A pretty pulse throbbed in that soft part in her throat.
A
week later the cabins were done. Couldn’t have been soon enough for me, hauling in that new furniture. It was time to get the bear-baiting sites ready.
“In five years, the trails have overgrown. Brush hook’s in the shed. That’s all you’ll need for saplings,” she said. “Start tomorrow. Take one of the quads. The tree perches arrived, so don’t forget them. Make sure you have all your tools. It’s a long way out.”
Then she got out a topo map. “Look here.”
Her finger stabbed on ten places. Then she made circles with a pen. “First, we’ll bait the area. Stale baked goods work best. Some people pour used fry oil on logs. That gets their noses working great. But you can’t get rid of it. We don’t want them still around in moose season.”
“This is a big territory.” I thought about the hours this would take.
“Over four-hundred-square miles, including the Crown land. That’s a minimum. But we use it. We’ll have more than one party in the field at once. Some hunt with fiber bows or crossbows. And you know how far a slug carries. They need that separation.”
“I’m a cowboy not a hunter. What do people want with bears anyway? Their meat’s not prime like a deer or moose.”
“It’s big game to these slickers. They take the skins. Sometimes the natives make sausage and roasts for those who can take it home with dry ice. Others leave the carcass. We haul it to the dump. Disgusts me, to tell you the truth. Ever seen a stripped bear?”
“Not in Utah.”
“It looks human.” She shuddered. “Not that I’ve seen many humans without skin. Except in horror movies.”
She sipped at her coffee, “sweetened” with a splash of Seagram’s. Coffee royale, she called it. One excuse for drinking at ten in the morning. Makes a wide-awake drunk.
“We’ll start our baits well before the hunters arrive. Refresh as necessary. That will get the bears coming while they’re putting on their final layer of fat. The coats look like shit in April.”
“How long is the season?” I leaned forward, checking out the contour lines to gauge the best paths.
“First three weeks of September. That’s why I was cracking the whip. We can push it a day or two out here. But that’s our best time. Our success rate used to be over eighty percent. And with five years of no hunters…” She mocked a pistol shot and blew on her finger.
“How many…clients do you get?”
“Ten to twelve a week booked up. Remember what they’re paying.”
Math wasn’t my strong point. “Say an even ten times…that’s big money.” I gave a low whistle.
She fooled with my hair. “You’re no businessman. That’s not all profit. We have the gear, food, gas for the quads, and the hired help. I’m going to need someone to serve. You might have to fill in once or twice. Young girls aren’t that reliable.”
I had thought of myself going from table to table, brew in my hand, talking up the Yanks. Not like some freakin’ waiter. “Oh, sure.”
“On a normal day, here’s the routine. Bait sites checked at dawn. Then around two, after we get a big meal into them, you run the hunters out to the stands.”
“Didn’t you say ten or more? Every damn day? That’s going to take hours.”
She gave a rough laugh that set my teeth on edge. “I know men. Some will go out once, then sit around and drink. Fall asleep braced up in a tree. Roughing it in the bush. That’s what they’re out here for.”
“Where do these idjits come from?”
“Believe it or not, we do real well with Iowa. All that corn and nothing to do till shucking time, I guess. Quite a few from Georgia too. And the big cities like Chicago and Detroit.”
“Why go out so late in the day?”
“Half of them are hungover until noon. Prime time for bears is late afternoon until dark. Anyway, the men will be picked up shortly after sunset, so you’d better know where the hell you’re going. And log out and in using our site numbers. I need to know where you are.”
Cell phones didn’t work out here, nor did walkie-talkies.
I was getting bored with all this info. Did she think I was stupid? “Anything else, boss?”
“They’ll be generous with tips when they get a kill. And take their pictures with that camera in the office. They love that.”
That tips part sounded good.
“Then we have to go back for the meat?”
“There’s a small trailer for that. One of the locals will take care of the skinning and keep the meat. We serve it sometimes. Authentic. It’s really kind of sweet. George knew all the right spices.”
I wanted to see light at the end of the tunnel. Shelley and me snuggling as we watched the sun shimmer down behind the mountains in our little place in Utah.
“When’s moose season start?”
“Right after bear. Five weeks ending in the middle of November. During the rut.”
From a nail on the wall, she pulled off a birch-bark cone. “Home made. They love it.”
She made it wail like she was playing a sax. “Practice up. You can also take a bucket of water.”
“For drinking? That doesn’t make—”
She rolled those cruel ocean eyes. The red veins were making them nearly pink.
“To imitate a cow pissing. The males hear it for miles.”
“No shit.” I couldn’t believe these guys made such fools of themselves.
“Another thing. With moose, there’s less guarantee of a kill. Fewer animals is why. People could wait ten years to get a tag. That’s why they come to us. We leave the men off for the day in groups of three. Make sure they’re at opposite ends of our preserve.”
I cleared my throat. “Do they all pay in advance?”
“You
are
turning into a businessman. I’m not sure I like that.” She cocked her head and looked at me a little squinty-eyed. “Of course they make a down payment. The rest when they arrive. If we do well, there’s a bonus for you.”
“So you’re talking…” I let my voice trail off. She didn’t look liked she trusted me anymore.
“I told you. A fair share.” She raised her cup and toasted me. “Here’s to us.”
She gave what passed for a smile, then drained the mug. The smell of hot rye made my stomach turn. “Get on into town to advertise for kitchen help. Put this up on the bulletin boards all over.” She handed me ten copies of what she’d written on the computer. Hardly more than minimum wage. But they got tips too. Like me. On the way outside, I nearly tripped over Bucky. Damn dog was always in the way. And that hair. My clothes were full of it.
S
eptember first, the place was jumping. Sixteen-hour days for me. I was busy taking guys out, bringing them back. I lost count of the stinking bears. Killing twenty wouldn’t even make a dent in their numbers. And that bear stew? Nearly made me hurl.
Gladys had hired two girls, one to help in the kitchen and the other to serve and clean. They were both eighteen but hardly jail bait. One had zits like a lunar landscape; the other was a cow. My boss could be found noon to midnight drinking with the clients. The old farts seemed to like her. They were happy to leave their wives behind and listen to her hunting stories.
An Ojibway guy came over when a bear was shot. Didn’t talk much but he knew his stuff. One morning Gladys called to me. “Get rid of that carcass in the shed. The landfill is closed this week. That’s what we do with the extras.”
“What do you mean by ‘get rid’? Bury it?” That would be no picnic. The soil was only thin peat over boulders.
“Don’t be stupid. Take it a couple miles out and dump it. It won’t be around long with the brush wolves that I’ve heard howling. Bruno will be riding in the belly of the beast by midnight. Think of it like a soup kitchen for animals.”
“Where exactly? We don’t want to be near the hunting spots.”
“Do I have to think for you? Try over by Kinsol Mountain.” She pointed on the map. “Nobody goes there. Don’t leave it anywhere near the trails.”
“This isn’t that big boar, is it?” My muscles were aching from the day-to-dusk activity. She had me splitting some damn stubborn birch this morning.
“A two-year-old cub the guy carried in himself. Idiot said he thought it was a deer. He’s keeping the pelt for a rug anyway.” She shook her head in disgust. You weren’t supposed to kill sows or cubs, but hunters often made “a mistake.”
Inside the shed, Bucky was sniffing at the body. Looked like a young kid without the fur. Flies had already found it.
“Get out of there, you good-for-nothing hound,” I said, giving him a little poke with my foot. He grunted, but I could tell I hadn’t hurt him none. Bucky was so deaf, wasn’t much sense yelling at him.
Then I wrapped the carcass in a tarp and tossed it over the quad carrier. In an hour, I was deep in the forest, at the bottom of Kinsol. Leaving the quad, I doubled the tarp over the body and pulled it up the mountain. Every ten minutes I’d stop to rest. Finally past the roughest terrain, I saw a deep cleft between rock ledges. No path went within miles of here. I pulled the body to the edge, then shifted it down. It fell about thirty feet into a dark, cavernous spot, the mouth of hell. Then I pushed over some hundred-pound rocks for cover.
“Rest in peace, cubby,” I said. “Plenty more bears where you came from.” Blood and gore covered my flannel shirt and work pants. I couldn’t stand to smell myself.
When I got back, Gladys called me over. “I need you to help serve. The girls couldn’t make it tonight. Thank god there are leftovers.” Her nose gave a sniff. “For Christ’s sake, clean up first. And clean up good.”
I was dog tired. “I need half an hour.”
“You’ve got half of that. There’s a fifty in it for you.” Her head moved around at a roar of happy men in the great room. Glasses and bottles were clinking. Frank Sinatra was on the stereo singing “My Way.”
Eight men sat on leather sofas and chairs in front of the woodstove. The projection-screen
TV
pulled in over two hundred channels on satellite. They were watching a football game, eating popcorn and drinking rye with beer chasers at double the going rate. “Jesus, what’s that reek? Somebody die?” one of them asked.
By eleven, the men had taken the party to their cabins. House rules. Gladys was snoring on the couch. I played with the remote until it brought up a movie. Black and white. A golden oldie. It starred this James Dean guy with hair like Elvis. I was about to turn it off when a scene interested me. Dad had told me about this once. The game was called Chickie Run. You raced your old cars, Dad called them jalopies, toward a cliff. First one to jump out was a chicken and the loser. Even though my eyelids were heavy, I couldn’t turn it off. Right at the edge, one smart guy jumped and rolled, and the other dude got his sleeve caught on the door handle. He went over the cliff. The dead guy won. Some joke.
Then moose season started. Less driving around for me, since the hunters were out all day as a group. But moose were way more dangerous than bears. One wild bull came at me one afternoon by a swamp, and I barely made it up a tree. Maybe they just wanted their women, but they were plain nuts.
I noticed that Gladys took American cash on the barrelhead. No checks. No charge cards.
“Damn government wants my blood for taxes,” she said. “I’ll declare half. ‘Taxed to the max’ is not my motto. Ottawa doesn’t care about us Northerners anyhow.”
“What about my share?” I spoke up more loudly than usual. There was only a week of hunting to go. For what she was “giving” me, plus the bedtime services, it worked out to five bucks an hour.
“I’ve got your money for you, Rick,” she said with an irritated sigh. “Look how you pissed so much away in that poker game with that Chicago guy the other night. When we settle up, you can head south again. But there’s always a place for you here once the season starts. Now that we’re open again, we’ll start in the spring.” She was wrapping up hundreds with a rubber band. Her sharp look told me to clear off.
On her desk was a metal box.
One morning before she got up, I tried the file cabinet in her office. Not even locked. Nothing but records anyway. Where was her hidey-hole? A day later I found the loose board in the floor of the bedroom closet. Piles and piles of hundred-dollar bills. I was counting it when I heard the stairs squeak. I knew where it was. She didn’t know I knew. That was my advantage.
O
n November 16, Gladys and I waved goodbye to the last American rolling out of the drive in a Lincoln Town Car. She looked at me and folded her arms like she was satisfied.
“I thawed some steaks. Let’s you and me celebrate.”
“Just as long as it’s beef.”
“Triple-A Alberta prime.”
In three hours, four bottles of wine lined up like dead soldiers. Half a bottle of cognac. We were lying on the big leather reclining sofa. “So this is it. I’m out of here before the snow flies. That desert’s calling me.”
A slump passed over her face. Maybe she would miss me.
“Sure you won’t change your mind and come along? I always travel over the winter. Hot places. Southern California. Vegas. Even your precious Utah if you like. We’ll have lots of referrals now. Then with a better year—”
”I don’t think so.” Something hit me as strange. “So we’ll be settling up tomorrow, right? But what do you mean
better
? Didn’t we do good?” She had told me that she turned away at least three parties. We were full up every night.
She lit a cigarette and puffed a little white cloud. Tapped it into an ashtray.
“Not…quite as good as I thought. Remember those renovations. And I’m still paying off the loan George took to bring the hydro lines in. I figure your cut is about six. There’s a check for you in my office. After all, it’s my place. And you got room and board. Like in a quality hotel.”
Hotel my ass. Labor camp more like.
“I don’t care none about what you and damn George did. I worked my guts out for you. A deal’s a deal.”
The room turned to red mist. A vice squeezed my head as if my eyes were gonna pop like marbles. I couldn’t catch my breath.
“If that’s the way you feel, I can make it six and a half. No hard feelings.”
Steam was coming out my ears, but Gladys didn’t even seem to notice. She swirled the cognac in that big fat glass. Her mouth opened like a shark. The lipstick was sucked back in little creases. I picked up the last bottle and chugged it, then smashed it against the wall.