by Ryan Gebhart
“So maybe we won’t have to go all the way to Hackamore?”
“They don’t come out to feed in the brush until sunrise and sunset. We want to get to Hackamore by six. That will be our best bet to snag our bull.”
Out here, Gene seems more himself, more alert. He knows everything about this country, and that’s one of the things that’s making me not have a full-fledged panic attack.
Actually, it’s the only thing.
We find our way back onto a trail and head toward the valley. The trail disappears into a thicket of trees.
“We’re going in there?” I say.
He turns his head and glances at me from the corner of his eye. He doesn’t say a word.
I go, “If we run into Sandy, we can shoot her, right? Like, if she’s coming to attack us?”
“Last I checked, killing a grizzly bear is a federal offense.”
“But that’s for sport. What if our lives are in danger?”
“Tell it to the courts. They’re on the endangered-species list. If you kill a grizzly, you can get a year in prison and a fifty-thousand-dollar fine. You gotta leave the killing to the Forest Service.”
“Well, I’m shooting anyway. I’d rather be in prison for a year than in a bear’s stomach.”
“They have a saying out here — if you’re going to shoot a grizzly, make sure you have six bullets in your gun. Five for the bear, and one for yourself.”
The dark timber swallows us whole.
Every sound in these woods is a bear. A twig snaps beneath the horses’ hooves — that’s a bear. Gene coughs — another bear. That mockingbird chirping in the trees? Nope, that’s a grizzly bear chirping in the trees.
We reach another clearing, a creek to our right, and just beyond that is a mountainside with burned and fallen trees and some small trees emerging from the thin layer of snow.
“What happened there?” I say.
“That’s Burnt Ridge. A forest fire burned down the mountainside.”
Our horses stop and cock their heads. With Crazy Eyes looking the way she does, I can’t tell whether or not she’s nervous.
“Did you hear that?” Gene says.
“No.”
“You didn’t hear that roar? Oh, man. There’s a bear just on the other side of the ridge.” He kicks his horse. “Come on. Let’s keep moving.”
Is he toying with me? No, Gene wouldn’t do that. Besides, the horses heard it, too. My ears must not be tuned right. But if there really is a bear, how can Gene be so calm? I mean, there are a million places where one could hide.
Somewhere in this sagebrush, a couple from Ohio was asleep when Sandy tore down their tent. We could be riding over the very place where they died.
I look for bear tracks.
We cross another creek. The horses seem to know the shallowest path, but they’re still up to their bellies and splashing water onto my boots.
“This is Purdy, right, Gene?”
“You’re catching on.”
“So what else is out here besides bear and elk?”
“Oh, lots of stuff. There’s moose and deer and even a wolf pack that runs around in these parts. There used to be hundreds, then they got hunted to nothing. The Park Service reintroduced them in ninety-five.”
“Are they dangerous?”
“Nah, they don’t like humans. Consider yourself fortunate if you ever run into a wolf. They’re very hard to come by. One thing you need to be afraid of more than the bears are moose.”
“Really?”
“They’ll pummel you into the ground until there’s nothing left.” And then he responds to my silence with “They don’t call this the wilderness for nothing.”
Something meaty, funky, and awful is in the air.
“You smell that?” I say.
Gene turns to me and puts his index finger to his mouth.
Oh, man. He smells it, too.
My pulse thuds in my ears. Can a thirteen-year-old have a heart attack?
Gene gets off his horse and throws a pack over his shoulder. He points to the top of the bare hill to our left.
“What is it?” I whisper.
He comes over to me. “Grab your rifle. We’re going on foot from here.”
“But what’s that smell?”
“Elk musk. There must be a whole herd.”
Gene doesn’t want to spook the elk if they’re on the other side of the hill, so we tie our horses to the nearest trees and go on foot. I hope they’ll still have their heads when we return.
I’m exhausted just looking at the hill — it must be a quarter mile to the top. I sling my rifle over my shoulder and follow Gene’s lead.
He goes, “At least we didn’t have to go all the way out to Hackamore, huh?”
The more we climb, the bigger the hill gets. The air is thin, and it doesn’t take long until I’m heaving and panting through my teeth. My thighs are burning, like I’m in gym class doing wall-sits. My chest aches, my calves are trembling, my stomach muscles burn, and for some random reason, even my shoulders hurt.
I take another look up to see how far we’ve come. We’re not even halfway to the top.
I can’t wuss out now. Gene just got all the blood pumped out of his body yesterday. What excuse do I have?
Out here, I have to be like Gene, because cereal-eating and video-game-playing Tyson won’t cut it.
I know it’s a bad idea, but I have to look again.
We made it?
I want to shout for joy, but I fall into the sagebrush, my chest heaving against the ground.
“Tyson,” Gene says.
Every word is a struggle to get out. “Shouldn’t you be whispering?”
“The elk aren’t here. We’ll stick around and wait for sunset. They’ll be back.” He holds out a hand and helps me sit up. “Hopefully.”
Whoa. From up here, it’s like I can see all the never-ending Wyoming wilderness. Purdy is as thin as a strand of angel-hair pasta, and the bare hilltops and the tree-filled valleys look pale, like when the color filter on my TV is turned down. And the sky is so much bigger than the sky back home. But why is that? It’s the same sky.
This is the elks’ home. And the bears’ home. This is why we lied to my parents and why we pruned and why Gene was willing to shell out thousands of dollars.
It’s not like I haven’t traveled before. I’ve seen the Pacific Ocean and the fantasy-world trees of Sequoia National Forest. But the whole time, either Dad would be taking pictures or Mom would be making sure me and Ashley were wearing enough layers, and it was all so . . . safe. I always knew the SUV and my PlayStation PSP were waiting in the parking lot.
But today, it’s just me, an old man, and Mother Nature.
“This is unreal,” I say, catching my breath. “We climbed this high?”
Gene unzips his pack and hands me a sandwich wrapped in plastic, a small bag of chips, and a Coke. He says, “Pretty cool, ain’t it?”
“Man, this is amazing.”
He takes a bite of his sandwich and says, “I’m really glad you came out here. Hunting is a dying sport. All you kids nowadays are used to your food packaged up at the grocery store and your nature on television.”
I nod. I’m just trying to take this all in.
He says, “Meatballs don’t grow on trees. An animal has to die.” With pride in his eyes, he says, “I’m so glad you’re going to experience that. To the Shoshone Indians, the elk symbolized stamina, freedom, and nobility. It is a great honor to kill an elk, and I want you to appreciate that.”
“I do, Gene. But . . . meatball trees?”
“Don’t you remember when you were nine and you planted your grandmother’s meatballs? You were trying to grow a meatball tree.”
“Oh, yeah. It didn’t grow. That was right after she died, wasn’t it?”
“She made spaghetti the night before she had the stroke, and she put the leftovers in the freezer. You loved her meatballs so much and you knew no one would ever make them like she
did.”
“I remember you helped me water it.”
He laughs. “Your father must have thought we were nuts.”
“You really loved her.”
He’s smiling, and this isn’t the same person I saw by himself and all skinny in the nursing home. This is the guy I grew up with, the guy who would finish Grandma’s crossword puzzles and get annoyed at her for taking forever to open her Christmas presents. His eyes get deep and young-looking and he says, “You know she hunted with me for twenty-some-odd years?”
“No way. Grandma was a hunter?”
“She had a shot like you wouldn’t believe.”
Maybe it is in my blood, then.
He says, “She came up with the bear swear. I promised her we’d come out here every year, and I always kept my word.”
After I’ve finished my lunch, I lay Gene’s cowboy hat on the snow and pick at a sagebrush plant between my feet.
“Hey, Gene? So what’s the deal with my real grandfather? Dad didn’t want to talk about him.”
“That’s because Lawrence was a bad person. He did not treat your family well.”
“Lawrence? That’s his name?”
“Your grandma was the secretary for Henry Feed and Tractor. When she came into work with bruises on her face, I called the police. Lawrence had a trailer on his property where he was cooking meth. The judge sent him to prison for twenty years.”
“My grandfather was a meth head?”
Gene nods.
“Ha. Wow. That explains a lot.”
“When I met your father, he was eight years old, and boy, was he a timid kid. It took some time for him to warm up to me. I found out Lawrence had abused him.”
“He what?”
“One time he got sent to the hospital for a broken arm because Lawrence pushed him down the staircase.”
This is a joke. I mean, it has to be a joke and I want to laugh, but my chest sinks low and I feel dirty and strange knowing this about Dad. But Gene isn’t joking. I will never look at Dad the same way again.
I say, “Is that why you guys didn’t tell me about . . . you know. You.”
He sighs. “You’re a lot like your father — thoughtful, caring —”
“You mean weak.”
“I mean you both have big hearts. Christ, the biggest of hearts. Saying you’re like your dad isn’t a bad thing. I meant it as a compliment. Family means a lot to you. I don’t know many children who’d consider a guy like me as a friend. That is, except for your dad. When he was your age, he called me his best friend, too. He didn’t want to ruin that for you.”
As dorky and as lame as he is, I actually have a really good dad. He loves Gene; he loves Mom and Ashley and me. Not everyone can say that. Some people have horrible dads.
I say, “I, uh . . . I was talking to Dad the other day and I mentioned home dialysis.”
“That’s expensive, Tyson.”
“I know. But, you know, what if we sold the house and all moved into a small apartment together?”
He smiles. “You’d have to share a room with Ashley. Are you willing to make that kind of sacrifice?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, how many people in a nursing home can still ride horseback and hunt elk? You don’t belong there. Please, let’s sell the house and get you the machine.”
He shakes his head. “I owe more on the house than it’s worth. Believe me, your father and I looked at all my options. Sunrise Village is what we can afford.”
I don’t really know what to say. Or think. I’m not sad or upset anymore. I just feel . . . old. Like one day all of this is going to happen to me.
The sun falls below a hill, and a really cold wind hits me. I look down at our horses, and from up here they’re the size of those plastic cowboy and Indian toys Grandma used to get me. But in the clearing on the opposite side, something big is lurking in the sagebrush.
Gene whispers, “Crouch down. Get your rifle ready.”
I’m squinting, but I can’t make out what kind of beast that is. “What is it?”
“A six-point.”
I’m lying on the ground. The butt of my rifle is pressed firmly against my shoulder, and I switch off the safety. Through my magnifying scope, I see more elk step out of the woods. First dozens and then hundreds. I’ve never seen so many animals together like this. These giant deer look mythical; they make me feel like I’ve stepped into a fantasy world. They look nothing like the computer-generated images in Great American Hunter 5.
This is incredible.
“Get a six-point,” Gene whispers, lying on the ground ten feet from me. “Shoot him right in the shoulder.”
But I can’t. These elk are way cooler than I could ever be.
This is what Gene waits for every year. We came out here to kill a beautiful animal.
“No. You go first,” I say.
“Don’t chicken out now.”
“I’m not.”
“Come on, they’re two hundred yards away.”
I search through the herd and find a huge bull in the middle of a bunch of elk cows. I count his points. Six. He’s what we came here for.
I adjust myself, steadying my rifle in the dirt. The bull is in the center of my crosshairs.
Gene says, “What are you waiting for?”
If I want to be a real hunter, I shouldn’t be hiding in the shrub two hundred yards away with a rifle. No, we should be duking it out in hand-to-hoof combat to see who truly is the stronger animal.
“Tyson!”
My finger tightens and I fire, the butt of my rifle hitting my shoulder.
The six-point jerks his head up and takes off into the clearing, a blur among the rest of the stampede.
“I got him!” A shot of adrenaline and regret empties into my blood. My hands are tingling and my ears are ringing, and whether or not I should have killed the elk doesn’t matter. ’Cause I did it.
“Shoot him again!”
“What? Why?”
“You hit him in the gut.”
“So?”
Gene fires into the air and my bull changes course.
He says, “Right there. He’s by himself.”
Aiming at a moving target is really hard. I give him a lead and fire again, but I’m way off. He vanishes into a dense clump of forest. The valley echoes with gunfire, the air gets thick with gunpowder, and all the elk have cleared out.
“Christ,” Gene says.
“What’s the matter? I got him.”
“He’s still alive. We have to go find him.”
“What about your elk?”
Gene throws his rifle down. “Dammit, Tyson! How many times have I told you — you got to shoot them in the shoulder?”
But I tried. My hands were shaking, and I had never shot an elk before. None of that matters. “I — I’m sorry. We can still get him. Right?”
He looks at the sky, and it’s getting dark fast. “Let’s go. We’ve only got about forty-five minutes.”
“If it’s too dangerous, let’s just go back. I mean, it’s not the end of the world if we don’t bring home an elk.”
His lips purse into an angry scowl. “You want to let that animal suffer? He could still be alive for hours, slowly bleeding out his stomach. It’s your responsibility that he dies humanely.”
He’s right — we can’t leave the bull like this. An animal is in agony because of me. I take the headlamp out of Gene’s pack and put it around my forehead. I sling my rifle over my shoulder and march down the hill.
Gene brings his handgun. It has six chambers for six bullets.
I wanted this. I wanted these freezing hands and this guilt and terror and a million other awful feelings jabbing my chest. I wanted to hang out with this old man and prove myself. But what does that even mean? What do I have to prove? Did I shoot that elk because Bright isn’t my friend anymore, or because I had to show Mom and Dad that I’m not a kid? I mean . . . am I really that childish?
I don’t deserve to be wearing Gene’s c
owboy hat.
A trail of blood leads into the trees, and it’s almost entirely night in there, even though there’s still some sunlight where I’m standing. Gene steps in front of me, but I won’t let him go first. It’s my fault we’re hiking into this mess of trees.
I listen for a moving animal, but the only sounds are the dead leaves and snow beneath our feet. Where do we go? It’s too dark and there’s too much stuff everywhere to see a blood trail. Ahead of us is a mostly clear path. To my right, the woods go up a hill and all the branches are tangled in an impenetrable web.
When elk get wounded, they go into the densest woods possible to hide from predators. So I take a right, fighting my way through branches that scratch my face and arms. I climb up, then slip down a rock. My knee screams in pain. I don’t make a sound.
Gene doesn’t say anything. He just follows my lead. His breathing is very loud, but he doesn’t complain.
How far did the elk go? Gene said he once had to follow a dying elk for three miles. But that was during the morning, and they had all afternoon to find him.
A spatter of blood is black in the snow next to a tree stump. We’re going the right way, but I don’t feel any relief knowing that.
I don’t know how long we climb up the hillside. Maybe five minutes? There’s still a little bit of light blue in the west, but not enough to get us out of here even if we left right now.
I turn on my headlamp, and an eye glistens at me. Oh, my God, it’s a bear. I stumble back, falling into Gene, and we both end up against a tree.
“Tyson, for Christ’s sake!” he says.
“Shhhh,” I whisper. “There’s a bear over there.”
He yanks the headlamp from me and shines it at the eye. It’s my elk. He’s lying on the ground, mouth wide open, chest heaving like he’s having an asthma attack. His entire belly is stained black with blood. He’s looking with glassy eyes at me.
The elk squeals, and I’m so sorry. Here I am, just some kid who dresses up as a bear and jabs girls in the neck with pencil erasers, and I’m higher on the food chain than this beast?
“Where do I shoot him?” I say.