The Secret Wisdom of the Earth

by Christopher Scotton

  “Keep going,” I urged. “We’re almost there.”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “You gotta do it. Let’s go.” I pushed the carrier into his back. “Come on, man.” He stepped forward onto the steepest part of the trail. Pops was forty-five-degreed, tied in like a mummy, as we slowly worked to the top. His eyes were closed, but I could tell he was awake.

  We stepped, then stopped for a moment, stepped, then stopped, up the steeply angled trail. The moon was bright on the mountain face and the summit came into view. “We’re almost there,” I said between grunts. My shoulders were numb and my legs were quivering from the weight.

  “I feel like a piece of furniture brought up from the basement by two underpaid moving men.”

  We were twenty feet from the top with Pops almost vertical. Buzzy slipped on the gravel and went down facefirst. “Ow, mutherfucker,” he yelled, then apologized to Pops.

  “No apology needed, son. Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  He turned to me, blood streaming from his nose and lip. “I can’t get traction on the gravel. I need my hands to grab.” We put down the stretcher, laying it sideways against a rock to keep it from sliding down the mountain.

  “We could pull him up with ropes from the top.”

  “We used all the rope. All we got is like ten feet left.”

  “Why don’t we tie the front end of the stretcher to the pack frame. You wear the straps, which will keep your hands free to help pull us up.”

  “That could work.”

  We untied the frame and set the pack against a rock. I took the last length of rope and lashed the frame to the first crossbar. I held it up while Buzzy brought his shoulders into the straps. I lifted the back and we started up the incline. He pulled from the front, hands free to grab roots and rock holds, and I pushed from the rear, on the last twenty feet to the summit. We came up to the edge of the top, which took Pops completely vertical. Buzzy grabbed a rock hold, put his leg over the ledge, and gripped the base of a young tree. I pushed with all my strength to help him achieve the summit. Once over, he sloughed the shoulder straps and turned to pull the litter over the rock ledge. He dragged Pops back off the face and collapsed. I climbed up and over and crawled to them.

  Pops smiled at me weakly. “I haven’t had this much fun since the Mingo County goat rope.”

  “I want to make sure you’re not bleeding,” I said and pulled back his shirt and gently unpeeled the bandages. The entry wound was still packed tightly and pus was beginning to ring the exit wound. I stood and looked down the mountain to see if the shooter was following us, but I saw no movement under the moonlight. Buzzy was still prostrate next to Pops. “It’ll be easier on the way down,” I said.

  “Another hundert feet an I was a mind to ask the shooter to jus go ahead an shoot me!”

  “Don’t even joke about that—but I don’t think he’s following us. Maybe it was the pot guy, after all.”

  Buzzy didn’t reply. I let him rest for another few minutes while I tended to Pops and went over the side to retrieve the pack. “It’s time,” I said on my return.

  “That’s what I know.” He sat up, then stood. I reattached the frame and shoulder pads to the pack.

  “I’ll take the front this time,” I said.

  We picked up the stretcher and walked to the east side of the summit. I hopped down to the trail and Buzzy passed Pops down feet first. I steadied the spar on my chest and walked backwards slowly. Buzzy jumped off the rock, then eased the carrier off the summit, and we started slowly down the steep. I braced the stretcher against my lower back while Buzzy helped it down from above. I slipped on the gravel and hit my tailbone on a rock, screaming on the pain that shot up my spine. Two steps later Buzzy slipped.

  “Do I need to escape this contraption to supervise you striplings?”

  “I think my butt bone split in two,” I said.

  “You’ll be the first in the family to fart in stereo,” Pops retorted. His confidence and humor gave me comfort. After a few more slips and slides, the trail evened to switchbacks and we hurried down the face of Old Blue.

  We came off the shoulder of the mountain to the flat valley that ran between Old Blue and Bother Mountain. After several hundred yards through the trees, we pulled up short at the flooded river. The downpour from the previous nights had swelled the water and pushed it even farther over the banks.

  In the hard dark, with the moon hours taken by Old Blue, we stood staring at the unbridled movement of the water and the long, flat valley beyond; staring at the far bank and its broken bridge with rope tatters tailing in the river; staring at the near bank and its undercut earth and overspilled sides; staring at everything in between.

  Chapter 32

  IN THE WEAVE OF TIME AND BEING

  We placed Pops and the pack behind a large fallen tree, which shielded him in case the shooter came. Buzzy and I stood near the edge staring at the quickened current. “We best wait til first light. I can barely see the other side.”

  I started pacing in a circle. “We gotta try now. If he’s following us, the more space we put between him and Pops, the better.”

  “So how we gonna get across? We used all our rope, the river is higher than last time, an we can’t see shit.”

  “We gotta at least try. We can’t just sit here.”

  “Buzzy’s right, Kevin,” Pops said from the tree. “River’s gotten more dangerous, not less.”

  “We gotta get you to a hospital. Gotta get away from this guy.”

  “No doubt. But it’s not gonna happen tonight. Let’s camp well off the trail and rest up.” He coughed. “We can try first light.”

  We moved two hundred yards downstream and set up the tent in a thicket of holly bushes. I untied Pops and we helped him into the tent onto a bed of the three sleeping bags. It began to rain and I sat in the open tent door watching it splash in pools on the saturated ground. Pops and Buzzy soon drifted off, but I couldn’t sleep for the roiling worry. Every twig crack became the shooter creeping in to finish; every hooting owl became an approaching assassin, a hissing raccoon, an impending ambush.

  As dawn neared, I lay next to Pops and put my hand across his chest, felt the rhythmic beating of his heart as it joined with mine in reassuring meter.

  I woke to saw sounds and the thwack of a hatchet on limb. I exited the tent and followed the noise. The rain had slacked to a steady drizzle as dawn added detail to our surroundings. Our frieze of holly was ringed by large ash and pine trees, which gave us protection from the sniper.

  “We gotta make this thing float,” Buzzy said when he noticed me standing. “Take the hatchet an chop these limbs off.”

  He went to another sapling, felled it, then brought it to me for pruning. We lashed the trees to the underside of the carrier with the rope we had used to tie in Pops. The five logs protruded three feet from either side of the litter, giving Buzzy and me an elevated perch from which to guide the raft. I tied the pack across the top to give Pops a cushion on which to prop himself. He was still asleep in the tent when I climbed in to ready him—soaked with sweat, mouth moving but no words. I took off my shirt, wiped his brow and neck. He woke to the touch, his face hot, his voice a weak whisper. “What’s the plan for the river?” He shuddered as he spoke.

  “Were making a raft to paddle across.”

  “The current…” He coughed. “… is deceptive.”

  “I know, Pops. How are you feeling?”

  “Not great. I’m getting infected.”

  “What should I do? Should I clean the wound? Put on more poultice?”

  “It’s got to work through me.”

  “Do you want some water?”

  “I want some mash… Did you bring my mash?”

  “We did. We’re going to move you to the raft now. You can have some then.”

  He nodded and tried to sit up, then coughed and lay back down. Buzzy came into the tent and we slid Pops to the door and lifted him up and carried him t
o the river’s edge. I went back to break down the tent. I zipped the doors and windows, removed the poles, and started to fold it. The air stayed inside it like a balloon. “You gotta open the door and windows so the air gets out it,” Buzzy said as he checked the buoyancy of the raft. It barely stayed on the surface. “We may have to add more logs,” he said.

  “Let’s use the tent to float it.” I picked it up and showed him its balloon qualities.

  “What if the air leaks out?”

  “We’ll be across before that happens.”

  He nodded.

  I opened the tent door to capture more air, then zipped it up. I placed it on the water and we laid the raft on top of it; the air in the tent lifted the litter off the water. We put one of the bedrolls on the crosspieces for padding and stowed the others in the pack to keep them dry. “Don’t be tying me in, boys.” Cough. “That’s asking for… trouble on this boat.”

  “We used all the rope on the extra logs.”

  “That’s a mercy. If this craft tips… I’ll take my chances with the snakes.”

  We gently placed Pops in the middle on the bedroll. Buzzy climbed onto the front and I pushed us off from the bank into the rushing current. We immediately were pulled downstream. “Paddle!” I screamed, although Buzzy was already digging with fury. We were halfway across when the first shot hit the water and the rifle reported. “Shit!” We thrust even harder. The next shot splintered Buzzy’s paddle and knocked him in the water. The raft spun as he hit the river. We were seized by the current and quickly separated from Buzzy, who was swimming hard after us. The water splashed near him, then another rifle shot echoed off the trees. He dove.

  The river took us backward as Buzzy broke the surface gasping, twenty feet upstream. I thrust in my paddle to slow us. “I’m good. You get outta here,” he yelled.

  “No way. It’s too dangerous to swim. Just grab on and ride it.” We turned again, and in a few strokes he was at the back of the raft. I paddled as hard as I could and he kicked to reach the other side, but the river kept us centered. We rode downstream for a half mile, out of shooting range. The river took a hard left and the current swung us wide, close to the original bank.

  “Let’s rest here an get a plan. I’m touchin.” He braced against the current in the chest-deep water and pushed the raft into calm under an overhanging willow. We tied off on the tree and lifted Pops to dry shade. His eyes were closed; sweat poured from his face and neck.

  “I can’t believe he’s following us.”

  “He ain’t followin us.”

  “Yeah, he is.”

  Buzzy shook his head. “He’s followin me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “All them shots were at me. Evertime I put my head up or went down the beach, he shot. Evertime you did, he dint. Even jus now, when I was in the water, he was shootin at me, not Pops.”

  “But he shot Pops. You saying he was aiming for you?”

  Buzzy nodded.

  “Who would want to shoot you?”

  He shrugged. “All I know is if we stay together he’s gonna keep shootin at us. Eventually he’ll get you, me, or both.”

  “What should we do?”

  He pulled the crossbow pistol from the pack pocket. “I’m gonna go huntin him.”

  “Son, that’s out of the question,” Pops breathed, eyes wide-open now. “We are dealing with a… psychopath here. Best we stick together.” Cough. “Float downriver to the trail. We can put some miles… between us and him.”

  “I disagree, sir. We’re sittin ducks with a long way to home. He’ll never expect a kid to come for him. Y’all get downriver. I’ll meet you up the camp on Irish Ridge.”

  Pops shook his head.

  Buzzy continued. “Look, we gotta do the exact opposite a what he thinks we’ll do. If we’re lucky, I’ll be back before dark.” He knelt to Pops, opened his shirt, and peeled back the bandage. “It’s gettin all infected.”

  He went to the willow tree and carved two fists of bark and put them in the poultice bag. “When you get to camp, make a tea with the bark. It’ll get his fever down.” He took a few fingers of poultice from the bag and grabbed the extra bolts from the side pocket of Pops’ pack, then handed me the big knife in its sheath. “You keep the bowie.” We helped Pops onto the raft. “Keep him high on top; we don’t want the river water gettin in there. An don’t ride the raft too far downriver; you got that waterfall.”

  “Buzzy, I’m scared for you!”

  He looked at me for the first time with the eyes of a child. “Me too.”

  “Let’s just do what Pops says. He’s always right.”

  He shook his head, looked down into the river swirl, then back up to me—child eyes traded for hard. “I gotta do this.”

  “But—”

  “I gotta do this.”

  I reluctantly untied the raft from the tree and climbed onto the back and grabbed the paddle. Buzzy pushed us off with his feet.

  “See you on Irish Ridge,” he said. I turned sideways to reply, but couldn’t find the words. He was standing on the bank, crossbow hanging by his side, eyes hooded with resolve. I swallowed hard on my dry tongue and felt the taste of vomit in my throat. He raised his hand slowly to wave good-bye. I did the same. He brought it down, watched us for a moment more, then turned and disappeared into the undergrowth.

  As the river took the raft and we moved slowly away, I felt a strange sensation that I was stationary and it was Buzzy who was pulling away from me—Buzzy and the bank and the willow trees drifting off to some unfathomable point in the future; to some unknowable rank in the weave of time and being; to some place in the past that would cycle back on itself until the point and the rank and the brightest recollections of him were rendered to oblivion.

  Chapter 33

  THE RIVER

  I paddled into the main current and felt its pull downstream. Pops was awake and propped good lung high, mash jug at the ready. “We’ve got six miles of easy river… til the first rapids,” he said, coughing. “There’s a hard double-S turn… right before… so we should put out there.”

  “Don’t talk, Pops.”

  He waved me away.

  The air in the tent kept us buoyant on water that swirled and spun in eddies and whirlpools. I sat astraddle the logs at the rear of the raft, legs trailing in the brown, ruddering with the paddle to keep the craft pointed downstream. The river swung in a few wide turns to the right and the left but mostly stayed true to the middle of the valley.

  A half hour later from somewhere upstream, the sharp crack of a rifle shot echoed off the surrounding hills, hanging in the air like coming thunder. I jerked around to the river behind, trying to cipher some understanding in the echo. My throat tightened and a numbness spread over me; the trees and the sky seemed to close in like we were rafting a tunnel.

  Pops’ eyes bolted open. I looked at him, tears welling.

  “We don’t know that was Buzzy,” he said.

  I shook my head slowly and closed my eyes as tight as I could, hoping the darkness would blot out the reality of what we’d just heard. We listened for another shot, but the air was achingly silent. My tongue tasted of sour milk.

  “Don’t even know… that was the same shooter. Could have been… a poacher.”

  But we both had recognized the rifle report.

  “Why would anyone want to shoot him?” I asked.

  “I’m not buying… that the attacker was gunning for him… and not me.” Cough. “With me gone… Bubba Boyd has a clear path… to Jukes.” He coughed again.

  “Why would anyone want to shoot him?” I asked the river and the full clouds and the limitless sky. A line of old willow trees leaned in over the bank on the expectation of an answer.

  The valley leveled out and the river widened and meandered back and forth through the trees. We floated in sullen silence for most of the morning amid logs, dead animals, tree branches, and other debris from the storm. For a while we ran alongside a waterlogged chest o
f drawers with a snake swimming next to it, as if he was herding home a choice garage sale find.

  I kept pressing us forward, digging the paddle deep into the water, switching sides and thrusting in again.

  “Once you get to the double S… best head to the left bank… we don’t want to be… running rapids.”

  After another hour, the slope of the valley dipped and the river paced. I kept paddling to increase our speed. Up ahead the first sharp turn to the left loomed. The current swung us wide to the right bank and pushed the raft sideways; I dug furiously to correct us, but the river had its own mind. We hit an eddy and turned completely around until we faced downstream again. I paddled hard for the middle. The current picked up and the river curved tightly to the right. I made for the far bank, to a group of willows on the river edge. The current turned us backward and swept the raft past the trees. I reached up to paddle hook one of the limbs, but it bent away. The push of water sent us back to the middle of the river. Next came another hard left turn. I thrust deeply to keep us centered so the turn after would sweep us to the far bank. Most of the air in the tent had leaked out and we were sagging low in the water. The current spurred and we went down, then up the first small rapid.

  “How you doing, Pops?” I asked. He nodded, closed his eyes, and coughed.

  As we came around the curve I drove the paddle into the water with all my strength to achieve the far bank. Two large boulders split that half of the river. We were turned sideways in a line for land but drifting into the path of the rock. I shoved the wood in hard, then again, but the current was too strong. The front of the raft bounced off the rock, spinning us back to the middle.

  Pops grunted from the jolt. I backpaddled frantically to point us to shore, then forward as the current pulled us downstream. I made one more stout attempt to exit the main flow, but the river began to bend the other way and we were sucked back to the middle. A hundred yards ahead I could see white water bubbling and spewing into the air. Our pace accelerated and we were drawn into the rapids.