“Sure he did.” Doug’s tone was casual. “He wasn’t going to let a little thing like that keep him from doing what he enjoyed.”
“He’s a better man than I am,” Bob said. “If that happened to me, I’d join a monastery.”
“Well, you’re a different kind of cat,” Doug said. Bob wasn’t sure if it was an observation or another dig.
“You’d do the same thing, keep on backpacking?” he asked.
“Why not?” Doug said. “We all have to go sometime.”
“Yeah, but I’d rather go in my bed than lying on a forest floor with a grizzly bear cuffing me around.”
“To each his own,” Doug said.
Bob kept sipping at the coffee, finally eating a cookie with it to improve the taste.
When Doug relapsed into what seemed to him to be glum silence again, he asked, “Are black bears as dangerous?”
Doug drew in a deep breath that seemed to, once more, point out his regret at having made the offer of this hike. Bob was going to say something about it, then decided not to.
“Black bears are different,” Doug told him. “More skittish. If one of them comes at you, you yell and throw rocks at it, grab a branch and take swings at it. That’ll usually scare them off. I’ve done that two or three times. Grizzlies they’re not.”
Bob nodded. “I’ll remember that. Assuming I don’t faint if I see one coming at me.”
Again the ambiguous chuckle but no comment from Doug.
“This… route we’re taking,” Bob said. “Is it the most direct?”
“Not really,” Doug answered casually.
“How come we’re… taking it then?”
“You want to know what it’s like to backpack, don’t you?” was all Doug said.
Bob started to respond, then didn’t know what to say. Scrap that, let’s take the easiest route? Doug was probably right. This was the best way to give him a true backpacking experience. The novel may end up as a horror story but at least it will be an authentic one, he thought.
“You still a Democrat?” Doug asked.
Where did that come from? Bob wondered. “Yeah,” he said. “Limitedly.”
“What does that mean?” Doug asked.
“I’m not too keen on either party,” Bob answered. “It doesn’t seem to matter much which party wins, the corporations stay in power.”
“So what do you want the government to do, go communist?” Doug asked.
“I presume that’s not a serious question,” Bob said with a smile.
“Hell, it’s not,” Doug told him. “If you’re not a Democrat and you’re not a Republican, what are you?”
“A liberal conservative,” Bob answered.
“No such thing.”
“Sure there is,” Bob said. “I believe in conserving the social values that are worth conserving. If they’re not, I believe in liberal pragmatism. Drop what doesn’t work, put something else in instead.”
“Like what?” Doug challenged.
“Like anything that benefits society rather than damaging it.”
“That sounds like communism,” Doug persisted.
“Doug, come on. Don’t you believe in helping mankind lead a better life?”
“Not if I have to pay for it,” Doug said stiffly. “Not if they just sit around on their asses, living off my taxes.”
Bob drew in a quick breath. “Well, I’m not advocating a total welfare state either,” he said.
“You work for your money, you keep your money,” Doug said grimly.
“And not pay taxes?” Bob asked.
“Of course, pay taxes,” Doug said irritably. “But not such high taxes that I’m paying for the lazy bastards who’d rather take it easy on welfare than put in an honest day’s work.”
“Well…” Bob nodded. “I don’t disagree with you. But that’s the trouble with our country. We can’t have a real democracy until voters govern themselves, not expect politicians to take care of everything. As long as people avoid real involvement in the political process, that’s how long politicians will run it badly. The voters don’t really want honest politicians. They say they do but, by and large, they keep electing politicians who lie to them, tell them how much they’re going to help the people. Has a politician ever spoken the truth and nothing but the truth? Some have. And they invariably lose by a landslide. What did Jack Nicholson say in that movie? ‘You can’t handle the truth.’ That’s pretty much the case with the electorate.”
Doug was silent for a few seconds before he said, “When you planning to run for office, Bob?”
They both laughed so loudly that Bob felt a twinge of uneasiness, looking toward the spot where the black bear had been. The bear was gone though.
“Didn’t mean to make a speech,” Bob said. “The entire thing is simple though. The majority of people aren’t self-responsible—certainly not in the political arena. So they keep electing politicians who disappoint them.”
“That’s for sure,” Doug said, “fucking bleeding heart liberals. Trying to take away our constitutional right to own guns. Shoving affirmative action down our throats, giving jobs they aren’t qualified for to spics and niggers.”
Oh, boy, Bob thought. Oh, boy. What am I doing here with this man? Three more wonderful days in his company. Jesus.
“I know you don’t agree with any of this,” Doug said. “Let’s just agree that most politicians aren’t worth shit.”
Bob nodded. Especially the politicians who believe what you believe, Doug, he thought.
Doug looked at him intently. It seemed as though he meant to continue the conversation. Then, instead, he stood. “We’d better move along,” he said.
Both of them looked around suddenly at the sound of shots in the distance—two in a row, a pause, then two more. “Son of a bitch,” Doug muttered angrily.
“A hunter?” Bob asked, appalled.
“Sure, a hunter,” Doug replied angrily. “In a goddamn national forest too. If we run across him, I’ll wrap his fucking rifle around his neck.”
“I’ll hold your jacket while you do,” Bob told him.
There was no amusement in Doug’s smile and Bob had the definite feeling that Doug would assault the hunter if they met him.
“Did you know that more than sixteen million hunting licenses are issued every year?” Doug told him. “Most of them to idiots. Two guys in a canoe were mistaken for a swimming moose by one of these idiots and both were shot, one of them fatally. Another idiot brought a dead mule into town, telling everyone he’d shot a moose. The mule still had its iron shoes on, for Christ’s sake.”
“That’s incredible,” Bob said, grateful that there was something they could agree on.
“Some farmer got so bugged by idiot hunters that he painted the word ‘COW’ on his only cow. Guess what? The fucking cow got shot.”
10:52 AM
For a while, as they’d moved through the forest, weaving their way through a heavy growth of slender trees, Bob wondered if there was any possibility of them being shot by the hunter. Stupid bastard, he thought, coming into a national forest to shoot animals. He should be put in jail, the mindless idiot.
He’d felt uncomfortable, his skin almost crawling, as he walked, half expecting to hear a shot and feel a bullet tearing into his chest. Great way to end the “adventure,” he’d thought grimly. Mrs. Hansen? Sorry to inform you that your husband was shot by a hunter while he was walking through the forest. His head is now on display above the hunter’s mantelpiece. Visiting hours are one to five on Sunday afternoons.