“Because I think I might wet myself.” We laughed.
“Screw it. Let’s go together.”
I nodded and we moved near the edge, took running steps, and leaped off the rocks together, yelling all the way to the water. We splashed in with surprising force. I opened my eyes in the clear; Buzzy gave me a thumbs-up and we kicked to the surface, breaking the water as one. We high-fived and whooped our way to the shore. Pops did a few more dives, then took the fish back to camp.
Buzzy and I cliff-jumped all morning, each leap giving us the confidence to try a few awkward dives. By early afternoon we were swan-diving like Pops.
After a few more dives we walked back to camp. Pops had gathered various herbs and tubers to pan-fry the bass in a mixture of wood sorrel, wild onions, ramps, and watercress. We ate, changed clothes, and lazed in our hammocks for an hour until he roused us to check the snares.
We took the trail up to Jumping Rock, pausing at the top to look over the clear, uncorrupted lake. We both saw him at once, on the cliff across the water, prone on a flat rock, the distance obscuring his features. “Who the hell is that?”
“Gotta be the guy from two nights ago. He must’ve followed us or something.”
“What are we to him?”
I shrugged. “Let’s check the snares and tell Pops.” We hurried over the hill to the snare field. One snare was tripped and empty, the others still set. We reloaded the one and ran back to camp.
“Do you think it’s the man from the other night?” I asked Pops.
“Boys, there was no man from the other night. He probably just came up here for peace and fishing and didn’t count on noisy teenagers disturbing his quiet.”
I smirked at Buzzy but let the matter drop.
After a dinner of bass and the mountain gather, we sat around the fire, listening to the thunder of a burgeoning storm and to Pops telling stories of his time in the war.
“The Japanese were ferocious fighters. On Saipan we came upon a field hospital and captured it. We had the enemy doctors tied up to a palm tree and our corpsman was tending their wounded. One of their wounded soldiers, man with an arm and half his face blown off, grabs the medic’s pistol and shoots him, then turns it on us. Fought like a wounded cat to the end.”
“Did you ever kill a man?” Buzzy asked.
“I did. I killed men who were trying to kill me.”
“What’s it like? Killin someone. Tilroy tole Petunia it felt like he owned the universe.”
Pops smirked. “It’s a sight less attractive than that. However, when you prevail in mortal battle there is a euphoria you feel having not died. There is also inherent respect that you owe the vanquished. But what Tilroy did was just sick. Him deriving any feeling of pleasure from it makes me despair for the boy.”
We were silent for a time, watching the fire have its way with the wood. I took up my old copy of The Call of the Wild and started reading by flashlight. Pops poked at the coals with a stick, sending sparks flying like lightning bugs. A single meteor ran a line across the Milky Way. “Shooting star,” Buzzy called. “Make a wish.”
“There’ll be plenty of wishing tomorrow night. That’s when the Perseids will be at peak.”
“What are they?”
“Every summer around this time the earth passes near the tail of the Swift-Tuttle comet and it causes a meteor shower—some years are better than others. This year we’re going right through the tail, so it’s supposed to be quite a show.”
“Will we be able to see it from here? There are a lot of trees.”
Pops shook his head. “We’re gonna climb to the top of Old Blue. I watch em there most years.” He stirred the fire again.
“You never told us the story of you climbing Red Cloud.”
“Ahh… yes.” He put the smoking stick aside and scratched his growing stubble. “Both of my brothers tried to climb the face on their sixteenth birthdays, and they made it—barely, but they made it. As a result, it became a serious rite of passage among our kin; many tried, but no one else in the family could do it. On my first attempt, I got halfway up and just couldn’t get higher. It was a sheer face up the neck, then jutted out at Red Cloud’s chin. When I quit, my brothers let me have it. It was like I dishonored the family name, and it rode heavy on me, I have to admit. Second time I tried was six months later, alone at night so no one could watch me. I guess seeing Red Cloud every day reminded me of my failure. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. This time I got as far as Red Cloud’s nostril.” Pops laughed and stirred the fire again.
“When did you finally do it?” Buzzy asked.
“It was the evening before Chester, Bump, and I shipped off to the war. Those boys didn’t even attempt it; they just climbed the back way. But I guess I was determined to win some of that Red Cloud protection before going off to fight, or maybe just to show up my brothers. Regardless, this time I made it to the top. It was a feeling I will never forget—felt like I could do anything, after that.”
“So you think Red Cloud really had special powers?” Buzzy asked.
“I do.”
“Wait a second, Pops. You mean like magic power?”
He looked at me with a wry smile. “I mean the power to inspire a bookish kid to think he could accomplish anything in the world. If that ain’t magic, I don’t know what is.”
“But that’s really just you believing in yourself.”
“Maybe, but I think it was Red Cloud who gave me that belief.” He shifted on the rock and took a sip of mash. “Let me ask you both something. What did it feel like when you first made the top of Old Blue?”
“Amazing.”
“Yeah, amazin.”
“Like you were invincible?”
“Yeah, sort of. Yesterday was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. The whole day was a test. I know I can do harder things now.”
“Me too. I feel like this is jus the beginnin of what we can do.”
Pops sat back, satisfied. “I knew there was a little bit of Buck in you boys.”
“Who’s that?” Buzzy asked. “I don’t know him.”
“He’s the hero of a book I’m just finishing.” I held it up. “He goes from civilized to wild in Alaska.”
“What makes him go wild?”
“Well, he’s a dog and falls in with a pack of wolves and ends up head of the pack.”
“So he kinda goes back to what he was meant to be.”
“Uh… yeah. That’s a good way to put it. His instincts just take over and he survives. You should read it.”
“Maybe I will.”
We went silent again. After a while Pops said, “You know, Call of the Wild was Ray Mitchell Jr.’s favorite book.”
“How did he die anyway? You never told me.”
Pops topped up the mash in his tin cup. “Ray Junior wasn’t like his daddy. He was a bright boy from the start. Mayna taught him to read early and he took to it like a Lab to water. When he was about ten he used to walk into town to borrow books from me. All those books you’re reading now, Kevin. He’d take one back every Sunday to read for the week. Had to hide them from Grubby.”
“Why did he have to hide them?”
“Grubby’s expectations for Ray didn’t extend past the farm. He regarded things like reading and education as superfluous to Ray’s destiny, which was to run steer like his daddy, his daddy’s daddy and his daddy before him. And young Ray wanted nothing more than to please Grubby, but farming just wasn’t in him. He had a hunger to learn that burned in him like a coke fire. We would sit on the porch at Chisold each Sunday afternoon and talk about what he read that week.
“One day Grubby caught him reading when he was supposed to be working and whipped him raw. Came storming into my office saying I was trying to get his boy to ‘deny his place.’ ” Pops shook his head and took a sip of mash.
“He was a great student, Ray was. A born writer—used to write the most incredible short stories and poems. Couple months before high school graduation, I convinced him to apply to the University of Kentucky. They had this new writing program. Didn’t tell Grubby. Figured if he got in we’d find the money and somehow get Grubby to agree.
“Come June we heard from Kentucky; Ray was accepted into the program. That same summer he got his draft notice. I met with Grubby and Mayna about him going to college, but Grubby wouldn’t have it. And Ray wanted to please his daddy more than anything, so he turned down college and went into the army. After basic training he came back up to Medgar on a three-day pass before shipping out to Vietnam. I’ll never forget the sight of him walking up my porch steps with his head just about shaved and his starched army uniform. He looked about fifteen years old.”