Every January, the field underneath the abandoned Vail water tank fills with Roosevelt elk, come down from the Cascades, impelled by rising snows. - January 2000.
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She rarely talks at the Cougar Mountain Store, though she must recognize our boy faces, our dirty hair, and loose fitting uniforms. The EMTs are here, honey, the storeowner tells her, stroking her head, over the thinning patch that the girl has scarred from scratching. Sometimes, the scalp is bleeding, and you always notice that she fiddles with her hands these days, clicking the right thumbnail underneath the left index.
I always forget their names, but I know the name of the man who lets her live at his house. C-----. I’ve written C----- into other reports, passive aggressive ‘he spanks her’, line marking out ‘spank’, scratched through the whole thing, re-written, '22 Year Old Female states C----- caused marks on upper thighs.' I’ve never seen C-----, but I know he’s 45, he’s slightly overweight and balding, roughly how tall he is, and I picture him driving up and down Lake Lawrence Road looking for runaways, even if they only ran down a little from the Cascades, impelled by rising snows. - January 2002.
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The elk descend reluctantly. Fleeing the rising snows, falling into the hills for food like clothespin reindeer, getting no closer to human contact than mortally necessary. The rising snows cover their food. They must wake to dread as the nights pass, more drifts keeping them from sustenance, forcing them to climb even lower towards human contact. By December, they begin to cross the Weyerhaueser forest roads, sickened by the sound of their hooves on gravel, starving for food, sickened by the thought of human contact, starving for food. - January 2000.
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I like this girl’s eyes, how they’re not vacant and distant, even though the rest of her fled years back, like the way her ribs look like cross ties on the bridge over the Lower Deschutes. You can go back to your momma, the storeowner tells her. Don’t you love your momma, girl?
If by love you mean we’re blood, then yeah, I love her. I finish taking her vitals, her history. An awful thought in my head, maybe I could look after her for awhile, she could stay with me, safely tucked between the rising snow and gravel roads. I finish the report and wait outside til the sheriff makes his long drive in from town. - January 2002.
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I strike a flare 200 feet from the accident, and lay it on top of another flare, crossways in a V, so that when the one burns down to the end it will light the other. Take a look at the size of that thing, the driver says. I see the car, first, utterly caved in and useless. Across the road, the elk lies completely still, not a mark, save for a fist sized hole of blood in the snow beneath its mouth. - January 2000.