“Art, you shake me.”

“Just trying to wake you up, old buddy. Life is short.”

“Life is long.”

“Life is too short.”

“Life is very long.”

And now melancholy, like the shadow of a cloud, passes over them both. In the quiet forest.

The gaunt and hungry mule deer, Gatlin’s parasites, stand in the shadow waiting for sundown. Ballantine’s roving eyes seek them out, while his hands refill his glass.

“Your friends are here again. God, look at those scroungy brutes. Like gigantic…Yes, they remind me of gigantic stuffed rabbits.”

“The deer? They’re starving. Too many for the range.”

“Feed them.”

“They’re spoiled enough already.”

“Shoot them.”

“I’ll take a couple in the fall. They’re no good now.”

“So what’s the solution?”

“We need more lions, wolves and coyotes.”

Ballantine turns his back on the deer. “Outside we have plenty of wolves.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Another reason why we need you, Will, out there. You’ve got no right to hide in here like a monk in a monastery. It’s cowardly.”

“No right? Well, I was sick of all the talk. The petitions and the protests. When the shooting starts I’ll come out.”

“Then it will be too late.”

His pipe is dead, he’s trying to smoke the bottom of the bowl. Sun sinking in a reef of clouds. Gatlin excuses himself, hurries up the tower for an evening look at things. Ballantine hauls his heavy bulk up from the bench, steps towards the edge of the clearing, unzips and pisses heartily on the fallen leaves, the dust, the pine needles. Zips and backs off. Some of the deer approach. Ballantine clambers slowly up the stairway. The tower shakes.

Joins Gatlin on the catwalk.

“Whew! Christ! Jesus, how many times a day you climb this goddamned thing?”

Gatlin peers into the northwest, shading his eyes. The binoculars hang by a strap from his neck.

Ballantine sags over the rail and stares down at the ground far below, where the deer are now moving slowly through the clearing, heads lowered, nuzzling the earth. Two of them circle the stain of Ballantine’s urine, striking at each other; one retires. All does and fawns. Thin gray shapes, silent as shadows. Tiring of them, he looks where Gatlin is looking.

“What do you see?”

“Nothing.”

“What are you looking at then?”

Gatlin does not answer.

“I don’t see it,” Ballantine says. He smiles to himself, hums a tune. “What happens to this tower when the wind blows hard?”

“It sways.”

“And lightning? St. Elmo’s fire?”

“Yes, there’s some of that too.”

“You’re mad. You’re a madman, Will. This place is driving you out of your mind. Let’s go down to the lodge and have a big dinner.”

“Stay here tonight. I was about to start supper.”

“I know your suppers. Thanks anyway. And Elsie’s waiting for me at the lodge. She’d love to see you. Come and eat with us. We have to get an early start tomorrow.”

“Back to California?”

“Yes. Summer session begins in three days. They need me. They’re calling.”