The Country Ahead of Us, the Country Behind by David Guterson Page A

tell me the truth. I want you to think hard for a minute here and tell me what the truth is.”
    “Okay!” Lane answered.
    “Good.” Tumpline saluted for some reason, snapping it off his forehead so that the salute ended two feet in front of his eyes. “Very good. Excellent. I can see you want to cooperate.It makes me feel good when I see that.”
    He double-stepped in a sort of dance around the firepit and crashed down on the ground next to Lane.
    “Little Big Guy,” he began, “you are my friend. Don’t ever forget that. I don’t want you ever to forget that.”
    “Okay,” Lane said.
    “Okay?” asked Tumpline. “Okay. Now listen. It makes me feel good to sit here next to you. It makes me feel I can trust you—do you know what I mean? Don’t answer that. Just sit there. Don’t even think about moving. Just answer my question. I need you to answer me. I need the truth , for once. I need to know where the fish are up here. I need your knowledge, everything you know, Little Big Guy. Don’t hide it from me. Don’t be selfish, good buddy, share it. Be cool. Tell me what I need to know.”
    “I don’t know anything, though,” Lane whimpered.
    Tumpline slapped his forehead. “I’m disappointed in you,” he said gravely. “I’m very, very disappointed in you.”
    He rose and stepped away from us like a man who’s been bitten by a snake, then turned suddenly beneath the silent firs.
    “Leave me alone,” he cursed us now, his eyes bubbling and strange. “All of you. I mean it. I have to think this all through … what I’m going to do and everything. There are big, big decisions to be made. You haven’t heard the last of me, you assholes.”
    “Shut up,” the blond one said coolly.
    Tumpline stumbled away toward the lake. When I turned to check on Lane he stared back wildly, his face shimmering with addled blood.
    “Everything’s okay,” I told him.
    The blond one unzipped a side pocket on his pack andbrought out a tin of Copenhagen. He tamped a chew in against his gums, then leaned back again with his hands behind the base of his neck.
    “Don’t mind Mickey,” he told us. “His brain don’t work right anymore.”
    “All right,” I said.
    “I know the dude,” he said through his chew. “He got his mind blown—can’t think straight anymore—but he ain’t dangerous. Sometimes you just have to put up with this shit from him, that’s all.”
    “Sure,” I said.
    “It’s a waiting game is all,” the blond hunter went on. “When he gets done fucking around here he’s gonna be ready to hunt …”
    He spit, a five-foot riser that cleared the ends of his boots and clapped the dirt in front of him like a shard of buckshot. “What did you say your name was?”
    “Roy.”
    “You didn’t catch no fish?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Maybe you ain’t much of a fisherman.”
    “I’m not,” I said.
    “Shit,” the blond hunter said. “It ain’t got nothing to do with you.”
    He picked up his gun now, and rubbed circles with the ball of his thumb across the oiled stock. He seemed to have forgotten us suddenly. The fat one, swinging my rod between the trees, appeared lost in a world of his own conjuring. He cocked his wrist, casting laterally, his belly rolling like a wave beneath his T-shirt, the rod tip jumping and then stiffening at the peak of its arc. Occasionally he would stop and casually massage and knead his breasts, or touch hisbelly knowingly, or paste his hair against his forehead, running his hand over his cheeks as if to gauge the extent of their fatness. He ignored everything—us, the forest, the blond hunter lolling on his pack and spitting chew—absorbed in his body and my rod.
    I stripped off my wet socks and draped them over the biggest of the stones that ringed the firepit. Then, barefoot, I tidied up the camp. I stowed my daypack inside the tent and zipped the mosquito netting over it. I closed the tent flaps. I stuffed some sardine tins and soup packages and the