A Guitar and a Pen

by Robert Hicks

  My father and brother were still residents of Oregon, and in fact always would be. They were cut from the same cloth. Both had been loggers and both of them had little to show for years of risking their lives in the forests of the coastal mountain range in western Oregon. Loggers live in the present, and spend their money like there’s not a future. For a lot of them, there isn’t.

  I had been living in Nashville, Tennessee, for about ten years, making a fairly good living as a songwriter. I had my first hit in ’95, a song called “Whys, Lies and Alibis,” and since then had had a couple of number-one-charting songs and a few that made it onto the top-ten list. I owe much of my earlier music education to my father and his eight-track cassette player. He had a selection of about ten artists: Charley Pride, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, and Ray Charles were among my favorites. After listening to Bobby Goldsboro warble “Little Green Apples” a thousand times, even his over-the-top vibrato didn’t bother me. Dad was such a racist that it always surprised me that he kept Ray Charles in his glove box. I could understand his affection for Charlie Pride’s music, primarily because he didn’t sound “black” and I think there were a lot of people that didn’t know that he was, but Ray was the epitome of a black singer. Maybe the music was so great even my redneck father had to ignore his skin color. Rural Oregon doesn’t have a large African-American population (less than one percent), so I can’t be sure my father ever met a black person. No matter, he hated them all.

  My success in the music business was a source of great pride for my family, especially my brother. I was not rich, but I made enough to be able to afford the annual out-of-state tag and license fee, which added up to about $750—money well spent, especially if we got an elk. We always shared whatever elk we got as a group, so we rooted for anyone to fill their tag. Elk tastes like a blend of deer meat and beef. It’s much more flavorful than beef and a lot less gamey than deer. It is a highly coveted commodity among those who live in the foothills of the Willamette Valley. Most hunters in Oregon butcher and package their own game, unlike those in Tennessee, where the hunters take their deer, skin and all, to a processing plant. This is the reason most of the venison I have eaten in Tennessee tastes gamey. The processors don’t take the time to remove the thin tough membrane from the muscles that some folks call silver skin. My father calls it striffing, but regardless of the name, it’s the stuff that gives it that strong, wild, and unpleasant flavor. Butchering an elk is tedious work, but it pays off in the end because you are left with delicious and completely organic meat that you can use in any dish that calls for beef.

  We pulled a little beat-up camper that I affectionately called our fleabag motel on wheels. It could sleep two comfortably and had a little kitchenette with a small refrigerator that allowed us to enjoy hot meals (chili, stew, venison) and perk our coffee for the day’s hunt. Mark and I would take turns sleeping in the front seat of the truck, where it was a constant battle to get comfortable because of the steering wheel and the gear shift. It didn’t matter which end my head was at—the seat was just too small for a man almost six feet tall. My neck and back would be so stiff in the morning that it took thirty minutes and three cups of Mark’s strong java before I could stand up straight. Mark, who is five inches shorter and thirty pounds lighter, would often take mercy on me and take two of three nights in the truck, but I always had to endure his insults (“lightweight,” “girlie-man,” etc.). He didn’t want me to think that he was a nice guy or a pushover. I guess it was part of the unspoken macho logger code I wasn’t privy to. He would have let me spend the whole time in the camper, but I didn’t want to appear too soft, even though we all knew I was.

  We pulled over and unhitched the camper at a park site in the Siuslaw National Forest, which was our usual base camp, and continued on high into the mountains, with which my brother and dad were so familiar. I would ask where we were going, and my brother would say, “Where the big ones are,” then nod his head, cluck his tongue, and take another drag off his Winston. Dad would then give me the road and the unit number: “Up on B-19, near Hate Creek.” I preferred my brother’s answer, vague but always imaginative. Dad’s answer, although accurate, made me feel a little like an outsider, an interloper in a world in which I did not belong. The truth hurt.

  The first day of the hunt is always full of excitement and wonder. Will we see a big herd with bulls and sneak up on them? Will one cross in front of us on the road and make us pile out of the truck and run into the brush? Will we see fresh scat or tracks and start stalking them? Will I get the chance to pull back on my bow and let an arrow fly? Rarely do we bag an elk (if we get one at all) on the first day, and for me the annual trip became less about killing an elk and more about spending quality time with my brother and father. Eventually, this would be my only chance to see them. The better my career was going and the more money I was making, the more it seemed to squeeze my available time into smaller increments. For me, this was ten short days of vacation; for my dad and Mark this was the beginning of a month-long season. My dad and Mark had the luxury of patience. I wanted to have some action, so I could tell my wife, Laura, wild stories of our adventures. Also, I suppose I needed to justify leaving her behind in Nashville, and to somehow alleviate my guilt of going on an expensive and selfish man-trip. Laura seemed to understand my need to reconnect with my family. She was always supportive, but she would often remind me of these solo trips during arguments. This sustained my insecurity about taking such trips but not to the extent that I didn’t take them. The truth is, I wouldn’t miss them for anything.

  As we made our way up the narrow logging roads, I could make out the headlights of other trucks across the canyons and along the ridges. Knowing we weren’t the only bow hunters in the area made my pulse race, but my two companions didn’t seem to be worried at all. I wondered out loud if we should have left earlier, and Mark looked at Dad and shook his head like that might have been the stupidest question ever posed in the history of all human existence.“Fuck, bro, we’re going to the Hole,” he barked.“Only I know where that is. Quit your sniveling.”

  “I’m not sniveling, just wondering,” I sniveled. Everybody laughed, especially Dad.

  Ten minutes later, Mark told Dad to turn left down an old cat road, which he did dutifully.“Here it is, boys, the Hole.” Mark knew these roads better than anyone because he still made his living out here. He logged the Hole a couple of years ago, and saw herds of elk every single day. He was head rigger on one of International Paper’s hottest logging crews. Dad had logged these forests thirty years before, and the terrain had changed considerably. We all trusted that Mark would get us to the Hole, where the big elk thrived.

  Dad turned off the truck and the heater made what could best be described as a death rattle. The very same rattle it had been making for years. We could see the definition in the Douglas fir in the skyline and we all knew in thirty or so minutes it would be light enough for us to see through our binoculars onto the hillsides and landings. The elk would still be feeding on the mountain grasses, maples, and salal brush in the cool morning air. Once the sun comes up, they will find familiar beds beneath new-growth firs or brushy maples that shade them from the sun. When they have bedded down, spotting them becomes extremely difficult. Hunters then have to rely on other signs, such as fresh tracks, scat, antler rubbings, broken foliage, old trails, and sometimes even an elk’s scent, which is a strong musky odor, distinct and not terribly unpleasant, at least not for the elk and their human predators.

  We took our bows and knives out of the back of Dad’s truck and Mark instructed me which spur road to walk down. He took the cat road that led into the old growth. Dad would drive up the road and scope the freshly logged units. His weak heart did not let him do a lot of walking up steep roads and canyons. It gave him angina, which was painful and probably scary. He always carried nitro pills with him, but he would rather not have to use them. It was another reason he didn’t enjoy hunting
alone these days, I suspected. We would meet back in a couple of hours, unless someone saw elk, in which case he would signal on his walkie-talkie. Then we would try to coordinate the hunt. Until that point, we were in “finding the elk mode.”

  The temperature, in the mid-forties at 6 A.M., would climb into the eighties by eleven and make it nearly unbearable for everyone, animals included, so I relished these next three or four hours, and have always considered them the best hunting time. I carried my bow in both hands and had an arrow ready to go in case I needed to get off a quick shot. Normally, I wouldn’t load an arrow unless I was certain elk were imminent. Since this was the first day, I was not especially optimistic.

  People sometimes have the misconception that the bows we use are the similar to the ones used by Native Americans, but that’s not true. Modern bows are not primitive wood/leather/obsidian/eagle feather contraptions. These are precision high-tech compound bows that can shoot a carbon fiberglass arrow with a razor-sharp titanium tip 338 feet per second. If you are close enough (thirty to forty yards) to the elk, the arrow can actually pass entirely through an adult elk’s body. I have a very nice Mathews bow, but it’s by no means state-of-the-art. My brother, however, must have spent an entire paycheck on his pricey and powerful Mathews Black Max.

  I have never been one of those rabid hunters like you see on TV, dressed like a tree and smelling of elk urine, bugling in an eight-point bull aching for a fight during rut (the mating season), jumping out from behind a rock or bush and making the kill shot. Clearly, I’m no Ted Nugent. That is not to say I’m not passionate about the hunt, because I am. I just save my unbridled enthusiasm for writing songs.

  I spent two hours that morning walking, stopping, listening, and looking at hillsides and canyons in the Hole. I saw five deer, two hawks, numerous chipmunks and songbirds, and a covey of quail that got my adrenaline flowing. When they flew up into the air all at once, it sounded like a Black Hawk helicopter taking off. I sucked wind and jumped back noisily. I was certain any elk in the area made note of my arrival and ducked into the forest or slipped farther into the cover of those brushy maples. This was the game; I knew the rules before I bought my ticket. In the absence of fresh signs of elk, I sat on a stump, ate an apple, and marveled at the beauty of my surroundings. I swatted at the occasional yellow jacket with little success, and decided to find my father and Mark and plan the rest of our day.

  As I walked back the way I came, I saw Dad’s familiar truck and those unmistakable spotlights on the cab of the truck above the windshield. They hadn’t worked in years, but Dad hadn’t bothered to remove them. As I approached, I saw a man in a green uniform leaning into the driver’s-side window. It was a game warden.

  I panicked and reached into my pocket for my wallet, certain I had left it at home along with my license and tag. But it was in my back pocket and when I looked up, my dad and the warden were watching. I expect the warden sees that kind of reaction all season long.

  “Hey,” the warden said with a half smile.

  “Hey,” I replied. I introduced myself and offered my hand. He seemed a little surprised, but shook it firmly.

  “Did you see anything?” he asked.

  “No, nothing of consequence,” I said. There was a four-or-five-second pause as he considered my answer.

  “From out of state?” he inquired, eyebrows raised, and I realized that I must have brought some of my Southern accent with me. The funny thing was that I now noticed the Northwest accent of my family in Oregon—the same one I had brought to and mostly lost while living in Nashville. Apparently, I had only replaced my “Fargo” accent (as Laura calls it) with a drawl.

  “My boy here is from Tennessee,” Dad said through the open window.“He’s a songwriter.”

  I was taken back by my dad’s interjection into the conversation, and completely mystified as to why he would offer up my occupation when it was absolutely irrelevant to the situation. My father is a softspoken man who has few words for anyone, especially strangers. Then, to my surprise, he continued on with more information.

  “My other boy works in these woods,” he added.“He’ll be back shortly, I’m guessing.” If I hadn’t known better, I’d have said Dad was nervous about something.

  I gave the warden my tag and license without waiting for him to ask, and he gave it a cursory look and handed it back to me. I realized he’d had no intention of asking me for it, but was trying to be polite or trying to seem professional. We leaned up against the truck and chitchatted about the weather and the forest fires during the summer. Everyone was relieved that we’d had a few weeks of rain prior to the opening day of elk season. They had shut down large areas of the national forest last year, which pushed all the elk hunters into the same region. Bow hunters like their privacy, so for them, the rain was an answered prayer.

  “So, what kind of songs do you write?” he asked out of the blue. I had been pretty sure he hadn’t heard my father, but I was wrong.

  “Country, mostly,” I said, hoping to end this part of the conversation. No luck, however.

  “I really don’t listen to much country,” he said, “but I do like that song about that guy’s mama getting runned over by a damned old train.”

  Everyone that hates country music remembers that Steve Goodman song, “You Don’t Have to Call Me by My Name,” also recorded under the title, “The Perfect Country Song,” sung by David Allan Coe. It is what most of those people think every country song is about: lying, cheating, drinking, or dogs. It was hard for me to argue, having penned “Whys, Lies and Alibis” as my first hit. I faked a smile and said, “Yeah, wish I had written it.”

  The warden was turning to leave when he looked back and said offhand, “Oh, you heard they found that missing hunter?”

  “I didn’t know one was missing,” I said.“Already?”

  “No, no.” He laughed.“That missing hunter back in the mid-eighties. Another game warden found his skull over on some Umpqua unit last week. Still had a slug of some kind rattling around in it.”

  I was confused.“A slug?” I asked stupidly.

  “Yeah, you know . . . a bullet,” he replied.

  “So he was killed?”

  “Well, they don’t know yet. Might have been an accident. But if it was, someone also accidentally buried him in a shallow grave. There were some other bones around the area, mostly elk. Hard to say how old those were. But you don’t have to be a member of CSI to figure out what happened there. Folks can get downright nasty about a downed elk. You fellas have good luck and be safe out here.” He waved to my dad and walked up the road to his little Dodge truck with the tree on it.

  Maybe if I hadn’t caught my father’s look in the side mirror, I never would have connected the dots. His face was completely white, every molecule of blood drained from his forehead to his chin. It hit me like that train hit that guy’s mama in that song. Guilt. Remorse. Abject fear. Dad’s old story played over in my mind. The look he got when he got to the bad parts of the tale. How could my dad have killed another human being over an elk? My God, my father was a murderer. My knees were beginning to take a vacation of their own and I had to grab the rear bumper to hold myself up or I might have collapsed right there in the dirt. The story I had heard for years, and practically had memorized, was nothing but a well-told lie. Or at least the important parts were. The ending was radically different than I ever could have imagined. It was as if instead of Goldilocks running home and never venturing in the woods by herself again, she was really torn limb from limb by those three angry bears and fed to the foxes.

  What seemed like hours went by before my father finally opened the door and walked around front to urinate. He began nodding his head up and down as he came back. I knew he was going to confess to the crime. His dirty secret was out, and there would be no denial. Apparently he got a look at my reaction as well. This is why I avoid Texas Hold ’Em. A poker face is not my forté.

  “All right, son, I’m not going to bullshit you.”
A forever pause while he lit a Pall Mall with his Bic lighter and stuck it in his red and green flannel shirt. He took a monster drag off the cigarette and said, “I killed him. I killed that sonovabitch and I never lost one night’s sleep over it. I felt bad for his family later, but if there ever was a man that needed killing, it was him.” He walked over to where I had slumped against the rear wheel.“I’m gonna tell you what happened and you can make your own judgment, but you promise this stays between you and me. Your brother doesn’t need to know any of this.” He waited for my response and got none.“Promise!” he yelled.

  “What the fuck, Dad, what the fuck.” I was reduced to a blithering idiot. I couldn’t promise a murderer anything. I wasn’t prepared or equipped to deal with this kind of thing. I admit part of me was scared that if I didn’t promise to keep my mouth shut, there on the spot, I’d wind up like the missing hunter. I imagined the conversation he’d have with Mark: “Oh I don’t know where Tim went, Mark. Maybe we should wait for the buzzards to start circling.” I felt myself hyperventilating.