“Quequeg,” I said in the rear view mirror. “Good boy, Quequeg.”
I was actually more focused on the rear view mirror than the road in front of me, when I saw in my peripheral vision a fortyish man walking what—to my limited view—was a well-groomed West Highland terrier. I think I was in the process of editing out that man and his pet and replacing them with me and mine when the wolf let out a fierce growl and jumped over the back seat and into my lap. I know I was screaming, screaming and driving. I slowed down then swung into the high curb and hit my brakes. The man walking the dog looked up with momentary surprise. The wolf’s claws scrabbled against the glass. I suppose he thought (as did I briefly) that I was being attacked by my dog. Growl growl growl, went the wolf. I grabbed the handle and started winding down the window. I saw the West Highland terrier’s eyes get very round. The dog was trying to get away, running as fast as his two-inch legs would take him. He was on one of those retractable leashes (a misnomer because they only extend, never retract, particularly at critical junctures) that was reeling out to its full capacity.
“Astro! Astro!” yelled the owner. But Astro was running, wrapping himself in tighter circles around his owner’s legs until finally his spiraling orbit came to a stop. I got the window down and Quequeg leaped into the suburban wilderness. I think he made his first kill. I suppose it was the terrier, but in his hunting Quequeg managed to knock down both beast and master. As all mammals have the same kind of blood when looked at with the naked eye, I’ve never been sure whose was spilling onto that immaculate sidewalk as I reversed away.
Did I feel bad? Sort of, but I had more important things to think about. The Midwest had developed these bizarre, sinister associations and I needed to get out. I saw the first sign indicating the direction to the highway and ground the car into fourth gear. Soon I was speeding at upwards of eighty miles an hour. I felt the speed was necessary, even though this made the car shudder in a way that caused my hands gripping the steering wheel to go numb. I’d never been further west than Chicago and the prospect was exciting. As a child, I remembered my classmates coming back from California burned up by the sun, full of stories of Disneyland. But my California—my West—was not a place soaked in sun, inhabited by giant mice and equally enormous dwarves. I had formed my opinions at an early age and these opinions had somehow made it, unquestioned, into my adulthood. In the same way, Captain Cook and Captain Hook had been conflated in my mind until a course in Australian history made it clear that Peter Pan and Captain Cook had never known each other. Similarly, my West was still populated by pioneers and their oxen, and their dreams being carted into impassible mountains, covered with snow. Somehow the lure of gold still existed for me. Unsophisticated, perhaps, but the West had been of no interest for many years. I’d been looking to Europe. To me the West was still undiscovered.
In the old days, before maps (I was rather good at reading maps) one would have had to engage a guide to get west of the Rockies. Into the hands of that guide one would entrust one’s life and the lives of one’s family. The Donner Party did that. They asked Lansford W. Hastings where they should go, and he directed them to the fatal, legendary cutoff that now bears his name—the Hastings Cutoff. I suppose many of the guides were good, which is why they’ve vanished into history. Good seldom is interesting and bad usually is. Among the guides that I remember well is Alfred Packer. Alfred Packer was an adventurer and guide, but he wasn’t particularly good at finding his way. Or maybe he was. Maybe the paths he took are just strange to the majority of people and make sense only if they are viewed as accidental.
Alfred Packer was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in 1842. He went west in 1862 and enlisted in the Eighth Regiment of the Iowa Cavalry in 1863; however, due to his epilepsy, he was mustered out of service. The winter of 1873 finds Alfred Packer in Provo, Utah, offering his services as guide to a group of twenty hopeful prospectors headed to the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. In truth, Alfred Packer knew little of this region. In January 1874, the group stops off at the village of Chief Ouray, who warns them not to attempt a crossing until spring. Packer and five of the men decide to continue into the mountainous region. Apparently, the call of gold has stifled that of reason.
Packer and five prospectors step boldly into the windy, white San Juan Mountain range.
In the early spring, the remaining fifteen prospectors, who had wisely heeded the advice of Chief Ouray, embarked on their own tiring, but nonetheless uneventful, passage through the mountains. Upon emerging on the other side, they inquire about their fellow prospectors. Fellow prospectors? No one knew of their friends and former companions. Could it be that they had not yet emerged from the mountains? Could it be that these fifteen men who had cautiously chosen a spring passage had actually passed them, been the first to reach the destination? Were they all dead, victims of cold, hunger, and blindness? Had the hissing snow and brutal wind buried their landmarks, their paths, and then their frostbitten, hungry bodies?
Alfred Packer? One minute. They knew him. Black hair? Broad cheekbones? Deep, penetrating gaze? Ah, yes. But he had not come out of the mountains in winter, not him, not with the meat on his bones like that; he would have been emaciated. And he had no companions. He traveled alone, yes he did. He bought no food when he appeared (miraculously?) at the Los Pinos Indian Agency, but just whisky. People still remembered that plump roll of money, the flutter of bills, Packer’s cavalier dispensing of cash.
Packer’s first explanation states that he has been left behind due to a leg injury. This callousness on the part of his companions is responsible for his survival. However, in August 1874, when the bodies of the other men are found, they are not strung along the trail, as would be expected if the hand of God had smote them leisurely, in turn—the typical scenario for small groups of starving, frostbitten, lost prospectors/pioneers crossing mountain ranges. Instead, the men are all grouped together. In addition to this, they all seem to have met some variety of violent death. Packer changes his story. The food was gone. This is true. In fact, all the men were surviving on a diet of rosebuds and pinesap. Packer is chosen to scout for food, leaving the other five prospectors together. Upon returning, Packer finds that a certain Shannon Bell—in a crazed state—has slaughtered the other four men. Packer, in an act of self-defense, shoots him.
Then an Indian guide finds strips of meat—man meat—strung out along the trail. On the Colorado side of the trail.
On the survivors’ side of the mountains.
Packer is forced to reconstruct his story again: they were all dead anyway. Why not make meat of the others? Since when have dead men been concerned for the mortal body when faced with the fate of their immortal souls?
Shortly after this last retelling, Packer is sentenced to death by hanging for cannibalism. Packer escapes from jail and changes his name to Schwartz. He moves from Arizona to Missouri to Colorado to Wyoming, where (or so the legend goes) his laugh is recognized in a bar in Fort Fetterman. For reasons unknown to me, his predicament attracts the sympathy of a Denver journalist whose championing of Packer’s plight—the plight of a cannibal—results in the reduction of the sentence from five counts of murder to mere manslaughter. Packer dies a free man of natural causes in 1907. He is sixty-five years old.
I would like to return to April sixth, 1874, when Packer emerges from the snowy belt of mountains, his cheeks full and flushed, his roll of cash heavy in his hand. How jolly that man appears. A whisky is all he needs, no, make that a full flask. No salt meat for me. No flour. I have my provisions right here, in my satchel. Keep your chalky bread, your tainted beef, your pickled ham. I carry my own meat and am in no need of provisions.
This would be the last time he stanched his hunger.
The only picture of Alfred Packer that I have seen shows him in the long hair, floppy mustache, and goatee of the period. He is perched on the edge of a chair, blanketed in a black coat that obscures his figure, the long lines of his bones. His hands are gently fisted. His
eyebrows descend to the cliff of brow. His eyes are deep in his face. Most notable are his cheekbones, the broad cantilever of bone protruding from each side of the face. The cheeks beneath are caverns, sails of skin pulled taught with no flesh beneath. He looks to be a man eternally starved, emaciated, deprived. His sentence is to be always hungry. Never satisfied. To be constantly in the presence of food and never allowed to eat.
14
Gallup was on another level of the earth. I’d heard the town had the highest percentage of alcoholics in the nation, which appealed to me. I thought I could get a drink there, and I needed a drink. I was happy to be in New Mexico. In New Mexico the birds sang all year long. My mother had driven down this very highway. I wondered how far I was from the Hidalgo Ranch.
I pulled over on a dusty road trimmed on either side by barbed wire. The sun was strong and buzzards swung lazy circles beneath the few tendrils of cloud. They projected their shadows onto the ground, perfect beams of darkness. On the far side of a ridge of red rock something must have been cut down, because their circles grew smaller and finally became one and slowly the great birds swung in lower and tighter, as if all those vultures were being sucked down an enormous, invisible drain. They were gone now, hidden behind the ridge, and all that was left was the sweet after-smell of death.
The signs for the Navajo reservation confirmed my approach into Gallup. I needed a shower and a meal. There was so much nothing between the towns in this part of America. All the people were spread thinly through the plains. It reminded me of molecules. In the east, we were solid, and here out in the flatter, bigger part, they were liquid. I pulled into a parking lot where a sign, lit in spasms by a malfunctioning bulb, announced that rooms were a mere twelve dollars a night. I was getting my bag from the trunk when the light bulb suddenly fizzled and died. I wasn’t really paying attention to my bag and let it drop. Change spilled out everywhere.
The guy working in the office saw it happen and thought he should give me a hand. He got up from the reception desk and came out. I could feel him looking over my shoulder.
“Hi, I’m Johnny,” he said.
“Hello,” I said.
“Can I help?”
“That’s not necessary.”
He picked up The Best of Lynyrd Skynyrd, which had fallen on the ground. “Lynyrd Skynyrd,” said Johnny.
“Free Bird,” I replied. I zipped my bag up and dusted my knees. “I am assuming you have an available room.”
“Take as many as you like.”
“What about a place to eat?”
“I was on my way across the street to get a burger. Want to come?”
“Sure,” I said.
We headed across the street. Johnny rested his hand on my shoulder and said, “You look like you need a drink.”
“Very perceptive,” I said.
The restaurant was smoky and dim. Johnny and I ordered burgers and beers. The burgers came smothered in green chili in a basket of heavily salted fries, which I am sure had been cooked in lard. This was the best burger meal I’ve ever had. There were only a few people in the room. I could make out an old man in a booth near ours hunched over a plate of food and along the bar shadowy, rounded figures had lined themselves up like a row of boulders; occasionally, when you had forgotten they were people, one of them would move.
I’m not sure how many beers I drank. At one point, I called Arthur from the pay phone. I used a secret ring, hanging up a couple of times. We’d figured this out before I left so he wouldn’t accidentally find himself in conversation with Boris. Arthur was concerned.
“I wish you’d call me more often, Katherine.”
“I will,” I said. “Do you miss me?”
“Yes,” said Arthur.
“I miss you,” I said. “I think I lack judgment.”
“That is probably true.”
“I have to go now.”
“Call again soon,” he said. And we both hung up.
Back in the booth, Johnny had decided he needed me. He said, “I need you, Elizabeth.”
“Katherine.”
“I need you, Katherine. You’re really beautiful. You’re so...”
“Exquisite?”
“No. Different.”
“Different from what?” I said. I waved over at the old woman who was waiting tables and she turned and headed back to the bar for more beer. “What do you know about me?”
“I know you listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd,” he said.
I laughed and shook my head.
“I know you’re hiding something,” he added.
I drank some beer and when I put my glass down, Johnny was nodding and smiling at me. “Why do you think I’m hiding something?” I asked.
“You don’t ask me anything,” he said, “so I won’t ask you anything.”
“Maybe I’m just not interested.”
Johnny laughed a big laugh, the laugh of a much older man. He looked around to see if other people were enjoying themselves as much as he was. They weren’t. He nodded to me approvingly. And I, despite myself, began to have a good time.
I led him back across the street. He was drunk and unsteady, but something in his eyes had stayed awake. “Do you have a boyfriend?” he asked.
“I have two.” I smiled. “And you, do you have a girlfriend?”
“No,” he said. “Sometimes I sleep with a lady up the street. She’s okay, but she’s married. There’s a widow on the reservation.”
“You’re into older women.”
“The widow’s my age, twenty-seven.”
“That’s young to be called a widow.”
“She has four children.”
“I didn’t know that widowhood was a function of having children.”
“She’s not looking to get married.”
“And neither are you?”
“I wouldn’t be any good.”
“Why not?” I asked. Johnny pushed open the door to the motel, which wasn’t locked.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Well, what do you do?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you do?”
“I work in a motel.”
“No one just works in a motel.”
“I,” he said, “just work in a motel.”
Johnny waited at the reception desk while I took a shower. He had a bottle of Wild Turkey in one of the drawers and I saw him pour himself a glass. I took a long time. I had three days of dirt and oil coating me. Also, the salty smell of that trucker was somewhere in my hair and at odd times, I’d get a whiff of it, as if his spirit had been disturbed. When I finally got out of the shower and reappeared in the paneled lobby, Johnny had fallen asleep with his head on the counter, his hand sprawled around a set of keys. I took the glass of bourbon to my room and was soon asleep myself.
The following morning Johnny and I set off together to find the Hidalgo Ranch. The landscape around Gallup was both calculated and unreal. Rocky outcrops interrupted the horizon here and there and sometimes I thought I could see the curvature of the earth, feel the car engine straining on the incline. To me, the whole thing looked surreal—denying the rational—demanding that I meld my subconscious onto the landscape in order to have it come together as a whole. Or maybe the sparseness just reminded me of Dali, a blank Iberian plain interrupted by a rotting carcass and crows, which, when viewed at high speed in one’s peripheral vision, acquired some suspicious details—a bust of Voltaire, pronged twigs, infamous wilting clocks.
I knew something of Dali from a modern art course I’d taken in college. I’d come up with a topic for the final paper that my professor, Consuela Smith, thought had much promise. I’d decided to compare Dali’s and Goya’s treatments of war. It would have been a good paper, but the course was taught in the spring and just as I was sitting down at the computer to compose my thoughts, the weather turned. The sun came out. The temperature nudged past eighty and I knew that my paper and I were both doomed. I could never work in good weather an
d so the paper was never actually written. But I had read some good books in its pursuit. Driving out in the desert, I remembered that I’d never given up writing the paper, even though I’d failed the course, and that “F” had been the final straw of the final semester of my college career.
My favorite Dali painting was Autumn Cannibalism. Dali painted Autumn Cannibalism at the end of 1936, at which point he had already alienated himself from the surrealist movement, although the break would not be complete until 1939. Dali’s embrace of traditional Spanish values—Catholicism, penitence, and classicism—put him at odds with the founders of the movement, Calas, Breton, and others, who in the late thirties were still passionately political and had little time for Dali’s frivolous nature or his pursuit of money, which earned him the anagrammatical nickname “Avida Dollars.” Dali was not political at all and did not view things through the revolutionary lens essential to surrealist values. Writing on Autumn Cannibalism, which is inspired by the Spanish Civil War, Dali states: “These Iberian beings eating each other in autumn, express the pathos of the Civil War considered (by me) as a phenomenon of natural history as opposed to Picasso who considered it as a political phenomenon.” In addition to acknowledging the legacy of Picasso, Dali also pays homage to Goya (Soft Construction with Boiled Beans of mid-1936 is undeniably indebted to Goya’s Colossus), whose Los Caprichos takes similar inspiration. Although where Picasso is political, Dali naturally cyclical, Goya goes person by person, grimace by grimace, pint of blood by shed pint of blood.
A Carnivore's Inquiry Page 14
