THE DOG HUNTERS (completed)

34 - OTHER PLACES

One of those trippy things... I found myself looking directly at him,hunched up in his blankets, partially blocked by the baby carriage,and part of my brain was telling everyone else who wasn't there I was looking at Lulubelle, who had the slingshot aimed smartly at my left eye – but it still didn't really register until he cleared his throat.

"Dude,"I said. "Don't kill me, dude."

He relaxed the elastic and lowered the weapon. If he'd hit that close with the rock he had in the sling, well...  I sat down on a mass of half dead vines, and blinked.

"Holy shit," said Lulubelle, "I think we got a dog hunter after all."

I was given water and a blanket and some stale pretzels to snack on,which brought me back after ten minutes or so, and I was able to laugh with Lulubelle about how he'd almost killed me, and then he launched into the amazing day they'd just had where they'd spotted arecord thirty-seven dogs.

Tinto showed up a bit later with all the grub he usually had, plus the prize bottle. I could tell he was very impressed with my abilities asa tracker, basically because he acted as though he wasn't impressed and gave me a lot of shit for falling behind.

Whiskey stories followed dinner. Adventures from the hunt. This time I stayed away from the whiskey, only having the smallest of nips and keeping it at that. This seemed to be fine for Tinto who laid into the bottle like it was water. Lulubelle soon fell asleep, as always was the case.

"It was a great day," I said. I was speaking as much about my first successful mission as their dog adventures.

"There could be more, there could be more." Tinto sniffed, gazing out at the tangle of freeways. He appeared to become rhapsodic. "Beating the spread two times in a row. Doesn't happen, you know? But it could happen more, says me. There's a place. See, it's not this place.There's something to this place. Do you know this place?"

"This place? Or wait – what? I don't know where are."

He cracked a smile, and I knew I was in for it. "Son, we're in Edendale."

I looked around. It was true. We were back in Edendale, and I said, "I grew up around here. Probably not, like right here."

Tinto nodded. "Sure you did. You've told me this tidbit many times. And I'll remind you I grew up in Mountain Town."

This was news to me, but I played along. Tinto thrust a finger to his right. "Right over there. Loved it. Was a boy scout, and then an Eagle Scout."

"I don't doubt that."

"Used to go hiking off in the foothills, and I got sick one time. They said it was some sort of natural gas leak out of the rock. You believe in stuff like that?" He was crouched now, crouched on the toes of his boots, all keen and cunning, as though he was about to take a particularly exciting shit.

I said, "I believe there's a lot of weird shit floating around."

He snickered and slapped me on the back hard enough to leave an imprint, then had a tug, realized the bottle was empty, and chuckedit into the darkness, barely clearing Lulubelle's head. "That's exactly what I'm trying to explain, man. When you looked north, when you were a kid, what did you see?"

I closed my eyes. Edendale was located at the top of Ace City, right before you got to the foothill communities. In my imagination, such as it was, I saw nothing, then I saw the foothills, the freeway. Isaw a custard-yellow moon rising up in the distance, and everything looking nice and clean and perfect, like a painting, all by itself in an empty gallery on an evening where everyone is somewhere else.

I opened my eyes and Tinto was grinning like a bandit. "Those fuckingfoothills, right? Ever wonder what's on the other side of the foothills?"

I shook my head. I assumed they led into the mountains, a national park, or something.

"I know what you're thinking. It's what I would think. That time I went hiking, I was by myself and I was thinking, isn't it odd you've got these foothills, and then these mountains, and in Mountain Town you've just got the mountains. Like right next to each other?"

I shrugged.

Tinto nodded. Said, "When you're hiking you get into these interesting head spaces. You're trying not to fall down, you're following a trail, and your thoughts, they go in these weird direction. Kinda like what I'm always encouraging Lulubelle to do with the navigating.Go into the weird directions – that's where the dogs are."

We both thought about that.

I said, "So what you're saying..."

"I'm saying you can't hardly think about it. And that also means you can't hardly talk about it. If you do those things it slips away from you.Drink helps, gives you a kind of camouflage. You ever felt more connected when you drink?"

"I think drinking makes me want to fuck women in their asses. Not like, in a mean, aggressive way, but..."

Tinto nodded. "I'm telling you, chasing these dogs is just the thing,just the thing so you can slip over and hold onto..." He breathed deeply through his nose."There's hills," Tinto concluded, solemnly. "We know there's hills up there." He gestured off toward the foothills that crown Ace City. "And we know that there's mountains beyond them."

I nodded.

"Butt he how and the shape. Fuzzy."

"Fuzzy?"

Tinto shook his head, as though he was trying to shake off a headache."There's gaps."

"In your thinking?"

That awarded me with a swat to the side of my head. If he had applied slightly more force and brandished his knuckles he would have given me a concussion.

"There's gaps up there, man. It don't work out. You can't use math, but if you use your brain. If you get yourself into a camouflaged space. There's something there."

"What's there?" I asked him, more confused than I think I'd ever been with him.

"Another valley." Tinto said this as though the words hurt when they exited his mouth. "It sits there. In between."