“There’s something strange out here,” Tom said.
“What?” Fred challenged.
“I don’t know. We’re seeing stuff that’s creeping me out. Even you just said a bear or a cougar might have been dragging something here. No one said anything about bears and cougars when we started this trip.”
“There are eight of us,” Fred said. “Nothing’s going to mess with us. If you want, find a walking stick. You can fend off the boogeyman with it.”
“Disregard the ‘boogie’ remarks,” Bennett said to Lucius who slapped him on the back of the head and Bennett laughed.
“So there any bears up here?” Henry suddenly asked Fred.
“Some. But you don’t usually see them.”
“A grizzly can really rip you up,” Rob said.
“There are no grizzlies around here,” Fred said flatly.
“How do you know?” Cory challenged.
“There are none in California.”
“How do you know that?”
“The California grizzly is extinct,” Henry said. “They have been for about the last hundred years.”
“How come there’s a grizzly on the state flag?” Rob asked.
“The flag was designed about a hundred and seventy years ago,” Henry said. “There were grizzlies here, then.”
Fred eyed Henry. “That’s right. You’re full of surprises. How did you know that?”
Henry shrugged and stared at the trail ahead.
“You guys can stay here and talk about grizzlies, flags, and guns,” Bennett said. “But I’m hiking on up to Crawfish Creek.” He walked past Henry and continued up the trail.
Henry fell in behind him while Fred waited and listened to Cory.
“I’m going back for the gun. I’m getting the willies, what with that car being busted up and the campground being ripped up and that saw and stuff laying there like the people that owned it just disappeared. It’s not going to hurt to have it. I’ll catch up to you guys later.”
“My keys are under the rock,” Mike said.
“I know where they are,” Cory said bitterly.
“If you don’t catch up, we’ll see you in camp.” Mike said.
Cory turned and started back down the trail while the others continued on up in the direction of Crawfish Creek.
They strung out into three groups again and Henry, who was soon getting even more tired, took frequent pauses for short rests.
“We can take another break anytime you like,” Fred said.
Henry shook his head. No matter how tired he felt, except for Fred and Bennett, he was still ahead of the others.
“We’re taking a break on the rocks further up,” Fred said. “It’s got a nice view.”
“Okay,” Henry replied breathlessly. “We’ll break there,” and he forged on ahead.
“Henry’s the weak link,” Bennett whispered to Fred.
“Yeah, but he doesn’t want to hold us up.”
“He’s going to kill himself.”
They pressed on and caught up with him.
The mud ended and the trail crossed the broad white rocks at the eastern edge of Caballo Blanco.
“As I recall…from my younger days…,” Henry began while gasping for breath, “hiking trails are always uphill…in both directions.”
Fred and Bennett laughed.
“That’s an old line,” Fred said.
“Yeah, but it’s never been delivered by someone as old as I.”
“As old as me,” Bennett said.
“That’s the colloquial,” Henry said. “As old as I is the grammatically correct,” and he went back to huffing and puffing.
“If you’re really tired, “Fred asked,” how come you’re keeping up such a quick pace? We can slow the pace down.”
“I’m afraid if…” Deep breath. “…I slow down…” Another deep breath. “…I’ll stop for good.”
“From the rocks up here we’ll be able to see Cory heading back to the trucks,” Fred said.
Henry’s breathing came hard now.
“You think Henry’s going to be all right?” Bennett whispered.
“Sounds like he’s going to have a heart attack,” Fred said. They turned a bend in the trail and the three monoliths that comprise the eastern face of Caballo Blanco came into view.
“Just a little further and we can take a break,” Fred called to Henry.
Henry huffed and puffed and nodded, but he kept up the pace.
Bennett said, “Every now and then I can see the tracks of hikers that came up here before us.”
“They’re old tracks,” Fred said. “Yesterday. Maybe the day before. Most places on the trail the rain has washed them away.”
“Whoever made them…is still up there,” Henry yelled back.
“Why do you say that?” Fred asked.
“Because…they only go…in one direction.”
“Well, they could have kept going on up to the ruins of the old Oak Mountain Lodge,” Fred said. “From there you can go out by Oak Mountain, Garcia Peak, or Morphy Mountain Road.”
“Or they may be up here camping,” Bennett said.
“Just one hiker,” Henry said.
“What do you mean?” Bennett asked.
“There’s only one pair of boot tracks,” Henry said.
“You noticed that?” Fred asked.
“I used to hunt a lot…when I was a kid.”
“So you said,” Bennett said, “Somehow I just don’t think of you as the type. No offense, I hope.”
“None taken. It was…a long time ago.”
They reached the eastern face of Caballo Blanco. From the base, where they stood, it towered another hundred and fifty feet above their heads. Fred and Bennett dropped their packs and Henry asked Fred for a hand to get his off his back and shoulders.
Fred helped and Henry settled into a heap onto a rock.
Fred broke out a bottle of water, took a long drink and handed the bottle to Bennett. Henry sat with his head hung, still trying to catch his breath while the others came up the trail behind them.
“Jesus, this is tough,” Rob said when he had dropped his pack. He turned and looked south across the valley. “Holy shit! Look at that view!”
“Yeah,” Fred said, and pointing below he said, “That’s the road that goes up to the trucks. We should see Cory pretty soon.”
“Good,” Rob said, He bent over and took a set of binoculars out of his pack and panned the view overlooking Cougars Camp.
Bennett broke out a package of Oreos and passed them around. Tom refused Fred’s offer of water and got out his own. He seemed angry. Lucius rested his massive body on a rock, took a drink of water from Fred then laid back to rest.
“Hey,” Henry said to Rob, and Rob handed him his binoculars.
After a minute, Fred said, “Let me look.”
When he was done, Bennett and Mike got turns before the binoculars were handed back to Rob, who took one last look. “How come we haven’t seen Cory yet?” he asked.
“Maybe he got lost,” Tom said bitterly.
Fred glanced at him. He guessed what prompted the bad mood: the way they had ganged up on Cory back on the hill when the issue of the gun had come up. Now Cory was hiking all the way back for something he should have had the right to bring in the first place. Something which, for some ineffable reason, each of them felt would make them feel better now.
“He can’t get lost down there so close to Hughes Creek,” Fred said. “All he has to do is stay on the trail. He’ll come into view in a few minutes.”
“We passed a place where another trail branches off in another direction,” Tom said accusingly. “He could have gone off on that.”
Fred lowered his voice and calmly said, “That one joins right back onto the trail we took, and goes to the river too. I’ve taken it dozens of times. He can’t get lost.”
Tom turned his back to the others and took another drink of water while he looked to the canyon below.
> “What kind of gun did that dude have?” Lucius asked.
“A Smith and Wesson Model 19,” Mike said.
“Is that a big gun?”
“A .357.”
“A .357?” Lucius exclaimed, “What’s a dude need a big gun like that for?”
“There are bigger ones,” Mike said.
“There are?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I don’t see any need for a handgun. Handguns are bad news.”
“No,” Henry said out of the blue, “that’s not true.”
“What do you know about guns?” Bennett asked derisively.
“I used to take my dad’s Colt Woodsman out hunting when I was a kid in Michigan.”
They looked at him like he was full of shit, but he wasn’t looking at them. He was staring at the ground still trying to catch his breath.
“We lived on the Upper Peninsula back then. I used the Woodsman to take rabbits, squirrels, chucks, porcupine…whatever I could find…for the pot. It was just a .22, but I got more pleasure out of that little pistol than anything else in my life back then.”
“Your wife told me about your little pistol,” Bennett said. “Said she likes big ones better.”
Fred caught Bennett’s eye and shook his head. Bennett grimaced and wondered if he’d said the wrong thing. But Henry seemed to ignore him.
“The year before I joined the Navy I used my Uncle Jim’s old .45 Long Colt and jacked a deer. That was the best time of my life, tromping through those woods, hunting, camping, taking care of myself.”
“You shot a deer?” Fred asked.
“Yeah. One with the Long Colt and several with an old Model 94 .30-30.”
“No kidding. God, you’re full of surprises. I didn’t think you had it in you, Henry.”
“It was a long time ago,” Henry said. He looked up and stared out at the view overlooking Cougars Camp.
“Ever shot anything dangerous?” Lucius asked.
There was a brief silence. Not as if Henry were reluctant to speak. More as if he were remembering an experience so distant, so remote from the man he was now that he was having trouble picturing it having happened to himself, and not someone else.
“Shot a black bear with the .30-30 when I was fifteen. It was exciting, but it wasn’t dangerous. But when I was nineteen, the year I joined the Navy, we went up on the Canadian side, me, my Uncle Jim, and my cousins, Ralph and Jim Junior. We hunted brown bear. Bruin, they called it up there. They’re big and they’re fast and they can get dangerous when they’re hurt or mad. They charge, and everything that’s between you and them comes down. I took one like that. It was crashing through the trees so I hardly had a clear shot. So I had to wait, letting him get closer, and he’s coming on like a freight train. But everything was like it was in slow motion. And nothing else existed except me and the bear…me and the bruin. I knew I only had one shot. But I wasn’t scared. When I pulled the trigger, he was almost on top of me, and when he dropped, his head was actually on my boots. Funny, when you’re nineteen…”
They thought he wouldn’t finish the sentence.
“…you’re different,” he finally said.
“You telling the truth?” Lucius asked.
Henry raised his head slowly to look at him. “Yeah.”
“Ole Henry shot a fuckin’ bear,” Lucius said. “One that was charging. You sure?”
“Two,” Bennett reminded him. “He shot a black bear and a brown bear. Ever shot a white bear, Henry?”
“He still isn’t in sight,” Mike said as he looked down to the road that led out of Cougars Camp. “Think he might be hurt?”
“I don’t know,” Fred said. “Do you want to go back and see?”
“Fuck you, Fred,” Tom said.
“We don’t all have to go back,” Mike said. “Why don’t you guys head on and Tom and I will go down and check on him.”
“Do what you want,” Fred said. “When you come back up the trail, you can’t miss the camp.”
“Yeah, go ahead,” Rob said. “I’ll go ahead with these guys.”
Tom started lifting his pack again.
“Ole Henry shot a charging grizzly bear,” Lucius said again. “I’d have shit my pants.”
“Did you shit?” he asked Henry.
Henry slowly shook his head. “I wasn’t scared at all.”
“Don’t take your pack,” Mike said to Tom. “It’s just a few hundred yards back to find him and we’ll make better time without them. We can come back and catch these guys quicker on the trail if we need them, too.”
“But I have a first aid kit in my pack,” Tom said.
“If we need one, Cory has one in his pack. So let’s go.”
Tom reluctantly left his pack on the ground and he and Mike started back down the trail.
While the others loaded their packs up, Fred helped Henry with his pack before putting on his own. Then they started back up the trail.
“I just got a whiff of that fucking smell again,” Fred said as they hiked. He looked at Bennett and Bennett was eating another can of sardines.
“Christ, let me get further ahead of you,” he said to Bennett.
“I don’t think he likes girls,” Bennett confided loudly to Lucius, and Fred turned around laughing and said, “You know what they say, ‘If it smells like chicken, keep on lickin.’ If it smells like trout, get the fuck out.’”
Within two hundred yards they had to descend a switchback that fell into the next canyon.
Henry looked at it and said, “Great, a downgrade.”
“We’ve gotta climb up this on the way out,” Fred reminded him.
“Ah, shit! You had to spoil it, didn’t you,” Henry said, and they all laughed as he led the way down the switchback.
Bennett stepped closer to Fred, “You think Henry really shot a bear?”
Fred rolled his eyes.
“That’s what I figure,” Bennett said.
“I don’t know. Didn’t sound like he was lying to me,” Lucius said. “I never heard ole Henry bullshit people before.”
They all followed Henry down the switchback.
The five of them got along better without Tom, Mike, and Cory and a renewed banter livened their pace. They took frequent stops because of Henry, and now even Rob was beginning to show major signs of fatigue.
All along the trail they looked back for Mike and Tom, expecting to see them at any moment.
“What do you think is eating Tom?” Lucius asked at one stop.
“Oh, the way we got on his friend, Cory,” Fred said.
“What does Cory need that big old .357 for?” Lucius asked.
“Because he’s not as big as you,” Bennett suggested.
“I suppose we shouldn’t have objected to his bringing it,” Fred said.
“It just surprised me when I saw it,” Rob said. “He should have said something about it when we were making plans.”
“You haven’t liked Cory since you met him,” Bennett said to Fred. “You’d have kept your mouth shut if anyone else brought it.”
“Hey, don’t fucking blame me. You other guys didn’t want him to bring it either,” Fred replied.
“I suppose we should have had him bring it along in the first place,” Bennett said. “It would have been good protection against wild animals.”
“There’s nothing here to worry about,” Fred said. There are eight of us. All we’d have to do is yell and we’d scare it off. Even a mountain lion or a bear. Isn’t that right, Henry?”
“Yeah, more or less.”
“There deer up here?” Lucius asked.
“Yeah,” Fred said.
“Wild pigs?” Henry asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“I’d like to try hunting wild pigs,” Henry said. “It’s always open season and there’s no bag limit on them in California.”
“You really think you’d like to hunt again?” Fred asked.
Henry looked at the countryside and said, “I think
so.”
Fred said, “The only other animals that ever bother anyone up here are an occasional bull from one of the ranches out here that goes bad and gets out into the wilds. Up until a year ago a bull was running loose down by the hot springs. It was ripping up the camp grounds and scared the hell out of a bunch of campers. But it either died or moved on because no one’s seen it lately as far as I know.”
“Anyone ever try living out here?” Henry asked. “You know, living off the country?”
“Yeah, there was. Some hermit. He was out by the springs. Forest fairies were always trying to find him to throw him out. He was living off the land and he did some trade with the hikers.”
“Trade what?”
“He made flutes. He carved pipes out of stone, too, and sold them or traded them. The newspapers caught up to him and did a story on him, but the forest fairies could never find him when they wanted to throw him out.”
“What happened to him?”
“Don’t know. He just disappeared last summer. At least that’s what I heard. Hikers don’t see him anymore.”
They continued along the trail which now paralleled Crawfish Creek. Rob seemed to have gotten a second wind but Henry was dragging.
“Henry gonna be all right?” Bennett whispered to Fred.
“Yeah. He’s just pushing himself.”
“Did I say the wrong thing back there when I made the joke about his wife?”
“Why don’t we just drop it?” Fred said.
“Just wondering,” Bennett said. “I don’t want to embarrass the guy.”
“Well,” Fred said, reconsidering, “everyone else seems to know about it. Rumor is that Henry’s wife has been screwing around on him. I guess she’s been doing it for years. I don’t think he knew about it at first, but he’s got to know by now. Poor guy, even his kids shit on him. He’s got three teenaged kids and another rumor is that the youngest isn’t even his. And if you saw the little bitch, you’d believe it. She looks part Mexican. I don’t know why he doesn’t just get out of the situation.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know how to,” Bennett suggested.
Fred shrugged. “And to top it all off,” he said, “his job’s in danger. It’s not that he can’t do the work. He just has a lot on his mind. I don’t know if it’s his home life or if he just isn’t cut out for the job. But there’s talk about laying him off.”
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