“Nature isn’t some well-trimmed little park, Flower Child. It’s very savage. These idiots get all mushy and sentimental about our little furry friends, and they get upset when a grizzly in the Yellowstone chews up a couple kids.”
“You sound like you hate animals,” she said. “Is that it?”
“I love animals,” I said. “Nobody who hates animals hunts. But I respect the animal for what he is — wild. I don’t try to make a pet out of him. When I go into the woods, I’m going into his territory. I respect his rights. Am I making any sense?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “But you still haven’t told me why you like to go out and kill things.”
I shrugged again. “It’s something I have to do — every so often I have to go out. It’s not the killing — that’s really a very small part of it. It’s the woods, and being alone, and — well — the hunting. That word gets misused. Actually, it’s going out, finding the animal you want in his own territory, and then getting close enough to him to do a clean job. He deserves that much from you. Call it respect, if you like. Anybody who gets all his kicks out of the killing has got some loose marbles.”
“I don’t understand,” she objected, “I don’t understand it at all.”
“You’re not a hunter,” I said. “Very few people really are.”
“Of course not,” she said sarcastically, “after all, I’m a woman.”
“I’ve met women who were hunters,” I said, “and damn good ones, too.”
“Is it — well — now don’t get mad — sexual?”
“You’ve been reading too much Hemingway.” I laughed. “People use sexual terms to describe it because that’s about as close as you can get to it in everyday language that nonhunters would understand. Hemingway knew the difference, and he knew other hunters would, too, and he knew they’d excuse him.”
“You make it all sound awfully exotic,” she said doubtfully.
“It’s not,” I said, “actually, it’s very simple. You just can’t explain it to people, that’s all.”
“Are you a good hunter?” she asked.
“I try,” I said, “and I keep on learning. I guess that’s about all any guy can do.”
“You know,” she said, looking straight at me. “I don’t think this conversation is really happening. It’s surrealistic — me in the bathtub and you sitting on the john trying to eff the ineffable to me.”
“What makes it even more psychedelic” — I grinned at her — “is the fact that you’re convinced that you’re concealed up to the neck when in reality your suds melted about five minutes ago.”
She blinked and looked down at herself. Then she squealed, suddenly contorting herself into a knot. She glared at me, her face flaming. “You get out of here!” she said. “You get out of my bathroom, right now!”
I laughed and went on out to the living room. I could hear her perking and grumbling like a small pot behind me. I mixed myself another drink. I felt better. She made me feel good just being around her. I sat down in the chair and looked out at the soggy tail end of the afternoon in a much better humor.
“Hey, you!” She was standing in the doorway. Her hair was still tucked on top of her head. Except for the hair ribbon she was stark naked. She pitched her damp towel back through the bathroom door and snapped her fingers at me. “Up!” she said. “On your feet, Buster!”
I got up. “Now, what —”
“March,” she said, pointing imperiously at the bedroom.
“I don’t think you ought to get too overheated,” I started. “I mean, you got a bad chill and —”
“Bullshit! Nobody — and I mean nobody — is going to yank my panties off like you did just now and then tip his hat and walk away. Now you get into that bedroom!”
I went into the bedroom.
After she finished her revenge, or whatever you want to call it, we talked some more. About ten o’clock that evening I kissed her good-bye and went out to my car. “Not in the bathroom!” For Christ’s own private sake! I laughed all the way back across town.
I took a shower, dressed in my hunting clothes, and then clumped on up to Jack’s trailer, wincing as the rain spotted my Army boots. I’d spent a lot of hours polishing them.
Jack was a little groggy from his nap, but he dressed quickly, and we drove on over to Sloane’s house through the rain-swept streets. We didn’t say much except to complain about the weather.
“Sure as hell hope it isn’t rainin’ on the other side of the mountains,” Jack said. I grunted agreement. We stopped by a liquor store and each bought a fifth of bourbon.
“God knows if we’d be able to find a store open later on,” Jack said.
We got to Sloane’s place about a quarter to twelve and sat down and had a beer with Calvin after we’d stowed our gear in the car. Stan and Lou both showed up about five to twelve, and they loaded up. All of us had a good stiff belt of Cal’s whiskey, and we took off.
We stopped at a roadhouse tavern just before we got to Seattle and laid in a supply of beer, about a case in each car. It was one of those overchromed joints, all fancy and new. The only guy in there besides the bartender was a drunk in the back booth, snoring for all he was worth. The bartender had a solitaire game laid out on the bar. Real swinging joint. We bought our beer, pried Lou away from the pinball machine, and took off again, blasting along in the wake of Sloane’s Cadillac. We didn’t get to Everett until almost two, and we stopped for gas. Once we got past Snohomish, we were about the only cars on the road. The flat farmland of the Snohomish River Valley stretched on back into the mist and darkness on either side of us, and the fences with the bottom strand of wire snarled in weeds sprayed out on either hand as we passed. Now and then we’d see a house and barn — all dark — near the road. Once in a while a car would pass, going the other way like a bat oat of hell and spraying muddy water on the windshield.
Jack and I switched off, and I drove for a while. There’s something about driving late at night in the rain. It’s almost as if the world has stopped. The rain sheets down in tatters, and the road unrolls out in front of your headlights. We went up through the small silent, mountain towns, always climbing. Each town seemed emptier than the last, with the rain washing the fronts of the dark old buildings, and the streetlights swinging in the wind. We kept the radio going, and neither one of us said much until we got on past Gold Bar, the last town before we really started to climb. Once we got up into the mountains, the radio faded, and after about ten miles of static, I switched it off.
“Bust me open another beer, Jack,” I said, breaking the silence.
“Sure.” He cracked one and handed it to me.
“Damn. I hope this weather breaks at the summit,” I said.
“Didn’t you hear that last weather report?” he asked. “It’s pretty much all on this side.”
“That’s a break.”
“Yeah.” We lapsed into silence again, watching the headlights spear on out in front of the car and the windshield wipers flopping back and forth. I turned up the heater.
“God damn,” he said suddenly, “I wish to hell Mike could have made it. It’s a damn shame, you know that? He’s been tryin’ to get away for the for the last four years now, and some damn thing always comes up so he can’t make it.”
“Yeah,” I said, “and Mike’s a good head. He’d have been fun to have along.”
Jack nodded gloomily. “You want a belt?” he said suddenly.
I wasn’t really sure I did, but I saw that he needed one. “Why not?”
He fished his bottle out from under the seat and cracked the seal. He took a long pull and handed it to me. I took a short blast and handed it back.
“I guess we’d better go easy on this stuff,” he said. “We show up drunk and Miller’s liable to send us back down the mountain.” He put the jug away.
“Right.”
“You know, Dan,” he said after a while. “I’m damn glad we got the chance to do this together. We never got to know each other much when we were kids, what with one damn thing and another — the Old Lady and all. Maybe it’s time we got acquainted.”