Impasse (22 page)

“Naw. Put it out of its misery and kept me from shooting myself in the process. Those bastards are treacherous, like a small bear with something to prove.”

Blake retrieved the box of tampons from Stu and held it up reverently. “You might want to start calling these babies manpons. I strained your coffee through one this morning.”

Stu grimaced, but Blake kept chattering, happily extolling the virtues of the feminine hygiene product as a wilderness survival implement.

“The packaging is waterproof. And that's before you even get to how good they are for dressing a wound. They're made to absorb blood, you know.”

“You don't say.”

“And they're hypoallergenic.…”

After a dinner of dried soup reconstituted in clean water, they shared Blake's tent for the night. Stu was so tired he didn't even have the energy to feel awkward about it. Blake hung their food high in a tree away from camp so that no animals would come sniffing around while they slept, but the .30-06 slept beside them just in case, and Blake had a pistol. Before he drifted off, Stu thought he heard Blake say something about not mistaking him for a bear in the middle of the night if he got up to pee, but it might have been a dream.

*   *   *

Morning came early, and they were up and walking after a quick tampon-filtered cup of coffee and powdered eggs. The second day was a wash; Stu was sore all over from the prior day's hike, but he no longer felt lingering nausea, and his ankle was getting steadily better. The terrain was easier. They'd descended into the vast field, apparently heading across to another mountain. A few low hills were all that stood in their way, but the ground was alternately thin grass and boot-sucking mud, and the numerous small streams presented frequent crossing decisions. Wet feet were inevitable, and so they plunged in and waded the icy waters.

Equally foreseeable was the appearance of flying parasites as soon as they began crossing a lowland marsh. Stu had heard about Alaskan mosquitoes, but another variety of insect was worse: they were smaller with a more painful bite. Blake said they were called no-see-ums, but Stu didn't believe him.

Blake chuckled. “Believe what you want, but this is nothing. You should be here in spring when there are clouds of the little fuckers. They'll disappear as soon as the snow comes down or we have a hard freeze.”

Blake unfolded a wide-brimmed hat with netting, reminiscent of a beekeeper's hood, and began to put it on. Stu looked on longingly as he swatted bugs, both real and imagined. Blake hesitated, then handed it over.

“Eh, they don't like the taste of me anyway.”

“Thank you.”

“Just keep walking.”

And so they did, slogging through fall muck that had not yet frozen solid. They made better time in the field, despite the soft ground, and it was midday before they stopped at a river twenty yards wide. Blake turned to head upstream.

“Are we there yet?” Stu joked.

“We need to keep moving. I lost a day waiting for you to stop puking.”

“We're trying to go to that side, right?” Stu pointed directly across the river.

“Yep, but there's bound to be a better crossing upstream.”

“How far?”

“I dunno. A mile or two.”

Stu groaned. “We're already soaked, why don't we just cross here? Couldn't be higher than our waists. We could use the time it would take to walk the extra mile or two to rest. Your determination to make this a death march is garnering diminishing returns with regard to my pace.”

Blake furrowed his brow. “I'm not sure exactly what you just said, but why don't you go ahead and wade on out there. I'll watch and see how you do.”

“Why do I sense disdain and ridicule?”

“Why do you have to talk like goddamned C-3PO?”

“I don't need a lecture.”

“That's just good ol' garden variety sarcasm.”

“Fine. I'll head over to the other side and enjoy a much-needed respite while you go the long way around.”

“Fine.”

“Good.” Stu started out into the river. After a few steps, he teetered on the slippery rocks.

“I'm not fishing you out,” Blake advised.

“Didn't ask you to.”

The water was up to his knees now. Stu looked back. Blake was pacing on the shore. Finally the big man couldn't contain himself any longer.

“Stop!”

“What?”

“Just fucking stop, okay?”

“I'm up to my thighs, and it's no problem.”

“Sure. The current will run around and through your legs until it gets up to your crotch, but once it gets up into your torso, it becomes a wall of force you can't fight. Next time your foot wobbles on a rock, it will knock you down so fast your head will swim, and the rest of you too.”

“Good for a laugh then. But I know how to swim.”

“No. Not funny. It don't matter that these aren't rapids. If you go down and get swept up against a snag, the weight of the water will pin you and you're done.”

Stu scanned the river. Logs and other woody debris dotted the downstream stretch like an obstacle course. The water did indeed feel powerful pushing on his thighs. It pressed so hard against him that it rocked him back and forth, and he wasn't even halfway yet. He watched the current pull a yellowed leaf along and then suddenly suck it down beneath a massive tangle of branches.

Am I really as fragile as a leaf floating in a small river?

“Besides,” Blake called from shore, “if you get dunked and soak your pack, I'll have to spot you my only spare set of clothes, and I wore them all last week without washing them.”

“All right!” Stu edged out of the middle of the river. “I'm coming back.”

“Good. Crotch or lower before we cross. Let's move on. No need to test yourself here.”

Stu splashed out of the water and fell in step. “What do you mean by ‘test'?”

“Some men come to Alaska to get away. Some men come here to test themselves. Isn't that what you were doing? Extreme executive camping?”

“The cabin was supposed to be furnished. It shouldn't have been quite so extreme.”

“Pussy camping. Same thing, only watered down.”

“It was just supposed to be week in the woods to relax.”

“If you wanted a week in the woods and relaxation, you would have gone to New Hampshire or Vermont, somewhere closer to home.”

“What about you? You don't exactly have an Alaskan accent.”

“Oregon.”

“Hey, I went to school there.”

“Whoop-de-fucking-doo.”

“So why are you here?”

Blake kept walking and didn't answer, but Stu was feeling his oats.

“Why—”

“Not your fucking business.”

“No need to get agitated.”

“I ain't agitated. It's just not your fucking business.”

“I assume you fall in the ‘getting away' category, then.”

“Not. Your. Fucking. Business.”

“I'll take that as a yes.”

“Fuck you.”

“You know, your swearing doesn't intimidate me. The dirtbags I used to send to prison swore all the time. Anyone can do it. Fuck. Fucky-fuck-fuck. Fuckity-shit-bastard-twat.”

“Nobody says
twat
anymore.”

“I say
twat
.”

“No, you don't. You're just saying it to pretend you cuss like a regular Joe, which you don't because you aren't.”

“How do you know I don't?”

“It doesn't sound right coming out of your mouth. And, by the way, if you do it over and over, it just becomes white noise anyway.”

Stu smiled. “Exactly.”

Blake glared at him as they walked. “I liked you better when you were pukin' too much to talk.”

*   *   *

That night Blake left camp to lay a trap while Stu started the fire. He said it was time they ate a little meat, and Stu heartily agreed. When they woke up, they'd have something if they were lucky. Stu gathered some dry grasses and shredded them to make a tinder nest. Once he had it going, he stacked kindling in a tepee shape over it. Two bigger logs went on after orange flames were dancing over the sticks and red coals had spread along their length. He made certain there was a wide circle of bare dirt around the shallow pit he'd dug, and then he went to look for Blake.

His de facto friend was nearby, standing motionless. He seemed to be closely examining a tree.

Stu approached and whispered to him. “Are you looking for animal signs?”

“Nope. Taking a leak.” Blake zipped up and turned.

“Oh. Where's the trap?”

Blake shook his head. “You're standing on it.”

“Ah! Sorry.”

“Forget it. I'll reset the damn thing. Wait. No, you do it. Maybe you'll learn something. Grab that snare.”

“It's just a wire.” Stu picked up a small circle of copper wire he'd stomped into the dirt.

“A wire
snare
. A five-inch loop of copper on a slide twist-tied to this branch. Now, hang it three inches off the ground.”

“Where's the bait?”

“No bait.”

“You're screwing with me.”

“I screw you not.”

“Then how do we get a rabbit to hop into it?”

“We don't. It's hard to change Fluffy's habits, but it's easy to figure out what they are. This is where she likes to run. So we set the trap where the rabbit lives, and she just does what she does every day, and
bam!
We got'er. That's why placement is so important, and why you should watch where the hell you step. Do you see the narrowest point in the bunny trail?”

“What trail?”

Blake bent and pointed. “Rabbit pellets there. Faint paw print there. Grass bent here. Narrow opening. Path of least resistance through the shrubs. That's a trail.”

“And you just hang it in the way?”

“Yep.”

“They don't sniff it?”

“I don't know. But if they do, they must not care how it smells, because they still walk right through it.”

“Does it always hold?” Stu recalled his possible fish that might have gotten away. How hungry he'd been. How disappointed.

“A startled animal will flee first. When it feels the wire around its head, it will run forward. That snugs this baby right up, and wire doesn't loosen with slack.” Blake glanced at the sky. “It's getting toward late evening. That's when the hoppers show. You wanna stake it out and maybe see your supper get caught?”

Stu felt a curious excitement, like a grade-school boy. “Okay. I've got a few minutes.”

Blake snickered, and they set themselves up in a comfortable spot uphill and downwind. Then they sat.

Stu watched Blake, who watched the trap. The big man had, undoubtedly, watched hundreds of traps, and seen as many animals, yet his concentration was complete. He was neither eager nor bored; it was more like meditation, a perfect balance between the two that held him in a state of suspended animation.

After a few minutes Stu fidgeted. “How long?”

“Maybe an hour. More if you talk.”

Stu nodded. He hadn't experienced an hour of silence for as long as he could remember. Even when researching in the office, there was traffic noise from outside, or Clay was chattering into the phone. When he'd been at the cabin, he'd been banging or stomping or vomiting most of the time. He remembered how out of place his voice had sounded after just a few minutes. Even while fishing, he'd paced and kicked dirt and thrown pebbles. Now he tried just sitting silently.

It was hard at first. Every instinct told him to impose his existence upon the world around him.
I'm here! I exist
.
I matter. Every boy gets a turn to speak. It's rude not to say something.
But Blake ignored him, the woods went on without him, and he finally realized that he did not matter. In the silence it was suddenly clear. The world didn't care. Blake was good at it, motionless, a tree. He didn't seem to want to exist or matter or care.

And so, for the first time in his life, Stuart Stark sat silently with another human being for an entire hour, so quiet that he could hear his own heartbeat and the breaths of his companion.

As his own silence deepened, the forest sounds grew louder. After twenty minutes he could track the whisper of the rising breeze through the treetops as it came down from the mountain. A water droplet plunked onto the soft loam twenty yards away to his right, and he heard it hit. The biggest of the trees spoke in low groans and occasional light snaps as they grew and bent under their own weight like old men with aging spines. And when the rabbit approached, Stu heard it coming.

Aside from a slightly deeper breath, Blake didn't acknowledge the animal when it came into view. Nor did Stu, and he was proud of himself for it. Scaring the hopper away would have been a rookie move. The rabbit picked its way up the trail casually, not wary like in a nature movie, not sniffing the air for danger. It was just doing what it did every day, like Blake said. The rabbit poked its head through the snare, and when it felt the wire, it charged ahead, tightening the noose around its own neck. Stu watched it struggle, caught in the trap.

Blake finally moved. He tilted his head slightly and raised one eyebrow. “Rabbit, Stu.”

Stu tried not to seem eager, but he was the first one down to the snare. He stood over the rabbit, trying to appear nonchalant. “What now?”

“It's scared. Kill it.”

Stu glanced back at the barrel of the .30-06 hanging over his shoulder.

Blake shook his head. “Grasp it behind the neck and by the hind legs. A quick reverse yank.”

Stu took hold of the rabbit, but dropped it when it squirmed. He didn't look up—he knew Blake would be glaring. Instead he grabbed it again firmly and wrenched the neck backward. There was a light crack, and the bunny went limp. When Stu was certain it was dead, he looked up.