USFS 2019 — Part 3, Chapter 1

When I looked, I knew I might never again see so much of the earth so beautiful, the beautiful being something you know added to something you see, in a whole that is different from the sum of its parts.

Norman Maclean, “USFS 2019: The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the Sky”

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I saw that Glorified G’s enclosure was still empty once I could see the cabin. It had been as foggy as any morning in the dense interiors of the Olympics until the sun started breaking through the hazy water vapor. Because so much of my outside time that summer was in the trees, I so rarely needed sunglasses that I had stopped keeping them on me. I regretted it a little that morning, which had all the signs of a bright day to follow.

I stashed my pack and cooler in the cabin and did a quick walk-around. When I got back inside, I pulled the radio out of my pack and pressed transmit.

“Nine Oscar Three Six calling from the cabin.”

“‘Ground control to Major Tom, your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong.’ Four Three to Three Six. Over.” It had been Bridger. In addition to their shared morning constitutionals, Bridger and Ian sometimes insisted on using material from “Space Oddity” as a template for checking in on the government radio when there was nothing else to report.

“I’m about to start making the rounds. I haven’t seen any signs yet today from the big party that’s out here. I’ll holler if I see them. Just hit me if you guys hear about anything else I need to check out. Otherwise, I’ll buzz in again this evening. Three Six to Four Three.”

“I copy. Still no Glorified G out there? Four Three to Three Six.”

I said affirmative and signed off.

***

“What the fuck?” I stammered to myself, as I sat up in my bunk.

I rationalized that I must have just been dreaming about Glorified G because I’d woken up to something like the bleating of a split-hoofed ungulate. But there had also been handclaps again.

Though the squirrels and birds outside weren’t quite riotous yet, a few were vocal enough to suggest that dawn was well on its way, and the pseudo-dark outside also looked about right for that to be the case. Rather than go back to sleep, I decided to get up and start making oats.

The largest food storage unit in the cabin looked more like a hazmat cabinet than anything. It was entirely possible that the metal cabinet was indeed intended for that and the government had just gotten it as a backcountry food storage solution that was cheap and, most importantly, critter-proof. It did the trick and I took some pleasure in the fact that this was a kind of capitalism hack. I’m sure that somebody had already come up with some inferior design, billed it as animal-proof permanent food storage, and priced it for more than it was worth. I wasn’t sure how long the repurposed hazmat storage had been out here, but based on the most expired items in it, there was evidence dating it back to the early 80s.

There had been a time when I was an obsessive declutterer. Had that still been the case, the expired food situation was one of several things I’d encountered in my less than two months on the job that would have vexed me. I thought of the corn chip crumbs that littered the floor of Old Taco, which had recently received an honorable discharge from service and, last we heard, was on its way to a scrap metal yard near Aberdeen. Ian and I had mixed emotions about it, and were even kicking around the idea of taking a trip to visit Old Taco’s final resting place. I think we both knew that our unhealthy attachment to the piece of shit had been self-inflicted. Nobody else seemed too torn up about the development.

I had refilled the jar of oats in the food storage cabinet on the last trip out to the cabin with Bridger and Ian. It was lighter to carry bulk oats into the backcountry in a bag rather than a jar, so although the fill level of the oats inside changed as people came and went, the jar remained in its place between a stack of sardine tins from 1999 plastered to the shelf by some sticky film, and a jar of honey from Sequim—the latter of which I had also introduced to the cabin. But I correctly suspected I would have to bring out more honey before the weekly assessment schedule for the season concluded. Last time out with Bridger and Ian, I explained the concept of local honey as an allergy remedy, and they’d started doing a number on it. I didn’t recall either of them ever complaining about allergies, so I was surprised that they’d embraced the wisdom so ardently. I suspected it had something to do with a prepper mentality that I never quite connected with. I couldn’t relate to the urgency around rationing supplies and self-inoculating with survival as the end-goal. Unlike me, Bridger and Ian had no reservations about the idea of prolonging their stay on Earth if they could help it.

I dispensed some filtered water into a small pot and ignited the propane stove. I only realized how cold my fingers were when they stung from twisting the sharp edges of a plastic knob on the stove. I then noticed that I could see my breath. Though the Peninsula’s usual combo of fog and clouds blocked UV radiation and made for cooler days, it had an insulating effect at night. It’s why during darker days, there was little difference between daytime highs and overnight lows. The temperature difference was starker during lighter days.

I cracked the door of the wood stove to test what some oxygen would do for the fuel that smoldered overnight once I’d closed it up.

I thought I heard a bleating sound again. At that point, I thought it might have been the screechy wood stove. I emptied some oats into the water and reduced the heat. I put on an extra layer and a beanie, preparing to step outside to inspect. I hesitated before opening the door, and grabbed one of the cans of bear spray I had brought out early in the summer.

Bear spray was another thing Bridger and I were on the same page about that Ian regarded with skepticism. It was a good deterrent that, when discharged at the proper range, reliably worked on anything with sinuses—including rapey people. But almost every other mammal had more sensitive sinuses than humans did. I grabbed the spray, slid my feet into a pair of all-weather boots we kept at the cabin and all used for quick passages in and out. I had put my headlamp over my hat out of habit even though it was light enough out that I didn’t need it.

In fact, it was light enough that I could see, plainly, that there was something back in the enclosure. But it looked unlike Glorified G in that it was smaller. Noticing me, the goat started for the fence. I could see its breath in the mist as it loped. Was I hallucinating? I was tempted to discharge the spray, not to deter the goat, but to see if it had any effect on me and my surroundings. I quickly ruled out that idea though. There had to be a way of testing whether this was lucid reality that didn’t involve wasting our only canister of Counter Assault.

I instead went back inside and grabbed an apple out of the bag of non-scented food and toiletries I had hung on a hook screwed into one of the overhead beams in the cabin. I went back outside and offered the apple to the goat. Unless all angora goats had an identical uneven jawline set in a permanent stoned grin, it was in fact Glorified G. He looked smaller than I remembered because he’d been sheared.

Once he’d gotten a good grip on the apple with his teeth, he proceeded to wolf it down. The apple handoff calmed me insofar as it felt like a decent test of both my cognitive liberty and Glorified G’s. And I definitely felt some relief having another sentient creature near the cabin to attribute ambiguous noises to. But the gate to Glorified G’s enclosure was still latched. Not knowing how Glorified G had gotten out and back in made it hard to relax completely.

I sized the goat up as he polished off the last bits of apple. He had never done anything suggesting he possessed the constitution to jump the fence without clotheslining himself and taking down the fence in the process. But there were plenty of ungulates—bison and elk included—that I knew to be deceptively spry and capable of rising to the occasion with sufficient motivation. But even if Glorified G possessed the get-up-and-go to clear a fence that came up to my chest, it seemed some of his pre-sheared mohair would have to catch on the way out. I didn’t see any tufts lodged in any section of fence.

I was almost positive that I had some legal obligation to the federal government to report on anything of theirs presumed missing that had reappeared. But I was kind of afraid that would jinx it. If Glorified G got out again, nobody would take me seriously. I thought about finding something in the cabin to tie him up with. But securing the goat would do nothing to explain how Glorified G had managed to pass in and out theretofore. Also, Glorified G had some impressive teeth. I wouldn’t put it past him to chew through a MacGyvered harness if he was determined.

I strained for an explanation for the goat’s comings and goings to no avail. That there had ever been a goat out there to begin with was absurd. Out of frustration, I yelled at the goat, “Why are you even out here?” I felt a little bad when I could tell it had spooked Glorified G, who lifted his head from the leaked apple juice he was licking from the grass and retreated with a few backward steps. Then there were handclaps again.

“Fuck that!” Yelling those words when something made me jump was a reflex I had picked up from my brother the one year of high school we overlapped. It had been a long time since something had startled me enough to bring out that useless primal reflex.

I did my best to compose myself and do a 360-degree scan of the area around the cabin. I wasn’t convinced that I was being pranked by a coworker or one of the Squatchers so much as I hoped that that was the case. Even if I thought the execution had been cruel, at least it would explain everything.

In every direction, there were about 50 yards between the cabin and where the tree stands began and continued for miles. I was facing the cabin but still closest to Glorified G’s enclosure just steps from the door. The outhouse was about midway between the cabin and the clearing to the left. The birds and squirrels had gotten more vocal. I could hear the faint hum of the stream that we filtered water from about 30 yards behind me.

There was clapping again. I thought it came from my right. I turned my head only quickly enough to see something move and disappear into the trees. I heard one last sound—not a furry quadruped sound, but a vocalization. That was it. I staggered back a few steps, my back eventually finding the fence of Glorified G’s enclosure again.

Whatever had gone off in the trees was bipedal. And fucking massive.

I hadn’t noticed I was holding my breath until my vision started to cloud. There was a crosswind as I inhaled, which wafted a sour and sulfuric odor—some cross between Yellowstone’s Mudvolcano area, the fishy smell of eggs long past their prime, and dogshit.

Where was Glorified G with all of this? I was half-prepared to turn around and see the enclosure once again empty, desperate for some semblance of a cause-effect relationship to at least establish a recognizable pattern. Glorified G was not only still in the enclosure grazing, but apparently unperturbed

Maybe the goat just periodically excused himself to forage for psilocybin and that was the secret to his serenity in the face of stimuli that would make any other observor’s bowels vacate. That bit when I accosted him seemed to upset him momentarily. But I’d immediately thought that was mean and unnecessarily aggressive, and he seemed fine otherwise.

The whole goat situation was confounding. I watched him incline his neck to gnaw at an itch on one of his front legs with that epic jaw of his. Walking back to the cabin, I thought of Elliott remarking on how cool I had been about scattering Dad’s ashes on Borah. That coolness had eluded me entirely that early July day when Glorified G returned. If the goat was unaffected by everything because he was tripping, I thought I might be willing to go against my better judgment and risk a bad trip to get on his level and get through the remaining days of that hitch.

***

I stared at the government radio the day before I was set to pack out. I didn’t know what for. It was a synthetic collection of material compounds, not a magic eight ball. It couldn’t talk me out of reporting Glorified G’s reappearance if that’s what I wanted.

It was past the golden hour, but still light enough outside that I could make out a silhouette in the shape of the now-sheared Glorified G in his enclosure. Time would tell if the goat had any kind of travel plans for that night. The last few days since the morning of Glorified G’s reappearance had been otherwise uneventful, which made it worse. It made the day of Glorified G’s return feel phantasmagoric. I had no reason to believe that my tripping Glorified G theory was credible, but I wondered if there was any precedent for vicariously altered states of consciousness.

The one thing that would’ve made me feel somewhat moored in time and space would be something that, not 96 hours prior, I would’ve been most keen to avoid: a run-in with the Squatchers. Now, something about the idea of having a real-time interaction with other human beings seemed like it would be legitimizing in a way I didn’t often miss. I was getting a taste of a complication in my insistent program of isolation. When life got surreal, material reality was tougher to gauge without the help of another human being. I’d always thought that this whole society thing humans had devised was some strange sorcery. But I’d also heard it said that humans are the only animals that don’t think they’re animals—that is, like most animals, we aren’t wired to go it alone. That notion seemed to assert itself with special force as I was debating whether to report Glorified G. He’d stayed through the day. And provided I hadn’t been hallucinating the whole time, it seemed just as probable as not that he’d stick around. I thought about ways that I might bribe him, but doubted I could bear a significant influence on the goat’s opaque intentions even if I had all the carrots and apples in the world.

I picked the radio up and pushed the transmit button.

“Nine Oscar Three Six.”

“One Eight here.”

“Hey, Russ. Anything from your end before I power down for the night?”

“Nothing to write porn about.”

Humor from Russ on the government radio. That was a first. I laughed.

“Anything on your end, Three Six?”

“Yeah,” I drew it out and hesitated but continued to hold down the transmit button. “Glorified G came back.”

“No shit. Did he just come back?”

“Negative, One Eight. He was here when I woke up Tuesday morning. I honestly didn’t say anything sooner because I thought I was hallucinating.” I figured it was best to leave out the more compulsive excuses detailing my fear of: a.) reporting Glorified G’s reappearance only so he could disappear again, b.) going on the record with a hallucination, or c.) a combo of the two scenarios.

“That goat being back will have some folks at admin happy.”

I sorely wanted to know if the goat had a known history of disappearance. Maybe I was just the first person to witness his passage. I thought it bizarre that they didn’t collar the creature for tracking since he was government property. But that was just the latest questionable oversight I had noticed in this particular pocket of USFS-managed land. The night that Ben, Bridger, Ian, and I stayed up talking at the Rain Shadow, I asked if they also thought it was strange and irresponsible that they let us do solo assessments as a standard. They all felt the same way and hadn’t worked in any other park, forest, or wilderness area that allowed that with seasonals. Still, knowing there was a poor management variable on the table didn’t make me feel less uneasy. Even when I didn’t actively do anything wrong, being responsible for something I couldn’t control never sat great with me.

“Well, that’s all I got from here, One Eight. Anything else from you?”

“Negative. Good night, Three Six.”

“Night. See you tomorrow. Nine Oscar Three Six to One Eight. Clear.”