“Find anything?”
“Nuthin to tell me who it is.”
“What was in the bag?”
“Jus food an some clothes. No fishin rod. Coulda took it with him, though.”
“No, we’d see him on the lake fishing. Maybe he’s a hunter.”
“Maybe he’s huntin that White Stag.”
“He’ll never find it.”
“How do you know? He could be an expert hunter come up jus to kill it.”
“The White Stag is too smart. That’s how he got to be so old. People have been probably trying to kill him for years. He’s not gonna be fooled by a single hunter.”
Buzzy thought about it. “Maybe you’re right about it all.”
“About what?”
“About how some things jus ain’t meant to be killed.”
“Maybe.”
We hiked the trail that ran through the woods back to camp. Halfway there Buzzy pulled me behind a rock.
“What? Is it him?”
He shook his head and shushed me. I stuck my head around the boulder. Three turkey hens and a huge tom turkey were wending down the trail—hens flashing tail and the tom following scent like a bum to whiskey.
“I never got this close to a turkey… hardest animal to hunt. The tom is ruttin, so he ain’t payin attention to nuthin but the girls.” Buzzy peeked around the rock, then took the safety off the crossbow pistol. The hens left the trail, promenading off into the woods. The tom stopped, smelled the air, then turned to follow. Buzzy leapt from behind the rock, knelt, aimed, and squeezed the trigger. The bolt whooshed from the pistol and buried in the shoulder of the turkey. The hens scattered and the tom took to the trees. We ran after him, thrashing through the woods down a long hill. We followed him for a half hour to a clearing in the middle of an unknown valley floor. In a hundred-by-hundred-foot space were rows of what looked like bamboo. The tom took a step out of the woods and into the field. A shotgun blast pierced the quiet of the meadow, and turkey feathers flew into the air, floating like the flotsam of a pillow fight.
We looked for the shooter but saw no one. The feathers were still drifting down as we crept toward the flopping bird. The tom’s head and neck were completely blown off. Buzzy reached over and grabbed its twitching claw and the thin wire caught around its leg. He removed it and followed the wire over to a sapling with a shotgun lashed to it. The wire connected to the trigger through an eye hook screwed into the wooden butt of the gun. “It’s a booby trap,” he breathed.
I faced the plot of bamboo, neatly rowed and well tended. “Why would anyone booby-trap a bamboo farm?”
“Cause that ain’t bamboo,” he said. “Let’s get outta here!” He grabbed the turkey by the feet and carefully walked through the trees, as if navigating a minefield. When we were a safe distance up the slope, we turned and looked over the clearing. “What was all that?” I asked, heart pounding.
“Pot field.”
“You mean marijuana?”
Buzzy nodded.
“How do you know?”
“Seen it before. People grow it up here.”
“What’s with the booby trap? We coulda been killed.”
“That I never seen before. Frickin scary.”
We hiked up the incline back to the lake and followed the trail to camp. The turkey was heavy—about twenty pounds—and Buzzy kept shifting it from hand to hand. Pops was at the lake edge fishing when we walked into camp.
“Whoa-ho! Look what the hunters brought back. That’s an impressive piece of shooting. Wild turkeys are a hard get.”
“We found a pot field that’s booby-trapped. Shotgun blew its head off.”
Pops stopped midcast. “What kind of booby trap?”
We told him.
Pops frowned. “There are folks growing crop out here, but I’ve never heard of anybody booby-trapping; that’s just idiotic. Where’s the field?”
We described the location, then told him about the man spying again from the far cliff.
“He was probably checking to see if I was DEA. The feds have come down here a few times rooting out growers and methamphetamine labs. You boys stay around the lake from now on. No more wandering in the woods. Any man dumb enough to set a booby trap is capable of anything. As long as we don’t go near his field, we’ll be fine.”
Buzzy handed the bloody turkey over to Pops, who felt its weight and smiled. “Heck of a shot, son.”
“He was ruttin, not payin attention.”
“Females have that effect on toms… and on men.” He regarded the fowl. “We are going to be eating fine tonight!”
Pops dressed the bird and stuffed it with several huge king bolete mushrooms, a mass of wild onions, garlic, rosemary, and goatsbeard root. We roasted the turkey on a spit carved from green ash limbs, each of us taking a go at turning. It tasted nothing like Thanksgiving turkey—each bite seemed to melt on my tongue into an explosion of flavors: goose, chicken, steak, and several I couldn’t recognize.
We lay around the fire, gorging on wild tom turkey and watching the sun move behind Harker Mountain.
“Tonight we should see quite a show in the sky. It’s the peak night and astronomers are forecasting a heavy dose of shooting stars; could be one every few seconds.”
“What time does it start?”
“About midnight. Let’s try and get some sleep before then.”
We lingered at the fire, then drifted to our hammocks and eventually found sleep.
“It’s time, boys,” Pops said, shining a flashlight to spur us awake. He had prepared a light pack for each of us and pulled the bedrolls from the tent. He gave us both flashlights and we followed him on the trail in the dark, bobbing slashes of light exposing the rocks and stumps. The trail inclined on the face of Old Blue and we labored up the switchbacks to the hardscape near the summit. Our progress slowed as we neared the top, steps narrowing on the vertical. We picked our way through the rocks and finally clamored over the lip of the mountaintop. We followed Pops to a rock outcropping that faced north and afforded a full view of the valleys and hollows below and the night sky above.
We put our sleeping bags out on the rock and lay on top of them, facing skyward, hands behind our heads.
After a while Buzzy spoke. “I wonder if Cle went to the sheriff.”
“I hope so. Once the sheriff comes to him, his window for a good outcome is likely closed,” Pops replied. We were all silent for a time as we pondered Cleo and Tilroy and how the death of Paul would most certainly change their lives.
The stars were set in swaths of white, so bright they almost cast shadow. Soon Buzzy’s breathing became rhythmic as he surrendered to sleep. Off in the distance, we heard the growl of a very large cat. “There are a few big cougars in these hills,” Pops said before I could comment. “You definitely want to give them a wide birth.”
“Have you ever seen one?”
“A few times, but only from a distance. They hunt at night and sleep most of the day, so they’re tough to spot. Nasty critters.”
Finally I put Tilroy out of my head and asked a question that had been on my mind since I arrived in Medgar. “Do you ever wonder what things would be like if Grandma hadn’t died?”
We both sat up on the import of the question. He looked at me with a sad smile and put a hand to my shoulder. “Every single day of my life.” His voice trailed off into the memories of his brief moment in the orbit of Sarah Winthorpe. We went quiet again. I kept stealing glances at him, watching the stars reflect in his moist eyes, watching his Adam’s apple bob on every hard swallow as the projection of what might have been writhed inside him.
Finally he spoke. “You know, I used to take your mom up here to watch the Perseids when we were tramping together.”
I made no reply at first, then asked, “Do you think she’s ever gonna be like she used to?”
Pops gave his temples an index finger massage. “Kevin, you’re old enough to understand this, so I’m going to tell you straight. Your mom
will always carry Josh’s death heavy in her heart, and because of that she may never be like she was. That doesn’t mean she won’t heal, but it’s going to take a very long time.”
“I feel like I didn’t even know Josh.” I examined the frayed end of my belt.
“Go on, son.”
“When he died, everyone was coming up to me and saying how sorry they were and how sad I must be. I miss him, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to feel; and now that he’s gone I can’t even remember what he looked like. I have to keep looking at the pictures to remember. It’s like he was never even there.”
“That’s a perfectly normal feeling. Don’t feel guilty about it.” He had his hand on my shoulder again. “Do you understand?”
“I think.”
He continued to look at me. I looked at my hands. Suddenly a white light streaked from the corner of the sky, across the heavens, disappearing over Bother Mountain.
“What was that?” I asked.
“I believe that was the first meteor of the night.” Thirty seconds later another one, brighter than the first, shot from the same direction. “The show is starting—let’s lay back and watch.”
I tried to shake Buzzy awake, but it was like rousting deadwood. He mumbled something and turned on his side.
Two meteors at once flashed across the compliment of stars; one burning out halfway home, the other flaming well past Mingo County. Then a single shooting star and another double following close behind.
“That was a good one,” Pops assessed. “They say this will be the best shower in the last hundred years. The earth is passing directly into the comet’s tail this time. I think we’re in for quite a show.”
The next one was a double, then another single right behind like a two-stage rocket with a chaser.
“Cool!”
“I make a point of watching the Perseids every summer. It makes me feel small—not a bad thing occasionally.” Pops winked.
The stars seemed to pulse now, as if any one of them could break out and hurtle to earth, as if they had all marshaled to watch the best and brightest on parade. The valley was dark and quiet; even the crickets were silent in deference to the show unfolding above our heads.
They came in a rush then. A flood of shooting stars like nothing I could have imagined. From the northeast corner of the sky, they rained on us like flaming hail, two to three a second.
Four came at once, all orange; then a small yellow one leaving a fire trail; then two bright white ones; more threes, fours, all streaking across the sky in an endless machine-gun flurry of excellence and wonder.
“I’ve never seen it like this,” Pops said in awe.
And they kept coming and coming. A huge red one with no tail; five small ones in formation, tails twined; two bright big ones followed by a slow yellow one with a green tail; another double, then a triple. Barraging punches of fire that took my breath, my speech, and everything else. Each meteor demanding my full attention and none of them getting it. It continued like that for ten minutes, then gradually subsided to a regular pace. One or two every ten seconds, one every half minute, one every two minutes.
Suddenly a huge fireball, by far the brightest of the night, burst across the now quiet sky. A white center and a yellow and green double tail that hung in the air like jet stream. It streaked above us, this final meteor, and disappeared behind Bother Mountain as if it was crashing to earth, obliterating half of Missiwatchiwie County. Somehow we knew it was the last shooting star of the night, but neither of us could move. We just stayed on the rock, silent and still.
I knew that I would never be able to look at the sky the same way again. And everything else I’ve seen since that early morning so many years ago—every waterfall, every canyon, every mountain—is judged by the watermark of what we witnessed that night.
We lay there in silence, Pops and I, on top of Old Blue, the two of us just watching the tired stars. Watching the hint of light blue to the east. Watching the hollows below us draw and swell toward morning.
Chapter 30
THE MOUTH-HOOKED LURE AND THE QUEEN BEE
We walked down from Old Blue in the assembling dawn and collapsed in our hammocks. At about noon we began to stir—Pops at last night’s coals, me at lakeside to fill the pot.
“It was like the stars were all falling from the sky at once,” I told Buzzy after we had eaten lunch of last night’s bird. “I tried to wake you up.”
After the meal, we lay around camp for a few hours: Pops with his hiking hat over his eyes, Buzzy shading his with a T-shirt. I was exhausted but couldn’t sleep for thinking of the last two days: the meteor storm, the mysterious visitor, and the White Stag.
Around three o’clock I hiked over Jumping Rock to check the snares. There were two sizable rabbits and a woodchuck caught up in them. The woodchuck had been strangled from the snare wire. I released it from the trap and threw the carcass into the woods. The rabbits were still alive but put up little fight as I dispatched them with the ax. I reset the snares and walked back to camp. They were both up when I returned—Pops sweeping out the tent, Buzzy poking at the coals. I hoisted the game and Pops smiled, then followed me down to the lakeside to help clean them. We roasted the rabbits and fried fatback and wild watercress for an early dinner. Afterward, I took the fry pan down to the waterside. As I scoured the pan with sand a strange sensation washed over me that I was being watched. My head jerked up and I saw him—directly across the lake, leaning on a rock, peering at me with binoculars. I quickly washed the pan and ran back up to camp.
“I saw him again. Across the lake looking at me.”
“The pot guy?” Buzzy asked.
I nodded. Pops seemed unconcerned and kept banking the fire.
I stood with Buzzy, pointing out the rock that the stranger had used for leaning.
“Could you tell who it was?”
“Naw, he was too far.”
“This is gettin kinda creepy.”
“Getting?”
Pops came over to us. “Boys, instead of fretting over our mystery companion, let’s go fishing for some muskie. They’re not good eating but they’re great fun to catch. Fight like swordfish. I know of a hole across the lake where they lurk.”
Buzzy and I grabbed our rods and piled into the dugout, keeping an eye out for the menacing interloper.
I took up a paddle in the bow and Buzzy held the other in the stern while Pops navigated and readied the tackle in the middle. “The best lure in the entire world for muskie is the Lundberg Stalker; bought it special from Sweden. Walks the dog better than anything I’ve seen.”
“But does it catch the fish?” I joked. “Another outing like the other day and I may take up needlepoint just for the thrill.”
Buzzy guffawed and Pops smiled.
“I don’t think they’ve invented a lure that can automatically boat a fish for you, although you and Chester would be enthusiastic customers.”
With a few strokes we were away from shore, sliding through the water to the middle of the lake. The dugout was heavy, hard to maneuver, but stable. “Head on over to the cliffs that way,” he said, looking up from lure tying. We angled the canoe toward the cliff where we had seen the intruder. “This is the deepest part of the lake. Muskie like the deep.”
Pops had affixed three wooden lures, carved and painted like large minnows with a set of trihooks at the head and tail. “The key to muskie fishing is to jerk the rod so the lure moves like a real fish. Do that for about ten seconds, let the lure sink a little, then do it again.” He cast out and demonstrated the technique.
We threw our lures across the water, plopping them in the lake like thrown stones. We mirrored Pops’ reeling method and soon the lures were flashing fishless next to the boat. We cast again.
Then again.
And again—for ten minutes more.
“I don’t think there’s anything down there,” I said after cast twenty.
“They’re there. My father used to say, ‘An imp
atient angler comes home with an empty creel.’ ”
On the next cast my line tugged hard, almost pulling the rod from my hands. “I got one.”
“Pull it up to set the hook.”
I did.
“Now jerk it again and reel in the slack.”
I did. It felt like I had hooked a tractor tire. “I think the line’s gonna break,” I yelled.
“It won’t.”
Suddenly the fish started to run, turning the canoe around and pulling it forward. My feet braced the gunwales; I held the rod handle with both hands. The canoe pitched forward on another tug from the fish. I yanked up on the rod and the line went slack for a moment, which allowed me a cranking interval. Each time I pulled up, the line slacked and I spooled the fish in a bit more.
The fish moved from the front of the canoe to the side and I shifted with it. The line slacked; I stopped reeling. “I think I lost him.”
“You didn’t lose him,” Pops shouted. “He’s trying to make you think the line broke. Keep reeling.”
I cranked even faster. Suddenly, the fish breeched, leaping full body out, shaking and twisting in the air to rid itself of the hook. It was huge, more than three feet long, with red-tinted fins and yellow-green body, spots like a leopard.
As it turned in the air, water sprayed off in a crown and the mouth-hooked lure flashed like a camera. The muskie splashed back to the water and dove, bending the rod straight down, almost capsizing the canoe.
“Pops, help me!”
“No, you can do it, son,” he urged.
My spooling became jerky as the fish fought. The line slacked again and I reeled as fast as I could. The muskie rushed back to the top, this time just thrashing below the surface in the sun. I pulled in the rod again and cranked the line. Ten minutes later, after a series of dives and ascents, the huge fish was at the side of the canoe. I couldn’t tell who was more exhausted, the muskie or me.
Pops reached over the side and pulled it into the boat. It flopped once, then was still, gills fanning. Its head was long and predator-ugly, with four large sharp teeth at top and bottom. The lure was hooked into his lower lip. Pops put on a glove and reached into the fish’s mouth to remove it.
The Secret Wisdom of the Earth Page 28
