CHAPTER NINE
“Vision Quest”
Monday.
Wiry juniper covered the ledge like steel wool, gin aroma stirring dark memories of Otto’s youth. He smelled sage and water from the creek below. Otto hunkered just below the rim, right arm over Steve’s neck snugging the big dog close. Steve was part Alsatian, maybe some border collie and otter. Otto held a pair of Zeiss binoculars. He set them carefully on the rock shelf and looked sixty meters across the canyon to a ledge, ten meters above the gushing stream coming off the mountain. It was there, three weeks ago, he’d spotted Max.
He called the cougar Max out of respect. After maximum effort and Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen.
At least he thought it was a cougar. A flash of tawny fur and gone. Splintered bones and tufts of fur lay at the base of the ledge against the shadowed rock.
Steve growled deep in his throat, a soft electric vibration. Otto ruffled the dog’s fur and whispered, “Whassup, homie? We gonna get lucky? Is Max coming back?”
Just give me some kind of sign, girl, oh my baby, show me that you care. Show me that you’re mine girl, well all right…played over and over in his head. In his gut he knew what he was really looking for: proof of the divine. Otto refused to believe that man was nothing more than a collection of molecules spewed forth from a random universe, as his father had said.
They’d been six hours on the mountain, including the hike from the trailhead. Three hours in the hot sun. An occasional breeze off the mountain brought the cool promise of fall. Otto had brought plenty of water and they could always dip into the stream but that would spook the cat.
Otto had embarked on this vision quest after meditating for sixteen hours. The quest had led him and Steve to Mt. Smithback in the Never Summer Range. As befits a vision seeker, he hadn’t eaten in forty-eight hours and had brought no food save for several Ralston Purina dog burgers for Steve. He felt light-headed but clear. He could see for a hundred miles over the snow-capped peaks to the ever-rising mountains to the southwest. At 11,000 feet they were just below the tree line.
“Here, kitty kitty,” Otto crooned into Steve’s ear. Steve jerked his muzzle skyward and growled, the hair on his back forming a dorsal ridge. Otto looked up. An aerial battle was in progress: four ravens dive-bombing a bald eagle.
The eagle banked and came in for a landing on Max’s plateau jutting out over the canyon above the gushing stream. The ravens followed and took up position at the four points of the compass. The eagle extended its wings in a show of force. It was big--possibly seven feet. It advanced on one of the ravens like George St. Pierre throwing a feint and the raven darted back. The eagle turned facing each of the ravens in turn, giving each a little scare when suddenly, the raven behind the eagle exploded as the eagle’s mate hurled into it at 150 mph, feathers flying in all directions.
Every ace needed a wingman.
As the mate hit, the first eagle rose in a widening gyre, the remaining ravens scrambling airborne and trying to flee. They never stood a chance. The male eagle executed a perfect Immelmann and struck the second raven like a dum-dum bullet. The raven fell in pieces to the earth, feathers trailing. The eagle’s mate effortlessly grabbed big air, went into a barrel roll and hit the third raven like a bunker buster. The lone remaining raven was hell bent for leather to the east but the male eagle zeroed in like a sidewinder missile and took it out in a little black explosion.
The female settled to the plateau and began to eat the first raven she’d killed.
Otto was thunderstruck. He instinctively touched the tiny cross tattooed above his sternum. Clearly God or the Great Spirit or Buddha or Gaia or maybe even John Denver had something important in mind, to bring him this far and show him this sign. Steve too seemed mesmerized by the aerial display and looked longingly after the departed birds, tongue lolling.
Otto trained his binocs on the eagle and watched her feed. Her mate soon joined her.
That’s how you do it, he thought. You eat your fucking enemies.
Steve whined quizzically, rose and headed back the way they’d come barking furiously. Otto turned and looked. There was nothing that shouldn’t have been there. The land lay the same, untouched by any human presence. There were no other people within a three-klick radius, possibly larger. There were no trails here in the Roosevelt National Forest and the casual hiker could soon find himself in trouble.
Steve stopped barking, looked back over his shoulder grinning and trotted down the mountain.
Otto was hungry enough to eat a raven. Maybe that’s what the message was. Go home and eat. He rose to his feet.
“All right, Steve. All right!”
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