Forever pt. 2

You may remember Forever hearing gunshots in the mountains and having the thought that he could become the hunted if he kept walking up into the mountains.

Being in the middle of nowhere, in the Serious Mountains, as his friend Michael Hannon likes to call them, he was surprised when a big white Ford pick-up truck with a US Govt. Law Enforcement stencil on the tailgate pulled up beside him.

"Goin in," the Ranger asked him, "or comin out?"

"Neither," I replied, taken aback by his youth, friendliness, and the fact that a federal employee seemed to be working in the midst of a governmental shutdown.

We chit-chatted for awhile. His name was Travis. He was working because he was tired of sitting around the house. "I'll get paid," he said, "I'm not worried about it."

I asked him if there were grizzly bears where I was going, pointing up into the mountains.

"Yep," he said. "Too many bears as a matter of fact.

Travis told of a hunter who'd killed an elk near dusk, could only carry out half the animal that night, leaving a rifle and a backpack near the kill, came back the next morning and found that the grizzly had buried the meat and his backpack.

"He had to wait 3 months to get his gear back--which included a pair of Swaroski binoculars worth about 2 grand," Travis said.
"The bear had buried it near the gut pack, and the hunter had to wait until the grizzly hibernated." The bear had even buried the rifle, Travis said, though the way he said it made the bear sound human to me.

Travis said a storm was coming in, snow was predicted. "Unless you're prepared for anything to happen, it might be wise to head on back to town."

We stood together, looking up into the mountains toward Forever. There was a sliver of light far away, surrounded by so many dark clouds the sliver looked like the sliver would lose its life in a matter of minutes.

As much as I wanted to keep walking into the mountains it was also true that I wasn't prepared for what was up there, and quite possibly never would be.