Father and Son Outing

"We've always been hunters," Pop declares as he bites off the remnant of fishing line from the knot he's just tied. Pop has a large, robust physique and is wearing his favorite red-plaid shirt with many pockets that's tucked at the waist behind his rubbery gray waders. His face is broad and ruddy with a full white beard that hides his mouth when he's not speaking. When he does talk, it's in short, fragmented bursts that force the listener to string the pieces together into something more meaningful. "It's in our blood," he adds in his gruff voice, his teeth flashing from behind his beard. "Don't know why you don't hunt anymore. Got too much of your mom in you, I guess," he concludes as he measures me with his eyes. The hazel disks of his irises flicker through the slits of his puffy lids with each worried glance he gives me. "Remember, boy, the only heart you know is your own."

Pop turns and sets his sights across the stream to a spot where a giant aspen has hooked its gnarly roots into the rich humus of the bank. There, beneath the tree, the stream pools in a deep basin that it has dug for itself. Pop likes spots like that where the calm surface of the water reveals the shadowy, lucid, depth below. It is there where he'll lay his baited hook, deep among the debris of the bottom, and wait for a refracted fish to strike. It is there he can see the struggle of the fish, and the steely-eyed fish can see him. He steps into the sorrel sheen of the water that swallows him up to his waist, leaving just a wavering reflection of his gloating grizzly old face and red-plaid torso that has always been too big for his head. I watch as he trudges across the whiskey-colored stream and fades into the shadows.

I head downstream to search for a better spot. The steam has a swift current that seems to draw me along with it. It's a clean transparent stream with glossy rocks and boulders scattered about its pebbly bed. The stones seem to form cryptic messages that could be decipherable, but deciphering them is hopeless as any meaning they may hold is quickly blurred away by the torrent flow of the water. The path goes along a mesh of tall shrubs that conceal the stream from me except for intermittent flashes of its relucent waters. I come to a clearing where a large log spans the two banks. At the other end of the make-shift bridge is a large boulder resembling a crouching boy. Downstream is a gravel-spit with its shallow waters ablaze in the afternoon sun. The blinding glare of the clearing is uninviting and the jarring screech of a nearby blue jay sends me back on my way.

The stream narrows and gurgles through a bend, and then widens out again to make its run through a small meadow. The late afternoon stillness looms around me. There is a soothing rustle from a copse of birch trees that blends with the shushing of the stream. Piercing the stillness is an occasional outburst of cawing from hidden crows. In the center of the meadow, a tall tree trunk stands like a totem pole. The pillar of wood is blotched with knots, holes and nubs where branches use to be. Atop the tree trunk sits a mangy sparrow hawk, clad in ruffled russet feathers. Unfettered in its ways, its conspicuous talons spread out on its perch. The hawk acknowledges my presence without glancing over at me. Off in the distance a group of buzzards circle effortlessly in a whirl above the earth.

The stream disappears into a gorge where I hear the muffled roar of cascading water. I leave the path and weave down through the bramble to a clearing where the stream is rushing down a stairway made of rock. At the top of the falls is a large boulder shaped like a saber tooth. I careen across the rubble of granite rocks, climb to the top of the pinnacle and sit precariously on its crown. Below my feet is a deep stone basin seething with water. I feel squeamish from the shear height of the boulder and the racing water below. I have to balance myself as I unhook my leader from the corky handle of my my pole and lower the line, with two red salmon eggs skewered on the hook, down into the basin. I feel nauseous as I wait. I remember when Pop and I used to roughhouse and he'd plant himself on top of me and not let me up no matter how hard I struggled and begged. I can still feel his stifling weight squeezing the living daylight out of me. That's the way I've been feeling lately, like I'm suffocating. Pop says a man goes fishing to untie all the knots he's gotten himself in. Maybe there are some knots that can't be untied? But I'm way too weary now to think about all that.

Pop wouldn't like this spot. He likes to see the fish strike. I like to feel the stream and the tug of the fish on the line. We're different, he and I. He's a bull in the china shop, raising alarm in everyone around him but never being alarmed himself. He's obnoxious. I remember he once stormed out of a movie theater simply because a woman had brought her infant. He gave her a real tongue-lashing for ruining his evening. It was embarrassing. I wanted to be more civil, more in control, and be liked. I wanted to belong. I could never really be myself around Pop, never really be part of his world.. Probably the only thing we have in common is Mom, but, then again, she's probably at the heart of our differences.

It was the way he treated Mom that riles me the most. Pop was alway off chasing those highfalutin adventures of his, leaving Mom alone to fend for herself. Mom would always busy herself while he was gone and, oddly, would always be excited and full of high hopes on his returns. "This time it will be different," she would tell me as she combed my hair and straightened my belt buckle. There was a longing in her eyes for Pop that I couldn't fathom, yet envied. His sojourns home would start off nicely enough, but by the eve of his departure it was always a terrible row. The toast was too dark, the eggs runny, the paper delivered too late, the cursed traffic, the neighbors were too nosy, the merchants too crooked, the politicians were too corrupt, the news was too biased, and that I had watched too much of that hideous TV. When Mom would interject some innocent remark like a man should be with his family, it would set him off like a cannon and he would reel back in a woeful howl and harange her for coddling me too much, for her meek and timid ways, her insubordination toward him, her plain clothes, petty concerns, and meddling family. Then, in a fit of indignation, he would put his face up to hers and gasp in that grating voice of his that, by God; she would never get the better of him. And when he realized that his howling was being met with Mom's forbearance, he would find some precious keepsake of hers and shatter it out over the floor. It would always end that way, Mom hovering in the corner with a dazed, bewildered look and me standing in the shadows, helpless to go and comfort her.

There's a slight tug on my line. It could be just the agitated stream fooling with me, but it puts me on guard. Another tug jolts my line and confirms my hunch. I ready myself for the next strike. There it is. I yank my pole back. I feel the snagging of the fish. I see my pole bend in a taut arc from the weight of the fish. I can feel the fish's tremors as it struggles to escape. I reel in some line, riling the fish more. I can feel its defiance beneath the water as it grapples with its fate. Women are like fish; Pop would say, when they get angry is when you know you've got them hooked. I slowly raise the flapping silvery torso of the fish out from the foaming white waters. I cautiously reel it up and over to me and grab hold of its cold iridescent body. It is a large, plump trout. Its head and tail twitch in my grasp as its mouth and gills gasp for oxygen. I quickly strike its head against the rock to stun its struggle. The hook is snagged in its throat. As I dislodge it I can feel the fading life of the fish as it suckles my finger with its jagged mouth. I stare at its grotesque look and its dull, lifeless eyes. I will fry it up tonight and eat it. I slide down the rock and hastily slit its belly open and pull its guts out and then rinse its cold iridescent body off in the stream. I place the fish into my creel and head back to camp.

There's an incline to the path that I had not noticed on the way down and the day has imperceptibly slipped into twilight. I catch a glimpse of a antlered buck bolting away through the tangled brush he had hidden in. There's tranquility this time of day, when the harsh sun withdraws from the sky, leaving a soft, rouge domed over the shadowed contour of the mountainous earth. I'm exhausted and parched from the day's outing and look forward to eating the fish and resting tonight. Pop will be there. I stroll up to the campsite pitched at the bottom of a crag. The site seems so frail against the vast backdrop of the wilderness. I unload my creel and lean my fishing pole up against a tree, then gather some pine needles and cones, which I pile in the center of a stone-rimmed pit and, striking a match, set the whole clump ablaze. I stand and feel the spreading warmth of the fire as it radiates out into the chilly evening air. I stack some more wood on the fire and settle down on a tree stump to watch the flames grow. A hollow sense of loneliness comes over me and I shudder. It's a scary feeling that the shining moon and the shimmering white Venus in the sky will never feel or share.

I get up and place the grill atop the stone rim, then go over to the lantern that hangs from a nail in a tree. I prime the canister and strike a match and set the mantles aglow. I stand and watch as Pop rummages through the gear to fetch his favorite fixings for trout. I see him lay the fish out meticulously in the old cast- iron frying pan he carried with him everywhere. In the artificial illumination of the lantern, it is difficult to figure out where Pop ends and the shadows begin.

He's a kook. I remember he once had the gall to go after my father-in-law-to-be, in front of a restaurant, accusing him of lining his own pockets with the proceeds from a charity he headed up. Incredible! Pop got so enraged that he resorted to spitting in Walt's face. He did all this in front of my friends and acquaintances. He didn't care what they thought. I suppose he's the reason why no one stood up and spoke on my behalf at the hearing, the reason for my alienation. Bah! I don't want to think about it. I don't give a shit what they think anymore. I'm tired of their do's and don'ts and "watch what you say" mentality. I'm tired of their snobbish jargon and their cockamamie notions. The truth is I could never be myself around them, either. I just never really belonged, that's all.

The pan full of fish is placed on the grill and I settle back against the tree trunk. I pop open the cork of the whiskey bottle, releasing its pungent fumes, and pour some liquor into my tin cup. I take a sip of whiskey and swoosh it about my mouth as I gaze up at the black sky. The vaulted night is perforated by twinkling stars that only belie the nothingness behind them. I gulp the heated liquor down my gullet and brace myself for that grating voice that has haunted me all my life.

"It's good you're here, boy. You needed to get away. Get back to nature where you belong. I know we haven't talked much. Been too busy, I guess. Been away a lot. But we can amend that now. I'm sure there's much to talk about. Catch up on things. Remember that camping trip on your twelfth birthday? How you fell that mountain lion? How you stood your ground and calmly aimed your rifle. Firing a slug in its heart as it lunged right at us. I was proud of you, boy. Don't know why you don't hunt anymore."

"That was a long time ago, Pop."

"Yes, a long time ago."

"You know why I don't hunt anymore, Pop?" I offer up grudgingly, simply out of tiredness. "I've lost my confidence, my nerve. I'm afraid now what I'd do with a gun in my hand. I don't even want a gun in the house. It scares me to be this way, so full of dismay and despair. And it's getting worse. I find myself wanting to strike out somehow, let it rip, tear into something or someone. There are times when I want to strip off my clothes and run through the streets naked, shouting at the top of my lungs just to do something out of the ordinary. Or just beat a helpless bum to within an inch of his life simply out of sheer fierceness. It scares me. You see, I don't want to let it rip, don't want to explode and lose whatever control I have left. I guess I'm just not ready to seal my fate that way. I still want to belong. But now whatever I do will simply be misinterpreted and misunderstood by everyone. So I'll do nothing."

"There was a time when a gun was simply part of the household, like a broom or mop. A man is only answerable to himself, boy, and there there's no secrets or blame. It isn't the gun that scares you."

A flame from the fire flares up through the grill, releasing a flicker of light that vanishes quickly into the darkness. I flip the fish over in the pan to let it cook on the other side. I take a fork and pull back its loose, scaly skin and spear a chunk of its meat and neatly slide the chuck off its needle-like bones and then plop the chunk into my mouth. The morsel is hot and sweet and the dead steely-eyed fish doesn't seem to mind me eating it. I take another chunk and another, with each bite leading to the next and another.

"Put some lemon on it, boy, don't you know how to eat?"

"So what do you want to talk about, Pop?" I explode at Pop's pestering and stand and pace about the light and dark of the campsite with my hands stuffed in my pockets. "Christ! Do you know how much of life goes unspoken? How about Mom, Pop? Want to talk about her and how you left her? We got to get this out and in the open once and for all. We've got to confront it! It's been plaguing me my whole life. Do you know what your unorthodox behavior did to her? It made her an outcast in her own town, snubbed and ignored by people. Christ, they didn't even let her join the rose club and she had the best roses in town!. I don't know how she was able to put up with all that ridicule the townspeople were able to muster. She was no match for them and way too timid to fight them all and she spent the last years of her life just waiting for you to come home, waiting for you to remedy things -- restore her dignity. But you never came home. You were never there for us. You know that mountain lion, Pop? Well, it was your heart I was aiming at. I wanted to sink a slug into your chest and tear you apart for not being there. Christ! You didn't even make it to my wedding, Pop."

"You know damn well why," Pop hollers back, hoarse and pugnacious, "got buried in that avalanche in Alaska. No way could I have gotten out of there. But don't lay this all at my feet, boy," he contends defiantly. "Your mon and I aren't the cause of your woes, boy." Pop sulkily turns and faces the fire and pokes a stick about the burning wood. "I loved your mother, " Pop utters in a somber, respectful tone. " I loved her more than you'll know. You just got lost in it all, wrapped up in what other people thought. Got truth and decorum all mixed up. Your mother was the dearest thing in the world to me," Pop states, lowering his voice even more and turning his attention back on the fish. "She always put up with me and I love her for that. There's not a day that goes by that I don't think of her. I'm buried with her in that grave. Don't lie this at my feet, boy." Pop pauses and shakes his head. "Perhaps it's her timidity that troubles you."

"You know nothing about me," I growl. "Do you know what I had to sacrifice to become respectable, to belong? Do you know how much effort and work it took to be someone other than you? How ingratiating I had to be? Going about life with a smile on my face and yet always being on my guard that my humiliating past would break through. But how could I ever gain respectability with a father like you when...when everything I did was likened to you? Why in the hell did you spit in Walt's face?" I ask as I stop my pacing. "You must have known how influential, how very, well, very clever he was. I was always embarrassed about that and I shouldn't had been." I find myself off alone with clenched fists staring at the flickering light on my tent. "I'm tired," I say exhaustedly as I turn and settle back down by the fire, "tired of it all."

"You only need to respect yourself, boy," Pop confers consolngly. "Everyone else is questionable," Pop adds as he chews on some fish. "Here, have some more food. You're probably hungry. Remember those meals your Mom cooked?" Pop calmly recalls as he ruminates on his food. "Roast and potatoes smothered in gravy, home-baked bread, and steamed vegetables fresh from her garden served in that fancy enamel bowl her mother left her. Whatever happened to that bowl? It was charming. Packed away or broken, I guess," Pop bemuses with a slight grin as he pours some more whiskey into his cup. "Well, you can't change the past. Here, sit and eat."

I watch a wayward spider fitfully legging about the stones of the fire pit. I flick the spider into the flames with a snap from my fingertip so it won't distract me anymore.

"No, I suppose not," I lament. "But with Claire I really believed I could change things. I really thought I had a shot at it. I figured with Claire I could gain entry and I wanted in. I wanted to make my mark and be part of it all. And why not! It's a world where you're either in or you're out. I understood all those things the moment I first saw Claire. I was dating Eleanor back then. You remember Eleanor? You're forgetting things, Pop. Well, Claire made it known right up front that Eleanor's hick style wasn't right for me; she was too plain and simple. You see, Claire was sophisticated and in control and made such a wonderful impression. She knew what she wanted and was going to take the world by storm with her exuberance, confidence and audacity. She was the key I was looking for -- my way out -- rich and influential. She was exciting and sensational and I was cocky enough to take her on.

"You missed a grand wedding, I suppose. A fairytale, " I continue, after taking a sip of whiskey. "Probably a little too glitzy for me, but Claire wanted a grand ceremony and planned everything down to the color of the shoelaces and fngernail polish. It was typical Claire, meticulous and exacting. In fact, the only time she was really at a loss was at the rehearsal when she couldn't decide where I'd stand when she came down the aisle. I do remember having the most bizarre thought as I waited there at the altar. I thought about my physic professor who had laid out the most elaborate matrix of mathematical formulas taking up the entire chalkboard, and then a student, quite naively, asked, 'well, yes, but what does it all mean?' I could see that gawky dumbfounded expression that was on the professor's face being on my face as I stared out at the hoopla. When Claire entered, all eyes turned toward her. She was quite ravishing and quite riveting, covered in snowy white from head to toe with long, satiny gloves, and a full veil. I remember a young girl trailing in Claire's footsteps,attending the long train. I don't know why I remember that little girl now. It's funny, but I was in such complete awe of all the pomp and pageanty back then and I felt so special being part of it."

Pop stares out into the dark as though in a trance and tells me: "Your mom and I eloped. Couldn't afford a fancy wedding. We didn't need all that fuss anyhow." He takes a sip of liquor. The profile of his head is ghastly pale and seems to hover there in the darkness.

"We honeymooned in Fiji at a ritzy resort her father arranged for us. It was an exclusive paradise, lush tranquill gardens, hospitable servants, and manicured beaches. A real Eden. Well, one afternoon I found Claire alone, sobbing beneath a banyan tree. She was worried about the future and our happiness together. I had never seen her that upset and my heart naturally went out to her. She made me promise that I would never stray and that I would always stand by her side, no matter what. I, of course, promised it all to her. She was so vulnerable and meek during our honeymoon, so submissive, and I so much wanted to comfort her as I had promised mom.

"When we got back home, everyone was so eager to help and lend us a hand. It was unbelievable. Things were just coming easily for us and why not? I was a smart, scrappy sort of guy and Claire could charm the pants off anyone. We made a sensational couple and had a lot of friends. Claire's father gave us jobs in his business. Claire became CFO and I went into sales. I was good at it and quickly became V.P. of Sales after Sky Gallagher left. Sky stormed out of the office one day, just got up and quit. The scuttlebutt was he'd been padding his expense account, but I don't really believe that. He probably was canned to make room for me. I hope not. I liked Sky. But things took off after that. I joined the Rotary Club and the Chamber of Commerce and the Westfield Golf Club. We had a house in Landmark Terrace, an au pair for Andrew, and a full social calendar. Life was good. We were the epitome of success. Claire's father took me under his wing and introduced me to some influential people in both business and politics. It's hard to believe now how impressed I was with Walt back then. He was like a father to me. He took me aside once and told me there were no grudges and if I ever needed help, just to ask, and he told me how valuable I was to his organization. He swore he would always be there, no matter what. And, back then, that was important to me. Even during our whole sordid divorce, he would call to see what I was up to and let me know that he wasn't happy with the way Claire was behaving. I see now the ruse of all that then. "

"A man doesn't need all those trappings," Pop grumbles with a frown, " they're just traps. Fresh air, a roof over his head and food in his belly is all he needs."

"Social standing was important back then, Pop. Everything seemed so right. Life was perfect and we were important and in the center of it all. In the evenings we would gather at the Babylon, a very upscale oyster bar and grill on Fourth. It's always crowded with beaming faces and chatter about the latest news and gossip. There's always wheeling and dealing going on and an abundance of glad-handing and showboating. Everyone was well groomed and well dressed in the latest designer cloths and we all believed that if we looked good, we were good. By evening's end, we were all jazzed up and singing our favorite songs in a loud chorus so the whole world could hear. The place was full of sophisticates who were probably too smart for their own good. I suppose I'm persona non grata there now. Just as well.

"One night, after we got home from the Babylon. I asked Claire why she hadn't acknowledged her cousin Jane that evening. I had seen Jane come in with an escort, probably just to check it out because they didn't stay long. I had pointed her out to Claire and Claire just stared at her for awhile and then said 'Nope, not her.' I couldn't figure it out. Claire used to rave about how she'd stay at Jane's farm in the summers when they were young and all the great times that had. When I pressed her more about the snub she got very cross with me and told me she didn't want to talk about it and she wasn't in the mood for love-making either and turned her face away on her pillow and feigned sleep. When I told her she should had at least acknowledge Jane out of politeness, she grumbled 'She didn't belong there'. I remember lying there in the dark fretting over how this vivacious woman I wanted to worship was becoming....becoming haughty. How her glib speaking style was becoming operatic and specious and that sweet vanity of hers was turning to a mean conceit. I remember that night, lying in the dark, listening to her breathing and feeling completely alone and not really knowing why."

I take the blade of my hatchet and wedge it in the grill and remove the grill from the fire pit and then stack on more wood on the fire and stoke the fire to get more light and more warmth in the chilly night. There are faint hoots from a solitary owl drifting down the canyon.

"I remember Claire was able, through some shenanigans, to get Andrew the lead in the school's holiday pageant. It seemed that Andrew's rival for the part was a slow learner on medication. Claire made sure the word got out that the other kid wasn't fit for the role, she made him sound almost contagious. Well, Andew got the lead and Claire ended up as Chairperson for the PTA. Then there was the awkward encounter with Timmy Standler, who I really didn't know, a kid who lived across town. The complaint was he had made an obscene slur about Claire and needed to be put in his place. So I called and lectured him over the phone. He told me he said it because Claire had told someone that his mother wasn't fit to lick her shoes. I found myself at a loss for words, as though I had fallen into an pit of unsettling pathos. I understood exactly where he was coming from, but I ended up telling the kid he should learn respect and not let it happen again. Last I heard, Standler had been expelled from school and had drifted off somewhere."

What is left of the fish is unpalatable with the torso stripped to the bones leaving only the dired-out tail fin and head intact. Overhead, bats flap about the branches and, off in the distance, the soft rustling of the stream

"I suppose it was the Robert's episode that started my estrangement. Tom Robert was an old friend of mine and Walt wanted me to use my position on the Planning Commission to screw him out of his property. I was to swindle a friend so Claire's father could gain a parcel of land. I didn't want to do it. It wasn't right and I thought Claire would come around and see it that way too. I was wrong. I've never seen Claire so angry. She scolded and threatened me for being so irascible and for being so abusive toward her, which didn't make any sense. She told me I was naive and stupid. Then she moaned and wailed about how I had promised her on our wedding. It was obvious that honesty and fairness was not going to win out over greed and power. I told her I would see what I could do, but ended up doing nothing.

"I figured Robert wouldn't sell no matter what. His mom had left him the place and he wouldn't give it up without a fight. It was a shocker to me when the District Attorney came out and filed criminal charges against Robert for operating an illegal puppy mill on his premise. I knew Robert and he loved his dogs and I knew he bred them and sold the puppies, but they were always well treated. It was when those sordid photos came out in the newspaper that the whole thing turned ugly. They were pictures of abused, scrawny puppies with sores and lesions all over them that the newspaper included with their stories about Robert. I learned later that the photos were of a puppy mill in Bolivia and had nothing to do with Robert's operation. The whole matter devastated Robert. His defense costs bankrupted him and he couldn't handle the slanderous public onslaught so they found him one day hanged from a rafter in his barn.

"After that, Claire and I began quarreling over everything, money, rearing Andrew, people we met, our calendar, her father's influence and the Robert matter. She grew more and more concerned with the notion that I was somehow intentionally trying to sabotage everything she worked for, that I was becoming uncontrollable and that frightened her. She was constantly trying to put me in my place by reminding me of my modest beginnings and by ridiculing whatever virtue I had left. I simply began resenting everything there was about her dear social position. In fact, I figured it was a crock of shit. The whole sham. I began to go days without shaving or changing my clothes just too distants myself from the herd. Then, one night, I tried reaching out to her one more time for some tenderness and goodwill, but she recoiled convulsively into a corner with that dazed, bewildered look. I could see in those eyes that all of her horrid suspicions about me were coming true. I had become that abominable monster I had so desperately tried to destroy. I had become you, Pop. Shortly thereafter, Claire filed for divorce and I moved out."

"Women are temporal beings with fickle hearts, " Pop interjects. "Motherhood is their only calling, where hunting is ours."

"Our whole separation dragged on interminably. But, finally, our day in court came. As I recall, a witness in a red cardigan sweater said I was indeed acting irrationally. Another witness in horn-rimmed glasses said I approached her in a threatening manner. Then another witness with a hairpiece confirmed that I had a reputation for being irascible. Claire's attorney cerainly made the most of you, Pop. Like father, like son, she contended. I was a son of an grotesque rogue that gallivanted around the world stinking oil wells in the ground. I was a brute, a beast, and incapable of a loving relationship quite unlike everyone else there in the court room. I sat there throughout and thought how I was at the wrong hearing, the wrong court room. It wasn't about me. It wasn't about my divorce, but something else, some misunderstanding being discussed by witnesses who were just as guilty in their misrepresentations as I was in my indignation and contempt. And as the magistrate was devesting me of my life, I saw it for what it really was, a primitive ritual avidly expelling me from their pact. As for Claire, she sat there quietly with that hurt victim look on her face... her father sat in the back of the room silently condoning everything that was going on."

"You can never be divorced from this world, boy. It's those women bonds that keep us here."

"After, outside the courthouse, a crowd huddled around Claire consoling and congratulating her as I stood off by myself. I watched as they reveled in their self-righteousness. I wanted to take a gun and shoot each and every one of them. It was then that it hit me... that it was all over. I was out. They had banished me as quickly as they had embraced me, without batting an eye. I remember it took everything inside of me to walk down those steps with my chin up. At the bottom of the steps I felt flustered and didn't know which way to turn or whether I should stay or leave."

"Don't be foolish, boy," Pop solemnly interjects with a grimace and stands and paces about the site. "A man always needs a way out. Your destiny is your own...and not the mob's. "

"There's no love there, Pop," I offer as succinctly as I can. "You see, I always had a hunch that Claire married me simply to put her father on notice, to keep him off balance, so to speak, so she could have leverage over him. She just needed to intimidate him into believing she'd go berserk if she didn't get her way. As I figured it, I had just enough of the renegade in me to give her threat some real oomph. As for me, I just wanted out from underneath you and be accepted by everyone else. So we just use each other. In that world, people are just a means to an end and not an end in themselves. No, there's no love there. And it's left me hurting inside, Pop. I had just sat by and did nothing while they destroyed Robert for a little piece of land. I did nothing because I was afraid. Afraid of what people would think. Afraid they may turn on me. It's a dreadful, sickening hurt that money or status can't cure. And for what? To be exiled that black abyss of loneliness. Sometimes, now, when I lay in bed in the early morning, when ghoulish faces whirl about my mind like vultures, I think that perhaps drowning is better than facing the void alone."

Off in the distance, a twig cracks and a black shadow of an intruder startles me before it quickly fades into a tree trunk, leaving nothing, nothing at all. I put that old rawhide jacket of Pop's over my shoulders to cut the chill some.

"You need to get back to hunting," Pop heralds from somwhere off in the night. "When was the last time you got your boots muddy flushing out pheasants? Remenber the excitement...the thrill of pounding wings filling your soul? That brief moment when it all comes down to you. A man needs to know where his food comes from. He needs to stand on his own two feet." I listen to Pop's prodding and can feel him moving about the other dark shapes behind me. "Everything else is gobbledygook. You've been bamboozled, that's all. Spoon fed all that fancy cuisine the world oozes out to cover up its animosity, its own loneliness," Pop exhorts. "We're all alone, boy. Get back to hunting. Do your own tracking. Find your own way. All that dread of loneliness is just the howling of the wind, boy. You got to kill it like that mountain lion. Destroy its ferocious maw and its frightening cry before it devours you." Pop pauses in his admonition and settles his hands on the back of my shoulders.

"Get off my back, Pop!" I utter aloud as I stand and toss the remaining whiskey from my cup into the fire. "You've been dead now ten years." I stand alone, listening to the nocturne of a distant stream and the stirring of windblown treetops overhead. The black night envelops the campsite lit by the crackling fire and the glow of the hissing lantern.