Then an Indian guide finds strips of meat—man meat—strung out along the trail. On the Colorado side of the trail.
On the survivors’ side of the mountains.
Packer is forced to reconstruct his story again: they were all dead anyway. Why not make meat of the others? Since when have dead men been concerned for the mortal body when faced with the fate of their immortal souls?
Shortly after this last retelling, Packer is sentenced to death by hanging for cannibalism. Packer escapes from jail and changes his name to Schwartz. He moves from Arizona to Missouri to Colorado to Wyoming, where (or so the legend goes) his laugh is recognized in a bar in Fort Fetterman. For reasons unknown to me, his predicament attracts the sympathy of a Denver journalist whose championing of Packer’s plight—the plight of a cannibal—results in the reduction of the sentence from five counts of murder to mere manslaughter. Packer dies a free man of natural causes in 1907. He is sixty-five years old.
I would like to return to April sixth, 1874, when Packer emerges from the snowy belt of mountains, his cheeks full and flushed, his roll of cash heavy in his hand. How jolly that man appears. A whisky is all he needs, no, make that a full flask. No salt meat for me. No flour. I have my provisions right here, in my satchel. Keep your chalky bread, your tainted beef, your pickled ham. I carry my own meat and am in no need of provisions.
This would be the last time he stanched his hunger.
The only picture of Alfred Packer that I have seen shows him in the long hair, floppy mustache, and goatee of the period. He is perched on the edge of a chair, blanketed in a black coat that obscures his figure, the long lines of his bones. His hands are gently fisted. His eyebrows descend to the cliff of brow. His eyes are deep in his face. Most notable are his cheekbones, the broad cantilever of bone protruding from each side of the face. The cheeks beneath are caverns, sails of skin pulled taught with no flesh beneath. He looks to be a man eternally starved, emaciated, deprived. His sentence is to be always hungry. Never satisfied. To be constantly in the presence of food and never allowed to eat.
14
Gallup was on another level of the earth. I’d heard the town had the highest percentage of alcoholics in the nation, which appealed to me. I thought I could get a drink there, and I needed a drink. I was happy to be in New Mexico. In New Mexico the birds sang all year long. My mother had driven down this very highway. I wondered how far I was from the Hidalgo Ranch.
I pulled over on a dusty road trimmed on either side by barbed wire. The sun was strong and buzzards swung lazy circles beneath the few tendrils of cloud. They projected their shadows onto the ground, perfect beams of darkness. On the far side of a ridge of red rock something must have been cut down, because their circles grew smaller and finally became one and slowly the great birds swung in lower and tighter, as if all those vultures were being sucked down an enormous, invisible drain. They were gone now, hidden behind the ridge, and all that was left was the sweet after-smell of death.
The signs for the Navajo reservation confirmed my approach into Gallup. I needed a shower and a meal. There was so much nothing between the towns in this part of America. All the people were spread thinly through the plains. It reminded me of molecules. In the east, we were solid, and here out in the flatter, bigger part, they were liquid. I pulled into a parking lot where a sign, lit in spasms by a malfunctioning bulb, announced that rooms were a mere twelve dollars a night. I was getting my bag from the trunk when the light bulb suddenly fizzled and died. I wasn’t really paying attention to my bag and let it drop. Change spilled out everywhere.
The guy working in the office saw it happen and thought he should give me a hand. He got up from the reception desk and came out. I could feel him looking over my shoulder.
“Hi, I’m Johnny,” he said.
“Hello,” I said.
“Can I help?”
“That’s not necessary.”
He picked up The Best of Lynyrd Skynyrd, which had fallen on the ground. “Lynyrd Skynyrd,” said Johnny.
“Free Bird,” I replied. I zipped my bag up and dusted my knees. “I am assuming you have an available room.”
“Take as many as you like.”
“What about a place to eat?”
“I was on my way across the street to get a burger. Want to come?”
“Sure,” I said.
We headed across the street. Johnny rested his hand on my shoulder and said, “You look like you need a drink.”
“Very perceptive,” I said.
The restaurant was smoky and dim. Johnny and I ordered burgers and beers. The burgers came smothered in green chili in a basket of heavily salted fries, which I am sure had been cooked in lard. This was the best burger meal I’ve ever had. There were only a few people in the room. I could make out an old man in a booth near ours hunched over a plate of food and along the bar shadowy, rounded figures had lined themselves up like a row of boulders; occasionally, when you had forgotten they were people, one of them would move.
I’m not sure how many beers I drank. At one point, I called Arthur from the pay phone. I used a secret ring, hanging up a couple of times. We’d figured this out before I left so he wouldn’t accidentally find himself in conversation with Boris. Arthur was concerned.
“I wish you’d call me more often, Katherine.”
“I will,” I said. “Do you miss me?”
“Yes,” said Arthur.
“I miss you,” I said. “I think I lack judgment.”
“That is probably true.”
“I have to go now.”
“Call again soon,” he said. And we both hung up.
Back in the booth, Johnny had decided he needed me. He said, “I need you, Elizabeth.”
“Katherine.”
“I need you, Katherine. You’re really beautiful. You’re so…”
“Exquisite?”
“No. Different.”
“Different from what?” I said. I waved over at the old woman who was waiting tables and she turned and headed back to the bar for more beer. “What do you know about me?”
“I know you listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd,” he said.
I laughed and shook my head.
“I know you’re hiding something,” he added.
I drank some beer and when I put my glass down, Johnny was nodding and smiling at me. “Why do you think I’m hiding something?” I asked.
“You don’t ask me anything,” he said, “so I won’t ask you anything.”
“Maybe I’m just not interested.”
Johnny laughed a big laugh, the laugh of a much older man. He looked around to see if other people were enjoying themselves as much as he was. They weren’t. He nodded to me approvingly. And I, despite myself, began to have a good time.
I led him back across the street. He was drunk and unsteady, but something in his eyes had stayed awake. “Do you have a boyfriend?” he asked.
“I have two.” I smiled. “And you, do you have a girlfriend?”