Fish Creek (Part 3)

We drove to the campground. The entrance sign was riddled with bullet holes. We found a camp site ten feet from the creek and made camp as we drank cans of Rainier. We put the rest of the beer and pints in the creek. I paid the camping fee by stuffing cash into an envelope and sliding the envelop into a metal contraption.

It was getting hot. We toured the campground on foot and saw a few other sites occupied. We saw a trail that led around a wall of rocks and took it. The trail ended a hundred feet later at little clearing. Down below was a swimming hole off the creek’s main channel. The swimming hole was surrounded on three sides by large flat rocks.

The swimming hole was vacant. I saw a man fishing from a rock. A couple dozen empty beer cans lay strewn on the ground. I smelled vomit. I also noticed a rope tied to a trunk of a tree. The rope was long and extended into the channel of the creek, downstream of the swimming hole. I couldn’t see what the rope held but the line was taut. There had to be something big at the end.

We worked our way down to the swimming hole to check it out. We passed more empty beer cans. I saw a pile of vomit off to the side.

The fisherman hailed us with a warm greeting. He directed our attention downstream. An obese woman wearing a bikini was flat on her back in an inner tube. The inner tube lifted here and there, spun this and that way in the current. The rope was tied around her and the inner tube. She appeared dead.

The man informed us, smiling, that his wife was passed out drunk in the inner tube. He’d dragged her by the feet to the bank. She was too large for him to move ashore so he roped her off and would let her float until she sobered up enough to walk out. “Fat bitch on a rope,” he said laughing. We laughed, too.

We did not tarry at the swimming hole. We returned to our camp ground and started drinking more beer and cracked open one of the chilled pints blackberry brandy. Someone got a fire going and we prepped for hot dogs and chili. We sat around a picnic table and began recounting what had transpired so far on our camping trip. It was two hours old.

The first pint didn’t last long. We killed it washing down lunch. As we ate, we took turns mimicking Todd’s immortal Oregon introduction. We cracked open the other pint and the creek beckoned. A previous camper had left behind an inner tube. One of us picked it up and jumped into the creek. He climbed aboard and rode the current for a hundred yards and then came ashore.

We took turns repeating this recreational activity for the rest of the drunken afternoon. One of us floated down hoisting the pint. One of us crashed into a rock and emerged from the water with a watermelon-sized bruise on his chest. The inner tube was lost on that run and that ended the fun.

Dinner was another meal of hot dogs and chili. We fell asleep at dusk. The next morning our friend and his girlfriend showed up in his red VW Beetle. They found us slightly hungover and whipping up a breakfast of bacon and eggs over the fire.

They pitched their tent next to us and we decided to caravan up a logging road to visit a mountain lake. The Beetle led the way. My Valiant followed and occasionally scraped bottom on potholes.

It was a short drive. We saw a sign for the lake. It was riddled with bullet holes. We turned off the graveled logging road to another road, dirt and rutted. I wasn’t sure if the Valiant could handle it. We drove about 50 yards and came to a clearing. The lake was another 50 yards away.

There was a beat up travel trailer and an old pickup off to the side of the clearing. Scattered around the trailer were approximately 200 empty beer cans, most punctured by bullets. We parked near the pickup because there was no place else to park.

We exited our cars. A man emerged from the trailer. He was in his 40s, mustachioed, wearing a ball cap, and resembled a blob. He carried a revolver in his right hand. It pointed downward. He walked over to us and introduced himself as Henry. We forgot all about the lake.

In short order, we learned: Henry’s old lady had kicked him out. He towed his trailer here to drink and forget her. He’d been here for several days. He was out of beer and food but too drunk to drive into town.

As he talked, the revolver remained at his side. Then Henry raised the revolver and asked me to take it from him. He said he didn’t trust himself. I took the revolver. It was the first time I’d ever held a firearm.

Henry looked at our friend’s girlfriend and said, without any hint of humor or irony, “You sure have a purty mouth.”

She didn’t respond.

Henry asked for the revolver back. I briefly considered throwing it as far as I could. I reminded him that he didn’t trust himself. Henry said he’d changed his mind.

I handed him the revolver. Henry asked our friend if he could catch a ride up to the main road. He wanted to hitchhike into town. Our friend said no and directed his girlfriend toward the VW. They got in and puttered away, but not before Henry raised his revolver, aimed, and said with no hint of humor or irony, “I’ll put a bullet in it.”

He didn’t shoot. He lowered the revolver and turned to me and asked if I could give him a ride to the road. I said sure. He stashed the revolver in the trailer and then squeezed in the back seat. I thought there was no way in hell the Valiant would navigate the rutted dirt road with his added bulk.

Henry talked as I drove but I don’t remember a word he said. The Valiant somehow made it out and we dropped Henry off near the entrance to the campground. He thanked me for the lift and then stuck his thumb out and started walking toward Estacada.

Back at the campground, it was hamburgers, potato salad and cracklin’ cold Rainiers for lunch. All we could talk about was Henry. We did “purty mouth” impressions over and over. We agreed I should have tossed the revolver or shot him.

Dusk was approaching. Someone came up with an idea: let’s hike back to Henry’s camp site and see what the hell was going on! It would be a secret mission and we’d drink Rainier in the course of the mission. Someone mentioned the revolver. He was ignored. One of us speculated that Henry might have pulled a Papa Hemingway in Ketchum with the revolver.

We headed out. We were tipsy and playing like army scouts and issuing ridiculous orders. Fifteen minutes later we stood where Henry’s trailer used to rest. It was gone. The beer cans were not. How in the world he managed to make it to Estacada, get a ride back to his site, hitch up the trailer and tow it away was impossible for us to conceive. Where was he going?

That night around the campfire we told Henry stories and drank the last of the beer.

We roused to life just after first light. It was Sunday morning and time to return to Portland and get on with whatever we were doing.

Several of us took a last dip in the creek to wake up and wash out a hangover. We broke camp and took a final walk around the campground and were surprised to find it full. We hadn’t noticed all that many campers checking in Saturday, but then again, we weren’t paying attention.

We were loading the gear into the Valiant when a battered and sagging luxury sedan from the 70s pulled up alongside. It was Todd and gang! Todd jumped out of the passenger seat holding a beer and asked if we were leaving. We said yes and the campground was all theirs. Todd was overjoyed. A woman appearing anywhere between 40 and 70 years old in appearance was asleep in the back seat. A kid of eight or nine was there, as was the one-armed man. He exited the car holding a beer. He said to the kid, “Billy, get the fucking wood out of the trunk and get a fire going.”

Billy climbed out the sedan and headed toward its rear.

And with that, we got in the Valiant and drove away toward Estacada. Ten minutes later, the sedan blew by us on seven-degree downhill grade with all its windows open. Todd was driving. One-armed man was riding shotgun. The younger man was slumped in the back seat. All were drinking beer. Rock music blared from the vehicle. Todd was whooping and hollering, pounding the horn, and they all waved at us. One-armed man threw some cans out the window and then gave us a salute. I think they actually liked us.

We reached Estacada in 20 minutes. It was just past nine. Why not hit the Fir Grove for a final draft, maybe shoot some pool, and recount the inexplicable insanity we’d just experienced the last 48 hours?

There is nothing like telling a great story right after it happens!

We pulled up in front of the tavern. The sedan was there and we relished its appearance. We entered and the trio was drinking beer at the bar hosted by the same bartender.

Todd turned, stood up, and waved at us. I said, “I thought you guys were going camping?”

He smiled his toothless smile and said, “We’re camping right here!”

One-armed man said, “We left the bitch and kid back at the campground.”

We drank our drafts and sat with our backs to the walls, talking quietly. I strained to hear what the miscreants were jawboning about at the bar. The conversation was turning feisty and the bartender refilled their glasses and forked out some pickled grotesqueries for breakfast: tiny sausages and boiled eggs. He dipped a sausage in a beer and then smelled it like a fine cigar. Then he ate it whole.

How was that for a story?