The Totem 1979 (2 page)

All the same, he didn’t know what he could do. It was in his nature to deny himself, to make of weakness strength. Besides, he didn’t know how he would fill the time. He’d been a vet now forty years. He couldn’t just forget all that and sit around the house. He joked about that to his wife. “You wouldn’t want me under foot all day. Be grateful.” But the joke was very poor. A man whose occupation was his life, he didn’t have much choice. He had to work.

And one thing more: the ranchers who depended on him. He had worked with many of them all their lives, all his own life. He had seen their fortunes rise and fall, or fall and rise, their families grow, their ranches go through all the good times and the bad. He had measured out the seasons with them. Now they were a part of him, the rhythm of his life. He couldn’t any more restrain himself from going out to work with them than he could stop the racing in his blood each April when the warm winds first began the long slow thawing of the snow. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe they didn’t depend on him so much as he depended on them. Or maybe it was both together. There were vets enough to go around. That was sure. But he was part of their lives too. They’d had him with them through so many times that maybe they felt incomplete without his presence in their common rituals. Maybe. It was hard to say. He’d never ask. But ranchers had their superstitions. They had patience only with what worked, and what worked best was often very old.

Like himself, he thought. But really, he knew what the truth was. He was getting older than he liked to think, and he was damned if he would sit around and let death come to him. What was the greatest disappointment in the world? That of feeling useless. If he didn’t work, he didn’t see that he was justified. Still, he guessed his wife was right. He didn’t have a reason to put in this kind of day. Maybe he would cut back, work just mornings, spend some time around the house. His wife was aging too, and maybe they should find out more about each other. While they still had the opportunity.

He sat and thought, his breath now coming easier, glancing out the window while he listened to his wife reheating supper, and the phone rang.

“Don’t get up,” she told him, and he understood. This likely would be business. Most calls at this hour were, and she was bound to see he wasn’t bothered. He sat, waiting while it rang. He heard her put a lid down on a pot, then saw her walk across the entrance to the kitchen, disappearing toward the phone that hung against the cupboard wall. She got there halfway through another ring.

“Hello… . No, I’m sorry he’s not in right now. I’ll take a message… . What? How are you, Sam? I didn’t recognize your voice. How’s the… ? No, I don’t know where he is. … Well, is it serious? If you’ll tell me what it is, I’ll have him call…. You’re sure? All right, then, Sam, I’ll have him call you first thing he comes in. … No, I won’t forget… . Right, Sam. Yes, I will… . Right. Goodbye.”

And that was that. He heard her hang the phone up and then saw her walk across the doorway toward the stove. He knew three Sams, but he didn’t dare ask which it was. If she wanted to, she’d tell him, but he knew that if he asked her he would only make her mad. So he waited. He sat, smelling supper as it cooked. Then she told him it was ready. He went in and ate. Slowly as she wanted him. Pork chops, string beans, and potatoes, boiled, then stirred with butter and crushed parsley, as he liked them. Then she had a pie for him, apple with brown sugar and no upper crust. Again, the way he liked it. Then there was some tea, Chinese black, light and smooth and mellow. And he waited. He sat back and looked at her and tapped his fingers on the table.

And she told him. “That was Sam Bodine.”

He nodded.

“Best get over there.”

He had to laugh. “I thought you didn’t want me to.”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“What is it?”

“That’s the point. He wouldn’t say.”

The old man looked at her.

“You should have heard his voice. I think you’d better go.”

He looked at her a moment longer and then stood to get his bag.

Chapter Three.

The old man’s house was on the edge of town, the side that faced the western mountains. He got in the car and backed out of the driveway, aiming toward the setting sun. It was almost down behind the mountains now. Its topmost swollen rim was barely showing.

Rocky Mountains. Tall and jagged, capped with snow although June was oddly warm. In August, some would be rock bare, but most would be snow-covered all year round. That was one nice thing about this kind of country: the difference in the weather. In the valley, it might be one hundred, but five hours drive up there and you could dig snow caves and wear a jacket. Plus, the sun did strange things with its color. It might be white with heat from nine to five, but after that, as it came closer to the mountains, dipping down behind them, the sun changed first to red and then to orange, bathing everything in alpenglow, a rich warm golden tone that made the countryside seem magical. It was like that now, everything the same calm soothing color. Even trees were tinted by it, the green of leaves now more like yellow, the range grass all around reminding him of grain and honey.

The old man drove down the road past fence posts stretching off as far as he could see, past ranch homes nestled in their hollows, cattle feeding, windmills turning in the evening breeze. The supper had been very good. He had eaten more than was his custom. Indeed he felt much better now, his breath more easy, his legs more steady. That was why he drove the kind of car he did: to help him with his legs. The effort of a clutch had lately been too much for him, and he had traded to an automatic, which was bad for hills and snow, but he was forced to pace himself. In little ways he had to compensate. He sat back in the seat, his foot relaxed on the pedal, his hand light on the steering wheel, and glanced at all the country as he passed, the isolated trees, the sweep of rangeland stretching off, the fences, and the cattle, and he thought of Sam Bodine. No, of Bodine’s father. At one time, the old man had been just about his closest friend, although they hadn’t been old back then, thirty, forty years ago, hunting, fishing, working. No, not just about his closest friend. His only friend. They had been like brothers. He had loved the man, and still he missed him dearly. After twenty years, he marveled at how constant was his grief. He had seen the son grow to a man and seen him marry and have children. He had helped him every bit as much as he was able. But the son was not the father. He had different interests and concerns, and things were never quite the same.

Now he drove out toward the ranch as he had done so many times before. He passed the tree that he had seen grow from a seedling to a giant and then start to crumble. He passed the ditches he had helped to dig, the fences he had helped to set. He came around the curve that led down toward the entrance, slowing, turning left to rattle across the grate that lay over a gully and that kept the cattle off the highway, its metal gaps so wide that cattle couldn’t walk across them. Next he was on gravel, gaining speed again, spinning up a swirl of dust behind him as he drove on toward the house and barn, their structures now in dusk, the alpenglow abruptly gone, the sun behind the mountains.

Then he saw him standing by the gravel parking space beside the house, big and tall, dressed in denim shirt and jeans, cowman’s hat and boots, hands gripped on his thighs. His face was strong and solid, leathered, at the same time almost chiseled. He was walking forward even as the old man pulled in on the gravel.

“Thanks for coming.”

The old man nodded. “What’s the trouble?”

“I don’t want to say. I’d rather have you look.”

The old man glanced at him a moment and then got out with his bag. In all his years he’d never heard a rancher talk that way. They almost always had a thought of what the problem was and told him right away. Whatever was the matter out here surely wasn’t ordinary.

Bodine was already walking. “How you feeling?”

“Pretty good,” the old man said.

“We’re going to be a while.” Bodine said that with his head turned as he walked, angling toward the big garage.

“It isn’t in the barn?”

Bodine shook his head and pointed. “Out there on the edge of the foothills. My boy’s there watching now. We’d best take the truck.”

And that was that. Bodine was already climbing into the truck to start the engine.

The old man climbed in the other side and set his bag between his legs. “But what’s the mystery?”

“I don’t want to say. A thing like this, if I tell you, you’ll get preconceptions. Have a look, then you tell me.”

And they were driving out the open doorway, turning west beside the barn, and heading off across the range.

Chapter Four.

They headed toward the spot of light. The darkness was all around them now, the truck’s lights on, and they were jouncing across the open bumpy ground, the old man with his hands braced on the dashboard. Bodine glanced at him and then ahead. The spot of light was flickering. A fire, and Bodine had to smile. He hadn’t thought to tell his boy to build one, but then he had talked to him when it was day, and clearly they would need a thing to aim for.

Bodine saw a patch of smooth ground up ahead and gathered speed, but then he hit a bump he hadn’t seen that jounced the old man very hard, and had to slow. The headlights showed the rangeland stretching off beneath them. Up ahead, a rabbit was paralyzed by them. Bodine veered to miss it. Then he picked up speed again.

The light was now distinctly flames, growing as he neared. He saw his boy stand up and walk in front of the fire, his body silhouetted by it. He saw the motorcycle parked beside the fire. The fire was very close before him as he pulled up and he stopped.

He kept the lights on, then stepped down onto the ground. The old man was already out.

The boy walked toward them.

“Anything?” Bodine asked.

The boy just shook his head.

“No animals? No tearing at the carcass?”

“It’s been pretty quiet.”

“Well, that’s something anyhow. You stayed up here the way I told you? You didn’t go down, messing any tracks?”

The boy just shook his head again.

“Okay, then. Doc, it’s down there in the gully. Careful of the slope.”

The old man walked across the glare of the headlights, standing at the edge of the gully. “I can’t see much without more light.”

Bodine reached beneath the seat to get a high-powered flashlight. He held it, long and heavy, walking toward the old man as he flicked the switch. The light shot out across the range. He dipped it toward the gully, sweeping back and forth until he found the carcass.

“There.”

Its back was toward them, just the way it had been when Bodine had come upon it. As much as he could tell, it looked the same.

The old man started down, and Bodine stopped him.

“I don’t know. I think the way to do this is to walk up here a ways, then cut across and come down looking on the other side. I want to keep from messing any tracks.”

The old man hesitated, looked at him, and nodded. They went where the gully was more narrow, climbing down, the old man needing help to get up on the other side. The ground was hard and rocky. The old man’s breath was forced as he got up and straightened.

“You all right?”

“It’s nothing. I’m not used to this.”

“You sure?”

“I said I’ll be all right.”

“Okay then.”

And they waited. Then the old man had his breath back, and they walked along the top until they stood across from where the headlights and the fire were. Bodine aimed the flashlight into the ditch. The old man didn’t speak.

He didn’t speak for quite a while.

“All right, now tell me what the hell it was that did that,” Bodine said.

“I don’t know.” The old man cleared his throat. “Right now I couldn’t say.”

It wasn’t that the sight was shocking. He’d seen worse too many times. But the thing just didn’t make much sense. Whatever had disemboweled this steer had done so from below and ravaged at the guts. But nothing seemed to have been eaten. The guts were mashed together, chewed and mangled, but the point was they were here. Whatever did this hadn’t eaten at the flesh, had only chewed at organs and then left them. He had never seen this-he had never heard about a thing like this before.

The old man saw the flies that crawled upon the guts, smelled the stench that was coming from the gully, shook his head, and turned away. “I just don’t get it.”

“You’re the expert,” Bodine said. “Take a guess.”

“Well, process of elimination. What would prey upon a steer?”

“I already thought of that. Bobcats. But they don’t come down here. Wolves, the same. Coyotes maybe. I even thought it was a cougar. They don’t single out the guts, though. Not when they’ve got flesh to eat.”

“And one thing more. It doesn’t look like anything’s been eaten,” the old man said. “What about those tracks you mentioned? Were they any help?”

“I never found them. If they were around, I didn’t want them messed before somebody good came out to have a look.”

The old man turned, again toward the gully, and he pointed. “Well, I don’t know if I’d mess the tracks, but I should go down and have a look.”

“You’re the expert.”

So the old man slowly worked his way down into the gully, Bodine close behind. But there was nothing he could tell.

“The only thing I notice is the blood.”

“Or lack of it.”

“That’s what I mean. A thing like this, there should be lots of blood.” The old man thought a moment. “Could be something spooked whatever did this, and it didn’t get a chance to eat. It just licked all the blood.”

“Could be. I don’t know.”

The old man looked around. “Well, I can’t tell out here. I’d like to get this into town where I can have it on a table and dissect it. If there’s a way for us to move it. What about your herd? There’s nothing strange about it?”

“You were out two weeks ago. You said that it was fine.”

“Well, something might have happened in the meantime. What I’m getting at is if this steer was sick, whatever tried to eat it might have felt the taste was off and left it.”