist, of all people, loomed in the rearview mirror. “Another two meters, Louie!” he called hoarsely, motioning the car back. “That’s it. That’s it. Stop ’er right there!”
Schellbach got out and slowly closed the car door. “Oliver.” He nodded. Hedquist nodded back. “What brings you here to the mule barn?”
Hedquist held out a bunch of carrot tops. “Just saying hello to a friend of mine.”
“Not Dark Eyes.”
“Howdy is the poor creature’s ignominious name.”
“I see. Well, I’m afraid there’s been some trouble.”
“I should say so,” said Hedquist.
“The wrangler came and got me at the house.”
“I was here when he brought the . . . when he brought him up.”
“Did he tell you the circumstances?” asked Schellbach.
“Just that he found the fellow washed up on the beach under the bridge. Hard to say what happened.”
Schellbach nodded, then loosened his tie and stepped inside the barn. A terrible syrupy odor came to him, mixed with the sweet smell of hay. The bundle lay on the floor, where a large tomcat was sni
ffing the length of it. He shooed it away and stepped outside again. “Anyone else in on this?” he asked.
“In on it?”
“Has anyone else been by? Seen the . . . er . . . evidence?”
Hedquist shook his head. “No one’s been here. Just me and the mules. But I don’t know where the wrangler’s gone to. He’s an unstable sort of character, that Amadeo.”
“He’s waiting at the house.”
“Your house?”
“To help me lift the fellow in.”
“In? You’re taking him to your home?” asked Hedquist, startled.
“Ethyl’s away.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“The children are with her.”
“I would expect it.”
“Listen,” said Schellbach. “I don’t have much choice, do I? I can’t leave him here to rot, and I can’t very well drag him into the office, can I? He’s in a delicate state. He might lose an arm or a leg. At any moment his head might fall off. Why, the smell’s enough to—Do you see?”
“Well, of course, but I—”
“And what makes it worse is that we all know the individual.”
“How can that be? You haven’t even looked under his wraps!”
Schellbach sighed. “I don’t pay much attention to cries for help, I’m afraid. I leave that to Ethyl. This time I wish I had. Lowell Dunhill would be alive now.”
“Dunhill!” Hedquist exclaimed. “How could it be Dunhill? He’s the most experienced ranger we have—in the outdoors and all. Not a likely one to end up in the river. Not Dunhill.”
“I’m afraid, yes. Dunhill.”
“But that’s impossible. I don’t believe you.” Hedquist took a deep breath. “I’ll look for myself.”
Schellbach did not try and stop him but instead walked away and readied the backseat of the car. When he returned to the barn, the look on Hedquist’s face was one of horror and disbelief. The bundle lay with the head exposed, covered with flies. It was, of course, Dunhill.
“A terrible thing,” said Hedquist, “the way a man’s face changes in death.”
“It’s no longer his,” said Schellbach. “Help me with this, will you?”
Together they lifted the body into Schellbach’s car. It did not fit across the seat, and to have the feet hang out the window was out of the question. In the end they wired the door shut.
“But how did you know it was he?” asked Hedquist.
“He told me,” said Schellbach.
“Look here, I don’t believe in ghosts, the talking dead—none of that nonsense.”
“Oh, he was quite alive when he said it.”
“I don’t follow.”
Schellbach took his pipe from the glove case of the car and slowly filled it with tobacco. “Lowell was alone so much of his life. His great companion was his camera. He didn’t understand life—and love—as a game, the way most of us do. If it was a game, it was a very serious one, and he felt, I believe, that he was beginning to lose the game and he had no solution but to remove himself from it.”
“So he—”
“Yes. There’s a sheep trail down to the river just above Grapevine Rapid. That’s where he often went to think things over, and that’s where I believe he did it. He always said that’s what he’d do, throw himself in above a big rapid and let the river do the rest.”
“Am I to understand there were . . . women involved?”
“A woman, yes.”
“How extraordinary. I guess I . . . well, I suppose I didn’t know the man worth a hill of beans.”
“He was hard to know. I don’t know that any of us really knew him. I had the impression that, being a trim fellow, his heart was too big for his body. It certainly outweighed his sense.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time a man’s lost his head to a woman.”
“But his life,” sighed Schellbach. “I must ask you not to tell anyone, Oliver. Not just yet.”
“Of course not.”
“I’ll want to notify the family. I know there’s a brother.”
“Of course. Mum’s the word.”
But by the end of the afternoon the news had spread all over the village: Lowell Dunhill was dead. The source of this information wasn’t Oliver but Amadeo, whose cowboy tongue loosened considerably when indulging in alcohol. The minute Dunhill’s remains clunked onto the table in Louis Schellbach’s laboratory, the wiry little wrangler turned and fled the house. Soon enough everyone in the cowboy dorm was saturated with cheap whiskey and hearing the grisly tale for the nth time. By evening rumor had created several bodies on the beach below the bridge, many of them disfigured, their faces clawed and mutilated, their bodies hacked at—clear evidence of cannibalism. And Schellbach, knowing better than to fight the swift onslaught of a tall tale, instead let it exhaust itself and limp on to its own demise—a strategy for which he was rewarded. Within a day, equilibrium had been accomplished and grieving had begun. Shortly after that, Lowell Dunhill had roused himself from death, it seemed, and disappeared, taking his body with him.
Suddenly weary, feeling wrapped in a kind of mothball stupor, the park naturalist drops the Dunhill correspondence in the wastebasket and rises from his desk. The past feels like a heavy, choking thing, not easily disposed of, and he allows himself to wonder once again: where are the bones, the flesh, the blood that made up that man?
A Packet of Liverwurst
Every July the Hedquists pack the car with sleeping bags, cots, mattresses, an old Army tent, the camp stove, pots and pans, plates, cups, utensils, kerosene lanterns, canned food and staples, jugs of water, and extra gasoline, and off they go to the North Rim to live in the woods for a week. Jane is curious about the North Rim. It sounds so arctic, so far away, and besides, she has looked out across the canyon and seen it shrouded with mist or hovering behind a thick pall of smoke, and it is all such a mystery. She has informed the Hedquists she would like to walk around inside that mystery, if they are willing to include her. Oliver and Dotty at once say yes. Oliver, on his part, likes Jane very well but his excitement further rises when he thinks of having another net along—and not just any net, for Jane, in a remarkably short time, has become an enthusiastic butterfly collector of admirable skill. Dotty has her own reasons for welcoming her sister-in-law on this year’s journey. She often feels lonely out in the woods, for she doesn’t have the interests Oliver has, and she could use the company. Her interests are at home, in the garden, which she hates to leave for any length of time. Who will mulch and fertilize and do the watering? It all must be arranged in advance, and there is no one she can count on, except perhaps Amadeo.
The household is in a flurry of preparation. Jane is sent to the store for lunch meat, coffee, and cheese. Dotty adds sugar, flour, and frankfurters to the list. Oliver would like marshmallows and a good supply of candy bars. Off goes Jane, every day more wedded to her hat, the ample shade of its brim a reassuring presence. She’s on her bicycle (she’s come to think of it as hers), an empty rucksack on her back for bringing home the groceries. Halfway along the road to Babbitt Brothers she stops, as she always does, to gaze at the canyon, to judge its mood, perhaps, or discover her own mood reflected by it—Narcissus and his pool. Today it’s a dramatic sight, the clouds gathering thickly to the north in long dark columns. As she watches, a thin silver line of lightning jumps from cloud to cloud—a hairline crack moving outward. She feels the wind pick up, a pressure in the air. Yet above her the sky is clear and untouched. A marvel.
Her first stop is the post office, where she collects the Hedquists’ mail and sends off her weekly letter to Morris. She can’t help but notice that her epistles have lost their verve, their vigor, and perhaps their vim as well. At first she wrote to her husband daily, recounting in great detail how the hours were spent, what was eaten at each meal, what was said, where her bicycle had carried her, and whom she’d met. She had a vague sense she might be boring Morris to tears. He, on his part, telephoned twice a week from the of
fice, a two-minute call that assured little time for anything but news of the dog—Martin, it seemed, was now running the household. And though he continues to call, she feels a slight unraveling of their connection. Perhaps he’s put her aside in order to tolerate her absence. This makes him gruff and unapproachable on the telephone, which does nothing to bring them closer. “A sad state of affairs,” sighs Jane Merkle. Though common enough in a marriage.
Today Dotty has a letter from a Mrs. T. E. Gastrofoil of West Branch, Iowa, which Jane recalls, from an article in National Geographic Magazine, is the birthplace of Herbert Hoover. What an odd and useless thing to remember! Mrs. Gastrofoil may well be a descendent of the unlucky president, whose name inspires thoughts of hobos and the electric carpet sweeper. Does a person in this position take pride in the ancestor or hide behind the name Gastrofoil? Jane herself was a Yarborough of no fame at all, nor infamy, Jane Meese Yarborough in her larval stage, as Oliver would put it, pupating as Jane Yarborough Merkle. Though pupation, she has learned, is a sort of live mummification, an immobile, nonfeeding state before emergence. Is this the truth, then? She has not yet emerged? She laughs out loud at the thought. Almost twenty-six years old and married to Morris? She feels positively long in the tooth!
The Butterflies of Grand Canyon Page 8