Snapper by Brian Kimberling

Author:Brian Kimberling [Kimberling, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-90806-3
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2013-04-22T16:00:00+00:00

VIII

How Do

I was in the forest as usual when I encountered a hunter.

“How do,” he said. I hadn’t heard that greeting in years, except passing ironically through my own lips. We had come face-to-face in a deep ravine and could not continue without making way for each other. He was about my size but twenty years older, with a pockmarked gray face, greasy gray-brown hair, and a wiry frame.

“Pretty good,” I said, stepping aside. “Seen anything worth shooting?”

He stayed where he was and glanced at the strap holding his rifle over his right shoulder. One side of his face seemed to be higher than the other, though I couldn’t have said which—only that a sort of oblique fracture ran from his forehead through his nose to his chin. Whether it inclined left or right would need careful measurement, but the effect was that it was surprising when both eyes blinked simultaneously, when he spoke with both sides of his mouth.

“No,” he said. “I carry this just in case but you don’t see much these days.”

He was wrong. I frightened deer and flushed foxes every half hour some days. But saying so might seem insulting.

“I don’t even bring my skinning knife anymore,” he added. “Rifle’s mostly for devil dogs.” He meant coyotes, and I liked them.

“Good luck,” I said, and made to squeeze past.

“What I’m really after,” he said quickly, his brown eyes in a wild, almost bovine flush, “is morels. They went for twelve dollars a pound last year in town. If I wanted to shoot shit I prolly woulda brought the shotgun.”

“Afraid you’re not the only one looking,” I said. I always meant to collect them myself; twelve dollars a pound is an attractive proposition to a man on birdwatcher’s pay. But those morels also drew expeditions of gourmands and hippies, so you’d have to gather quickly.

“I know,” he said, “but you look like you might know where to find them.”

“I’m not a ranger,” I said.

“I can see that. Ranger wears a uniform. You’re wearing three coats of mud and a couple of Christmas wreaths.”

I laughed. “I study birds,” I said. “I don’t know much about morels except they grow best after a forest fire, and fortunately we haven’t had one of those.”

“You must spend a lot of time out here,” he said.

“Yeah, I do.”

“So you could at least tell me where you’ve seen people searching for morels.”

Any direction would do. I pointed vaguely east.

“But now does that mean I should follow them since that’s where the morels are at? Or does that mean they’ve already cleaned that quadrant out?”

“You might scare them if you follow,” I said.

“Why’s that?”

“Most mushroom pickers don’t carry guns.”

He laughed, with yellow inconsecutive teeth.

“Mushroom ain’t got much defense,” he said. I couldn’t help picturing him taking aim at an unsuspecting fungus.

“You could come with me,” he added. “They’ll never see you coming. Them other mushroomers. They might smell you, though.” He clapped my shoulder and grinned.

“I’m afraid I have work to do,” I said.

“Don’t they have birds where the morels is at?”

“Yeah, but not my birds.

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