“It’s time, boys,” Pops said, shining a flashlight to spur us awake. He had prepared a light pack for each of us and pulled the bedrolls from the tent. He gave us both flashlights and we followed him on the trail in the dark, bobbing slashes of light exposing the rocks and stumps. The trail inclined on the face of Old Blue and we labored up the switchbacks to the hardscape near the summit. Our progress slowed as we neared the top, steps narrowing on the vertical. We picked our way through the rocks and finally clamored over the lip of the mountaintop. We followed Pops to a rock outcropping that faced north and afforded a full view of the valleys and hollows below and the night sky above.
We put our sleeping bags out on the rock and lay on top of them, facing skyward, hands behind our heads.
After a while Buzzy spoke. “I wonder if Cle went to the sheriff.”
“I hope so. Once the sheriff comes to him, his window for a good outcome is likely closed,” Pops replied. We were all silent for a time as we pondered Cleo and Tilroy and how the death of Paul would most certainly change their lives.
The stars were set in swaths of white, so bright they almost cast shadow. Soon Buzzy’s breathing became rhythmic as he surrendered to sleep. Off in the distance, we heard the growl of a very large cat. “There are a few big cougars in these hills,” Pops said before I could comment. “You definitely want to give them a wide birth.”
“Have you ever seen one?”
“A few times, but only from a distance. They hunt at night and sleep most of the day, so they’re tough to spot. Nasty critters.”
Finally I put Tilroy out of my head and asked a question that had been on my mind since I arrived in Medgar. “Do you ever wonder what things would be like if Grandma hadn’t died?”
We both sat up on the import of the question. He looked at me with a sad smile and put a hand to my shoulder. “Every single day of my life.” His voice trailed off into the memories of his brief moment in the orbit of Sarah Winthorpe. We went quiet again. I kept stealing glances at him, watching the stars reflect in his moist eyes, watching his Adam’s apple bob on every hard swallow as the projection of what might have been writhed inside him.
Finally he spoke. “You know, I used to take your mom up here to watch the Perseids when we were tramping together.”
I made no reply at first, then asked, “Do you think she’s ever gonna be like she used to?”
Pops gave his temples an index finger massage. “Kevin, you’re old enough to understand this, so I’m going to tell you straight. Your mom will always carry Josh’s death heavy in her heart, and because of that she may never be like she was. That doesn’t mean she won’t heal, but it’s going to take a very long time.”
“I feel like I didn’t even know Josh.” I examined the frayed end of my belt.
“Go on, son.”
“When he died, everyone was coming up to me and saying how sorry they were and how sad I must be. I miss him, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to feel; and now that he’s gone I can’t even remember what he looked like. I have to keep looking at the pictures to remember. It’s like he was never even there.”
“That’s a perfectly normal feeling. Don’t feel guilty about it.” He had his hand on my shoulder again. “Do you understand?”
“I think.”
He continued to look at me. I looked at my hands. Suddenly a white light streaked from the corner of the sky, across the heavens, disappearing over Bother Mountain.
“What was that?” I asked.
“I believe that was the first meteor of the night.” Thirty seconds later another one, brighter than the first, shot from the same direction. “The show is starting—let’s lay back and watch.”
I tried to shake Buzzy awake, but it was like rousting deadwood. He mumbled something and turned on his side.
Two meteors at once flashed across the compliment of stars; one burning out halfway home, the other flaming well past Mingo County. Then a single shooting star and another double following close behind.
“That was a good one,” Pops assessed. “They say this will be the best shower in the last hundred years. The earth is passing directly into the comet’s tail this time. I think we’re in for quite a show.”
The next one was a double, then another single right behind like a two-stage rocket with a chaser.
“Cool!”
“I make a point of watching the Perseids every summer. It makes me feel small—not a bad thing occasionally.” Pops winked.
The stars seemed to pulse now, as if any one of them could break out and hurtle to earth, as if they had all marshaled to watch the best and brightest on parade. The valley was dark and quiet; even the crickets were silent in deference to the show unfolding above our heads.
They came in a rush then. A flood of shooting stars like nothing I could have imagined. From the northeast corner of the sky, they rained on us like flaming hail, two to three a second.
Four came at once, all orange; then a small yellow one leaving a fire trail; then two bright white ones; more threes, fours, all streaking across the sky in an endless machine-gun flurry of excellence and wonder.
“I’ve never seen it like this,” Pops said in awe.
And they kept coming and coming. A huge red one with no tail; five small ones in formation, tails twined; two bright big ones followed by a slow yellow one with a green tail; another double, then a triple. Barraging punches of fire that took my breath, my speech, and everything else. Each meteor demanding my full attention and none of them getting it. It continued like that for ten minutes, then gradually subsided to a regular pace. One or two every ten seconds, one every half minute, one every two minutes.
Suddenly a huge fireball, by far the brightest of the night, burst across the now quiet sky. A white center and a yellow and green double tail that hung in the air like jet stream. It streaked above us, this final meteor, and disappeared behind Bother Mountain as if it was crashing to earth, obliterating half of Missiwatchiwie County. Somehow we knew it was the last shooting star of the night, but neither of us could move. We just stayed on the rock, silent and still.
I knew that I would never be able to look at the sky the same way again. And everything else I’ve seen since that early morning so many years ago—every waterfall, every canyon, every mountain—is judged by the watermark of what we witnessed that night.
We lay there in silence, Pops and I, on top of Old Blue, the two of us just watching the tired stars. Watching the hint of light blue to the east. Watching the hollows below us draw and swell toward morning.
Chapter 30
THE MOUTH-HOOKED LURE AND THE QUEEN BEE
We walked down from Old Blue in the assembling dawn and collapsed in our hammocks. At about noon we began to stir—Pops at last night’s coals, me at lakeside to fill the pot.
“It was like the stars were all falling from the sky at once,” I told Buzzy after we had eaten lunch of last night’s bird. “I tried to wake you up.”
After the meal, we lay around camp for a few hours: Pops with his hiking hat over his eyes, Buzzy shading his with a T-shirt. I was exhausted but couldn’t sleep for thinking of the last two days: the meteor storm, the mysterious visitor, and the White Stag.
Around three o’clock I hiked over Jumping Rock to check the snares. There were two sizable rabbits and a woodchuck caught up in them. The woodchuck had been strangled from the snare wire. I released it from the trap and threw the carcass into the woods. The rabbits were still alive but put up little fight as I dispatched them with the ax. I reset the snares and walked back to camp. They were both up when I returned—Pops sweeping out the tent, Buzzy poking at the coals. I hoisted the game and Pops smiled, then followed me down to the lakeside to help clean them. We roasted the rabbits and fried fatback and wild watercress for an early dinner. Afterward, I took the fry pan down to the waterside. As I scoured the pan with sand a strange sensation washed over me that I was being watched. My head jerked up and I saw him—directly across the lake, leaning on a rock, peering at me with binoculars. I quickly washed the pan and ran back up to camp.
“I saw him again. Across the lake looking at me.”
“The pot guy?” Buzzy asked.
I nodded. Pops seemed unconcerned and kept banking the fire.
I stood with Buzzy, pointing out the rock that the stranger had used for leaning.
“Could you tell who it was?”
“Naw, he was too far.”
“This is gettin kinda creepy.”
“Getting?”