Hunted Past Reason (11 page)

Bob sighed. "Okay." He scratched his right cheek, wincing as he touched the scrape; he'd forgotten about it.

"I put the refuse in your pack," Doug said.

"Refuse?"

"The apple cores, the aluminum foil from your chicken à la king dinner," Doug said. "The cardboard we burned, the foil has to be packed out."

"How come?" Bob asked.

"You want some animal to eat it and die?" Doug said; it wasn't a question. "We take out anything that can't be burned. Tomorrow you'll collect and pack the refuse. Don't just stand there, get your sleeping bag ready."

"Oh. Yeah." Bob made a face as he moved to where Doug had left the sleeping bag. I hope to God that blister doesn't make walking a pain, he thought.

"I'll let you pack out all the refuse," Doug told him. "Since I'm handling the extra weight."

"Right." No point in arguing, Bob thought. It was only fair. Yet, for some reason, he wondered if Doug was really the dedicated environmentalist he seemed to be presenting. He certainly wasn't going to make an issue of it, but he felt that Doug probably hadn't packed out every single scrap of refuse when he had backpacked in the past. It just didn't seem like Doug, and he wondered if Doug was doing it now to impress him with his concern for Mother Nature.

Oh, well, he thought. Let it go.

"Don't roll up your sleeping bag," Doug told him.

"What do you mean?"

"I
mean
, don't roll it up," Doug said. "You stuff it, not roll it. Rolling compresses the fibers in the same place over and over and eventually breaks them apart."

In three days? Bob felt like saying. He remained quiet and did what Doug told him to do.

As he stood up, groaning, Doug said, "I'll carry your sleeping bag too."

"You don't have to do that," Bob told him.

"I think I do," Doug said, "you're as stiff as a board. I'd better have you do a few stretching exercises before we take off."

I'd rather have a pancake and a cup of coffee, Bob thought.

He tried to copy Doug's stretching exercises for the arms, the shoulders, the back, and the legs. He kept hissing at the effort. "You are in some rotten shape, buddy," Doug told him.

"I know, I know," Bob muttered. What next? he thought. A lecture on my general failures as a human being?

"That help any?" Doug asked when they were through.

"Yeah," Bob lied. It helped make the areas of pain more specific, he thought. He swallowed a multivitamin with a sip of water.

They got their packs on, Bob trying not to grunt in discomfort at the weight; it would only give Doug more ammunition for his criticisms.

"From here on in, we leave the trail," Doug told him.

"How come?" Bob asked.

"You want experience at backpacking for your novel, don't you?" Doug said. "If we follow trails all the way, it's not a hike, it's a stroll."

Yeah, right, Bob thought. He wondered worriedly if he was really going to make it through the hike. Not that he had any choice in the matter. The ship was launched. Either it sailed to its port or it sank.

Very reassuring, Hansen, he told himself. He pressed his lips together. I am going to make it, he vowed. Let Doug lace at him, he wasn't going to let it break his spirit. He made an amused sound. That novel is going to be pretty grim, he thought.

8:21 AM

Is it my imagination, Bob thought, or is Doug taking me on the hardest route he can possibly find? Or already knows about? They had been moving on sloping ground almost since they'd started out, through meadows thick with dry grass and woods so dense that Doug had to use his golak to hack an opening through the underbrush. Already, he felt tired and aching but didn't want to mention it to Doug, knowing the look he'd get and likely the sarcastic comment.

What
was
Doug up to anyway? He hadn't said a word since they'd started out— except to tell him once that, in a pinch, he could eat the dandelions they were tramping through. I'd rather have a cup of coffee, he'd felt like saying. The cereal in the plastic bag had been a waste of time. He couldn't walk easily holding the bag in one hand and a spoon in the other. After a few mouthfuls— and more spills— he'd finally given up and emptied the cereal onto the ground. Sorry, Professor Crowley, if I'm profaning Mother Earth, he thought. I'm putting the plastic bag in my pack, isn't that good enough?

The knowledge that he was all alone in the wilderness with Doug was, to say the least, discomfiting, to say the most, unnerving. Doug, it became more and more obvious, was a loner. He obviously needed to be given his separate "space" now and then. He didn't ask for it, just subsided into silence and walked ahead. Most likely, he already regretted having made his offer to guide Bob through the hike. Obviously, he preferred being on his own, responsible to no one but himself, enjoying solitude, not required to interact with anyone, least of all the total novice Bob was.

Had he done it only to keep the channels open between them in case a role came up that Bob could recommend him for? He was beginning to think that was the case. They had never really had much in common, very little grounds for conversation.

Still . . . he had to remember that Doug
was
doing him a favor. Not enjoying it, God knows, he thought— but doing it nonetheless.

So just sweat it out, Hansen, he ordered himself. Keep up your spirits. Be of good cheer.

Endure.

He didn't want to but he finally had to speak.

"Doug?" he said.

Doug kept moving through the underbrush as though he hadn't heard. Was it possible that he
hadn't
heard? He certainly preferred that possibility to thinking that Doug had heard and was ignoring him.

"Doug!" He felt awkward shouting, but at the same time he wanted Doug to know the urgency of his call.

Doug stopped but didn't turn. Was there a look of irritated disbelief on his face? Was he thinking: Oh, for Christ's sake, now what?

Then he turned, his expression unreadable. He said nothing.

"I'd really like to stop and rest and have that cup of coffee now," Bob told him.

The deliberate way in which Doug lifted his left arm and pushed back his jacket sleeve to look at his wristwatch made his reaction obvious.

"I know it hasn't even been two hours yet," Bob said.

"It hasn't even been an hour and a half," Doug answered.

Bob sighed. Not another painful exchange, please, he thought. He knew he couldn't just be polite. Doug had to know how he felt.

"I'm in rotten shape, you said so yourself," he said firmly. "I need to rest. I need that cup of coffee. I'm sorry if I'm being a burden but give me a break."

Doug's expression eased and he gestured mollifyingly. "All right, all right," he said. "I'm not paying attention. I'm used to moving fast. We'll stop."

"Thank you." Bob nodded. Bless you, sir, and all your kin, he thought. No, stay away from that, he reminded himself.

To his surprise, Doug turned back and started forward again. What the hell? Bob thought. Has he changed his mind already?

Several minutes later, Doug reached a small clearing in the forest and stopped. He was sitting with his pack propped on a small fallen tree by the time Bob reached him.

"Don't step on that scat," he said.

"Scat."

"Coyote shit." Doug pointed at the ground.

"Oh. Thanks for telling me." Coyotes, Bob thought. No point in expressing uneasiness about them; Doug would only tell him he was being paranoid.

With a grateful groan, he sank down heavily and propped his backpack on the same fallen tree so that he and Doug were sitting side by side. "Feels good," he muttered, thinking: That's the understatement of the week.

"Look up on that hill," Doug said, pointing.

Bob looked in that direction, tensing slightly at the sight of a black bear sitting on its haunches, eating something.

"What's it eating, another backpacker?" he said.

Doug snickered. "Who knows?" he replied. "Could be anything— nuts, berries, insects, maybe a squirrel. Could even be tree bark, they'll eat that too."

"That their usual diet?" Bob asked.

"Hell, no," Doug said disgustedly. "Their usual diet is discarded hamburger buns, fruit, cookies, candy, anything stupid backpackers leave out in the open."

Bob nodded grimly, looking up at the bear.

"Does he know we're here?" he asked.

"I don't think so," Doug answered, "unless you make coffee and he smells it. They can smell anything from a mile away."

So much for coffee, Bob thought, then immediately changed his mind. Slipping out of his pack, he got his cup and spoon and plastic envelope of instant coffee out. Pouring some water into the cup, he spooned in some instant coffee powder and sugar and began to stir it. "So I'll have iced coffee," he said.

"Better not clink the spoon too hard," Doug told him. "They have good hearing too."

Bob stirred the coffee mixture as quietly as he could. "Can he hear us talking?" he asked.

"I doubt it," Doug answered. "He's pretty far away. As long as we don't talk too loud."

"Don't worry, I won't," Bob said. He finished dissolving the coffee powder and, removing the spoon, took a sip. "Uh!" His face contorted with distaste. "That's hideous."

Doug only smiled. What do you care? Bob thought. You've already had your hot coffee. What else did you have, a fucking Belgian waffle?

He forced himself to keep sipping the coffee despite its bitter taste. Doug sat silently staring straight ahead. Waiting for me to finish? Bob wondered.

"There aren't any grizzly bears here, right?" he asked.

"Only black," Doug answered.

"How do you tell one from another?" Bob asked, conscious of speaking softly, almost murmuring, so the bear couldn't possibly hear the sound of his voice.

"Grizzlies have big shoulder humps," Doug told him. "And their faces are concave. They're bigger too. Have longer claws."

"Remind me never to meet one," Bob said.

Doug's chuckle was more derisive than amused. "Oh, you'd know if you met one."

"I'd run like hell," Bob said.

"It wouldn't do you any good," Doug told him. "They're too fast."

"So what do you do, just say a prayer and let him slaughter you?"

"Only thing you
can
do is lie on your stomach, put your hands behind your neck, and pretend you're dead." Doug grunted. "Which you probably would be in less than half a minute anyway."

Bob grimaced at the thought. "Ever see a grizzly?" he asked.

"Several times," Doug answered, "in Colorado. Guy I knew was actually caught by one."

Bob bared his teeth in a reacting wince. "Got killed?"

"Got lucky," Doug said. "Curled himself up into a fetal position and the bear only cuffed him around a few times before leaving."

"Jesus." Bob drew in a shaking breath.

"Of course those few cuffs broke his collarbone and laid his shoulder open to the muscle."

"He died?" Bob asked queasily.

"No, his friends got him to a hospital in time. Left him with a hell of a scar though. And limited use of his right arm."

"I presume he didn't go backpacking anymore," Bob said.

"Sure he did." Doug's tone was casual. "He wasn't going to let a little thing like that keep him from doing what he enjoyed."

"He's a better man than I am," Bob said. "If that happened to me, I'd join a monastery."

"Well, you're a different kind of cat," Doug said. Bob wasn't sure if it was an observation or another dig.

"You'd do the same thing, keep on backpacking?" he asked.

"Why not?" Doug said. "We all have to go sometime."

"Yeah, but I'd rather go in my bed than lying on a forest floor with a grizzly bear cuffing me around."

"To each his own," Doug said.

Bob kept sipping at the coffee, finally eating a cookie with it to improve the taste.

When Doug relapsed into what seemed to him to be glum silence again, he asked, "Are black bears as dangerous?"

Doug drew in a deep breath that seemed to, once more, point out his regret at having made the offer of this hike. Bob was going to say something about it, then decided not to.

"Black bears are different," Doug told him. "More skittish. If one of them comes at you, you yell and throw rocks at it, grab a branch and take swings at it. That'll usually scare them off. I've done that two or three times. Grizzlies they're not."

Bob nodded. "I'll remember that. Assuming I don't faint if I see one coming at me."

Again the ambiguous chuckle but no comment from Doug.

"This . . . route we're taking," Bob said. "Is it the most direct?"

"Not really," Doug answered casually.

"How come we're . . . taking it then?"

"You want to know what it's like to backpack, don't you?" was all Doug said.

Bob started to respond, then didn't know what to say. Scrap that, let's take the easiest route? Doug was probably right. This
was
the best way to give him a true backpacking experience. The novel may end up as a horror story but at least it will be an authentic one, he thought.

"You still a Democrat?" Doug asked.

Where did
that
come from? Bob wondered. "Yeah," he said. "Limitedly."

"What does that mean?" Doug asked.

"I'm not too keen on either party," Bob answered. "It doesn't seem to matter much which party wins, the corporations stay in power."

"So what do you want the government to do, go communist?" Doug asked.

"I presume that's not a serious question," Bob said with a smile.

"Hell, it's not," Doug told him. "If you're not a Democrat and you're not a Republican, what are you?"

"A liberal conservative," Bob answered.

"No such thing."

"Sure there is," Bob said. "I believe in conserving the social values that are worth conserving. If they're not, I believe in liberal pragmatism. Drop what doesn't work, put something else in instead."

"Like what?" Doug challenged.

"Like anything that benefits society rather than damaging it."

"That sounds like communism," Doug persisted.