Читать книгу Never Cry Halibut - Bjorn Dihle - Страница 11

MOUNTAIN OF MEMORIES

THERE ARE MANY GREAT THINGS about civilization—reality television, french fries, and a seemingly infinite number of back-hair waxing products, for example. I try to appreciate the advantages of living in the twenty-first century, but sometimes it gets a little much. On a recent August day, while in a giant shopping mall, I was suddenly overcome with an intense feeling of hopelessness. Near the toddler’s clothing fashions, I fought the urge to crash a shopping cart into a pretentiously dressed mannequin. When did little kids begin caring about fashion? Whatever happened to the days when they were content wearing burlap sacks and chasing animals, rolling in mud and eating worms? And what was with all these skinny, anatomically correct mannequins with their chiseled abs and smug smiles? Give me realism; give me mannequins with beer guts, fat butts, crooked noses, lopsided skulls, varicose veins, crooked spines, and blemished skin. I had the feeling something other than me was trying to manufacture my reality. I was nearing the aisle dedicated solely to no-tears pet shampoo and conditioner when I had the sudden desire to flee into the wild.

“I have to go hunting,” I told my girlfriend, MC, as we put away groceries when I got home.

“You just got back yesterday. There’s still deer blood rotting in your hair!” she said. “And you’re leaving in a few days with your brothers to go sheep and caribou hunting.”

Everyone knows it’s bad luck to shower during hunting season, but MC is always busting my chops about it. It might be our biggest point of contention; well, that and she gets all weird and irrational at the beginning of each hunting season when I stage a few harmless pagan rituals and become the Wildermann—a furry man-beast with an insatiable appetite for blood—for a night. I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s just a chance to blow off a little steam, get dressed up in furs, and run around the neighborhood howling and chasing dogs, cats, and children with a torch and stone ax.

“You can take the jungle out of the tiger, but you can’t take the tiger out of the jungle,” I whispered, staring off into the distance.

“I think you mean you can take the tiger out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of the tiger,” MC said.

“I’m a writer! I know what I’m saying!”

Whenever I get to feeling too domestic, I crack a beer, pick up a hammer, and start hitting two-by-fours. My pounding succeeded in annoying MC so much she kicked me out of the house. Soon, I was happily climbing through the rainforest, wading through devil’s club, and stuffing my face with marble-sized blueberries and huckleberries. A black merlin winged along the edge of a meadow, hunting songbirds. A sooty grouse flew up into a small hemlock tree then looked down just feet away. I followed a well-used deer trail into the subalpine of a mountain I’ve hunted for two decades.

Fifteen Augusts ago, when I was seventeen and my little brother, Reid, was thirteen, we followed the same deer trail along the edge of an alpine slope. I spied a deer through the maze of underbrush. Hearts hammering and skin tingling, we belly crawled to the edge of the bushes and peered up. A beautiful fork-horn grazed above three does. I passed Reid my rifle. He crawled a few feet forward. As if he’d done it a thousand times before, he chambered a round, took a rest, and shot his first buck.

The clouds dissipated, revealing ocean and the mountains of Admiralty Island and the Chilkoot Range stretching into the blue horizon. The vision never failed to remind me how lucky I was to live in Southeast Alaska. When I was thirteen, I first climbed the mountain with my dad and took in this haunting view. My dad patiently waited as I struggled up the slippery slopes with all the stealth and grace of an exhausted freight train. The following morning, after he tried to rouse me from my sleeping bag to brave the rain and fog, I heard a shot. I still remember the smell and touch of that young buck, the first deer I ever “helped” butcher and carry off a hill.

Reid in the alpine of Admiralty Island. (Photo courtesy Luke Dihle)

Climbing a steep, slippery slope, I spotted a deer in a stand of stunted trees. I froze, then slowly raised my rifle and looked through the scope. No antlers. I waited until it walked off, and I hiked to a bench my family had used as a camp spot. I dropped a small tent and sleeping bag before heading off to glass a couple different bowls. A red-tailed hawk shrieked and harassed an immature bald eagle lazily circling in the blue sky. I crept up to the edge of a draw, lay on my belly, and waited for dusk to come. Like magic, two does appeared on the opposite side.

I remembered when I was fifteen, my older brother, Luke, and I saw a nice fork-horn in this same draw. We were green—Luke missed twice, and I proceeded to shoot the ground in front of me. On Luke’s third shot, the fleeing deer stumbled then disappeared. With ringing ears, we looked at each other in shock. In our rush to find the deer, I fell down a steep slope toward a cliff but miraculously slammed into the one stunted tree growing from the edge. Luke chose a better route down, and together we stood in awe over his first deer.

Dusk was nearing as I crawled away from the two does and crept back to camp. A small deer flickered inside a maze of jack pines. A moment later, it was gone. I passed the rock where, when I was seventeen, my friend Orion had lined up on his first buck at just twenty yards. After panting for five minutes—the deer oddly unaware—he whispered, “Should I?” There was the bowl where I’ve spent hours with my dad and brothers glassing. There was the spot where I accidentally shot two bucks one foggy, rainy morning. There was the ridge where that spike had been bedded down two Septembers ago. There was the ravine where that little fork-horn had been at the edge of in late September. There was the bowl where, with my friends Jesse and Ed, I took my first buck when we were sixteen. Reid and I had taken many more out of the same spot since.

It was near dark by the time I made it to camp. I was considering crawling into my sleeping bag when a deer emerged from the forest four hundred yards away. In the low light, I couldn’t tell whether it was a buck or doe. I grabbed my pack and crept along the forest’s edge, careful to make sure I didn’t silhouette myself. Through a break in the trees, thirty yards away, two deer stood. One had antlers. I quietly worked my bolt, brought the rifle to my shoulder, and fired. In the darkness, I found the buck lying nearby in deer lettuce, heather, and false hellebore. I lay my gun down and rested a hand on his warm body as the last of the crimson sunset disappeared behind the Chilkat Mountains. After gutting and splitting his brisket, I partly skinned his hindquarters and broke his pelvis so the meat would better cool. By Southeast standards, it was a hot night. I wedged a few sticks in his rib cage to air him out and then hoisted him the best I could in a stunted tree. I tied my sweat-drenched shirt on a foreleg in the hopes of scaring off bears.

The black merlin was hunting the meadow as I packed the buck out the following morning. Nearby, a fawn leapt out of the brush then looked me over for a minute before disappearing into the old-growth forest. A goshawk hurled itself between trunks and branches of giant hemlock and spruce trees. It paused midflight and gripped the vertical trunk of a large hemlock with its talons when it saw me. It spread its wings apart and stared, its red eyes burning, then leapt back into flight. The pack, filled with fifty pounds of premium venison, bit into my shoulders, but it was a weight I was happy to carry.

At home, MC had filled the bathtub with warm bleach water and left out a wire brush, paint thinner, and waterproof sandpaper. On the sink was a bottle of the latest and greatest hair removal product she’d bought for me. It wouldn’t work anyway—the hair on my back only comes out thicker and coarser. You can take the jungle out of the tiger, but you can’t take the tiger out of the jungle.