The Moose Jaw (32 page)

I continued, telling him about what I’d found inside the lodge, and how I’d left things.  I could see he was incredulous, but he kept silent until I wrapped up the story with his arrival this morning.

He motioned for me to open another beer for him and then, as I was digging one out of the cooler, he thought better of it.

“Never mind, I need a whiskey.”

He went into the cabin, and I opened the beer for myself.  It was good to have gotten all this off my chest.  It was good to have Haywood to tell it to.

He came back out with one of the new whiskey glasses full to the brim and spread himself out on the steps again.  He took a gulp and shot me an exasperated look.

“O.K.  Let’s see if I got it right.”  He puffed his cigar furiously for a moment, took another gulp of his Dew, and began.

“You found this redhead by the water.  You carried her here, to the cabin.  On the third day she rose again from the dead.  She marked your bed as her territory, fox style.  You nursed her back to health.  You got, ah – chummy.  She told you she and the guy she was rafting with got attacked by a bear.  Then two Okies show up that promise to help them, but fuck ‘em instead.  Her corn-holed companion goes screaming, naked, into the night.  Then she winds up in the creek with a knot on her head, and can’t remember how she got there.”

He sipped at his drink.  “How we doin’ so far?”

“So far, so good.”   I had my eyes closed and my head still resting against the logs of the cabin wall.

“O.K.  So, you go looking for her fellow traveler.  You don’t find the raft or any of their gear, or any sign of the friend.  You go back downstream to the woods near the bad guys’ cabin.  It gets dark and a storm moves in, so you call it a day and head home in a snow storm.  You damned near freeze to death before you reach the cabin, but your girlfriend thaws you out and everything’s hunky-dory.  Two days later the snow’s gone, and toward evening you take the canoe and paddle back up to visit the McCaslin brothers.  You hear screaming.  You run to the lodge.  When you get there one of the assholes comes charging out the door, naked and bloody, and rushes you with a knife.  You shoot him in the face with your shotgun.   Then you find the other one inside, already dead, also naked.  He’s full of knife holes, and his cock and balls have been hacked off.  You drag the mortal remains of your victim, gonads still intact, back inside, wipe the place down, and scrub out your tracks as you back out of there.”

He paused to take a sip of whiskey and a few puffs on his cigar.  I waited.  He went on.

“Then you drift back down here in the canoe.  You’ve just killed a man but you come in here, pretty as you please, and share a candlelight dinner with your girlfriend, spend the night putting her to the pork sword, and then, in the morning, when I arrive – she disappears.”   He downed the remains of his whiskey to signal he’d finished.  “Is that about it?”

“That’s about it,” I said.  “One minor correction – my victim’s gonads were not still intact.  My first shot shredded them.”

I opened one eye to see how Haywood had received this last bit of news.  His mouth was agape, and he was staring at me in undisguised disbelief.  I couldn’t blame him; I was finding it hard to believe myself.  Was it possible I had dreamed it all up?  I didn’t know.  The alcohol was getting to me and my mind was fuzzing up.  I really didn’t want to think about it any more.

“Your first shot,” Haywood repeated softly.  “So, after blowing his balls off, you pump in another round, and, for good measure, blow his face off too.  Nice touch.”

He took a few more puffs on his cigar.  The smoke rolled lazily off into the afternoon air.

“And you still believe she was real
; all this really happened.”

It wasn’t put as a question.  It was more a hopeless observation.  Nevertheless, I forced myself to consider it for a minute. 

Finally I said, “Yeah.  I guess I do.”

“Well,” he said, looking up at the sun, “we still got maybe three hours of light.  How far is it up to this place where you blew off this guy’s head and nuts?”

“Couple of miles above the landing strip,” I answered listlessly.  “You aren’t suggesting we go back up there are you?”

“Yes.  More than suggesting.  I’m going up to have a look, with or without you.  If you have any sense you’ll come along.  It’s the only way you’ll ever know if any of this shit really happened.”

He puffed furiously at his cigar.  “Besides,” he said, “if you really did kill this guy we have to get rid of the body, and make damned sure there’s no way to tie you to the killing.”  He was, truly, a good friend.

I thought about what he’d said for a minute and, reluctantly, agreed.  While Haywood paid a visit to the outhouse, I retrieved our jackets from the cabin.  Then I fetched the other seat cushion out of the tent and walked down to the water’s edge.  The paddles were still in the canoe; I had left them there overnight.

I was seated in the stern, ready to launch when Haywood came down the bank.  He had stopped by the cabin to get our shotguns.  He handed them to me and I tossed him his jacket.  He slipped into it, then climbed aboard as he shoved us off.

“I doubt we’ll need the guns,” I observed.

“I hope you’re right.”  He replied, digging the blade of his paddle deep into the water and swinging the bow upstream.

The wind wasn’t with us as it had been with me yesterday.  It took us nearly an hour of hard paddling to reach Deadman Creek, and another ten minutes to reach the spot where I’d beached on the previous day. We swung into shore and our bow slid aground on the muddy bottom.  Haywood stepped over the side into the shallows, pulled the bow up against the bank and tied us off to the willows.  I handed him the shotguns and climbed ashore.  I pointed at the game trail running along the bank, and he followed as I led the way.  When we had walked for a few minutes Haywood laid a hand on my shoulder.  I stopped to see what he wanted.

“How much farther?” he asked.

 “Just around that next bend.” I said.

He nodded.  “O.K.  Now listen to me.  I want you to stay put right here until I get back.  I want to have a look around that bend before we go charging in there.”

The whiskey and beer and paddling had left me too tired to protest.  I nodded.

He turned and went up the path.  I had just settled down on a fallen log when he reappeared.  His face was grim.

“Oh, shit,” I said.  “What is it?”

“Describe the cabin,” he said flatly.  “Give me every detail you can remember.  How did it look when you were here yesterday?”

“What…?” I began, but he cut me off with a quick gesture of his hand. 

“God damn it, what did it look like yesterday?”  He was clearly agitated.

“Ramshackle old fishing lodge,” I shrugged.  “Log construction, roof and porch sagging pretty bad.  Some of the windows boarded up.  Inside there was a big stone fireplace at one end of a large room; half log flooring; six or seven other rooms off the main room.  That’s where I found the second body – in one of the smaller rooms.”

Haywood thought for a minute.  “You sure this is the right place?  Did we come far enough up the Deadman?”

His line of questioning was beginning to wear on me.  This was the right place.  It looked a little different last night in the fog, but there was no doubt in my mind.

“This is the place Haywood.  Now, what’s the problem?”

He took a deep breath and sighed.  “Better come have a look.”

I followed him up the path.  When we rounded the last bend what I saw made me want to cry.  In the center of the clearing stood a blackened, crumbling stone chimney.  Around it lie a few charred timbers of a long forgotten fire.  The lodge that had stood on this spot had burned many, many years ago.  There wasn’t even any smoky smell to the charcoal pieces scattered across the ground. 

As the realization came to me that I’d imagined it all, it also occurred to me that I hadn’t actually killed Roy McCaslin.  I suppose I took some comfort in that; at the same time, I was a bit disappointed.   I looked up at the sky and watched the clouds passing overhead.  As I did, I became momentarily disoriented and was overcome with dizziness.  I took a knee until it passed.

“You O.K.?” Haywood asked, real concern in his voice.

“Yeah,” I finally said, “I’m O.K.  Just a little crazy I guess.”  I didn’t try to stand up.

He laid a hand on my shoulder.  “Fraid so,” he said, miserably.  “It happens.  You were out here too long, too alone.  Come on.  Let’s go home.”

The return trip took no time at all.  I sat in the bow and dipped a paddle occasionally just to show I hadn’t gone catatonic.  Haywood did most of the piloting from his stern position.  We didn’t talk.  I guess each of us was lost in our own thoughts.  The current and the wind carried us along quickly and we were back at the cabin well before sundown.  When we pulled the canoe up on the landing Haywood suggested I go and start dinner, and he’d do a little scouting for moose back in the high meadow.  We both knew he didn’t need to do any scouting.  I had spent enough time scouting over the past month that I knew every bull in the area and his habits.  He just wanted to get off by himself for a while and think.  And he wanted to give me time to come to grips with what I’d just seen.  He was, truly, a good and sensitive friend.

I said I’d have something ready when he got back.  He nodded, shouldered his shotgun and took the trail up into the spruce.  I went up to the cabin, opened the door, and stood there in the doorway for a long time just looking into the gloom of the interior with the dying light of day behind me.  She’d been there, in that bed, just this morning.  She’d pulled me down and kissed me and told me I was a kind and gentle man.  I could still smell her scent hanging in the air.  Was it possible she wasn’t real?  That she never existed?  That I had dreamed her?  I didn’t believe so, but there was no other reasonable explanation. 

I leaned my shotgun in the corner and went through the motions of putting on a pot of rice to cook, and got out two caribou steaks to pan fry later.  I poured myself a stiff whiskey and took it outside to drink while the rice water boiled.  I lit my pipe and sat on the bench and smoked and savored the whiskey.  I wondered if Haywood was concentrating on moose sign or thinking about the burned out lodge we’d found that day, and worrying about me going crazy.  I didn’t feel crazy.  I felt bewildered.  I felt empty.  I felt sad.  Not crazy.  But then, they say crazy people never think they’re crazy.  So, I probably was.

***

I had the steaks and rice ready when he finally came back out of the woods.  It was well after sunset, and I had been getting concerned since I didn’t think he had a torch with him.  When he did get back, we had a drink and ate our dinner.  He told me about the tracks he’d found back by the beaver pond.  He had seen some big bear tracks and also those of the giant moose.  He seemed excited, but I was too wrung out to muster much enthusiasm.  We ate our dinners, had another drink and turned in.  It was a day I was glad to see come to an end.

The next day dawned clear and cold.  A heavy frost covered the lid of the Coleman when I went out to make the coffee.  Haywood was still snoring softly in his sleeping bag on the camp bed when I woke.  I’d slept well, considering the ordeal of the previous day.  I felt refreshed and clear headed.  In truth, I had the sense of having awakened from a much deeper sleep.  Everything this morning looked sharper, crisper and brighter than usual.

Haywood didn’t stir as I went about my morning rituals.  When he finally appeared, mussed and bleary eyed in the doorway, I had breakfast ready and waiting.

“Drank too much,” he announced, on his way up the path to the facilities.

I smiled to myself.  It was a rare day that I had breakfast waiting for Haywood.  It had bothered him too.  I could tell.

He paid his devotions, and went directly to the creek to wash his face and rinse away the last remnants of sleep.  Then he joined me at the Coleman and took the proffered cup of coffee.

He sipped it, sipped again, and said, “You were up early.”

“Yeah,” I answered.  “Habit.  I’ve been getting up at first light all summer.” 

He finished the coffee and held out his cup.  I refilled it.  He eyed me over its steaming brim as he took a tentative sip.

“You O.K.?” he asked.

 Yeah,” I told him.  “I’m O.K.   Some very weird things happened yesterday and it’s going to take me a while to sort it all out.  Don’t know if I ever will.  But, you came in here to hunt moose.  That’s what we’re going to do.  If I begin raving and foaming at the mouth, just shoot me.  I’ll understand.”

He smiled and looked relieved.

“Well, at least you sound more like yourself.  Maybe you haven’t gone completely over the edge.  Nevertheless, I’ll honor your wishes and shoot you dead at the first sign of dementia.”

“Good,” I told him.  “That’s settled.  Let’s eat breakfast, then go see about filling these moose tags.  That big fellow you were talking about last night spends a lot of time back there by the beaver pond.  If we spook him, he’ll head straight for the river.  I know where he crosses.”

“Have you seen him?”

“I saw him,” I said.  “Up close.  Damned near ran over me last week.”

Haywood took the tin plate of bacon and eggs I handed him, and sat on his usual stump.

“He as big as his tracks suggest?”

“Bigger,” I said around a mouthful of hot eggs.  “Rack’s gotta be nearly six feet across.  He’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen anywhere.  Could go sixteen hundred pounds.  His head would add a touch of desperately needed class to your den.” 

In truth, neither of us had ever been “trophy hunters”.  We hunted for the meat, and because we liked to hunt.  I subscribed to my father’s oft-stated belief that “antlers make thin soup”.  Dad wasn’t a trophy hunter either.  Nor did he limit his meat harvest strictly to the male of the species.  But it wasn’t idealism, solely, that prevented Haywood from decorating his walls with trophy heads; his den was nothing more than a converted ten-by-twelve bedroom with the low ceilings favored in Alaska.  He’d be hard pressed to mount a fox head in that room, let alone a moose.