The Wild Marsh

by Rick Bass

  She was not yet decrepit. She still enjoyed being a dog: being fed and cared for, and wandering her well-worn route, her territory. Being dressed up in bows and dresses by the girls—surely the only coonhound in the world to wear frills. Even now, I'm sad and angry about the injustice of it, the unfairness, though I am also struck by the possibility that the odds were stacked against her from the beginning—that she began her life as an orphan, road dumped along the highway, and that there was or is a force in the world that asked her to end it that way, too, though for whatever purpose or reasons I cannot begin to fathom.

  The strangeness of the world, and all its murmuring cycles, both beautiful and dangerous: she had died not five feet from where her twin sister, Ann, had died, also beneath an automobile, several years earlier, so that it was as if their blood was together again. Ann was buried beneath a grove of aspen trees, beneath a stone in which we had etched the word Bravery —it had been Ann who was always getting into tussles with coyotes, defending hearth and home—and long ago we had decided that when it was Homer's time to go, we would lay her next to Ann, with the word Loyalty scratched on the stone.

  The bridge they build across our hearts: for parts of three decades, that bridge had been crafted, a living and specific thing, like a path or a process. And now that she is gone, the bridge still remains, as ornate and beautiful as ever, though it is no longer living, has forfeited the supple mystery of life, and has instead assumed the durable calcification of myth and memory—the residue of where our love was, the residue of the love we had for her, the residue of sweetness, of loyalty, the residue of a great dog who lived once upon a time.

  I remember a November up here not too long ago in which a young friend of mine, Travis Shearer, son of the great Texas man of letters Bill Shearer, who died from a brain tumor at the age of forty-two—as good and honest and loyal a man as there ever was—decided to come up and visit us over Thanksgiving, the first year after Bill died. There is a particular mountain that is special to me in this valley, a place to go to in times of sickness and sorrow as well as in joy and celebration, a beautiful mountain, and while Bill was sick, I had made many trips up that mountain, thinking of him. I would write to Bill and describe these hikes, and would send him things I'd found on those walks—a feather, a stone, a shed antler, a jar of jam made from huckleberries growing on that mountain—and it was, and is, a powerful and yet reassuring place to think about death, and cycles, surrounded by all the many cycles of wild nature that can still be found in such places. It is a comfort to go into such a place as far as you can, on foot, and no matter whether only fifty or a hundred yards in or all the way to the center, simply knowing that there is a center, and a vastness too, a vastness that will be here longer than any of us, is the comforting thing, not the amount of miles traveled into such a wild place.

  It was Travis's desire to see the mountain I'd been describing to Bill. (It had been one of Bill's desires to see the mountain, and to climb it; to take a picnic on it, with his wife and two daughters and Travis.) And being from the hill country of Texas, Travis was interested also in stomping around in the lowlands, looking for white-tailed deer. He had not been able to get a hunting license in time for this trip, but I still had not yet been gifted with a deer, so that he would be able to participate in that manner: the two of us looking for and hopefully finding a deer, which I might then be able to take and which the two of us could then pack out.

  He's a tall, handsome, intelligent young man, with a politeness and a consideration of others that exceed even his father's own substantial courtesy. I believe he was fifteen at the time of this trip, and that it was in '96—the year of the record snow, snow beginning on October sixteenth and falling steadily, heavily, lasting all the way deep into May—twenty feet of snow, here in the Yaak, and a brutal winter on big game, as well as upon the spirits of men, women, and children.

  In November, however, it was still all wonderful, still all bright and new. I picked Travis up in Kalispell—he was flying in from Washington, D.C., where he and some of his classmates had participated in the Close-Up program—and we drove out east, up and over the snowy Divide, and along the incredible Front Range, and then farther east, far out into the prairie, toward Great Falls, where we hunted for pheasants the next afternoon in a howling wind with a chill factor of twenty below. I had neglected to tell Travis what kind of clothes to bring—particularly boots—and so the cold was pretty wretched. The heater in my truck didn't work either, and so for warmth as we drove we took turns sharing my gaunt and shivering great hound, Colter, nudging our frozen feet under his quivering, bony frame.

  At one point we visited with a rancher in one of his outbuildings, where he had a coal fire burning in a metal drum; and hunkered over that fire, still shivering, while the storm raged outside, Travis was astounded that even though he could see the fire and was holding his bare hands as close to it as he dared, he was receiving no warmth from it. I could see in his eyes the surprise, the revelation, that there could be a cold so intense and massive that it could—for a while—defeat even the miracle warmth of spark and flame, and that this was, for him, an almost frightening realization.

  We saw only one pheasant that day, a rooster, which leapt up into the swirling storm about a hundred yards in front of us and then vanished into the storm like a ghost, and at dusk we turned right around and headed back toward the mountains, up and over the pass and into their heart.

  Near the summit of our valley, around three a.m., we encountered a young man wearing only jeans and a jean jacket, shoveling feebly at the snow that had swallowed the front half of his truck. We could tell from his skid marks that he had almost gone over the cliff and down into the Moose Hole, but fate or chance had turned his skid and sent him into the uphill side, into the snowbank where he was now half buried.

  He had been drinking—we could smell the rank, stale odor of all-night liquor on his skin, and in his clothes and his vaporous, volatile breath—and with our truck and tow rope we pulled him free of the snowbank but then told him to sit this one out for a while, to take a nap before attempting to head on down the hill, back into the town of Libby, not just for his own sake but for the sake of anyone else who might be coming his way in those early hours. But he could not be dissuaded and set off again on his foolish way while we headed north, saddened and sobered by his recklessness, and by the waste of his hours.

  The next day, we packed a little lunch and headed up toward the mountain—Bill's mountain—where more than a foot of new snow had fallen. We started up the trail on snowshoes—Travis using them for the first time in his life—and as we trudged upward, I was reminded of what it was like to be fifteen, of what an amazing confluence of strength and inexperience that is, a time and place at which you're physically and intellectually capable of doing almost anything in the world and yet at which almost everything is still—somehow fairly new, if not brand new. A time when every day brings a first. First wild pheasant seen. First look at the Front Range. First snowshoeing trip, first blizzard. And on and on and on. I remembered that, and while I may be mistaken and do not intend or claim to be speaking for Bill, it seemed to me strongly, there on the mountain, that Bill was remembering it too. And again, I could be completely mistaken—this could be only all my own emotion, with no other or outside communication going on whatsoever—but the feeling I got was that Bill was watching, or knowing, and remembering; and that the remembering was causing him something like sadness. Not quite sorrow or sadness, or futility, but something along those lines.

  It might not have been that way at all. It might have been just me feeling that—all me. But I don't think so.

  The relationship doesn't end with death. Anyone who's ever lost someone knows this. The terms of the relationship simply change dramatically—the scale and amplitude, once compressed into the moment of life, are suddenly expanded, as if in a big bang spreading out. A larger cycle of going away and returning is entered, in the relationship. I do believe that w
e will all see each other again, and that there will always still be, even in the brief compression of life, moments in time as well as places on the landscape—unpredictable, and certainly, ungovernable—at which we the living pass through pockets of time or place where the relationship sparks again in a way that impresses itself upon us; that it can be like ascending or descending into a different place, where it is almost as if the departed has never gone away, or as if the departed has returned.

  I hesitate to say this next part, but the feeling I was getting was that Bill wasn't ready for us to get to the top of that mountain; that he had been planning on going up there himself with Travis and the rest of his family for so long that it did not fit the cycle or pattern of—how to say this?—what was right for Bill not to be making this trip, not just in spirit, or in the flesh of his son, but in his own physical body.

  The snow got deeper and deeper. The powder was so deep and cold and dry that our snowshoes weren't working and Travis's Texas boots weren't working, either—his socks kept filling with snow, which the heat of his feet melted, so that the wet socks were sliding then to the bottom of his boots. At one point we sat down on the mountain (dry snow up to our chests), and Travis pulled off his boots and sopping wet socks—his feet were blue and pained—and put on a new dry pair I had in my pack, and I was struck by the strangeness of the image, this young man from Texas sitting barefooted in four feet of snow high in the mountains of northern Montana, in a blizzard. And while we could have pushed on and gained the peak, I asked him if he would mind overmuch waiting and coming back another time—he had his whole life ahead of him—and though he would have pushed on, blue feet and all, he agreed to descend.

  I didn't tell him that I didn't think Bill wanted us to go up there yet, or that I felt like the spirit of Bill was having some mixed feelings, as was I. We just headed back down, frigid and caked with snow, eyebrows rime-crusted and toes and fingers and ears and lips numb: back down to the snow-shrouded truck far below, and then back home, to the warm yellow squares of light and the fire burning in the wood stove.

  The next day was Thanksgiving. Travis and I were up early, making our breakfast and getting a fire going in the wood stove, while the rest of the house slept. It was still snowing hard. We dressed warmly and then went out the back door and walked off into the woods, heavy flakes falling wet against our faces. For a couple of years, I'd been seeing the tracks and scrapes and rubs of a big whitetail down at the bottom of the hill, in another series of marshes similar to the one next to my writing cabin; and not far into our journey, we cut the big buck's tracks and caught the dense, rank smell that told us he was in full rut.

  It wasn't even daylight yet—we were still using our flashlights through the woods—and as we passed through the vertical bars of the old lodgepole forest, following that wandering buck's path, our lights illuminated vertical columns of spinning snowflakes.

  So fresh were the tracks, and so heavy the falling snow, which had not filled or even yet obscured his tracks, that we knew we were right upon him. We hunkered down under the spreading branches of a big spruce tree and waited for the woods to grow light enough to see without a flashlight, and then we started out after him again. The tracking conditions were perfect: we were able to walk quickly but silently.

  For a while, the buck's tracks had snow in them—representing those five or ten minutes we'd sat quietly, waiting for dawn—but then they grew sharp and distinct again and we knew that we were right behind him once more. The slight breeze was in our face, and because we were being silent, and because his tracks were still wandering and unhurried, we were certain that he had no idea we were behind him.

  We were certain that while he was out lollygagging around, wandering through the forest, wearing his great crown of antlers, looking around in the snowstorm for a doe to breed, we would be able to slip right in behind him and take a nice clean shot, and have a big fat buck to drag home on Thanksgiving Day, with the end of the hunting season only a few days away.

  It was incredibly exciting, believing that with each next, silent step we would see him just ahead of us, either paused and looking around, or perhaps simply wandering unaware; and as we followed him farther and deeper into the forest, the tension continued to build and I was very glad that Travis was getting to experience this.

  We followed the deer for nearly two hours and were beginning to learn, even if only subconsciously, the shape and rhythm of him—ducking under the same branches he ducked under, and picking the exact same routes, the same paths and passages that he had chosen—our steps in his steps, like a stream following the valley grooves cut by a glacier, our bodies and our movements adapting to the forest as had his, always following his lead, and in that manner, perhaps, beginning to assume or understand likewise some of his thoughts, or at least his general mood and disposition. And thus it was sometime early into our third hour of trailing him, still only and always but a few moments behind him, that we finally came to understand that which we had heretofore been denying: that he knew we were back there and that we were after him.

  It's one of the oldest lessons in the world: just because a thing cannot be seen, or even heard or smelled or touched or tasted, does not mean it does not exist.

  Gradually we came to understand in following that buck (he was beginning to lead us in wide circles now) that it was a game of cat and mouse; that although he was still out cruising, still looking for does, he was leading us through small open areas so that once he was safely into the woods on the other side he could look back and glimpse us. We began to see from his tracks where he had sometimes ascended a small knoll and paused to look down on us before whirling and bounding off. There would be a telltale divot of snow, or even black earth, in each of these places; but still we pushed on, despite having our cover blown—and again and again, he would eventually slow to a walk, almost a saunter.

  The snow was beautiful. I very much wanted to catch up with this buck. I very much wanted Travis to see this magnificent buck taken, wanted Travis to participate in that.

  I had followed such bucks before and knew that what they often eventually did under such pressure was the not-very-nice thing of searching out another of their kind—a younger buck, usually—and crossing paths with that deer so that the pursuer might then become confused, or even tempted, and follow the new tracks rather than the initial tracks. Bull elk do the same thing, under the same kind of pressure. I whispered to Travis that we might see that happen soon—he looked at me dubiously—but five minutes later, that was what happened, and the realization by Travis of this animal's intelligence, as well as its cool cunning, and its supreme predisposition to keep on living, astounded him.

  We followed him as long as we had time for—another hour, still only moments behind him, but never seeing him—and with a growing sense of frustration, I began to beseech Bill above, whom I was certain was looking down and watching this hunt with extreme interest, for help. I asked him, silently and repeatedly, to use any new intercelestial clout he might have obtained in the afterlife to help deliver this deer to us, for Travis's benefit—for Travis, for Travis—and as we continued on through the snowy forest, hot on the trail of that buck, I felt certain that that wish would be delivered; that as the suspense of this wonderful hunt continued to build, with the smart old buck turning us inside out, our endurance would eventually be rewarded and the hunt would culminate with our being granted an opportunity to take the animal—that the animal himself, under some understanding with Bill, might even finally present himself, or at least the opportunity, to ourselves.

  That was not how it happened. Sometimes it happens in that manner, but not this time. We ran out of time—we had pushed the buck a couple of miles south—and we finally had to turn around and head back through the falling snow to our Thanksgiving feast. I was a little bummed that we had not even seen the deer—toward the end, I had negotiated downward so that all I'd been beseeching Bill for was just a glimpse, so we could see what kind of antler
s the big deer was carrying—but still, it had been one of the most rewarding and satisfying hunts I'd been on, and I knew the same was true for Travis; and I supposed it was a great lesson for him, as well, that even when everything seems to be in your favor, you don't always get the deer. That, in fact, you rarely get the deer.

  We took a shortcut through the woods, triangulating toward home, and got there shortly before the meal was ready. We had other friends staying with us too, and had a big feast, and afterward whiled away the dusk and then the evening lying in front of the fire reading and playing board games while the snow continued to fall. Was it wrong to ask so fervently for that deer when we already had so much—a turkey in the oven, biscuits and sweet potatoes baking, and a chocolate pie on the counter? Perhaps not wrong; but I could see, even then, that the hunt itself rather than the animal had been the great blessing. And that Travis was going to do what his father, his parents, most wanted him to do: to continue living a full and engaged life. The deer didn't matter in the least. Even I could see that.