Authors: Charles Hayes
Local pilots talked about the blond grizzly practically every time two or more of them got together at a local bar or restaurant. Most everybody just referred to him as Blondie. The bear’s reputation had grown because of his tendency to swat at low-flying aircraft, so it had become something of a ritual that when he was spotted, they would fly low and gun the engine. Almost every time the pilots met up, someone would add to the conversation saying, "Oh by the way, old Blondie says hello."
From the air, he was one fierce-looking creature, even more so up close. But if they could have paused in midair and watched him for a time, they would have noticed a slight limp from an injured but healed hind leg and a large bulge on his left shoulder where a challenger had fractured the bone. That had also healed, but now it was deeply arthritic. Close examination of his antics would reveal that nearly everything the old bear did favored actions that avoided heavy use of his injuries.
The blond bruin remained king of Kellogg Mountain, but his age, his battles, and the drive to stay alive were beginning to catch up with him. He was still a terror to any and all creatures in his path, but he wasn't as quick as he used to be, and he was beginning to go after easier prey because it was by far his best chance for success. Too many times now he had pursued larger game only to end his attack with nothing but weariness and exaggerated hunger. Now he roamed the lowlands, where the prey was helpless.
His territory was immense, but he spent more and more time around Kellogg Mountain. It was bountiful of quarry and cover, and only a short distance to defenseless prey. He was powerful enough to move a fresh kill weighing hundreds of pounds up a mountainside, breaking small trees as he went, but he was getting sluggish. His disposition was turning to a slow, simmering rage that he would soon visit on the easy prey in the low country. He would appease his hunger at will.
Randy would turn twenty-six soon, and still he couldn’t make up his mind about what he really wanted to do in life. He was the last of the Kellogg clan except, of course, for Mandy, and she wouldn’t be carrying the Kellogg name forward. His last name would not have been Kellogg, either, if he had known who his father was. His mother had never revealed the man’s name, and that had been a sore subject for as long as he could remember. Home just a week shy of three months from his second Marine Corps tour in Afghanistan and official discharge, he was seriously thinking about reenlisting. The idea gnawed at him like a hungry carnivore’s obsession with the only bone available. Besides, even though no one had mentioned it to Mandy just yet, his Uncle Ed was thinking about selling the homestead. If he did, there would be nothing to keep him here. He had land of his own, but it wouldn't be the same without family.
That wasn’t what was really eating at him, though. He no longer felt energetic. Life was dull; nothing offered excitement, or at least not the kind that got his adrenaline pumping. Only a month after he got home, the dreams had started, and now they were relentless. Night after night, he revisited old battles in Afghanistan. They always ended as they had in real life, with the death of close friends and Randy blaming himself for having let it happen.
For quite a while now, he’d been thinking it was possible to love a piece of land but still not want to live on it because being here simply wasn't exciting enough. He was beginning to suspect that until he had become a Marine Corps sniper, he had never really felt alive. When he looked in the mirror, he even thought he looked like a typical Marine. Hell, he could be on a poster. At six foot even and 185 pounds of bone, with purposely developed muscle and penetrating blue eyes, he could work as a recruiter if nothing else. To him it was funny. He looked the part of a Marine, and his uncle Ed looked like a state trooper. He surmised that occupational preference must run in both families’ genes. Little wonder his aunt Amy was attracted to Ed.
Randy thought himself to be an Alaskan to the core. He’d lived in the state all of his life and had never considered living anywhere else, that is, until his first hitch in San Diego for a year. He still couldn’t get over short-sleeve shirt occasions in January and February. In any event, Randy owned 1600 acres next to Ed and Mandy’s place, and he vowed he would never sell, even if he were to leave the state. The Kelloggs were once the most ambitious clan in the territory. They’d had high hopes for agriculture in Delta Junction. He might not keep it going, but he would never sell out.
The thoughts foremost on Randy’s mind these days, aside from a young lady who worked at the deli in town, centered on whether or not he might be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. At times, when he was involved in a discussion that was the least bit emotional, he found himself flush with rising anger. Twice now since coming home he felt he had barely escaped becoming blind with rage about political subjects, something he didn’t even know he cared about until he heard others expressing opinions. Before his military service, nothing like this had ever happened, he was certain. “Maybe what I should do is look for that old bear that causes so much trouble around here,” he thought to himself one day. “Uncle Ed thinks he might have died, but I bet not. And just maybe I could take some of this anger out on something that deserves it.”
He didn’t have to wait long to discover that his idea about the bear was damn near a premonition. Uncle Ed phoned him in the middle of the night to say that Methuselah was back and had killed and eaten a calf. Randy started to get dressed, but Ed figured the bear was long gone for the time being.
“It wasn’t Mandy’s calf, was it?”
“No,” said Ed. “Thank God for small favors.”
Arriving for breakfast the next morning, Randy was wondering whether that conversation had been a dream. As he left his pickup and headed toward the kitchen door, the air was thick with the scent of strong coffee, frying eggs, and crisp bacon. When he sat down at the table, Ed poured him a cup of old-fashioned Folgers.
“I have to drive to Anchorage today or I would go after that goddamned bear.”
“I’ll go after him, Uncle Ed.”
“No you don’t. Don’t go doing that by yourself. That old son-of-a-bitch is big enough and tough enough to kill a man, even after he’s been mortally wounded.”
“I can take care of myself, you know.”
“Of that I’m sure, but there’s no need to take a chance. I’ll be back in three or four days, and we can both go after him. Fish and Game will approve of the kill with all of the evidence we’ve got. The beast must have left a pound of hair on the gate where he broke into to the calving pen. It's only been about a month since he cleaned up the kill site from the cow that the younger bear killed, the one I shot. Don't know if I mentioned it, probably because I wanted to put it out of my mind, but he came back and ate what was left of the younger bear after I skinned it and took the hide to Fish and Game. I caught a glimpse of the old bastard in a snow squall and didn't realize it was really him until the next day.
“That reminds me, though,” Ed continued. “John Talbott said he saw you coming out of the store in Delta the other day looking like you were about to explode. What happened?”
“Nothing really.” Randy shifted in his chair.
“Must have been something. Somebody give you a hard time?”
“No, not really. I was just standing in the sandwich pickup line at the store, and two idiot locals were saying we never had any business sending troops to Afghanistan in the first place. I don’t think it would have bothered me so much if they hadn’t been talking so loud. It was like they wanted to impose their opinion on everyone in the store. I was a second away from grabbing the one closest to me when the girl handed me my sandwich order.” He paused and scratched his head. “You think I might have PTSD?”
Ed put on his trooper face. “No, I don’t. But this is not Afghanistan, this is America. You need to get a grip on your emotions. This is a country where people relish having unfounded opinions about all sorts of things they don’t know a goddamned thing about. You don’t want to wind up in prison, do you, over some fool who’s too stupid not to talk about something he doesn’t understand enough to discuss intelligently?”
“Yeah, I know, but it was like they were talking directly to me, especially the big one, that fair-headed guy with the mullet and big earring.”
“Yeah, I know the one you’re talking about. Atwood. He’s an obnoxious jerk, but that makes no difference. You can’t let stuff like that bother you. Life’s too short. Years ago, I put a young man from Palmer in jail because of his temper; he got a twenty-year sentence for manslaughter because somebody flipped him off on the highway. I expect he’s getting out about now. What do you suppose he would have given to undo what he did because he lost control over something so damned unimportant?”
Randy nodded and lifted his coffee cup as if making a toast. Then he turned to Mandy, who was wearing ear buds and diligently stirring a pot on the stove. “You’re being awfully quiet.”
“I heard every word,” she said. “The whole thing last night scared Pansy half to death, and it was one of her friends who was killed.”
Randy and Ed’s eyes met, their faces caught somewhere between amusement and bewilderment.
“Pansy is a cow, a cow with friends, no less,” Randy said.
“Doesn’t matter. It still scared her. And yes, cows have friends, close friends. They get angry and they carry grudges. They are social animals. I called Pansy’s friend Daisy.”
“How would you know that they were friends, Mandy?” Ed asked.
“I can tell by the way she acts, the way she looks at me, and who she pals around with.”
Ed and Randy’s eyes met once again, but both bore expressionless faces. Ed stood up, took his truck keys off a hook near the kitchen door, and picked up an overnight bag. “Remember Mandy, Evelyn will be over this afternoon, and she’s going to stay with you until I get back.”
“Why can’t I stay by myself? What about Adam?”
“Adam just left for the Slope, so he’ll be gone for a couple of weeks.”
“Well why do you have to be in Anchorage for four whole days?”
“I told you last week. I have some business that I need to look into, and I already reminded you that Dave Tupelo is coming to town. I promised to spend some time with him.” Ed stood silently for what seemed like more than enough time to take his leave. He waved as if swatting an insect and left through the kitchen door.
Walking to his pickup, he muttered to himself. He had just out and out lied to Randy, and he detested liars. He should have spoken up when Randy asked him about PTSD. Maybe it was because he didn’t want Mandy to hear it or maybe that was just a rationalization. But the bottom line was that he had lied, and now it was going to be more awkward when he brought up the subject with Randy again in private. At least now he knew that it had to be done, and soon. If Randy was bothered by it, he must be getting worse.
Randy was definitely different this time after his second combat tour. It was immediately noticeable when he and Mandy had picked him up at the airport. He was moody and quiet, and at times he had what veterans called the thousand-yard stare. But it was the obvious bouts of what certainly appeared to be depression that gave it away. Something was wrong. This wasn’t the nephew that he remembered at all, and it was past time to stop denying it.
* * * * *
“Who is Dave Tupelo?” Randy asked his cousin after Ed drove off.
“He and Dad were troopers at the same time. Dad said Dave left the state and went to the troopers in Idaho, and now he’s practically in charge of all of the whole force of troopers down there.”
“I’m going after that bear, Mandy.”
“You heard what Dad said. You should stay home and catch up on your reading.”
“I heard what he said, and I would be caught up if you slowed down on the books. If I can hunt down enemy snipers shooting at me, I can deal with an old bear that, according to your dad, is so old he’s probably getting senile.”
“Just the same, you shouldn’t go off looking for him by yourself. From the looks in the barn, he’s not suffering from old age. If he’d killed Pansy, I don’t know what I would do.”
“Mandy, Pansy is just a cow on a ranch that raises beef for the market, you know.”
“No she’s not! Pansy is special. Dad already promised me she won’t be killed. And you’d better wait until he gets back home to go bear hunting.” Mandy tossed her hair back. “How much of the books I've given you have you really read?”
“A lot, and I'm not kidding when I say I'm grateful. I’ve been meaning to say so.”
“Well, I’ll have some more for you pretty soon.”
“Geeze, I can barely stay awake during the day from reading so late.”
“Then you’re too sleepy to go bear hunting.”
“I’ll be fine.” Randy reached for his hat. “See you when I get back. I’ll be the one carrying a bear hide.” Before Mandy could turn to speak, he was gone.
Randy lived two miles east in a house big enough for a family of ten. Ed and Mandy had asked that he move in with them or maybe stay in the guest house, but he lived alone and on his own land by choice. Today there were two things he knew about himself that he hadn’t been sure of the day before. He felt he might be in love with the young lady at the deli, even though he didn’t know her at all. He knew her name was Nadia, and he also knew he couldn’t go very long without thinking about her. For now, anyway, he didn’t want to go back into combat. At least, not yet.
Mandy had given him a book a few weeks back. All she’d said was, “You need to read this.” And once he started reading, he knew she was right. He’d liked history in school, but he had never considered himself a scholar. Even so, he did read well, and he was persistent. If he read something and didn’t quite understand it, he kept working at it until his comprehension was complete.
The book from Mandy was
Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century
by Jonathan Glover. Here in black-and-white print were examples of wartime atrocities far more egregious than what he had witnessed and far, far worse than he had ever imagined. Throughout the book were documented atrocities, laying bare unspeakable acts by humans along with all of the motivation and ignorant assumptions that make war inevitable. He had stayed up every night reading past midnight, and it was cathartic beyond what he could have hoped. The reading, at least so far, seemed to help keep the dreadful dreams at bay. He was beginning to understand war as never before because he was beginning to understand people as never before.
Glover said that "deep in human psychology, there are urges to humiliate, torment, wound and kill people." He said tribalism is so inherently ingrained in humanity that it's linked to our need to find meaning in life. That must be why the strain and stress of combat gets so mixed up with our sense of identity and self-worth, Randy thought. The experience inhibits our ability to imagine life without the kind of conflict that makes life meaningful. It's a vicious cycle that feeds on itself. You begin to need the thing you fear most. When our sense of identity is bound deeply to others in combat, we become nobodies after the war is over. So, in effect, war is a psychological trap. It overrides our former identity. And then, strangely enough, only when we fear dying do we seem close to being the person we once were. But even this is an illusion because the old self is gone and the new self exists only in the face of danger.
Randy thought he had seen the absolute worst of humanity, but Glover wrote about so many massacres and acts of carnage and cruelty that he felt stunned by his own naiveté. Why and where did he get the idea that his experience in combat was so special? Why didn’t the Marine Corps teach this stuff? Why, for God’s sake, didn’t he learn it in high school? Maybe not the gory details, but Glover said that the deaths attributed to wars and genocide between 1900 and 1989 amounted to about a hundred per hour for ninety years. Why didn’t he know that? Why didn’t everybody know that?
Now he was reading at every chance he got, so the questions he asked himself became louder and more precise. He was developing a hunger for answers found in books. So many questions filled his head that at times he tried to distract himself, to think about anything else that would soothe his mind. Each time, his thoughts turned to Nadia.
When he went to Afghanistan the first time, he saw some combat, but it was mostly just random sniper fire, and his unit had been lucky. No one was killed, although five were wounded and one sergeant lost a leg to an IED. But his second tour was apocalyptic in comparison, and by this time he himself had become a sniper. He wouldn’t even let himself reflect on the number of men in his unit that had been killed, or for that matter, the number of men that he had personally killed on assignment. Some snipers wore their number of kills as a badge of honor, something to brag about, but he couldn't bring himself to do that. It seemed monstrous and unspeakable, and now that he was learning about man's inhumanity to man, just thinking about taking pride in how many people one had killed was beyond unspeakable—it was evil and grotesque.
With his view of the world broadening, it was beginning to seem as though war was little more than a tribal short-circuit for human beings. Randy regretted not having known this sooner, but then he also wondered if young men knew enough to put war in real perspective, would they really do what they were asked to do without question? In fact, if they wouldn’t kill on command, shouldn’t this somehow be an important point in and of itself?
Perspective was what he had needed all along, he realized, but how did Mandy know that? She’s just a kid. Until now he had thought the weight of what had gone on in Afghanistan rested on his shoulders alone. But here was proof to the contrary. War was simply a sickness wedded to humanity at levels so deep that no one seemed to understand the reasons why, even the author of the book. And then, as if she were his graduate adviser, Mandy gave Randy W
hat It Is Like To Go To War
by Karl Marlantes, a former Marine.
When he began reading this second book, he felt as if someone had read his mind. His beliefs about the world, the ideas he had gone to war with—the ones that guided his behavior during the war—were now in tatters. At the same time, he felt a sense of relief. He would build new ideas to believe in with Nadia. This would be his plan, and if she wouldn't go along, well then, he didn't know what he would do, and he wondered if he really cared.