Read Online Driving on the Rim by Thomas McGuane - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Thomas McGuane
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chronologies in the same plan, something I experienced as mild but creeping anxiety. I was pushing through a chokecherry thicket at the head of the spring, worrying that I had lost sight of Pie again, when five grouse erupted and flew like big brown bees straight back over my head and down the draw. In a few feet I found Pie on point, head cocked back to observe me. Undoubtedly, she wondered how I could have failed to get off a shot.
Once we emerged from the narrow draw, I was relieved to find us inample grassland rising toward the Crazy Mountains to the northeast. I wished Pie would hunt closer so that I could see her always, but she reappeared often and I could keep track of her enough to allay my ascending fear, which was now based mostly on the decreasing angle of the sun and the spread of cold. To the west there was not a genuine horizon because the sun would fall behind the Bridger Range; as it declined toward the ice clouds above those hills its light seemed grayer. I hurried to keep up with Pie, who seemed in charge of things, and while I would have preferred a modest circle ending at Dr. Olsson’s car, Pie wanted only to hunt straight into the wind with its scenting advantages, taking us away from what I viewed as safety and what little light we still had.
Again I found Pie on point and I was relieved, not because she had found game but because it gave me the opportunity to overtake her. I held the shotgun across my chest, thumb ready to slide the safety, and advanced. Several huge birds lumbered into the air: I fired and missed. These were sage hens and since they were scarce, Dr. Olsson had forbidden me to shoot them. Well, I hadn’t shot one, though I had shot at one, and Dr. Olsson, had he been here, would have given me the cross look for which I had great respect and some fear. Perhaps I was trigger-happy. I’d have to be careful. Such thoughts were a kind of inattention and when I focused once more Pie was no longer in sight. I looked toward the sunset, then hurried in the direction I thought she had gone.
I never found her. I crossed the top of two broad coulees toward the Crazy Mountains, my last bearing before darkness fell. I’d thought there was time, but the sunset just snuffed out behind the Bridgers and I failed to resolve whether I was searching for Pie or trying to get myself to safety. I frantically reviewed the landmarks I had seen driving into the old road, but they were no longer of any use. I was lost.
Perhaps I’d never been lost before. I was startled by my state of accelerating dismay followed by panic. The broad field of references that I’d had in mind—that ridge of moraine, that tall spruce with the wind-slewed eastward branches, that rivulet, the two-track with its deceptively gradual change of direction, the yard light at the Swede’s farm, the old windmill—were all arrayed as special markers reassuringly redundant, even cross-referenced. Yet something as slight as the bulb going out in the yard light, the perspective of the spruce that concealed the stuntedlimbs, the rising shadows which appeared to have the same mass as the landmarks before vanishing in twilight—all conspired to arouse the feeling that I no longer knew where I was, beset by the most ancient of enemies, darkness and cold. It was like the threat of being buried alive. I struck out in any direction, hoping that clarity would soon be at hand. It was not. I struck off elsewhere and felt a sort of eclipse. As each foray seemed to sag into confusion, the forays grew shorter and more rapid. Soon they were in circles, and I lost the capacity for traveling in a straight line. I felt confined and claustrophobic. I could not get out of this small and lightless room. Announcing itself, the darkness was cold, tangible as a black bird descending at stall speed.
A vertical slab of wet stone struck my face and I screamed, less from pain than from a rush of helplessness. I bumped into other things I couldn’t identify.
Once we emerged from the narrow draw, I was relieved to find us inample grassland rising toward the Crazy Mountains to the northeast. I wished Pie would hunt closer so that I could see her always, but she reappeared often and I could keep track of her enough to allay my ascending fear, which was now based mostly on the decreasing angle of the sun and the spread of cold. To the west there was not a genuine horizon because the sun would fall behind the Bridger Range; as it declined toward the ice clouds above those hills its light seemed grayer. I hurried to keep up with Pie, who seemed in charge of things, and while I would have preferred a modest circle ending at Dr. Olsson’s car, Pie wanted only to hunt straight into the wind with its scenting advantages, taking us away from what I viewed as safety and what little light we still had.
Again I found Pie on point and I was relieved, not because she had found game but because it gave me the opportunity to overtake her. I held the shotgun across my chest, thumb ready to slide the safety, and advanced. Several huge birds lumbered into the air: I fired and missed. These were sage hens and since they were scarce, Dr. Olsson had forbidden me to shoot them. Well, I hadn’t shot one, though I had shot at one, and Dr. Olsson, had he been here, would have given me the cross look for which I had great respect and some fear. Perhaps I was trigger-happy. I’d have to be careful. Such thoughts were a kind of inattention and when I focused once more Pie was no longer in sight. I looked toward the sunset, then hurried in the direction I thought she had gone.
I never found her. I crossed the top of two broad coulees toward the Crazy Mountains, my last bearing before darkness fell. I’d thought there was time, but the sunset just snuffed out behind the Bridgers and I failed to resolve whether I was searching for Pie or trying to get myself to safety. I frantically reviewed the landmarks I had seen driving into the old road, but they were no longer of any use. I was lost.
Perhaps I’d never been lost before. I was startled by my state of accelerating dismay followed by panic. The broad field of references that I’d had in mind—that ridge of moraine, that tall spruce with the wind-slewed eastward branches, that rivulet, the two-track with its deceptively gradual change of direction, the yard light at the Swede’s farm, the old windmill—were all arrayed as special markers reassuringly redundant, even cross-referenced. Yet something as slight as the bulb going out in the yard light, the perspective of the spruce that concealed the stuntedlimbs, the rising shadows which appeared to have the same mass as the landmarks before vanishing in twilight—all conspired to arouse the feeling that I no longer knew where I was, beset by the most ancient of enemies, darkness and cold. It was like the threat of being buried alive. I struck out in any direction, hoping that clarity would soon be at hand. It was not. I struck off elsewhere and felt a sort of eclipse. As each foray seemed to sag into confusion, the forays grew shorter and more rapid. Soon they were in circles, and I lost the capacity for traveling in a straight line. I felt confined and claustrophobic. I could not get out of this small and lightless room. Announcing itself, the darkness was cold, tangible as a black bird descending at stall speed.
A vertical slab of wet stone struck my face and I screamed, less from pain than from a rush of helplessness. I bumped into other things I couldn’t identify.
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