A few days before he left the desert for Fort Worth to meet the Buckneys, Hatchet had run several miles south of his camp. He scrambled up a talus slope and over a Chilicotal cliff if only to catch one last glimpse at some distant worm-like formations burrowing through the hazy landscape stretching into Mexico. His heart ached, realizing the position of the sun and the impending twilight. As he began the slow decline down Chilicotal's spine that would lead him back to Rice Tank, a rumble came from a prominent bundle of black stone cubes near the deadly drop to his left. The soft rumble of padded feet. He stopped in fear to peer through a mess of bramble and lechuguilla. At fifty feet, the cat was all paws and blond girth, huffing with each swat as it beat out a dance of death against the yellow earth. Hatchet stumbled as he shuffled backward, trying to remove the folding tonto blade from his belt, aware it was no viable defense against this beast. Then Hatchet abruptly stood still and tall with his hands high above him, somehow remembering the park's counterintuitive instructions on what to do when faced with a lion. The cat stopped as if met with an invisible barrier.
The two held their positions, both creatures shaking with respective amounts of volatile adrenaline soaking their systems. Hatchet stood shirtless and sweating in electric connection with the beast as a transcendent aura gripped the air. The cat's golden irises, halved by the shadowy sockets below its black ears, schemed at Hatchet's gaze as if a war of vision had begun between them. Hatchet stretched one of his bare feet in reverse across brittle tips of the tiny grass below him as knotted ropes of long muscles rippled in the cat's neck and shoulders. Then Hatchet moved his other foot and backed farther down the spine of the mountain. Once he had moved a mere twenty or so feet, the cougar lowered his body until it dragged the ground and shuffled several yards in Hatchet's direction. A loud bark from Hatchet's throat surprised both Hatchet and the cat and the animal froze again, its tail whipping into an angry plexus behind it.
Hatchet marveled at the stark lines in the beast's face and the arrow tip of its pink snout. He could hear it purring. He felt the transference of it through the membrane of soil between them. Hatchet barked again but the animal gave him no more reaction than a simple half blink from one of its shimmering eyes. Again, he willed his limbs into reverse and wove distance between predator and prey and again the beast devoured his gains until Hatchet screamed. The cat growled, pumping its hind legs like pistons and Hatchet could feel the planchet of time dilate and bubble around them as if this were the last of struggles, the last confrontation, the end of all things. Like a spark, a powerful wadding began flexing and growing inside his chest and it spun like any dust devil. The twisting pillar ricocheted through his trunk and burst forth from his mouth and rattled through his arms and legs and fingers and toes and the cat backpedaled to open its fearsome jaws and hiss in wide-eyed stultified expression. A palpable peripeteia had occurred. Hatchet lashed his arms at the cat and made a sudden and defiant lunge forward, forcing the lion to reel to one side and edge several yards back up the mountain only to stop again in crouched anger, gifting Hatchet a cry as only a cat of its size can.
With more confidence now, Hatchet clenched the knife handle and held it in the direction of the cougar as he began the awkward backward trek across the rocks and plants to a crumbling cliff edge. He stole a glance over his shoulder at the drop. I can make that. Then he locked onto the cat again who had risen back to the full length of his beefy legs, in the start of a flanking stride across the smooth decline that mellowed to another deadly hundred-foot fall down the eastern shadow of the mountain. Hatchet spun on the balls of his feet and made the leap to a flat-topped rock still a dangerous distance from solid ground. Catching the blur of the cat along the towering edge of the cliff, he made the drop to the scattered prickly pear and loose stones and ran. Gravity tugging at every stride, jarring him with every footfall, he bolted down the mountain, thinking as much about the open knife in his hand as the hungry predator giving chase.
Later, much later, he would scoff at his next few thoughts as he sailed through rock piles and across slanted escarpments. If you catch up to me, I'll kill you, Hatchet told himself. If you get anywhere as close to me as you did at the top, you dumb cat, I will kill you, you mutherfucker! An attempt at sighting the lion over his shoulder proved impossible with his speed and the terrain so he stopped. Heaving, his heartbeat pulsing in his ears, he turned to scan the mountain. If the cat was there, it was either far behind or hiding. If the cat was hiding, Hatchet felt he had the advantage so he pointed back down the mountain and began running again at a lighter pace until he came within sight of his truck, just a white sparkle in the dusky distance far below.
Finally, he found a large boulder and sat to catch his breath, the feeble blade shivering in his wet grip, his limbs sizzling. He could find no trace of the animal on the vast sloping grade. Even though he knew this had no bearing on whether the cat was still there, he felt safe. He felt victorious. Lessons are easy to find in the face of death. He recalled Edward Abbey and the hope that vultures gain in the reality that life and death are bizarre mirror images of one another no matter how far removed one might be from the hunger of wild cats. He no longer felt the weight of Woody Hightower's overdose. Woody was dead long before his heart cracked open in that elevator. Poole had tried to warn him.
That night, Hatchet dreamt the cougar defending his broken and eviscerated body against a wake of squawking vultures on the peak of the mountain.
The two held their positions, both creatures shaking with respective amounts of volatile adrenaline soaking their systems. Hatchet stood shirtless and sweating in electric connection with the beast as a transcendent aura gripped the air. The cat's golden irises, halved by the shadowy sockets below its black ears, schemed at Hatchet's gaze as if a war of vision had begun between them. Hatchet stretched one of his bare feet in reverse across brittle tips of the tiny grass below him as knotted ropes of long muscles rippled in the cat's neck and shoulders. Then Hatchet moved his other foot and backed farther down the spine of the mountain. Once he had moved a mere twenty or so feet, the cougar lowered his body until it dragged the ground and shuffled several yards in Hatchet's direction. A loud bark from Hatchet's throat surprised both Hatchet and the cat and the animal froze again, its tail whipping into an angry plexus behind it.
Hatchet marveled at the stark lines in the beast's face and the arrow tip of its pink snout. He could hear it purring. He felt the transference of it through the membrane of soil between them. Hatchet barked again but the animal gave him no more reaction than a simple half blink from one of its shimmering eyes. Again, he willed his limbs into reverse and wove distance between predator and prey and again the beast devoured his gains until Hatchet screamed. The cat growled, pumping its hind legs like pistons and Hatchet could feel the planchet of time dilate and bubble around them as if this were the last of struggles, the last confrontation, the end of all things. Like a spark, a powerful wadding began flexing and growing inside his chest and it spun like any dust devil. The twisting pillar ricocheted through his trunk and burst forth from his mouth and rattled through his arms and legs and fingers and toes and the cat backpedaled to open its fearsome jaws and hiss in wide-eyed stultified expression. A palpable peripeteia had occurred. Hatchet lashed his arms at the cat and made a sudden and defiant lunge forward, forcing the lion to reel to one side and edge several yards back up the mountain only to stop again in crouched anger, gifting Hatchet a cry as only a cat of its size can.
With more confidence now, Hatchet clenched the knife handle and held it in the direction of the cougar as he began the awkward backward trek across the rocks and plants to a crumbling cliff edge. He stole a glance over his shoulder at the drop. I can make that. Then he locked onto the cat again who had risen back to the full length of his beefy legs, in the start of a flanking stride across the smooth decline that mellowed to another deadly hundred-foot fall down the eastern shadow of the mountain. Hatchet spun on the balls of his feet and made the leap to a flat-topped rock still a dangerous distance from solid ground. Catching the blur of the cat along the towering edge of the cliff, he made the drop to the scattered prickly pear and loose stones and ran. Gravity tugging at every stride, jarring him with every footfall, he bolted down the mountain, thinking as much about the open knife in his hand as the hungry predator giving chase.
Later, much later, he would scoff at his next few thoughts as he sailed through rock piles and across slanted escarpments. If you catch up to me, I'll kill you, Hatchet told himself. If you get anywhere as close to me as you did at the top, you dumb cat, I will kill you, you mutherfucker! An attempt at sighting the lion over his shoulder proved impossible with his speed and the terrain so he stopped. Heaving, his heartbeat pulsing in his ears, he turned to scan the mountain. If the cat was there, it was either far behind or hiding. If the cat was hiding, Hatchet felt he had the advantage so he pointed back down the mountain and began running again at a lighter pace until he came within sight of his truck, just a white sparkle in the dusky distance far below.
Finally, he found a large boulder and sat to catch his breath, the feeble blade shivering in his wet grip, his limbs sizzling. He could find no trace of the animal on the vast sloping grade. Even though he knew this had no bearing on whether the cat was still there, he felt safe. He felt victorious. Lessons are easy to find in the face of death. He recalled Edward Abbey and the hope that vultures gain in the reality that life and death are bizarre mirror images of one another no matter how far removed one might be from the hunger of wild cats. He no longer felt the weight of Woody Hightower's overdose. Woody was dead long before his heart cracked open in that elevator. Poole had tried to warn him.
That night, Hatchet dreamt the cougar defending his broken and eviscerated body against a wake of squawking vultures on the peak of the mountain.
Edit 11.25.2018