Yuuqerraallren

Amiik paturraarluku ellillruan tupigaq issran tusgegpenun, kemegpenun neputuq urulriatun aturatun nepulluni temevnun. Ilaulluni, umyuartequten, malrullra nallunariluni atauciurrlutek-llu.

Irniyullruuten enevni, taugam uin qanrutlerpeni, nepaitellruuq. Cali tuaten pillra assiikellrunritan.

Kiusqumallruuten qanerluku, taugam qanerciigatellruuq, tua-i-llu anluten piyualuten.

Piyuallruuten nunapigmi nanvat avataitgun ayagyuavet, kiingan uin unitevkenaku, taugam nunat.

Kiimecullruuten, upcugluten irnillerkarpenun. Nuna ilakliucullruan. Cimillruuten umyugiuryugluten-llu ellaaciryugluten irnivailegpet. Piyuallruuten carangllugni qanrutevkenaku.

Kiak ayagnillruuq Bering Sea-mi imarpigmi mecaulriim-llu nunam melugaqluten kitnarqelriatun qaugyatun. Sap’ akigken imanguk urunek mermek-llu. Itgagken kumlatellruuk suukiigken mecungagnek ciurnaqlutek. Lagit tengaullruut qalrialuteng-llu piyuallerpeni.

Akluten yuullruaten putukuten-llu akurrluki nanvamun. Caranglluut cetugmiallruagket itgagken cingillregken-llu. Takaryullruuten matangqallerpenek akertem temen agtuqsailaku uksurpak. Nuna ellacugninarqellruuq. Ayurninarqellruuq. Qengagken ilangciarallruak. Tepengqellruuq akallaulriatun nunatun. Ciuggluten tangellruaten nanvat yaaqliquuralriit, umyuarteqluten miilicaaruyugnarqut.

Nuyaten akurtaten kumlalngurmun mermun. Urut puglellruut, ler’arrluni-llu quletmun qaugyamek acianek. Avatiini, tunutellget kuimallruut, aqumgaluteng mer’em qaingani. Angllurluteng kuimaraqluteng mer’em aciakun. Tuaggun pugnayuuksaaqaqavteng,

Allaakun pugaqluteng, naanguarluten-llu tuaten. Nallullruat ilautellren yurallermeggni. Angllurluteng nerrlermeggni, mayuqetaarluteng, melquit qevlercenaateng meq elluraqan tunumeggnek uqulilriamek. Tangramegteggen, tengellruut, yaaqvanun pivkenateng, allaamun nanvamun, kiimetnaluteng. Elpet pillgucirpeknak. Yuranrillruut tuani aqumgallerpeni, mikelngurmek qumigluten aqsavni, nanvam qukaani. Tunutellek qalriallruuq qungvagnaqluni. Niicugninqegcaarallruuten niilluku-llu atauciq qalriallrani nuliran-llu kiuluku. Qalriallruuk kiutaagulluutek. Umyuarteqevkallruaten kenkamek.

Yaaqvanun piyuallruuten maaten piuten uitaluten nunallerni Calitmiuni, ak’aki akiatni nanvat, nunapigmi qamiqungualilriami canegnek igtenek-llu. Ak’allaat enellret naurpagluki teglegumaluki-llu kaviaret ilakellriit. Uugnaraat tumait nunam avciani tumyarat-gun ayagluteng.

Uugnarayagaat uitaviksaguulluki, neramkuarluteng neqkarcurluteng-llu. Igtait imaunateng, uitnerarluteng uksurpak qavallermeggnek. Atauciq uugnar ilalirluni. Nulirra irnialipiarluni.

Uugnar taum assirluki aulukellrui neqkangqertelluuki, elagluni tumyariluni eneliluni-llu irniani tamalkuita uitavigkangqertelluuki allaakaita.

Piyuallerpeni, yaquliyagaat maligcetaarluteng, “Maligesnga, maligesnga wavet.” Ungluteng nataqevkallrunritait. Kaigavet, cumigtekanirluten yuallruuten nalaqutlerpeni-llu ciiciluten pingayunek kayangunek merluki-llu; mikellruut unategpeni.

Nuyaten takellriit mecungellruut. Ciurluki, aqumellruuten aturarpet qaingatnun anuqsaaraam kinercetellraku qain. Umyuaqellruan nunalleq. Qayat nekeggiingallruut nunapiit avataitni qurrlulriani, Neqyagaat kuimallruut qurrluteng-llu, arnat neqlillruut, agarrluki, puyuqluki-llu puyurcivimeggni. Anguutet quyungqallruut qasgimi maqililuteng ellmeggnek arnat-wa ervuqalriit irniameng tequritni. Umyuangcautekellruat yuullrat naulluutait-llu.

Ataucirqumek arnassaagaq qanrutellruan, Tuaten yuullruyugyaaqua, tauna-llu arnaq temciyugluni ungaulugluni-llu, “Assinrituq – assinrituq.”

Tuaten-llu qanellruuq nalqiguutessaallerpeni enevni irniyuullerpenek. “Qanga. Assinrituq.” Nalqigutellrunritaaten. Qalarutkellrunritai cagmaumallret yuunrillrat-llu mikelnguut neliaritni amlleret arnat ciuvni yuullret, wa’llu aatamek tegumialriamek anqiyaarmek tangvagluku-llu anernerillrani tegumiaqnginaanermini; iik cikemlutek, qerrluk ikirrlutek, temyagii qiungluni ipii-llu unaqserrluteng.

Qavaqacillerpeni akertemi, qavangurtullruuten keglunernek. Avatevnun quyurtellruut kumlalngurmi nengelmi qanikcarmi, tumlialuteng itgait negait negaicetun ilarqutellriatun. Igtellruuten tunutmun qanikcarmun; tungulriit-wa nuyat avatevni keggiinan tuaten patuluku, unategken-llu tekillukuk. Nuyaten pekluteng patuluten-llu amirlutun tungulriatun, keglunret tangerciigatellruatgen, taugam amirlum patullrunritaa tepen. Avatevni uitallruut. Ayuquciitellruut naruurluku-llu ella. Ilit qastuluni maruarallruuq tupaggluten.

Nalluyaguutesciigatellruan qavangun. Nayurturallruaten tuani ernermi. Maaten-llu piaten allngiguat avurnarillinilriit. Lagit qulaillruatgen malruk-llu uqsuqak kuimarlutek nani nuliqvigkameggnek yuarlutek. Ungalamek anuqsaarallruuq kiartellerpeni qiugliq qilak. Putellerpeni, qumiin elpekellruan kucuqun akngirtellrani.

Cingellruan itgacuarii. Atuqcaarangellruan Tulukaruum yuarutii.

Tengaulartuq qulini nunam acitmun kiarrluni, yaqugni nengllukek kiartellermini.

Qalrialartuq tengaullermini elluurtaqluni-lluTulukaruk, Tulukaruk- pilista, Tulukaruuk-pilistaa; piliaqellruaten;piliaqellruanga. Allngiguanek issraten imiirraarluku, utertellruuten, taugaam yaaqvapianun ayallrulliiniuten, amllepiarluteng-llu nanvat, taqsuqngellruuten. Inarlluten mernuinercirluten cali-llu qavangurturluten. Qavangurtullruuten iggnguarluten pagaken ellakun. Ayuuquciicetellruaten temvet uqgetellran igtellerpeni temevnek-llu

Avvluten igqurluten-llu, acitmun allayugtun yaqulegtun arulairluten-llu nuna tekiteqatarluku, taugam nuna ikirrluni ayagluten-llu uugnaraat enait kiturluki, quugaarpiit-llu enellrit ak’allaat, atsat-llu naumaviit tengutnatkaanun Tulukaruum tungulriignegun yaqurpalraagmikun. Qavallruuten melqurriini. Utrutellrunritaaten nunapigmun. Taugam tenguutellruaten kiatmun kuigem nuniinun kavirliyagaat naucit-llu nauviatnun sugtunruluuteng asvaillruluteng-llu iitarni yualuktukaitni issracilriit. Naryugngallruuten muragnek aruvilriamek puyurcivignek. Uitellerpeni penggartellruuten uivnun nataqenritnayukluten. Qayagaullruan atra malrurqugnek tua-i-llu pingayurqunek. Qiallruuten. Aluviten carvalriatun ayuqlirillruut, ller’arrluteng avatevni. Mecungellruuten. Mer’em qaingillruaten pugtangnaqluten-llu, kitngiarluten irugpegun angelriignegun. Yuurrmiurluten aneryaallruuten, Taryaqviim-llu nuqluten tungminun. Neqngurtellruuten.

Maliklutek kuimellruutek kiatmun kuigkun. Et’uriinarluni cali et’uriinarluni, kumlariinalriakun tan’gerinalriakun merkun, kuimallruuten asgurluten amllernek agnernek Tulukaruum elluurrvikluten angllurluni tunumigluten-llu qulmuruulluten. Ayausnginanrani qavaqallruuten. Uitellerpeni, qeluallruuten. Ciunerkairulluuten, qayagpallruan Tulukaruk ayagcetesqelluuten.

“Qingartua, Tulukaruuk. Waten piyunaituq.

Akngiallren aqsavni ayalallruuq qairtun angyacuaraam aciani imarpigmi. Cakneq pivkenani pektaallruuq, mikelnguq nengqurluni kitngigluni-llu, nutngarluni iluvni.

Tulukaruum mernuinercircetellruaten. Putuskaqellruaten nuyaten avatevni, kinercirluki mecungelriit temevni. Mulngakluten, patgullruagken evsaigken; uivenqellriit avatiigni nuukenka angliriinallruut tunguuriinarluteng-llu. Mermek maqellruuk. Miklenguum anvigkaa yuvrillruan anyukluku kakegglugngalnguq, taugaam kinertellruuq. Qacigarrluten qavaqallruuten.

Qavanguqellruan uin. Yaggvikellruaten ayaurluku-llu qayani mayurluku Mukqluktuli kuiggaar iqvam nallini, taugam assigtai iitarnek piliaqumalriit imaitellruut. Aturluku imarnitni mecungniurcuun, tangssunaqluni sugtuluni

Pinirluni-llu. Nunapigngalnguut unatain qillertaqluku angiitaqluku-llu yualu. Iisuraaraat upaangellruut, tengaurluteng uivaarluteng atsat qulaitni. Anipa mit’ellruuq canianun.

Qalartellruuq qaskunani cakviurluni, “Nanta nuliaqa?” Anipa-m cetui nengluteng ikirtellruut.

Tegutellruuq uugnarmek, tenglutek-llu, nalluunguarluku.

Kiartellruuq avatmini tungulriamek cungaglimek-llu, tuaten ayuqngata n uyaten paltucuaraan-llu.

Taugam tangerciigatellruaten. Tua-i-llu tangerqengarpenek catairulluuni.

Uitellerpeni, tegullruan issraten, kituggluki nuyaten, nuqlukek sap’akigken, taqmiin kituggluku, aqsan-llu tegumiaqluku. Cagnillranek alangaallruuten.

Tekipailegpet enevnun arulaillruuten qavcirqunek mernuinercirluten. Qumigpet mikelnguum qalarutngellruaten. Angellruuq uivenqeggluni akuurarpenun elluurrluni, tenglugluku callanren.

Uqamailngatellruuq elpet-llu kevegluku unategpegun taugam aciqsigikanirluni tuantaurluni-llu.

Ikirtellerpeni amiiga ikircailkuciumalria enevet, Kali mulutuullruuq ussukcanek nutaranun qacarneriinun enem.

“Ak’, tuar qagqatalrianga.”

“Qayagaurlaurlaku clinic-aaq,” qanellruuq

“Qanga, assirciqua.”

Kali-m unategni ellillruak aqsavnun ellaigarluku-llu kemgen. Serluten cungiitellruuten agtullrani. Ellaangeqtaallruuten cagniallra-llu aqsavet teggiallra tuknirillruuq cagniriluni. Mer’a qumigpet maqertellruuq.

Neqakellruan yugnikngarpet irnillra. Tenguuqaallruuq cakneq taqret-llu iigken avategkeni navgaluteng tuar iik qiulriik. Umyuarteqellruuten taum piipim nangtellrua yugnikngaqa yuurrnariillermini.

Tuaten-llu-qaa piipin piqatartuq?

Umyuaqan aanan qanellra, tamarmeng mikelnguut yuurtarkauluteng pinritut. Unugpak ellangqellrunrituuten. Ellaangeqtaarluten pillruuten. Uivet murilkellruaten keggiinan mertaqluku puqlanilriamek. Tua-i-llu cauyani teguluku. Cauyallruuq cukaunani kumlumiikun cali iqelqumikun. Akallarmek yuarutmek umyuaqekminek apaurlumi atullranek.

Usuurluuq Aa-rraa-a-nga-li-yaa

Urumavkartemaa Ii-rrii-rrii-nga-li-yaa

Wani cali inangqauq Yaa-a-nga-raa-aa-aa

Cikmellruuq umyuarteqlermini kingunermek tangerrluni-llu tanqigmek maliggluku-llu acitmun cikukun. Ayaullruuq cikut ullagtaarluki. Tangellruuq ul’utvagnek ugiingalrianek cikumi, alangrutun ayuqellruut.

Ligni uitellruak cauyarturluni-llu mikelnguq taisqelluuku. Qinertellruuq egalerkun kuigem tunginun tangerrluni-llu angyamek ilakellrianek uciluni kitulriit, calill’ allamek.

Yuuniallruuten. Yuvrillrua mkkelnguum anvigkaa minguglukek-llu aqsiigken ucun-llu saalamek. Maruk erenrek pellullruuk tuaten. Inartaqluni natermun canivnun. Nangnermek tenguuqellerpeni cingluten, talligni quyurrlukek piipiq teguyuumallrua. Kavirrlugcetellria-qesurlircenaani piipiq anellruuq unategkenun. Kepellrua qallacia erurluku-llu saaniigkun puqlaciumalriamek mermek. Elillrua piipiq imartulriamun evsairpenun.

“A’gaa,” qiallruuten, “A’gaa. Akngirnarquq.” Melullra tukniatellruuq evsaigken-llu mernurlutek ikayungnaqlerpeni aamallrani. Keggiinaa agtullruan yuararpegun. Yuvrirluki yuarai putukui-llu amllerqunek. Temii mikpiallruuq. Tunguluteng nuyai, nuyavtun, qamiqrua patumaluku. Uilluki tangellruaten. Tangvallruan. Cikmellruuq. Talligpeni aruulaillruuq

Aneryaallra. Temii unaqseqertellruuq. Tegukanillruan, uivet tegunatkaanun elpenek. Tungmagtellruan nunapigmi qatellriim yaassiigem iluani uivet piliarani. Mingullrua elpet-llu iluanun elliiluki anqiyagaam aklui cali qiugliq piicak iluanun ekluku. Agayulirta Henry Dock-aq taillruuq piicaucarturluten. Uivet nerutellrua kinertarnek neqnek maklaarmek-llu suupamek, mernuinercillerpeni.

Qiallerpeni, aurrluten itellruuten tan’gercetellriamun kalvagyaramun. Elpenek tuantellruuten amllerni ernerni kalvagyaramun talisngasqumaluten. Tan’geq elgangqanarqellruuq.

Uivet tangellraten inglermi, ulignek patumallruuten. Iirumallruat ayuqucin. Iigken tungulriik tan’gerillruuk tua-i-llu kavirilutek itrumalriatun ukinermeggnun. Nallunritellruuq angiitarkaucirminek. Keneq kumartellrua yuurqaliluni-llu. Aqumellruuq irugni navrulluukeknatermun melqut sagingaviatnun, iliitnek tegutellruuq kagiluni-llu kituggluku uitaviin. Qallaucecillruuq naunrarnek egatmi mermek imalegmi. Qallaatellruut nunapigninaqluteng. Imiiritellruaten saskamek, taugam mellrunritan. Nuyiuryugyaaqellruaten, taugam unitkanillruan.

“Qaillun pitalriamek pituat, Min?” Qaillun pitalriamek waten yuyugcit?”

Qanrutelruaten qanemcimek Yuuyaramek. Arnartangqellruuq uilegmek. Kenkellrua cakneq, taugam ernret iliitni pissuryallruuq utertevkenani-llu. Ircaqua navgumallruuq, ciqitartun saaniigtun ayuuqellruuq ellmini. Unuaquaqan neryuniulallruuq uterrnayukluku. Amiini kellutelallrua, eneni carriirarluku, keniutaqluku. Taugam kiimki neruraraqluni. Ellmkinek murilkenringermi, umyuaquraaraqluku uini. Ayunek legciaqluni eneni aruvirluku, utaqaluku-llu uini. Erenret iliitni tukriallruuq amiigmi, taugam iterciiganani itresqumangraani utercesqumangraani. Nuqiingallrua tarnera. Piyaqlirluni, pegtellrua ayagtelluuku utertenqigtevkenani-llu.

Qanrutellruaten “Min, ayagcetarkaugan piipipuk. Teguumiaqurciigatan. Wangkuk pikenritaapuk. Tegullrua kegginaquni cauyani-llu aturluni-llu yuarutmek elkarrluten-llu nutaramun ellaamun. Atullrua Tulukaruk kegginaquq Taryaqvagmek pingqellria menglemini atuullermini-llu elucilinqigtaarluni cauyallran-llu anlluki anerneret iigpet tangerciigaluutait. Cauyallruuq taqsuqengnatkaminun. Inarrluni canivnun tegumiaqellruaten; tallik-llu uruullutek manuvnun nepullutek.

Unitesqumallrunrituuten elliinun waniwa, wa’llu watqapik.

Emeritus Professor of English T. Roland Wibbles will always remember where he was standing and what he was doing when the call came. He had just returned from his annual visit to the Camperdown Elm at the university arboretum, the exorbitant cost of which tree he had underwritten in memory of his dear Florence, now two years deceased. He made it his custom on the date of their wedding anniversary, May 15th, “the Ides of May,” to visit the tree with its small plaque bearing her name, dates of her existence, and platitudinous note reading “Devoted Wife & Mother.” Upon his return home, although he felt their domicile of some forty-five years to be now something other than a “home,” it was his custom or hallowed tradition to pour himself a double shot of an excellent single malt scotch he liked to think he could not afford.

“Well,” he said, addressing their wedding photo on the fireplace mantel, “you deserved a better man.” In this sentiment the professor was quoting Florence’s sister. He was glad she lived two thousand or so miles away in eastern Ohio. In the black-and-white photograph, Flo smiles happily and TR, as he prefers to be called, looks stunned, his mouth slightly parted as if he is about to say “oh,” as in “oh, what just happened?”

Just as he raises his glass, the phone rings. He sets his un-sipped scotch on the mantel and answers with the curt, testy “hello” he has created for an array of phone solicitations and robocalls owing to Flo’s decades of contributions to a plethora of worthy causes, both political and charitable. Over their decades together, Wibbles reckons somewhere between eighty and ninety percent of all calls to their residence have been intended for her ears, and the years since her passing have not significantly altered that range albeit Flo’s ears are no longer extant.

This call, however, is aimed at his ears. “Hellooo,” a feminine voice he barely recognizes purrs. “Doc-tor Wibbles,” the voice over-pronounces, “how are you doing these days?” Briefest pause, not permitting his response, then, “This is Jenny Brooks!”

TR endows Professor Brooks’s pronouncement with an exclamation mark. The woman who once occupied the office across from his in Bartlett Hall ascended to the second floor and the position of department chair during his last year “in the trenches,” as he likes to put it. In his fifty years of college professoring, he has always regarded himself as a field officer, while all those occupying administrative positions, with reserved parking spaces and bloated salaries, he considers “staff officers,” who serve safely behind the lines. Colonels and generals they; lieutenants, captains, or majors he and his comrades. Among the manifold reasons for his retirement at age seventy-three—early retirement, as he saw it, having set his sights on another three years at least, to include one final sabbatical—was the election of Jennifer Brooks as chair. Not that he had any interest in the post himself, but that she represented every misdirection he had witnessed in the field of literary studies in recent years, from the celebration of the always popular creative writing emphasis and the apotheosis of critical theory to, well, to put it succinctly, “Postmodernism.”

What hurts worst, he thinks as he assures Jenny he is doing very well these days, has been what he laments as The Death of the Canon. When he began teaching at Podunk U, as he likes to call it—quite openly since his retirement—his classes on 17th-century British Poetry & Prose, or on Milton, or in later years on the Romantic Poets, would fill easily, perhaps never to overflowing, but sufficiently to “make” without question. By the time he retired two years ago Shakespeare himself was in jeopardy. Led by the likes of Jenny Brooks and her co-chair, and who else would that be but Sandra McGint of the CW emphasis, the department had blithely voted with near unanimity to drop the Shakespeare requirement for English majors, even for those in the increasingly less popular “literature emphasis” among the five degree options, where the Bard was now merely “recommended.” By the time he “stepped down,” as Jenny Brooks euphemized on the announcement of his retirement at the last department meeting of the academic year (scattered applause, indiscreet whispers of “fi-nal-ly”) his teaching load had been limited mostly to lower division survey courses. His offering of a graduate seminar on The Literature of The Great War, to correspond with the 2018 centennial, had failed to attract sufficient numbers. Well.

“I’ve a proposition for you,” Jenny Brooks announces with what TR takes to be an assumed lilt of confidence to her voice. “You’ll be surprised,” she adds.

In the proverbial nutshell, Professor Brooks’s proposition is a year’s teaching “gig,” as she so eloquently puts it, at his full salary plus honorarium because they, the department, “need” him. A totally unpredictable combination of events—including two profs on sabbatical, one sudden departure for presumably better pastures, and a pregnancy leave—has left them with courses to be covered, one at the advanced undergraduate level and one graduate seminar. His choice as to the subjects. The surprise is that Professor Wibbles accepts.

“Unthinkingly,” he reprimands himself as he sips his scotch, savoring each taste. What was he thinking? He wasn’t. He was taken off guard. Jenny Brooks must’ve been amazed to witness his prompt acquiescence to her request which was only lightly seasoned with flattery. “We’ve missed you,” she said, and “many of your colleagues have wondered what you were up to,” or perhaps it was only “some of your colleagues.” The clincher, he supposes, is the “need” line: “We need you.” The university had suffered declining enrollments for some years before the pandemic, and like all such institutions, it had taken a beating during those couple of years, and now, two years out, it struggled still.

The very conservative state legislature of the crimson red state has never gone all in when it comes to higher ed, many legislators in both the House and the Senate suspecting post-secondary education amounts to little more than a luxury, a frill. So far as dear old Podunk is concerned, Prof Wibbles well remembers the occasion early in his tenure when a member of the state board lashed out against tenure and sabbaticals even as he proclaimed his pride in “the fact that we get plenty bang for our buck out of that place.” The point of that august spokesman being that additional “bucks” in that year’s budget allocation were not necessary.

More recently, a groundswell has built in the statehouse in opposition to courses that do not educate but “indoctrinate our children in liberal socialist ideologies.” The representative of one rural district has proposed that the Pledge of Allegiance “needs to ring out daily in the classrooms across our fair state, not merely in private schools, but in every single public school, and yes, in every community college and university as well!” She is in the process of proposing legislation that will ban any courses dealing with “social justice issues.” So much for high school courses in government, Wibbles suspects, or for the university’s departments of political science and sociology. And what might this good lady have to say of “the liberal arts”? She is also leading the campaign against “sex ed” in the public schools, as it “offers nothing less than a gateway to abortion clinics, rampant homosexuality, transsexualism, and permissiveness.”

TR wonders whether he would have been wise to leave the state upon retirement, but between the last months of the pandemic and Florence’s yearlong struggle with cancer, he found himself unable to act. Inertia? He recalls a scholarly essay on Hamlet in which the psychological term “apraxia” is employed—the inability to act. “What’ve you been doing with yourself?” his son Mark asked on the phone a week ago. “Marking time,” the professor said.

“You need to get away. Travel. Come on over for a few days. You haven’t seen your grandkids since Mom passed.”

He would think about that, Wibbles said. Of course, he would. And he’d consider driving down to Santa Fe to stay with Susan and her third husband, who owns an art gallery and is probably the best of the lot. But he hasn’t really thought about or considered doing anything of the sort. Between the pandemic and the loss of his wife, TR hasn’t gone much of anywhere. In fact, he has not even gone fishing to speak of in the past two or three years. It has been all he can manage to propel himself out the door to catch opening day on the streams, especially since his favorite stream has been compromised by RV encroachments and posted signs. “Damned Texans and Californicators buyin’ up the West,” swears the bartender in Carnell, his favorite post-angling waterhole. He sighs.

Wibbles recalls boasting to Flo after he retired about not missing the classroom and not even missing his beloved research. “Thought I’d miss all that,” he said, “but I don’t. I really don’t at all.” Florence had simply laughed. “You do too!”

He hadn’t pursued the argument. He rarely did, and on those rare occasions when he did stumble into debate with her, he almost always lost. She knew him too well. So, given what he has just agreed to do, TR concludes, point for Florence. Game, set, match, come to think of it. And he does play the tennis metaphor, which reminds him of their first date, arranged by Flo’s roommate at IU, a sultry June morning in Bloomington, 6-1, 6-4. Odd that he’d remember the scores. She’d eased up on him after that first set. They had played only two or three other times after that embarrassment.

A few nights later, having signed the one-year contract, the professor considers the possibilities for his courses the coming academic year, the opportunity to teach that one last graduate seminar, that one last advanced undergrad course in his beloved 17th century— Donne and Milton. He might divide the term evenly between them, maybe throw in a dash of Francis Bacon and Andrew Marvell, but what about good old Izaak Walton? One final shot at The Compleat Angler? Maybe he’ll toss in Walton’s little biographical sketch of Donne. But what about Sir Thomas Browne’s remarkable essay, Hydriotapahia, or Urn Burial, the finest piece of prose in that century and the grandest meditation on death ever penned in English? Well.

The professor, his mind on fire, finds himself leaving his bed at midnight and slipping into his office, where he has spent precious little time these past couple of years. First, that graduate seminar. He will spend the summer months cobbling together a course on the Faust theme that tempted him often over the years but that he felt “risky.” Will it fly? Are even the graduate students at good old Podunk up to the challenge? Well, he will assemble a reading list that will tempt even students in the struggling MFA program who over the years have elicited great reluctance to enlist in serious literature courses other than those devoted to contemporary writers. The seminar will start with Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and include the entirety of Goethe’s Faust, yes, even the second part, rarely if ever performed even in Germany these days, and yes, they will inquire into the libretto of Gounod’s opera. And Marie Corelli’s 1895 thriller, The Sorrows of Satan. Also, Mikhail Bulgakov’s darkly satiric Master and Margarita and Klaus Mann’s Nazi-era novel Mephisto, which deals with the actor Gustaf Gründgens, and he must bring in the 1981 movie. Yes! And the Irish novelist John Banville’s intricate little Mephisto, and for a surprise how about Louisa May Alcott’s 1877 novel, A Modern Mephistopheles? Well, no one will expect that! Maybe Sherman Alexie’s Reservation

Blues? Not too much of a stretch.

For what price might we barter our souls, he asks himself, as he will ask his seminarians? Certainly, politicians of the past few years have provided ample fodder. He prefers not to go there, but if vigorous class discussions take the seminarians in the direction of “social justice issues,” so be it. Given the one-and-done nature of the beast, he will feel free to take chances with this course, even though he is not a “chancy kind of guy.” His own self-descriptor. Professor Wibbles will enjoy this foray into controversy as much as he will delight in his indulgence of the poetry and prose of four centuries past, The Great Tradition. The ghosts of F.R. Leavis and Harold Bloom would applaud. From what he can tell, no one at Podunk U has taught British writers of any century earlier than the 19th, excepting Shakespeare, for more than seven years, when he offered a meagerly enrolled class on Milton he came to call “the Milton class from Hell.” No need to go there.

TR spends the summer months devoting himself to the construction of these two courses he will offer in the fall. During the spring semester, he will teach a survey course on British writers from 1750 to the present, “the present” in this case being Conrad’s Heart of Darkness or Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, maybe Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, toss in a couple of poems by Seamus Heaney. He will also get a last chance to teach his Hemingway course, an apt second ending to his career in the trenches. He considers his first last chance fell flat, a whimper of an ending rather than a triumphal bang. But for the courses he will present in the fall, he is erecting an “edifice,” as he sees it. An edifying edifice.

The professor recalls an incident early in his career when he was teaching Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, which he considers, without apology, to be a nearly perfect novel. “Doctor Wibbles,” a dark-haired girl (aka “young woman”) interrupted, “why are we reading this book?”

Taken off-guard, he had fumbled for les mots justes but with slight success. “It is almost universally regarded as one of the most important and best-written novels in the world,” he said with what he hoped was indisputable authority. “All-time,” he added emphatically.

“Well, I certainly don’t see why.” The young woman was adamant.

“To what do you object?” he asked, gritting his teeth and annoyed with himself for having forgotten the student’s name at this critical moment. He would like to have said, “To what, Miss _________, do you object.” Mumblings and mutterings from the class, suddenly transformed from passive indulgence or active disinterest to a committed if not enthusiastic state of revolt. Why indeed had they been compelled to read this book to which one of their kind, one of their own classmates, had so vociferously objected?

“I find this book to be utterly unedifying,” the complainant declared.

How had he responded? Oddly, while he can recall the event all too vividly, up to a point, he cannot bring back to mind what he said, but he thinks he may simply, lamely, have responded, “I’m sorry to hear that.” He knows he did not launch into a spirited defense of the novel, and now, all these years later, he regrets not having done so. Flaubert deserved better of him. And so, for that matter, did the recalcitrant Miss whatever-her-name-was.

“Spots of time,” he reflects, thinking back to a notable passage in Wordsworth’s long autobiographical poem, The Prelude:

There are in our existence spots of time, That with distinct pre-eminence retain A renovating virtue …

He once had more of that passage by heart. It has to do with the “healing powers of nature,” the capacity of such moments to cure confusion, indecision, apraxia (?), frustrating uncertainty, even depression. Depression. All his life Professor Wibbles has refused to yield to that condition. Not so Florence who, on occasion, would confess to feeling depressed and in the same instant simply shrug it off. “I don’t know,” she might say, “I was just feeling depressed yesterday.”

“I never feel depressed,” TR would foolishly aver.

“Of course, you do,” Flo would say. “But you’re a man, and when men feel depressed, they hide it by getting angry.”

This would open another subject for debate the professor knew he would have no chance of winning.

But this summer, buoyed by his excitement over the course preparations, TR experiences no hint of depression, so far as he can tell. Or anger, for that matter. And he goes fishing several times, even though he had on a few prior occasions declared to Florence and to himself that this fishing trip was going to be his last.

“This is it for me, Flo. Last time on the Logjam, or any other river.”

“Oh, Rollie, you’re such a liar.”

The fishing is not great, even when he drives the extra miles to hit the North Fork, but as he tells his friend and former colleague Walter Bagley, who retired three years before TR, “it soothes the soul.” Thinking here of the “renovating virtue” of fly fishing, whether one experiences much success or not. Walter casually mentions having gotten a call from Jenny Brooks a while back offering him a “gig” for the coming year, which he laughed off. “I told her ‘No way!’” Bagley says. “There’s no turning back.” TR confesses he has accepted the offer, “with mixed emotions,” he claims disingenuously. Walter laughs and tells him he’s crazy.

“Do you even know anyone in that department anymore? Anyone you actually like, that is?”

Wibbles explains his desire for a “last chance,” a second one, with the incentive of “doing it right this time,” and he outlines his plans for the Faust seminar.

“Hell,” Walter says, “that sounds like a great course. I think I’ll sign up.”

“Really?” TR says.

“No. I mean hell no! I think you’re nuts. Remember what Wolfe said.”

“Yeah, yeah—‘you can’t go home again.’”

“Guy knew whereof he writ.”

By the first of August, Wibbles has prepared syllabi (aka “syllabuses”) for both the 17th-century course and the Faust seminar. By the middle of that month, three weeks before the fall term is to begin, he is informed neither class has made. Jenny is sorry. The seminar very nearly enrolled the minimum ten now dictated by the administration, but the time slot he requested runs concurrent with a fiction writing workshop, and that likely explains why his seminar has attracted only seven, and that is truly regrettable, as the Faust course does sound very “enticing.” That’s Jenny’s word. “Enticing.” As to the 17th-century course, well, it, too, has fallen short of the minimum fifteen for a 400-level undergraduate course. It came down to a decision between his 17th-century course with ten enrolled or Tom Trask’s course on Postmodern Fiction, which has enrolled the maximum twenty. So.

The ostensibly “good” news is that Roland might split the overenrolled section of British lit survey, Beowulf to 1750. Jenny knows that course will be “old hat” to him. He can surely teach it with his metaphorical eyes shut tight. As to the seminar, well, that is “problematic,” but she has a ready solution if Roland is amenable. Since he retired, the English department has thrown in with “the folks at Comm and Journalism” to offer an emphasis in film-and-lit, and they “desperately need” someone to pick up the 400-level course in documentary film. He can do that, can’t he? She knows it’ll be a challenge, but she also knows Professor

Wibbles, or does he prefer “Doctor,” has always embraced a good challenge. He is renowned for his adaptability. She can line him up with the woman in Comm, Joan Trask (yes, Tom’s wife), who taught the course before but is now chairing that department and is teaching the popular film history course.

Wibbles congratulates himself for resisting the temptation to express outrage, instead opting for disappointment, and for agreeing to think about it, instead of agreeing to reject the challenge forthwith. But he cannot congratulate himself for deciding, after all, to “give it a shot.” Why? Why would he agree to such a preposterous proposition, or “alternative proposition,” as the case presents itself? Over drinks at the Quiet Place with Walter Bagley, TR expostulates: “Why shouldn’t they ask me to teach plant physiology or vertebrate anatomy? At least I’ve taken courses in botany and zoology.” This declaration leads them to a grousing session over the declining academic standards in all disciplines at Podunk U. The state legislature has recently announced another round of corporate tax cuts and of tax cuts for individuals, which will prove substantial for the well-to-do, mere pennies for hoi polloi, and which will require additional “belt tightening” at the state’s three universities.

The next day, preposterously enough, Prof Wibbles agrees to his revised teaching schedule, which includes assurances his courses for the spring term will remain as advertised along with the possibility he might try again to offer his Faust seminar in place of the survey course “if all goes well.” Jenny expresses her delight and hands him a key to a vacant office. His former office, situated on the first floor with corner windows, has been inherited by his old nemesis, Wilhelm Schiff, the department’s critical theory guru. TR commends himself for stifling a sigh at that news and resolves to spend minimal time on campus during the ensuing months. The new office is located on the third floor and the single window looks out over the rooftops of the wing that houses the departments of sociology and poli-sci.

Over the next three weeks, TR previews four or five dozen documentary films of every variety and reads through a pair of books on documentary films, including the third edition of Bill Nichols’s Introduction to Documentary, which he takes to be the standard text, and Patricia Aufderheide’s handy little volume, Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction. He watches Nova on three available public television channels devotedly and enjoys the docs more than he supposed he would. But he hasn’t the luxury of his customary preparation in depth.

Superficiality must sometimes suffice, he tells himself, not feeling good about it.

Lining up films from Nanook of the North to Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and the 2010 documentary on the war in Afghanistan, Restrepo, he feels only marginally like the phony he knows he will be. He has always enjoyed documentary films, but he has never studied them or thought of them as an academic discipline. His hurried inquiries into that field have been sufficient to prove to him without a doubt how little he knows about it. Nor can he celebrate the presumed wisdom of Socrates in knowing that he does not know. Knowledge of his ignorance, in the present circumstances, is not comforting, but daunting.

As the days slip past and the opening day of classes approaches, Professor Wibbles, despite his intense preparations, experiences the peculiar sensation, quite unusual for him, of not being up for it. If his dreams over the years have occasionally reflected incidents of classroom anxiety, his performances therein have been quite otherwise. Indeed, although his students often complain on his evaluations that he expects too much of them “readingwise,” as one student wrote several years back, and that his exams are “to hard,” they have always commended his Knowledge of the Subject (4.0 almost invariably).

The week before the term starts, he receives a roster for his Documentary Films class. Of the 28 enrolled, nine are public relations majors (PR), all but one of those being of the ostensibly gentler sex. Seven of the remaining eight will prove to be quite attractive and will array themselves in a clutch of desks to the upper right center from where his podium is fixed at the bottom of the small amphitheater intended for a population of ninety or so. The other students include only a couple in journalism, sad testimony to the decline and fall of the print newspaper in the United States (Podunk’s student paper among the recently fallen), and such diverse emphases as broadcasting & digital media, advertising, and film & television studies. Only two of his students are majoring in English with emphasis on film as lit.

Wibbles has prepared a two-page list of terms, most of them new to him, appropriate for the more-or-less technical discussion of film. He plans to examine eight or ten films in some detail, showing all or parts of them in class, thereby minimizing exposure of his ignorance. Squeeze two mid-length papers from each student, add a midterm and a final exam, and voila! He hopes. And “Hope,” after all, as Alexander Pope asserts in his Essay on Man of 1734, “springs eternal in the human breast: / Man never is, but always to be blest.” Wibbles plans to dwell on that poem when appropriate in the Brit lit survey in the spring, but when it comes to doc films, he feels confident he will not be “blest.” More likely, “curst.”

Only three days before that initial class meeting, after two nearly sleepless nights and one irksome teacherfrustration dream, does TR come up with what some mathematicians might call an “elegant solution” to the knotty and apparently unsolvable problem of doc films. So elegant is his solution, in fact, that most of the students are four weeks into the course before one of them asks why they have been assigned Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and how the 1967 film starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor can legitimately be described as a “documentary.”

The mountains rising behind the town of Stanley brought him to a stop. They looked like the open teeth of a bear trap. Tourist season was over and half the businesses had closed for the year. The sign said only forty-seven people lived there and with the mountains and river, the place was what he was looking for. Ketchum was fifty miles to the south.

He scouted around until dark then went into one of the town's two saloons, the shabbiest of the two, Casanova Jack's Rod and Gun Club. A few cowboys stood at the bar and paid him no attention when he walked in. He ordered a Budweiser.

The building was made out of logs. It was a big place and people didn't go there to act bored. The tables and chairs looked as if they had been in more than one brawl. Someone went out and left the door open. The warm air escaped like wild horses from a corral but everybody in the saloon ignored the cold air that replaced it, everybody but John. He started to shiver inside where nobody could see. The chill had hit him several times since a wreck on an autobahn in Germany in which he had almost died. He told himself it was the change in climate, the winter coming early to the high mountains, but he knew it was fear.

His eyes caught those of another man standing down at the end of the bar. They looked at one another for a moment then turned away. John found the man looking at him again a few moments later. Ever since that wreck. That fucking wreck. He told himself to relax, that there was nothing to worry about, but he couldn't help wonder if he was a coward and what he would do in war. That was more academic now than it had been while on maneuver with joint NATO forces. He was out of the Army. He was never going to war, and that also tormented him because he had been trained to lead men in battle and deep down he still wanted the chance to find out if he could do it. He wondered if he had gotten out of the Army too soon.

The girl working behind the bar finally closed the door. Then she started to lay a fire in the river rock fireplace. John was glad to see someone else was cold. The wood was stacked next to the fireplace and she had to split a piece for kindling. John went over to help her, not because he felt gallant but because he needed something to do. She was attacking the log as if she enjoyed splitting wood but would rather have been outside where she could take a full swing, and she gave up the axe when John asked if he could help. The log was part of an old fence post and had several knots but he worked on it and the bartender wadded up newspaper and covered it with the kindling as it fell off. For a moment, the saloon was transformed into a woodshed.

"That's enough," she said when John stood another log on the floor and wound up to whack it with the axe. "It'll burn."

"It better."

"The wood is pretty dry." She lit the paper and they stood there a moment watching the flames spread under the kindling. Then she went back to the bar. John listened to the flames hiss and waited for it to ignite the wood. The guy who had been watching him walked over but John knew he could handle it now. He was starting to feel warmer.

"Is it going to burn?" the man asked.

"I hope so. I'm cold as hell."

"You up here hunting?"

"No. I plan to do some fishing though. I just got here."

"I'm up here hunting. I haven't managed to get out yet," he laughed. He was big and drunk. "I haven't taken a vacation in two years. Where you from?"

"Seattle."

"Not much need for air conditioners there. I sell air conditioners in Boise."

John could hear the wood burning now, which made him feel even better. Just as he was about to do so, the bartender hurried over and threw on a couple of logs.

"Did you have any doubt?" she said triumphantly. John laughed. He liked her. He liked the big drunk guy he was talking to. He could feel the heat from the fire. As they talked about solar energy and air conditioners, John felt the tension start to unwind. The place was no longer so threatening. A hip looking dude and a young cowgirl walked in, ordered drinks and began playing pool. They were dirty, as if they had been out in the field, and they were having a good time. The girl was taller than her boyfriend, had thick blonde hair, and was most likely very striking when cleaned up. Hell, she already was. Another woman came in and joined them. She had dark hair and was also good looking but John could not tell if she was fat or pregnant. She stood at the bar and watched her friends shoot. John bought a Wild Turkey on the rocks. The first sip was always hard to swallow but got smoother with each successive taste.

"Do you play pool?" he asked his friend.

"Naw. Go ahead."

John walked over and asked the dark-haired woman if she wanted to play pool. There was another table but they teamed up and played the blonde and her boyfriend.

"My name's John."

"I'm Cindy," the dark haired woman said.

"My name is Sue," said the blonde. "How do you do?" she giggled drunkenly. John never did get her boyfriend's name but he shot good pool and John later learned that he was a musician. "We've been out hiking for a week," the blonde added.

"What are you doing up here?" Cindy asked.

"Fishing."

"Another fisherman.” She made it sound as if she had had her fill of them.

"I also plan on doing some writing."

"Oh really? What about?"

"The Army."

"Did you go to Vietnam?"

"No."

"The father of the child I'm carrying is a Vet."

Damn, John thought. She's got a man. And how can a man write about the Army if he has never been to war?

"Can I buy you a drink, Bruce?” Cindy asked. "John."

"I'm sorry. You won't remember my name in the morning. What are you drinking?"

They began to concentrate on the game.

"Yes, the six ball," Cindy said as John lined it up. Her tone of voice was intimate yet also bitchy enough to make him look at her before he shot. Their eyes met and they laughed silently. Then John drilled the shot, a difficult one into the side pocket.

"Nice," she said.

While lining up the next one, he laughed to himself how one moment he could feel so cold inside and the next moment so hot, then hit this shot too hard and scratched the cue ball. "Damn," he cussed, looking forward to watching her shoot. She handled herself well and was sensuous in a quiet, confident sort of way. Being pregnant also had something to do with it. When it was her turn, John wanted to come up behind her and run a hand through her long dark hair as it swung down and lay on the table.

"Are you still in the Army?" she asked when she was done.

"No. I just got out."

"Where were you stationed?"

"Germany mostly. I was over there for four years."

"That's a long time."

"Really. Coming back to the states is strange. I feel like an expatriate in my own country."

"Don't we all."

"So did you give up drinking for your baby?" he asked after a pause.

"Yes. I want to take care of it even though I'm not going to keep it."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm going to give it up for adoption. There is a couple that wants it and are welling to pay my expenses."

"What does the father think?"

"He doesn't like it. He wants to get married but I don't want my baby to suffer for my mistake. I figure the least I can do is take care of it while it's in me. That's what I'm doing up here."

After a few games, Sue and her boyfriend got tired of playing and started dancing to the jukebox. John and Cindy kept shooting.

"Why don't you just give it to the father?"

"Hell no! If I'm not going to keep it then I'm not going to let him have it either.” They both laughed. "He's been good about it though. He sends me money. That's how I can stay here."

"It sounds like he loves you."

"He does and I love him, but as a friend, not a husband. I can't see ruining all three of our lives by marrying him just because I made a dumb mistake. The baby will never know."

"Doesn't it bother you that you'll never know your child?"

"That's what I have to work out. That's why I have to talk about it."

John was impressed.

"What about you? What did you do in the Army?"

"I was a Company Commander."

"Sounds prestigious."

"If you consider being everything from a baby sitter to a marriage counselor prestigious," he laughed.

"Did you like it?"

"I liked my men. I liked the responsibility. We had a good unit and I liked watching it work. But I didn't care for the rest of the bullshit."

"What made you want to join the Army?"

"I went to West Point."

"Why?'"

It frustrated him she had gotten into him so easily, and since she had been honest about herself he decided to try and be equally as candid. "I wanted to go there. It was a challenge. There was a lot about it I didn't like but I couldn't leave once I was in. I didn't want to be a quitter. Now I don't know if it was worth it or not."

“But you miss it, don't you?"

"I guess so."

"Can you go back?"

"Sure, but I don't want to run back to the Army because I can't make it on the outside."

Cindy had to leave with her friends.

"Where are you staying?” John asked before she left.

"Sue and I are camped out in a tepee up Iron Creek."

"Doesn't that get cold?"

"It's starting to."

"I hope I see you again."

"If you hang around Stanley long enough, I'm sure you will."

They left and John finished getting drunk. Letting her slip away so easily like that made him want to see her again. It was more like a need to see her again. He drove up river to a campground and slept on the ground in his down sleeping bag. The following day he rented a cabin next to the river.

From where he sat and wrote he could raise his head, look out he window, and gaze at the mountains. He also watched the cattle on the other side of the river. Across the range on which they fed, pine forest skirted the granite mountains rising into the air like teeth. Fall was a good time to be up there. The locals relaxed and feasted on the refreshing bite in the air. There was the thrill of game to be had. In preparation for winter, windows had to be boarded and cattle trucked to lower ground. Everybody watched the first snows blanket the peaks, then melt, leaving the perennial snowfields bigger each time. Those who were going to stay got their firewood in. Winter was cold and lonely.

John found out right away that writing was going to be more difficult than he thought it would be. What he had to say was buried deep. He knew he had a story inside but clearing the debris away was going to take a long time. He had had this idea that writing was going to make him happy but that wasn’t the case. Perhaps he had read A Farewell To Arms too many times. He couldn’t get Hemingway’s voice out of his own, and neither did he know that most other males attempting to learn the craft had the same problem. Also, a book about West Point had just come out, a sensational book but one John did not like because he knew it was a cheap shot. He knew he had to dig deeper but then would anybody want to read about the Army the way he knew it? More than anything he wanted to be successful but success was supposed to make him feel happy. You really did have to be a heavyweight, he laughed early in the afternoon after sitting at the table all morning. The Salmon River had been flowing past his cabin all day, sounding like a big wave pulling back into the sea. It was time to go fishing. Because he covered a lot of river when he fished and would finish several miles up or downstream from where he had parked, he always hoped that Cindy would pick him up when he hitchhiked back, but she never did. The fishing was good though and John's father had taught him how to cast flies long before he had read the stories about Nick Adams.

In the first week there, he covered the Salmon twenty miles in both directions. The trips up and down river appeased his frustration about writing. By the time he got back to his cabin his brain was calm. If he didn’t buy dinner, he’d cook it then read the Boise paper. After that was over, he could no longer ignore the fact that sitting in the cabin was boring so he went to either the Rod and Gun or the Mountain Village. Fishing and trying to write did make the beer and whiskey taste good. Usually, he just sat in one of the two saloons alone as he listened to the cowboys and hoped Cindy would come in, again with no luck. That made him feel like an idiot because he knew he could damn well drive up to her tepee and ask her out.

One night while Casanova Jack was jamming solely for the half dozen men lining the bar, a drunk cowboy staggered up to John and accused him of being an FBI agent.

"What," John laughed? "You got to be kidding?"

"No, I'm not, and let me tell you something, partner, you’re gonna have a rough time in this town. My name is Paul Wyatt and nobody tells me what to do."

John suddenly got that cold feeling again. "I'm not an FBI agent," he said.

"We think you are. We're getting investigated, see, and we don't like federal agents poking around in our business."

"I’m just up here fishing."

"Just in case you are an undercover agent, let this be a warning to you. I'm pretty tough. I used to be a middleweight contender. Look at these hands, I love to tee off on people."

John looked at the man's hands. They were a mass of scar tissue from countless fights or encounters with barbed wire fences. Then he looked in the cowboy's eyes. They were mean eyes and John saw that Wyatt might be tough to beat but John held his look and made Wyatt stare into his eyes so he could tell Wyatt with them that Wyatt was the one who had better be careful.

"I'm telling you one last time, I'm no FBI agent.” He had to concentrate to speak slow. He was feeling paranoid and there was no telling what he might do.

"Don't get upset," Wyatt retreated. "I'm just warning you. I don't like nobody poking in my business."

John turned away. His adrenalin was flowing.

"Don't be sore. Let's shake and be friends.” There was as much play in Wyatt's voice as there was malice. John shook his hand and squeezed hard enough to let Wyatt feel some of the steel in him. At least the shaking was so deep it couldn't be seen or felt on the surface.

"Now that we're friends," Wyatt rebounded, "I don't like my friends betraying me. You better not betray me."

"Don't worry about it," John said and turned away again for good. When Wyatt wandered off to bullshit other people, John had another drink then left the saloon. The cowboy had hit a raw nerve. Going to West Point during the end of the Vietnam War had alienated him from the rest of society. He was a symbol of the establishment whether he wanted to be or not. West Point had drilled something into him that he would never be able to cover with long hair and a beard and John understood how he could be mistaken for an FBI agent. And what if something was going down? If all the cowboys thought the same as Wyatt, he probably was in for a rough time there in Stanley. His imagination got carried away. In the Army, he had been part of a machine, and being an officer insulated him even more. That is why he got out of the Army, to test himself with the rest of life and now that it was happening he realized he was alone. There was no unit in reserve. Even an FBI agent would be in touch with the greater organization. All John had were his own legs. He could run but knew he'd hate himself for doing that. He had to hold his ground. When he made that decision, he felt better and was able to go to sleep that night. No way was he going to get run out of town.

The next day he talked to the girl who worked in Jerry's Country Store and found out the town was getting investigated for not turning traffic fines over to the county. Was that just the tip of the iceberg, John wondered, and how did a drunken cowboy like Wyatt fit into it? Maybe he was a thug. Probably not though. Probably just a joker with nothing else to do. It was actually funny, John realized.

The next week, a few nights before the Hunter's Ball, Wyatt hassled John again as John was leaving the Mountain Village. The Mountain Village was completely different that the Rod and Gun. At the Mountain Village, gas burned in the fireplace instead of wood. The bar was a beautiful antique from a demolished hotel back east and record elk antlers hung on the walls. The regulars floated between the two saloons. Casanova Jack's had live music. Big Dick, the guy who ran the Mountain Village, had champagne Sundays, Monday Night Football, and videotaped movies. The Hunter's Ball was going to be at the Mountain Village and everybody was getting pumped for that.

John usually went home before the saloons closed but that night he had stayed after the movie. Wyatt was there too, sitting at one end of the bar with his cowboy buddies. After their first encounter, John realized that he was the stranger in town. As he had been watching them, they had been watching him.

When he left the saloon to go home, he took a piss on the wheel of his car before getting in. Wyatt came out and starting relieving himself next to his own ride, then he called John over. This time Wyatt accused him of being a narc, John was getting fed up with Wyatt. He stood there with his arms crossed on his chest and listened to Wyatt's bullshit. It wasn't much different than the other night. Paul Wyatt was tough and afraid of nothing. The poor fool had to be insecure to carry on like that and John resolved not to throw the first punch and reveal his own insecurity. When Wyatt took off his cowboy hat and unbuttoned his jacket as if he was getting down to business, John stood nonchalantly, hoping Wyatt would swing at him, but the cowboy never did. He told John it was Paul Wyatt's town and that nobody told Paul Wyatt what to do because Paul Wyatt did anything he wanted. Afterwards, when John sat in his jeep shivering, waiting for it to warm up, he knew he was not going to be able to turn his cheek again.

On the day of the Hunter's Ball, he wrote and went fishing as usual. Before showering and shaving, he did one hundred push-ups, fifty sit-ups, and cooked and ate a trout omelette. He dressed afterwards in his cleanest jeans and a Pendleton shirt an ex-girlfriend had given him for Christmas. He figured Cindy would be at the ball and he felt like a scoundrel for wearing the shirt but it was his favorite one. He felt good when he walked into the Mountain Village.

All the locals and every hunter within fifty miles was there, plus people from Boise, Twin Falls, and Ketchum. He found a place at the bar and ordered a shot of tequila. Big Dick bought him the first one. John drank it straight. The band sounded good and he recognized the drummer as the guy who had been with the blonde. He looked around and saw Cindy sitting with the blonde at a table across the room. Unable to take his eyes off Cindy for long, he managed to swallow another shot of tequila then ordered a beer. As he picked his way through the crowd, he had to pass a table full of the local cowboys. Wyatt was among them. Their eyes met but John wanted no part of Wyatt just then, and when he was just about to leave him behind, he heard Wyatt call out, "Now there goes the Lone Ranger."

John stopped. He was halfway to Cindy. He looked at her for a moment then turned around. All five of the cowboys were kicked back in their chairs looking at him. There was no smile on Wyatt's face or in his voice.

"What did you say?"

"I called you the Lone Ranger. I don't like strangers and I especially don't like FBI agents and narcs."

"Listen Wyatt, I'm tired of your bullshit."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"Come outside with me and I'll kick your ass."

There was a silence between the men that drowned out the band. Maybe it was the tequila but John was sick of Wyatt. Wyatt couldn't back out either. When the other four men stood up and followed him and Wyatt out, John knew he was in trouble. Could the lone wolf beat the pack of coyotes, he wondered, laughing dreadfully to himself.

In the parking lot, when he turned to face Wyatt, he immediately had to avoid a looping right. He had never been in a street fight but because of the condition of his body, the adrenalin in his blood and all the boxing he had done at West Point, he was able to step in and deliver a three-punch combination that knocked Wyatt out. Watching Wyatt buckle over made him feel good, but he wasn't able to admire his work for long. As soon as they recovered from their surprise, the other men started pounding on him.

He fought back with an anger he did not know he had, punching, kicking, butting wildly, always striking something since there were so many targets. Finally, they got organized and beat the hell out of him, and they didn’t stop until he slumped to the ground. At least he was able to watch them pick Wyatt up and carry him away.

Although it was well below freezing his insides were on fire and he sat on the ground with a dumb smile on his face as the blood trickled from his nose and lips. He felt awakened, not beaten, and it had taken four of them to do it. People going in and out of the saloon looked at him uneasily. Someone asked him if he was okay and he said he was fine. He felt better than he had in a long time. When he tried standing, the pain in his ribs forced him to lean against the front of a pickup. He stayed there looking at the moon. The stars were so bright and numerous that entire patterns of them were blinking in unison. The mountains glowed in the dark. He couldn't remember feeling more alive. Cindy came out of the saloon. He realized he had been waiting for her and he laughed quietly.

"What happened to you?" she asked.

"I got into a fight. They thought I was a narc."

"Aren't you?"

"Hell no."

"I thought you were. That's what everybody was saying. After telling you that I might sell my baby I thought you might bust me."

"You didn’t really say that but you were avoiding me?"

"I'm sorry. Can I help you?"

John caught himself before he said no.

That night he got to be the hero in the novel he wanted to write. He told her about himself as she cleaned his cuts and iced his bruises, and then he sat up, ran his fingers through her hair, and kissed her. She kissed him back then pulled her face away and looked at him long enough for John to think she was going to reject him. Next she smiled in a way that suggested that might not be the case.

"You know," said Cindy, "My midwife has been telling me I should find a lover, and I think it is time I follow her advice."

He had never made love to a pregnant woman and it suited his mood and condition. He followed her lead and went slow. When she fell asleep and he lay holding her, listening to the river hiss past the cabin, she turned in such a way that he could feel the baby kick. As he followed its movements with his hands on the outside of her belly, she murmured in her sleep. It made him wish that the child she carried was his.