unnecessary

Louise threw her keys on the desk and scanned the empty office for a place to hang her coat. Everything was moved from its customary location. Little circles appeared in the carpet where furniture once compressed the yarns under missing desks and file cabinets. She settled for draping her coat over the lone office chair. Her eyes moved across the walls empty now of photos from almost 35 years of being in business. Louise missed all the comforts of familiarity almost as much as she missed her now unemployed co-workers. One item packed away with all the other things extraneous to operating a skeleton crew for the mill shutdown and final closure was Louise’s favorite typewriter.

Louise realized suddenly with a start just how difficult the final two months would be. She sat in the chair and dabbed at tears with a small white monogrammed handkerchief. She wondered if perhaps the typewriter already lay in some dingy warehouse gathering dust and waiting for the auction assessors to appraise it for bankruptcy. Louise used that old machine to process the duplicate trip tickets for impatient log-truck drivers and caffeine-jilted over-the-roaders who idled their diesels outside- offering bad jokes along with their logs and their semi-loads of wood pulp. There were no more trucks. No more loads of trees fresh from logging shows high in the mountains surrounding Missoula. Louise missed the smell of fresh cut wood and piles of snow on the bark of the logs and the pungent pine flakes of wood chips that swirled in the backwash of the big semi trailers as they jake-braked off the interstate.

So many were unnecessary now as the loading docks gaped empty and silent. She thought about the dazed and stunned truckers just laid off and their favorite trucks parked permanently, their keys hanging on the lot board with all the driver’s rabbit feet and personal key rings removed. Every key was numbered now- waiting for the auction. Louise cleared her throat, blew her nose and picked up the phone on the third ring.

Montana Half Light

Chapter 1.

The door to the bar opens and reveals a tall, slim figure of a man, slightly stooped, of seventy years age or so. Brilliant sunlight floods the room and blinds the lone occupant –a short stocky young man with a shaved head who stands drinking at the bar. The man at the bar attempts to shield his eyes from the early rising sun and squints into the glare of the open door in mid swallow. Recognizing the silhouette of the old man, the man drops his glass and tries to run as the shot-gun flashes twice, hitting him in the side under one arm and once in the middle of his back. The door swings shut and semi-darkness swallows the room again. There is no light except the small halo of half-light which frames the face of the old man as he stares through the small greasy round pane of glass in the door. He watches the body writhe across the floor in a series of involuntary nerve twitches, spilling blood in great pools until there is no more movement. When the old man’s face turns away, the full circle of early morning sunlight arcs across the room and illuminates a prone body.

The bar is the only standing structure in Twain Montana, Population 12, situated between a great reef of rocks jutting from the west and the vast rolling prairie which plunges eastward away from the town. . It is just after dawn on Sunday morning; no cars or trucks in sight on the highway. Except for the lone occupant of the bar the town itself is deserted. The old man casually opens the door of his pickup, slides his still hot double barrel savage shot gun into the gun cover behind his seat, gets in and drives off.

“all I know is Stosh asked Lee if he wanted a job helping him with the horses but Lee told Stosh he hated horses so Lee picked up his stuff and left town for parts unknown. Somebody said they might’ve seen a guy that looked like Lee logging for an outfit in Seeley Lake. Only this guy that looked like Lee had a beard and long hair so I don’t think it was Lee. Lee hated hippies.”

Gene looked across the bar and into the mirror. He understood that Lee would be trying to pass as someone else now. Lee might be wearing a wig or even shaved his head and beard by now. Gene thought about the trouble that Lee was in and how he needed to find a way out of this town. He seethed inside while looking back at himself- disgusted and tired of the struggle already. Gene listened to Pauline tell him again for the umpteenth time that she didn’t know where Lee was. Every time she told him there was a new twist where somebody said something and Gene just couldn’t listen to it anymore.

“Somebody, who?” Gene asked

“I don’t know. Just some guy who rolled into town all drunk and high.”

“what did he look like?”

“Like an asshole.” Pauline said. “He looked like an asshole- just like you and every other creep who comes in here. You all look like assholes to me. You want to know what he looks like? Look in the mirror. That’s what he looks like.”

Gene took another drink and glanced at the mirror. Pauline was right. He did look like an asshole.

Gene walked outside the Bonner Bar and lit a smoke. He wanted somebody to tell him it was going to be alright and that Lee was coming back to town with the money from Canada and he wanted to hear Lee tell everyone that logging was on the rise again but logging was finally dead and Gene knew it.  The mill was closing down and Marvin Purvis at the bar last week said there might be work in Juneau but Gene checked that out and there was no truth to it. Gene sat down on the curb with his beer and his cigarette and watched the sunset across the dirt and gravel parking lot. A cut over hillside glowered across the gash of canyon that led into the valley of the Clark Fork River. With its torn down dam and the dirty brown cliffs still pocked with the old blast scars from the original dam builders, and with the river below in full spring flood creating a froth of brownish white it looked like someone had hit the flush handle on this place as wood debris eddied out into a swirl of backwash and sluiced through the gap toward Missoula.

A train rolled through Bonner every afternoon about now loaded with coal from the coalfields of Wyoming. Gene could feel the rails begin to vibrate as he stood astride the tracks looking east. He unzipped his greasy Carhartt overalls and took a leak right there in front of the train. He stepped off just as it flew past headed to the power plant at Chehalis Washington. The engineer flipped Gene off and Gene returned the favor almost as an afterthought as he staggered toward the neon lights of Finky’s Foods where Bud Light was still on sale 11.99 for 12 can cases. Gene checked his wallet for the last twenty from pawning his rifle. Only fifteen was left as he remembered the five he’d stuck in the keno machine while waiting to talk to that little sweetheart of a barmaid, Pauline.

Gene walked past the kid behind the counter and noticed a young couple yammering happily over the trophy trout that hung above the coffee machine.

“where can we find fish like that?” they asked the bored kid behind the cash register. The kid just shrugged and adjusted his i-pod.

All these summer visitors love to ask locals to help them look for fishing tips as if we were just stupid or something; as if Montana was just one big vacation spot filled with gullible people happy to give up hard won secrets. Gene hated tourists more than Lee hated hippies. He curled his lip in a sneer at the smiling couple, ignored their friendly question and strode past them toward the beer.

The Blackfoot Bar

Wayne veers right just missing the snowplow as he aims his cruiser into the whiteout.

The dispatcher reports something about loud noises in an old bar on the Blackfoot River Highway. Through the snow the entrance to the parking lot is barely discernable. Once a rollicking non stop party, the bar that once thrived here was sold by the owners in 1990 to finance their retirement.  Strict DUI laws enacted since have incarcerated or reformed most of the clientele who once patronized it. Twenty miles out of Missoula- too far for drunks to drive with no license and no bar can survive long without drunks- not in Montana.

Wayne pulls off the highway and parks close to the front door. He checks in with dispatch and switches off the headlights. He allows his eyes to adjust to the dark. He unholsters his service weapon, chambers a round and snaps the safety on. He eases out of the vehicle and crouches near the fender listening for noise. First nothing – then faintly at first but getting louder scratching and clawing then banging and scuffling – then scratching and clawing  again. Wayne yells out. “Who’s in there?” Not a sound now,

just the wind in the Ponderosas and the gentle whisking of snow blowing past his feet.

“Whoever is in there” Wayne hollers “this is the sheriff. Come out with your hands in the air.”  This time there is a barely audible growl. Then silence again.

Wayne takes his flashlight out of his holster and with his weapon pointed he peaks through the soot stained cobwebbed front window of the old Bar. Seeing nothing, he flicks on the 6 battery flashlight. The room illuminates and explodes as Furniture scatters everywhere. An old wood stove rolls across the floor as a huge furry object shoots past and flips a pool table upside down. Two smaller furry objects scoot to the safety of the bigger object.  Its Red eyes glare at Wayne through the window. Cursing, Wayne slowly retreats to the cruiser, flicks on the radio and Alerts Dispatch. He is told that a game officer needs to be sent to the scene. Wayne backs the car away from the building and waits.

An old silver pickup with Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks decals pulls into the parking lot behind Wayne. The sides of the truck are scarred with scrapes and dents.  The truck pulls an even older flatbed trailer with a culvert trap in the back. The game warden is slightly overweight and still in his slippers as he gets out talking to Wayne. Snow lands on his red balding head and melts dripping on his checkered service jacket.

“Two bears inside” Wayne tells him “one huge sow with two cubs.”

“Can she get out?” the warden asks him.

“Not without help” Wayne answers “looks like she pushed the door in and the wind shoved it shut. She’s trying to bash it open but it’s pretty strong- what do you suggest?”

“Well” the stocky warden considers while he wipes at his head. “normally, I would have to call my partner and we would dart it with a tranquilizer but if all she wants is to get out I have a big pole. We could push the door open and hope she comes out.”

“It better be a really big pole” Wayne says. “And who said anything about we.”

“We could let her winter there” the warden says with a grin.

“It’s your call.” Wayne says with a shrug.

“Cover me?” The game warden says with a sheepish grin, offering a large freckled hand through the open window. “Name’s Jim.”

“OK Jim. Lead the way.”

Jim unhooks the snare pole from its cradle on the culvert trap. He tries not to think about the fact that bears can cover 100 yards in 3 seconds and that the snare pole is only twenty feet long.  Jim laces up his work boots in the warm cab of Wayne’s cruiser and eyes the shotgun mounted between their seats.

“You might want to use that 12 gauge in case it’s a grizzly.” Jim says.

“Oh, come on” Wayne says with a grin that gets weaker when he sees that Jim is not joking.

“OK Jim, whatever you think- you’re the boss.”

Wayne grabs the shotgun and chambers a round while Jim shoulders the pole.

They can hear a scuffling inside, probably the cubs just teasing each other. Then there is the lowest rumble Wayne has ever heard or maybe he only feels it?  Then silence again. Jim approaches the door with the snare pole. He’s only used this pole once before to pluck a body from the Blackfoot river. Jim taps at the door to test it first and then with all his weight he shoves the door open. There is a crash in the back of the bar but nothing comes out. Jim props the door open with the pole and steps away.

“Can you see anything?” Wayne whispers.

pure hell adventures #311

by problembear:

chapter 1

First time I met Walt, he was beating a pack mule to its knees with a two by four. The trail was dangerous, a switchback near indigo creek in the Hells Canyon Wilderness and that antsy mule threatened to topple the entire string two thousand feet into the rapids of the Snake River. His tour group of fourteen; all Sierra clubbers and Audubon Society members, watched in horror as Walt cursed and beat the animal into a passably safe form of submission. One of the braver women named Amy, petite blonde wife of a district attorney wilderness nut from Roseburg Oregon, raised her voice in protest.

“Sir, is that necessary?”

Walt put the two by four back in his bedroll. He pulled his beaten Bailey hat off revealing an enormous bald sunburned head, which he proceeded to patiently wipe dry with a red handkerchief before clapping the hat back on. He displayed his biggest possible smile under the circumstances. It was a professional outfitter’s smile that showed everyone he was in charge and to not worry about a thing. A smile that also showed all of his massive white teeth which featured prominent incisors in all their primitive glory beneath a bushy drooping mustache that dripped with sweat and chew stain.

“Yes, maam”, Walt answered with a polite tip of his hat. His eyes and teeth seemed to glint with crazy in the sunlight as he remounted his horse.

No one disputed the claim.

A group of out of shape and grumbling geology students I was leading on a hot afternoon death march stepped off the trail gratefully into the shade of a ponderosa and allowed Walt’s string to reform after the mule melee and ride through. Walt and I exchanged worried commiserating glances as he spurred his lead appaloosa gently down the steepest hairpin turn past my line of backpack burdened tenderfoot college kids. With a silent wave of his hat, Walt led his chastised and now pliant mule with his mutinously murmuring group of obediently traumatized environmentalists. The ultimate outfitter dilemma: trying to lead a pack of spoiled elevator riders who probably never faced real danger in their lives by somebody who has probably faced it too much already.

Every outfitter has their own methods.

Sometimes I wonder how some guides and outfitters stay in business behaving like Captain Ahab but it was none of my business that day so I stayed out of it. After all, it is a thankless job- this guide business, and Keeping them all alive sometimes takes extreme measures that the survivors seldom appreciate. Myself, I like to have return and referral business so I tend to be more responsive to the urban sensibilities of my clients than some outfitters. But I know that there are many ways to survive in this business. I have known outfitters who are so good at finding elk for hunting parties that they can literally abuse their clients to the point of cursing and fist fights one year and still count on their loyal checks arriving before each new hunting season. In fact, many of the sociopathic guides are the most successful financially. a certain curious fact is that subgroups of wealthy clientele actually enjoy being abused. Years later, when I came to know Walt better, I found that he certainly magnetized himself to that particular clientele, but I also found that Walt  certainly succeeded at finding money but it always came with trouble.

The second time I met Walt was at the Prairie City High School football field in Central Oregon. I was working with an engineering detail on the Whitney-Tipton road out of the Malheur National Forest doing timber surveys to make a little extra money between hunting camps and one of the kids who held a rod for the lead surveyor asked me to come to the homecoming football game. He wanted everyone in the crew to watch his kid brother play. I had nothing better to do, so I went and sat in the stands and sipped a decoy coke with considerable fortification while i watched the teams warm up in what looked like a rodeo arena converted very hastily into a football field.the assistant coach driving the lime cart swigged the foamy dregs out of a quart of beer in a brown paper bag as he ambled past me casually applying some very crooked yardage markers and sidelines.

Walt was fuming mad at some tall lanky kid in a lineman’s jersey that looked a lot like him. They were arguing about something but I couldn’t hear what they were saying with all the crowd noise. After the kickoff, Walt picked out a seat right in front of me. We nodded and locked eyes that mutually said “where the hell do I remember you from” while we both silently hoped it wasn’t from some drunken forgotten sinister activity. I spoke first.

“Get that jenny to calm down any better?”

He pushed his hat back and looked back at me and smiled.

“Sure did. And she’s real trail gentle now. That’s been a few years back hasn’t it? How ya doin’”, He said. We shook hands and introduced ourselves. Walt looked at my coke like he wished it were a cold beer, But Prairie City Oregon is a dry town.

“If you’re thirsty here’s a coke.” I handed him a can of coke out of my lunch cooler. “ I’ve got some additive.” I said.

I briefly flapped my cruiser vest open to give Walt a glimpse of a couple of flasks in the inside pockets. He took the bait and we commenced to jawing over some old trail days. I could see he and his boy were having some friction and I didn’t want to pry but after the proper amount of inter-guide boasting and outdoors shop-talk, Walt came right out with it. Since his divorce a few years back, Walt and his boy named Garret were at each other like billy goats on a steep cliff. It frustrated Walt that the kid wouldn’t listen to him anymore. I don’t remember too much from the conversation; a lot of familiar stuff like a new stepfather getting in the way and Walt’s ex-wife spoiling the kid. It was the kind of soap-opera stuff that bores me but I did pay attention when he said something that reminded me of the many tests of will between myself and my own daughter Ginny as she was growing up.

“Warren”, Walt said as he sucked down his third velvet soaked coke, “I thought I would be pretty trail tested and heat forged by this time in life. I can usually handle any amount of discomfort and aggravation and come out on top, but there’s nothing quite so trying as competing against your own genetic material.”

The third time I met Walt was when I served on the jury that put him away for life. In between those last two meetings, things got steep and dicey enough to hold the average person’s attention. But then, certain acquaintances will tell you that I have been given to hyperbole on occasion so I guess I should let you judge for yourself.

trying to keep all the balls in the air…

“Just Looking For Loopholes.”

-Quote from W.C. Fields

caught reading the bible on his deathbed

Look, I believe you get married to someone you love and you stick to her ‘til death do you part no matter what. I believe you work hard to make a living and I believe you don’t hurt others intentionally just to get ahead. If these beliefs make me seem a little gullible or quaint so be it. It’s what I believe. I also believe you help others less fortunate than you are no matter how they act or what they did to get themselves in their predicament. I believe that if we give people half a chance to show us their good side, most of them will eventually. But I also believe that some people are just plain old diabolical and you need to avoid them if you can. But if you can’t avoid them you face them front on and don’t show fear. Fortunately, there aren’t many of them.

It’s ok to be flexible and adaptable to survive but deep down you have to stick to certain principles. There’s a lot of hype and hysteria about things that don’t matter a hell of a lot. I call it the age of hysteria. Politics, pop culture and celebrities don’t interest me much. But, music has been my anchor to cut through all the false noise.  I guess if I had to pick a song that defines my philosophy it would be “You Better Get It While You Can” by Steve Goodman. One of the best lines in music; “…from the cradle to the grave is a mighty short trip so you better get it while you can…” reminds me of what my grandfather Charlie always told me….”it’s only once around the track kid so make yourself proud.”

we need more space people!

presenting

the world’s best animated piece of art;

some people wonder…

if i feel a little disillusioned about all the effort i put into supporting Obama now after one year of disappointments….

i think this about covers how i feel about it..

the real state of the union….

has anything changed yet ? i hadn’t noticed.

problembear’s tweets

• 17:23 pure hell adventures #311 problembear.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/pure-hell-adventures-311/ #
• 17:30 missoula – remember that we usually get our lambkiller storm around the third week in february and we get most of our year’s snow in march #
• 21:42 No fair to bears!!!! #

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problembear’s tweets

• 18:12 The who embarrassing themselves. I’ve heard better covers by garage bands. #

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problembear’s tweets

• 14:37 thank you maggie flowers. we are never giving up! www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02052010/watch3.html #
• 14:38 @whitehouse what say you now? time to listen to us is now. www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02052010/watch3.html #
• 15:08 @Hergett att pays cell one for coverage. cell one won’t let att sell stuff in their territory though. just greed and competitive barriers. #

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problembear’s tweets

• 21:25 Moyers on the rise of the corporate state. "People no longer trust democracy" #

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problembear’s tweets

• 17:29 #economy: just starting to bounce back from the lowest point doesn’t mean that we are anywhere in the vicinity of complete recovery. #
• 17:30 most likely complete recovery if even possible, is years away. #economy #
• 17:32 in fact, there is wide disagreement that we have even hit bottom yet. many economists predict further recession in near future. #economy #
• 22:46 quotme

  "We live in an age when pizza gets to your home before the police." – Jeff Marder / firemen are faster- call them instead. #

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problembear’s tweets

• 11:44 Dear Congress: do we have to do all the thinking around here? What are we paying you for? #DODT #
• 11:46 That should be #DADT #

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