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The Judge

By Steve Passey

The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariots?
– Judges 5:28

The man walked the line cabins in the far north and fished and hunted and trapped and panned a little too, and went to town twice a year for ammunition, coffee, Tannerite and to buy acid. The Tannerite was to blow up beaver dams, should they block the streams and flood the cabins, and the acid to enjoy both the solitude and the borealis a little bit more. The beaver carcasses could be left to freeze and once frozen, quartered with a chainsaw and then sold to the sled dog men, if any were around. Beaver carcass is fatty and rich in vitamins. The dogs love it. Men will pay. Money buys Tannerite and acid and the other necessaries of life.

Sometimes, in panning or after the Tannerite had reordered the stream beds, he found some gold, but never much. He enjoyed that little bit of gold like luckier men enjoy love.

The man caught some fish one day, and after filleting them he brined them while he wicked up a smoker made of tree limbs and sheets of birchbark. He stoked a fire from wood shavings and the embers of the hearth in the line cabin in this wicked-up smoker and put a skewer of brined fish in to season and then he undressed save for his boots and hung the rest of his clothes up to freshen in the wind. He dropped one tab of acid and sat there, naked except for his boots, until the sunset came and the smell of the smoking fish with their beautiful pellicle from the brine told him they were five minutes from being done. It was then the sasquatch appeared, a great dark shape, long-limbed and swift, an agile shadow come to this place on the last light of a setting sun, and it took the skewer of fish from the smoker and strode off with it.

The man leapt to his feet and ran after the monster, yelling. Hey hey hey he shouted, come back with my fish.

He had, at one point almost caught the last shadow of the sasquatch as it strode through the brush, trees cracking and groaning in its wake, but it lengthened its stride and went uphill through thick brush and the boughs and briars in its passage snapped back at the man in its trail and scourged him, bloodying him like a penitent, but with malice, and the man lagged behind and then finally had to stop. The sasquatch was gone.

Goddamn, the man said, once he caught his breath. No one will ever believe me.

The acid, the thought. He might have made the mistake of letting it lead. With acid you want to walk hand-in-hand, let it show you what it sees, but you cannot let it lead. You have to set the path, the pace. It’ll make you follow when it runs. Hand-in-hand, or It’ll drag you.

A few days later he caught more fish, and, having cleaned the fillets of every last microbe of botulism in the cold, running water of the stream, brined the filets again and relit his makeshift smoker. The fire lit, the man took two pounds of Tannerite, all he had, and set it against a large rock ten or fifteen yards past the smoker. He wedged it in tightly, and thought that because of the slight offset of angle the stone had to he and the smoker, he might shoot it to discharge the explosion in the direction of the smoker and the one come to steal the fish, but miss the line-cabin. This time, instead of dropping acid and stripping to his boots to await the finish of the smoking process, he took his rifle and leveraged himself on to the top of the roof of the line cabin, there to lie low and to await whatever might come so that he could shoot it. Nothing came, and in due course he turned onto his back to gaze at the firmament. There, a million miles away, he chanced to set his eye upon a star, of a hue and color he had never seen before, and he marveled that of all the objects of celestial light that he had looked up on all of the nights he’d had, he should have missed this one. Before he slept, he conceded that he might possibly miss more than he saw, and in the thinking of it there passed an emotion in him akin to wisdom, or at least the emotion that passes through people of a certain age when they believe that, just this once, they might be absolutely right.

Weeks later there were more fish, and two tabs of acid, and the man sat in a folding chair in ill-repair outside the line-cabin naked except for boots again with his rifle across his lap watching the borealis – listening it to it too – for at the latitude of that perch upon the mountain the borealis can indeed be heard – when again, the Sasquatch came and with his long strides and purpose in his grasp, took the fish.

Two tabs of acid or not the man’s aim was true and the crack of the rifle was seconded by the fantastic explosion of the Tannerite that blew the stone backing it into shreds too small to make gravel, obliviated the smoker and its contents until all that remained was the smell of ash and fish, and took the left arm of the sasquatch off just below the shoulder leaving it several yards aft of where the Sasquatch had first appeared, in a bloody clump upon the rocky ground. The sasquatch walked in darting circles, first one way, then the other, like a child watching a dime roll on the pavement and being unable to pick it up by any position that they could think themselves into, the mathematics of their thoughts too slow for the physics. At last, the Sasquatch saw his arm, walked over, picked it up, and limped uphill into the brush with a terrible wail.

The man, allowing himself only a half-smile in triumph, walked into the woods behind the sasquatch, his rifle at hand, booted but naked otherwise. He followed at a close, for this time the Sasquatch’s battered mass didn’t have the impetus to bend the tree branches back to slap at the man, nor could it tread the briars into the ground to spring back up to lay their thorns upon the man and bite at him to cut little cuts like paper does, the pain out of proportion to the wound. The only mark upon the man was in the center of his forehead where a tiny fragment of exploded stone had half-embedded itself and two lines of dark red blood ran down the man’s furrowed brow and separated at the bridged of his nose then ran into his beard and disappeared for a brief time before funneling again back out the matted hair in a single series of drops. The Sasquatch stumbled and lurched. The man followed with deliberate steps. At one point the Sasquatch defecated while it reeled forward and the smell of its orange and black feces was a reeking miasma that set the nested birds to flight and the searching voles to their burrows and it stuck to the unfortunate monster’s fur and the man, by the stench, could have followed it in the dark if there had been no light, but the borealis danced and the light of it was strong enough to cast their shadows by.

Finally, the sasquatch broke the tree line and walked up the scree of the mountain until he found a large boulder, where he sat down to lean with his back against it, holding his severed arm across his lap.

The man, in those last few steps, and walked right behind the sasquatch, rifled and two-armed and not afraid of anything in God’s creation or out of it.

The two, the sasquatch dying and uncomfortable against the cold stone of the primordial, and the man, standing in his boots, were silent with each other. Each rested his breath.

Finally, the Sasquatch spoke.

What is the worst thing that ever happened to you, the sasquatch asked the man.

The man thought a long while before answering.

Many years ago, a woman I loved, or wanted to love, the man said, took me to bar. In the basement of the bar there was a ring of women, and in the center of the room two women fought. It was an event, a ceremony, a rite, a celebration of the violence that lives in all women. Men do not fight like that. Men have rules for their conduct in such events. Those two women fought, bloody nosed, their shirts torn, until one fell and could not get up. The winner walked a circle around the floor with both fists in the air and one breast exposed, her shirt rent by the animal efforts of the other. I could not hear myself think for the yelling of the women who made up the ring. I did not understand. After she’d walked her victory lap the winner came to me, and the woman on whom I had pinned my hopes pushed me out to her. With a grip that I could not easily break, the victorious lesbian – because that is what they were, lesbians – grabbed me by the arm and claimed me as her prize. She told everyone that I was Bob, a twink, and that she owned me now. She steered me to a horse trough against one wall that was full of ice and beer and grabbed two beers, one for me and one for her. I could not get away from her. One by one she introduced me to all of the other women, all of whom mocked me for being a twink – her twink. Worst of all was the laughter of the woman I wanted to love me. I knew of course, right then, that she would never love me, and that she brought me to this keloid-knuckled witches coven to mock me as a spectacle for the others. Ashamed of myself, I hated. I took the beer bottle that the big bad bitch had given me and hit her in the side of the head as hard as I could. I half threw it. I thundercunted her, as they said back then. It was a shameful act. Why could I not just walk out and turn my back? I don’t know. I could not break her grip without violence, and I overreacted. I was smaller then, weaker, I led a life that had little physical effort. I was not then what I am now. In my stature I was victim weight. She fell on the floor, insensible, and the other lesbians began to pummel me with their fists and feet. Many wore cargo shorts and knee pads to fight in and tee-shirts with their favorite band’s logo with the sleeves cut off. They were very strong and they began to alternately tear at me or knee me. I vomited. I felt my hair being torn out by the roots. A thumb gouged my eye in a vicious turn. I feared for my life, for my limbs, for my genitals. The lesbian I had dropped with the beer bottle got up then and pushed the others away. When they had all stopped their assaults, she stopped and rubbed her temple where I had struck her. Blood ran from the gash in two uneven lines down the side of her face along her jawline to her chin and dripped onto the collar of her shirt.

It’s alright, she said. The little twink has spirit. Good for you, Bob. Good for you.

They all roared with laughter then, the woman I wanted to love most of all.

I left to a chorus of their insults, all shouted against me at a volume that almost, but not quite, rendered them disarticulate. I rested against the wall of the establishment, bloody, blind in one eye, and I knew I had become ridiculous. I am not sure how long I waited there. Finally. I began to walk. I haunted places with few people, fearing that, by a look, they would know. Eventually, I came halfway up this mountain. Since that time, I changed. I became as you see me now.

The Sasquatch was quiet.

My name isn’t Bob, the man said, at last.

The Sasquatch’s breathing had begun to rale, and his eyes, black and yellow and tinged with red, had become glassy.

And you, the man asked? What was the worst thing that ever happened to you?
The Sasquatch held up the severed arm that he had lain across his app and shrugged.

The man looked at his feet, ashamed again.

The Sasquatch went on to say that in a line cabin he once walked into to find something good to eat, having tired of bark and nettles, there in a sleeping bag upon the floor lay a dead man, evidently passed away from starvation. He felt pity for the man, as he too had known great hunger. He knew that it was the habit of men to mark their passing, their last place, so he took a pair of snowshoes that were set by the door and, shutting the cabin door behind him, walked out an hung the snowshoes in a tree. He said that he still walked past the cabin where it happened, where he’d found the desiccated remains of the unlucky man who had starved, and he wondered if the man knew of it. The snowshoes were still there, sasquatch said, of this, he was sure.

I do know of it, the man said, and I had been told of the man’s passing, although I did not know his real name. No one did. He was a mystery to all of us. The snowshoes still hang there, but the man is gone. I don’t know who took him. He had no family, no name.

The sasquatch said that he had only ever feared hunger, not shame, and that was why he had stolen the smoked fish, and that is why he had come back to steal more. For my part, I have forgiven you, the Sasquatch said. You are small creatures and short-lived and rash and fearful and make no calculus for greater things. I can no more hate you for this than I could the rain for being wet. But soon enough my people will come in an Ark to bear me to my final place near the star of our birth and not all of my people will feel as I do. Some will try to visit great harm upon you. Our strength is terrible and our anger slow to subside. You should go then, and find another place of rest should they seek you where you are now. Again, not all of us are that way. Many are like me, but some are not and the Ark to bear me comes soon and my people come with it.

I could have taught you to fish, the man said.

The sasquatch sighed. If you don’t understand, he said, stroking the hair of his severed forearm with his other hand, it is because you don’t want to. You will repeat yourself, eternally, until you do understand. Then perhaps, an Ark will come for you, but I don’t know that for certain. You and I are not different incarnations of one another. We are not alike.

The man left the sasquatch and his severed arm then and walked back to the line cabin, naked except for his boots and rifle, alone in the frisculating dark.

In the end, the man, drawn by inexorable fate to the line cabin where the sasquatch had stolen his fish, brought other men. Bearded savages they were and they smoked fish and they smoked marijuana and they dropped two tabs of acid each and then stripped to the waist to retrace the man’s original steps and walked in single file to the boulder above the tree line where at his passing the Sasquatch waited on the Ark of his people for his succor. There, the men, with their fists and their boots, fought the Sasquatch’s people without weapons, just as the creator had intended. Each year the men came to do this, to the last line-cabin before the tree line and then on they marched, holy purpose in their steps, winding their way up to the scree and boulder where the Sasquatch, who had only come to steal fish, had breathed his last after the man had killed him. Every year the men fight the Sasquatches of the Ark. Every year not a few men are maimed and often one or more are slain. The battle is lost – but only for a year (remember that war is eternal) – and down, down they go, back to that last line cabin to sleep and eat and bathe in the smoke of their fires and then to wander away apart from one another until eventually, like precession, they reconvene at that same place, on the appointed day, with the other survivors of the previous year along with any new men they have brought. All the men of the past battles come, their only release is death or paraplegia. It is the judgement of the people of the Ark that this is how it should be and it goes on forever. The world will not run out of men to climb the mountain, and there, the people wait.