"Yes. But I don't want to talk about it."
The girl sat up to see his eye more closely. "What happened? You got busted good."
"I had a fight with a coyote."
"You didn't fight with any coyote."
Ben shook his head, as if disappointed. "Don't believe me," he said.
"I don't. Cuz you're just teasing."
"That's what they all say," said Ben.
She rose haughtily to leave the room, her torso thrust forward and misshapen. She had a severe case of scoliosis and was as bandy-legged as a cowboy. Yet she exited with the hauteur of a duchess who has been toyed with too often. The boy, younger, stared at Ben as if he were an apparition. "Really?" he asked. "For real?"
"Really."
"You should have climbed up a tree," said the boy, "or throwed rocks at him."
"There are a lot of things I should have done. But I didn't think straight."
"What happened?"
"He punched me, I punched him. You know." Ben shrugged.
The boy blinked and put his thumb in his mouth. "The coyote looks worse," Ben said.
The boy's mother came through the door then, trailing the girl behind. She was a heavy woman, not yet thirty, stout in the neck and shoulders. She wore a string of puka shells at her throat and a yellow hooded sweatshirt. "What do you need?" she asked Ben.
"I'd like to rent a car," Ben told her. "I've heard this is the place."
"Not really, not anymore. There was a guy in the campground used to rent a couple cars, but he's gone awhile."
She slid one hand into the pocket of her sweatshirt and inspected his damaged face. "What happened?" she asked. "That looks nasty."
Ben explained that he had crashed his car and banged his head on the steering wheel. "You were just teasing," said the boy. The girl put one hand against her hip, cocked her head, and sighed. "I knew you didn't fight any coyote. Can't nobody fight with a coyote."
Ben sighed in mimicry. "You win," he confessed. "I lied."
"You didn't even lie good. I never believed you for a second."
"You hush now," her mother said. She looked at Ben and shook her head. "She's just like a little grown-up sometimes. I can't figure out what to do with her."
"I have a daughter too," Ben said.
The woman nodded, leaned her weight on the counter, and yawned without embarrassment. There was probably a room at the motel, she said, if he wanted it. The Greyhound bus was coming through later that afternoon. He mentioned the two dogs waiting outside. She shook her head and explained that unless they were Seeing Eye dogs, the bus driver wouldn't let them board.
The motel, she suggested again. He could rest there, get his eye healed up, figure things out tomorrow. It wasn't any trouble for her to call over, let them know he was coming. Their rates were reasonable, she added.
Ben thanked her and picked up his duffel. "I think I'll just call a friend for a ride. But thanks for everything."
"Good-bye, liar," the girl said.
"You hush," said her mother.
Outside, his dogs sat impassively on the ground, watching him as if they expected something. Ben sat beside them, contemplative. The sun stippled the surface of the river, autumn-warm and pleasant. He reconsidered the attractions of a motel. But what would be the point of passing time in Vantage, sprawled out on some melancholy bed, watching television and dozing? It wasn't this he had come for. He patted Tristan's flank for a while, caressed Rex's belly and withers, until gradually he came to accept that his expedition had been thwarted by his accident, that it was time to get home any way he could—time to retreat, regroup, recuperate, then to reconsider this matter of how to meet his end.
He stood, and hauling his rucksack and duffel—his dogs straining on tightly held leashes—headed back to the highway. Ben hadn't hitchhiked in fifty-five years, but now it seemed unavoidable.
He climbed up onto the highway shoulder and stood there brazenly breaking the law with his bags sprawled on the ground next to him and his dogs restless at his side. Ben held his thumb out for a long time, but no one stopped for him. Who would stop for an old man with two dogs and a black eye? The drivers speeding past were from another universe—the universe he'd inhabited as a Seattle physician—and hurled past his extended thumb without concern or apology. One woman shrugged, but Ben couldn't translate the substance of her message. Perhaps she only meant to suggest that while half her heart wanted to serve, the other half was wary of strangers. Or perhaps she meant something more specific, that she was only going as far as the next exit and couldn't be of help to a traveler. Whichever it was, she didn't stop, and neither did other drivers. He was stuck outside of Vantage.
He hadn't reckoned with this possibility; he'd assumed his right to get home. After all, in times past, when he'd been a boy in orchard country, there was nothing illegitimate about hitchhiking or improvising a journey. He'd lived in a world of orchard tramps; a wanderer fell in with other wanderers. Though unwelcomed in settled places, they were not long scorned on paths or byways but generally treated to a ride. Now the cars flew by so fast, a driver could start in Seattle one morning and make North Dakota the next. No one waved or gestured. No one risked stopping at roadside. The world was full of madmen and strangers. Ben understood that he was one of them and that he had no chance of a ride.
Walking north on Wanapum Road, heading toward the Vantage Motel, he met another traveler. A long-haired drifter with thick tresses across his face, lean, tall, sun-burnished, he wore an oversized black leather jacket, its belt hanging limply from worn loops. He hadn't shaved recently, the hair sprouted mostly on his chin and upper lip, and he smoked a hand-rolled cigarette. "Hey, partner," he called to Ben. "I like those hunting dogs."
"Why don't you take them?" Ben answered.
"Can't," said the drifter. "I'm on the road." And he showed Ben his thumb, pointing east.
"I just spent an hour and a half doing that."
"It's the dogs, probably. Hide them in the bushes."
"Why didn't I think of that myself?"
The drifter shrugged. "Who knows?" he said. "Where are you trying to get to?"
"West," said Ben. "Across the mountains."
"The other side," the drifter said. "I haven't been over in a long time."
"Well, I was there a few hours ago. I came over earlier this morning."
The drifter shuffled his shoes in the dust, city shoes incongruous with the sagelands, his black leather jacket incongruous too, cut as if to be worn to a coffeehouse by a traveling blues musician. "Quick trip," he said to Ben. "You came over the pass this morning?"
"Three hours ago, about."
"Well, what are you going back for then?"
"It's a long story," said Ben.
The drifter tossed his cigarette in the road and perched his hands on his hips. "I hate to ask, but could you maybe spare a little change? I'm in need right now."
"I guess so," said Ben.
He set his bags on the road shoulder, experimentally fingered his forehead, then produced a twenty-dollar bill. The drifter took it in easy fashion. "Good man," he said.
"It's all right," Ben answered.
"Good man," the drifter said again. He folded the bill and slid it in his pocket. "So you're headed back, you say."
"I'm not headed anywhere," Ben replied. "I just had my thumb out for an hour and a half. Nobody even slowed down."
"Well, why don't you cross the river there? Go over and pick up Highway 26. People slow down at the intersection."
"It's the wrong way," Ben pointed out. "That's east, and I'm headed west."
"Well, maybe, but it's only a mile east. Put the thing in perspective."
"It's still the wrong way," Ben argued.
"There's no wrong way," the drifter said. "Whatever gets you there."
He propped Ben's duffel on his shoulder like a longshoreman, one arm looped over the top. "I've got this," he said. "Come on."
They set out toward the river. The drif
ter asked Ben about his damaged eye, and Ben told the story of his accident, the young people in the Volkswagen van, the attempt to rent a car. He said he'd come over the mountains to hunt quail, but with his eye swollen the way it was, he couldn't see well enough to shoot, so he may as well go home.
"Hey," said the drifter. "You can still hunt quail. A lot of people shoot one-eyed."
"It's not the best. No depth perception."
"Adjust," said the drifter. "You can do it."
They were at the west bank of the river now. They set out to cross the highway bridge, the drifter with Ben's duffel over his shoulder, Ben with his rucksack against his back, his dogs checked on tight leashes. The way was narrow, so they went single file, the drifter leading in silence. Ben followed him across the bridge. The Columbia here lay broad and flat. He was glad to see it, after all, glad to make this river crossing. To the east the breaks rose toward the plateau, and it occurred to Ben to hunt chukars. He had never hunted this stretch of country. It was all new terrain, unknown. But what difference could that make to him? Hunting birds in the open air was exactly what he'd come for.
They crossed on the north side with the traffic coming at them, and as they did, the mallards in the lee of the bridge got up in a great slow easy flush and winged downriver, low, a hundred yards, where they settled again in long skating skids that raised pockets of white water. "Too bad you're not a duck hunter," said the drifter, calling back over one shoulder. "You'd be knocking em dead right now."
"Nothing against duck hunting. They're just not what I've come for."
"You're hunting other birds," observed the drifter.
On the far side the drifter stopped at the intersection with Highway 26. He eased Bens duffel onto the ground. "You made it," he said. "All right."
"I'm here," said Ben. "I don't know exactly why. But anyway, I'm here."
The drifter lit another hand-rolled cigarette with a kitchen match struck off his pants zipper. "Park your dogs down there in the bushes," he said, "and try sticking your thumb out."
"I don't think I will. These breaks here might have chukar in them. I came to hunt. I'll hunt them."
"You changed your mind," said the drifter.
"I did," said Ben. "That happens."
"I change my mind all the time," said the drifter. "That's what's normal for me."
Ben tied his dogs to a fence post, spread his tin-cloth coat on the ground, opened the upland vest beside it, and laid out the items in the two bags neatly, where he could contemplate them one after the other. The drifter smoked, watching, and flipped the hair from his eyes. Ben turned the twin barrels of his shotgun to the sunlight, aligned the lug with the hinge pin, and snapped the gun together. "Winchester 21," said the drifter. "Top choice of heroes."
"I've had it forever," said Ben.
Deliberately, he pressed twenty-three number 8 shells into the loops in his upland vest and slipped the remaining two into a bellows pocket where he could bring them easily to hand. The tin-cloth coat he rolled up tightly and lashed it with the blanket and folded duffel against the bottom of his rucksack. Finally he put on the vest and the shooting gloves and pulled down his canvas cap tightly. He slid the whistle lanyard over his neck, then nestled the Winchester in the crook of his arm. "Hey," said the drifter. "Metamorphosis. You look like one ace hunter."
"Cyclops," said Ben. "Cyclops the hunter."
"Orion's the hunter," said the drifter.
Ben stood, looking up at the breaks. "You're out of here," the drifter told him. "Put your pack on, and you're free of it all. You're off into the hills."
"I'm dying of cancer," Ben told him. "So I guess I can do what I want."
The drifter drew on his cigarette, as if he'd heard nothing special. He spoke with the smoke streaming out of his mouth. "What kind of cancer?" he asked.
"The dying kind," Ben answered.
"We're all dying. You're just closer to it."
"You've been reading too many books. Or watching too many movies."
"Whatever," said the drifter. "But it's true."
"It's true, but it's like talking about the weather. I'm really dying. It's different."
The drifter picked up a stone and threw it into the Columbia. "No, it isn't," he insisted. "Except, maybe, that you're dealing with pain. Hey, wait—I've got something you can use, a little bit, along those lines."
He took from his jacket a breath-mint tin. He opened it and drew out three hand-rolled cigarettes. "You've heard about this," he said to Ben. "Medicinal marijuana. Joints."
"I don't want them."
"Yes, you do."
"I wouldn't use them."
"They've got magic powers."
"Put it away."
"It's a pain reliever."
"Put it away," repeated Ben.
The drifter slid the three marijuana cigarettes into his own jacket pocket. "This half is mine," he said. Then he knelt beside Ben's rucksack and stuffed the tin with its three other cigarettes into the cargo compartment. He stood again and smiled, snaggle-toothed. "You can toss them out in the desert," he said. "But I wouldn't, if I were you."
"I'm going to," said Ben.
"Well, either way, best of luck out there."
"I'll need more than luck, shooting with one eye. The hunting gods better be with me."
"They are," said the drifter. "I can feel it, partner. The hunting gods are with you."
"I hope so," said Ben.
A car approached from out of the east, and the drifter bounded up to the road shoulder. "We look like a tag team," he called to him. "You'd better get out of here."
"Okay," said Ben. "I'm sorry."
"Smoke that dope," the drifter advised. "And take care of those dogs. And happy hunting."
"I'll see what I can do," said Ben.
He set free his dogs and they quartered ahead, into the desert country. Ben went after them, traversing uphill, climbing the breaks above the river. Putting discomfort out of his mind, he passed between rough bands of basalt stained in pale streaks with bird droppings. Twice he stopped to ease his breath and rest half-bent with his palms against his knees. Far below lay the bridge he'd crossed and the silver-tinted river. He could see the dam at Wanapum, the sun pale in the southern sky, the canyon walls scalloped and scoured, the petrified drift of the basalt flows. He could see the drifter, still hitchhiking. To the north the river narrowed again and squeezed between bland rock walls before disappearing around a bend. The prairie smelled of sage and of the dampness held in the earth. Overhead the vast expanse of sky ran so deeply and unbroken to blue that he felt a momentary vertigo.
Ben knew he was leaving the world behind. He took courage from the pungent smell of the desert, and gradually—as he knew they would—his life and death became less disturbing, inconsequential somehow.
He hunted northward in open country, following the broken line of the ridge top, the river running below him in the west, the dogs working at a cross angle to the soft October breeze. Rabbit brush and purple sage festooned the bunchgrass prairie. A dozen times the dogs flushed flitting sparrows, who at the last minute bolted forward into far-off patches of cover. Rex would roust them out once more and send them in spurts of three or four, banging like popcorn out of the sage, then away across the hills. The shadow of a hawk passed over the land, and then the hawk bore down in lazy circles, caught the swelling river breezes, and rode broadside across the breaks, working south with ease. Ben stopped, slipped free of his rucksack, and drank from his water bottle. He felt broken in, less raw and fragile, though a ligament behind his left knee seemed bound up from the steepness of the climb, and in his left hip joint there was bone-against-bone clicking and sliding beneath the fascia. Yet vaguely he felt improved by the high air. The desert fragrance had cleaned his sinuses. He rested, fingered his side, and soon rose to hunt again over the breaks behind his pointing dogs.
He found a fire ring full of charred fence posts, a rusted coffee can holding dry, leached stones, and a plast
ic bucket turned upside down, tattered and torn along its flanks where shotgun pellets had passed through it. Two beer bottles were set against a strand of rusting, low barbed wire, and then no further sign of people. Ben felt right inside his loneliness. It was just as he had wanted.
He came across deer droppings against porous rock and beside them a patch of orange lichen. The sun came more laterally from west of southwest to burnish the left side of his face, and in the breeze his hands felt dry and worn. As he walked, he poked up under his sunglasses at the tender lower orbit of his eye and pulled and prodded gently against it to keep his depth of field intact, since the swelling had greatly reduced the world and unhinged his sense of distance. He knew that when it came to it, he would shoot the way beginners did, aiming deliberately with one eye shut. His view of the fleeing bird would be foreshortened, deluded, lacking in perspective.
Late in the day, he sat for a long time, drinking water in great swallows. He ate a handful of the pumpkin seeds the girl in the van had given him, worked the hinge on the Italian carabiner, and touched the ring-angle piton. He remembered using ring-angle pitons on the North Peak of Mount Index in 1957. He thought of Christine Reilly, then of Rachel in Italy: the train from Mantua. He and Rachel had boarded late, in sunlight that bathed the window of their sleeper car with a warm copper hue. It had inundated Rachel's face as they moved past the ocher and sienna walls of the flats on the edge of town.
He remembered it all so vividly: how the two of them sat in silence while the train gathered speed. The trembling of the train subsided gradually into a steady, pleasant vibration. The land outside seemed to travel with them, as did the sun and the violet sky, against which a church spire rose high, slim, pale as the moon. Only the birds, swooping south from tree to tree, seemed free of the force that propelled the fabric of the world northward.
That night they lay in their mingled scent, in the heat of each others breathing. At midnight they swallowed the last of their wine. He remembered taking her face in his hands. "Roses," she'd said. "Red and white. They'll make a single bush of pink roses."