He also needed to figure out how to talk to Randy and his suspicions about PTSD. He remembered clearly how, at the end of Randy’s first deployment in Afghanistan, the two of them had joked about the ridiculousness of PTSD, and how Randy had mentioned more than once that his platoon leader had started every day saying, “That that which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Ed had, in fact, recalled the motto often over the past couple of years. It seemed to help him cope at times with his own worries. He and Randy agreed that the whole notion of PTSD seemed to have gotten out of hand. Surely not everyone who had been severely traumatized in battle would go through the rest of their lives either cowering in the face of conflict or going berserk at the drop of a hat. Surely not Randy.
When Ed was a state trooper, he’d had numerous occasions to arrest Vietnam veterans who claimed to be suffering from combat fatigue. In most cases, he simply hadn’t believed it, although he usually tried to appear sympathetic. Ed had been a few years too young for Vietnam and too old for Afghanistan and Iraq. By default, then, he would have joined the millions of between-war men who spend their lives wondering how they would have behaved in combat, except that his days in law enforcement were proof enough to him that, if he had fought in a war, he would have performed well.
There were two ways, he reckoned, men looked at the situation of not being in the service in a time of war: either you were lucky or you missed an opportunity. In his case, he felt lucky, but at times he had doubts. There was no question in his mind about his nephew, though. Something was wrong. Randy was simply not the Randy he used to be, and if he didn't get a grip on his emotions soon, it could wind up ruining his life.
The King of Kellogg Mountain
It was mid-May, a little over a month away from what qualified as perpetual daylight in interior Alaska. The morning after Ed’s departure, Randy got up at three o’clock and was readying his four-wheeler by half-past. He would ride to Kellogg Mountain and leave the Honda on a plateau, then hike the narrow and heavily jutted trail up the mountain to the valley on the other side. Maps didn’t indicate such a place as Kellogg Mountain. Ed said it was a family name declared by Martin Kellogg the first time he laid eyes on it, and everyone that knew him had been calling it Kellogg Mountain ever since. Saying it was a mountain was something of a stretch, too, because it wasn’t that big, but it made up for its size by the sheer nature of its ruggedness.
Ed had always maintained that Methuselah lived on the other side of Kellogg Mountain, but he never said why he thought so. Only once in the years that he’d observed the death and destruction left behind by the beast had Randy caught a glimpse of him, and to this day he wasn’t sure it wasn’t just his imagination. But when asked, he would declare that he had indeed seen the bear. “And he is blond,” he would always add.
He parked the four-wheeler in a stand of alders so it couldn’t be seen from the trail. Not that he thought he would meet anyone, but you never knew in these parts. He was getting more and more introspective and philosophical these days, something that was new to him, and he owed it all to his cousin. All morning he’d been wondering if there was something to the fact that Mandy’s name was so similar to his. Surely it wasn’t a coincidence, but now no one was left alive to explain the reason except his uncle, and Ed would not likely discuss it. Every time something came up about the family’s past, Ed would get testy and defensive.
He stopped on the steep trail up the mountain, took off his flannel shirt, and stuffed it in his pack. The day was getting warm, he noticed—no, hot, really hot. Not Afghanistan hot, but hot enough and a bit unusual for this time of year. The sun ducked in and out behind puffy white clouds, and every time it shone clear, the temperature climbed at a better clip than he was making up the mountain on foot.
When he reached the summit, he removed his pack and sat down on a fallen log. Eating his sandwich, he found himself wishing Nadia had made it for him, not only because of her personal touch, but because the deli was the source of the best sandwiches in two hundred square miles. She was in his thoughts more and more now, just as he was drawn to the grocery store in Delta Junction where she worked.
Nadia, he had heard, was from a family of recent immigrants from Ukraine or someplace near there. Her Russian accent was still very pronounced, although she was picking up English pretty fast—probably a lot faster than he would pick up Russian if he were living over there. Her melodious broken accent was part of her appeal, he thought, apart from her simply being beautiful. Randy guessed she might be twenty, maybe twenty-one, but he hadn’t had occasion to ask her yet. When he ate his lunch at one of the tables in the deli, he would frequently catch her looking his way. Then she would catch him doing the same thing. Sort of like today’s sun playing peek-a-boo with the clouds.
Randy resolved that when he got back to town, he would ask her for a date, unless of course he lost his nerve, which was a distinct possibility. He had started to ask her several times before. Not that he was a bashful sort; it was just getting too important to him that she say yes. He was beginning to realize that if she refused him, he would be hurt. Not only that, but it might make him decide to reenlist in the Marine Corps. He was beginning to have serious doubts about doing that, because he was changing his mind about war being a justifiable option for settling human affairs. Considering what he’d done in Afghanistan, though, it was a little late to be getting sanctimonious.
Down the far side below and beyond Kellogg Mountain, Randy caught a glimpse of movement in a creek gully. “Looks like blond fur,” he thought. Slowly he began making his way down the steep incline. He was feeling it again. He was sure this time. It was real, exactly the same. It was the adrenalin rush that comes with excitement, just like his dreams. This wasn’t combat, but it would do. Until now he hadn’t realized that he missed this feeling so much. But he did miss it, and for a moment the thought saddened him.
When he reached the creek, he could see huge bear tracks in the wet ground, and one of the tracks was still filling with water. He flipped the safety off his rifle and held it before him as if he were about the engage in bayonet practice, something he could do in his sleep. Taking slow, deliberate steps, heel down first, he walked quietly ahead. His breathing changed from deep to shallow and back. As he stepped into a dense stand of alders, he heard a noise to his left, and before he could turn fully to look, he was hit by an enormous paw. He felt no immediate pain, but the force knocked him off his feet and his rifle landed somewhere behind him.
Then nothing. No bear, and no sign of one. There was no movement save the furiously swaying bushes. Lying still and waiting to get his breath, he could see deep tracks in the wet creek bottom. After what seemed like ten minutes, he struggled to his feet, pain engulfing his whole left side. He checked his arm and shoulder to see if they were broken, or even still there, because the impact had been so powerful. They looked okay. But, God, he hurt. If he’d been hit by a cement truck at forty miles an hour, he wouldn’t have felt much different.
He picked up the rifle, found a large rock, and sat down to clear his head. Then he turned in the direction he’d come down the mountain and began making his way back to the top, one agonizing step at a time. Near the crest he found a ledge, an outcropping of sorts, that would give him a good view of the valley below. And there, standing on his hind legs like a taxidermy mount in the airport, was Methuselah. The bear was a little over a hundred yards away and still looked huge. He didn’t seem old, weak, or tired. He looked instead like the king of Kellogg Mountain.
Carefully Randy swung his rifle into position to fire; it would be an easy shot. But then his training kicked in. He had been so stunned by the trauma to his body that he hadn’t thought to check the barrel of his weapon. Sure enough, the rifle had landed barrel-down in the mud, and several inches of dirt were lodged in the bore. If he had fired, the barrel might have blown up in his hands—as if he wasn’t already beat up enough. Before he had time to think about how to remove the mud, he looked again for the
bear. Methuselah was gone. No sign, just gone. And then, on a branch nearby, Randy could see a clot of blond fur, a calling card of sorts.
He cleared the rifle barrel of mud with a straight willow twig and cut off a piece of his shirt tail to use as a patch to clean the bore. Proceeding slowly, he sat down every few minutes, his side still sore to the touch. Because of the force of the impact, he was having a hard time believing that he wasn’t in some way seriously injured. When he reached the place where he’d left the four-wheeler, something felt wrong. The brush didn’t look the way he’d left it. Then it was clear. The four-wheeler was turned on its side, and stuffing from the seat was strewn all over the place. The old bastard had attacked it. How the hell was he going to explain this to Uncle Ed?
Just as he was about to turn the vehicle upright, blond fury exploded from the brush with the intensity of an IED. Before Randy could shoulder his rifle, the bear grabbed him by the thigh on his right side and pitched him into the air. In a flash, he found himself imagining that this was what a helicopter crash would be like, with the earth and sky changing places in kaleidoscopic fashion. Then he was still. He was afraid to move, but he knew he had to. It was too much to hope that the bear was gone this time. He listened but heard no movement or sound, nothing at all, not even a bird call or the whisper of sprouting leaves in the breeze.
What was really disturbing was not the wound in his thigh or that it was clearly going to require too many stitches to count; it was the simple fact that for the first time in months he felt fully alert. How insane is it, he wondered, to think you must be attacked by a grizzly bear simply to enjoy the thrill of being alive? No sense speculating about whether or not he had some form of PTSD. Now there was little doubt, even though he found it painful to admit. Wasn’t this proof? What struck him now was that he felt that he would actually rather reenlist than seek help. Maybe this was like drug addiction. Maybe the disease was better than the cure, if you could keep it going. But then again, didn’t the odds for living like this run against reaching old age or having a family like normal people? There were no easy answers.
Right now he needed to act. He needed to stop thinking, tidy up his gear, and get moving. The gash in his leg was starting to throb. If he could get that flannel shirt out of his pack, it might help stop the bleeding. The pack was within reach, and he set to work wrapping the shirt firmly into place.
The only thing Randy was sure of was that he didn’t want counseling at the VA. At the same time, his reading had put his reflective thoughts at odds with his deeper drives. Past experience was pulling on him to seek something that he was learning to abhor. It was confusing to say the least. He pushed himself up and started haltingly toward the four-wheeler. Summoning an image of Nadia, he began to feel calm, still excited but in a different way, a peaceful way.
Miracles
Mandy was dying to tell someone but decided to wait until she had undeniable proof. The first time could have been a fluke, but now she knew for sure. She had the whole thing on her camera. She would tell them now, but she wouldn’t show them the video proof until she saw how they reacted to her simply making the claim. They weren’t likely to believe her at first, but she wanted to see if they would at least pretend to do so. She needed some evidence that they wanted to believe her.
The first time it happened, Mandy hadn’t been paying close attention. She’d been reading a book to herself when Pansy’s brush fell into her lap. Pansy stood there more like a golden retriever than a cow. “You didn’t just bring this to me did you, Pansy? No, you couldn’t have. It must have been here all along,” she said, not really sure of her own words. But because the brush was there, she began grooming her pet and singing her favorite song.
When she was through, she put the brush back where it belonged, on a huge nail rest on the wall near the door. The next day, she came into the barn entrance and sat down listening to her iPad. She watched as Pansy entered after her, went directly to the brush, lifted it off the nail rest with her mouth, brought it to Mandy, and in one quick motion dropped it into her lap.
“Oh my God!” Mandy said, staring at Pansy. “How on earth did you know to do that?” She picked up the brush and again began to groom Pansy, whispering in her ear while she brushed.
The next day, Pansy did the same thing, but this time Mandy recorded the whole thing on her iPad. The incident with the brush inspired her to start reading aloud, as if doing it for Pansy’s sake. She would read for hours on end with Pansy’s head in her lap. But Pansy was growing bigger by the day, it seemed, and heavier. Mandy could no longer lift her off the ground. It was out of the question to even try.
As she spent so much time with Pansy, she wondered about all of the school kids in 4-H programs and whether they had experiences similar to hers. Were cows really a lot smarter than people gave them credit for? When she started doing research online, what she learned amazed her. Cows are indeed smarter than most people think, and if they’re like humans, then it would make sense that every once in a while a genius like Pansy could appear.
Another time, Mandy tried something new. By positioning a camera her dad sometimes used to monitor the movement of predators, she managed to record Pansy’s remarkable feat. After a few minutes of grooming, she placed the brush on the wall and sat quietly reading for an hour. Then she put her book down and said, “Pansy, go get the brush.” The tiny hairs on her neck tingled with excitement as she watched Pansy rise and fetch the brush. The sight was astonishing, and the entire sequence, including Mandy’s voice, was captured on video.
Mandy’s excitement abruptly turned to sadness when she realized that, no matter what proof she had, the public at large was never going to believe their source of food was so smart that it shouldn’t be eaten. The proof would never matter because most people would simply choose not to believe it. That was the difference between animals and people, she decided. An animal’s penchant for deception was a measure for survival; for a human, it was a matter of convenience.
So sad, she thought. But things were better now than they used to be. Animal cruelty was indeed frowned upon, and even the fast-food restaurants were paying more attention to the humane treatment of animals in response to public demand. She would try to help things along, and Pansy was living proof that people needed to pay attention to what was happening right before their eyes that they were too blind to see.
The Challenger
Exhausted and fighting pain to get there, Randy had reached the clinic on his own. The nurse had stopped the bleeding right away, but then he’d had to wait his turn until two car accident victims were treated. He asked the doctor how many stitches it took to sew up his leg, and the doc just muttered something he couldn’t understand. When he asked again and got the same answer, he decided to let it go. “Bet he didn’t count them,” Randy thought, accepting a pair of crutches to keep the weight off his leg.
Where he had been excited before and pumped with adrenaline contending with the bear, now he was really restless. He would march into that deli again, and this time he would ask Nadia for a date. She had seemed friendly when he was there before, even though he thought he might have embarrassed her with his constant stares.
* * * * *
When he entered the deli at lunchtime the next day, he saw Nadia look his way and gasp. She returned his smile but was quick to frown again, noting his bruises and crutches. From a table in the corner he heard someone shout, “Here come the Marines.” It was the loudmouth he’d almost grabbed hold of a while back. Randy bit his lip and continued toward Nadia.
“Did you hear me, folks? The Marines have landed.”
Randy let the crutches fall to the floor. He limped over to the table, lifted the guy up by his sweatshirt, and delivered a sharp left hook to big man's midsection, followed by a right and another left. Then he stepped aside and watched as big Ben Atwood crumpled to the floor and lay gasping for air. The whole thing happened so quickly that the other customers sat speechless and perfectly still as
if posing for a picture. Then the crowd burst into applause.
Sitting at the other end of the table, the burly friend of loudmouth Atwood looked at Randy and then looked away as if he preferred to change the subject. Randy picked up his crutches and started to go to the counter when a woman nearby said, "Young man, what’s wrong with your leg?" Bright red blood gushed from his wound. He would have to leave quickly to keep from making a mess on the floor. So he waved at Nadia and left.
He could feel the ecstatic sensation of being alive again. His heart was beating so fast, he thought he could hear it. Although he couldn’t see his face, he knew it was red, and he also knew that it wasn’t from his temper or simply from being excited. He was embarrassed.
Uncle Ed would be pissed. And as luck would have it, Atwood might press charges. It could mean the kind of trouble that could keep him from reenlisting. But at the moment, what bothered Randy most was the fact that he still didn’t have the date with Nadia. This might mean that there would never be one. Each time he failed to ask her, he seemed to lose a measure of his nerve. Thinking about the deli crowd’s behavior eased his embarrassment some when it occurred to him that what he had done to Atwood must have been overdue, at least in their minds, and if they thought so, maybe Nadia would as well.
The guy was obviously a bully and needed to be taken down a notch. But still, this wasn’t a very smart strategy to get a date, and he could be in real trouble if the guy were to bring charges. What were the odds that not only would he not get a date with Nadia but he might also wind up in jail? Randy didn't want to wager. He was now more anxious than ever because his reading was disabusing him of the thought of reenlisting, and that left too much of the future to chance. He had no plans, and that was not smart. The Kelloggs always had a plan.
Pansy: Bovine Genius in Wild Alaska Page 3