Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:24:17 EST
From: Tommyhawk1@aol.com
Subject: Man of the Mountain story

			    MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN
			   By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
		      WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM

[NOTE: Squeamish sorts will want to skip over the deer-killing scenes in
this story. I'll set those off with a row of asterisks on both sides of the
scenes. You do miss a certain amount of character development by skipping
them, but not enough that I will insist that you read it.]


     "Old Pete agreed to meet us round about here somewheres." Clyde said
to me as we trudged among the trees and hills heavily laden with
early-morning mist. There's a part of the American West that has never been
tamed, where men's feet seldom if ever tread, places where deer grow fat
with large racks of antlers on their heads, places where the bear still is
king of the forest, and where the wolves' howl is enough to put the chill
into your bones.
     "Do you even know where we are?" I complained to Clyde as we walked
through knee-high grass that slopped heavy burdens of its dew on my
trousers as I waded through it; I was soaked through clear to my hips by
the time we entered the trees again and only had to endure heavy falls of
dried, dead leaves. We lost the wetness and paid for it by the heavy
shoof-shoof-shoof of our feet in the leaves.
     "Sure." Clyde said. "It's Pete who doesn't always wait in the same
place. He just...wait, there he is!"
     I peered ahead in the mist. Was that a grizzly? The form lumbered
towards us between the trees, and I gripped my rifle ready. I was only
licensed to kill a single buck deer, but if a bear wanted to argue about
who was going to eat who, I intended to win that argument with my rifle and
pay the fine.
     But the form resolved into colors, hunter's red-and-black plaid
jacket, skull-hugging cap with thick ear muffs on it, which look ludicrous
and useless on you until you get out into the wilderness and the wind bites
your ear-lobes, then they look sensible and practical. There was a rifle in
his hands, a sharp line of a nose, dark brown skin of a weathered color,
eyes that burned into your very soul and made you quiver, he was the hunter
and you were his game. He got up to us and I realized that my impression of
size hadn't been spookiness brought on by wilderness and mist...Pete was
just big!
     "Hey, Pete, good to see you again." Clyde said. "This here is Kevin,
who I told you about."
     I cradled my rifle in my left hand and reached out with my right hand
to shake his; he ignored it, looking right into my eyes. I shrank back
under that gaze, wiped my hand on my coat as if it were dirty and smiled,
shrugged at him. He didn't respond to any of that, just turned to Clyde and
said, "Are you ready to go?"
     "Sure." Clyde said. "Going to get us each a deer. Venison's great!" he
enthused.
     Why was I out here about to hunt down and shoot a defenseless deer?
Because I was working in an office where I was stuck in a dull job, having
to say "Yes, sir" and "No, sir" to a total jerk, because the work was fast
and my boss always found fault with it, enough to keep my employee reports
at "satisfactory but" so that I was never going to advance, but the job
market was so bad that I couldn't get out, it left me with a commute where
they always seemed to be fixing the roads, so that getting home was an
hour-long nightmare of honking horns and creep-creep-creep. You endure
that, days and weeks and months, and something inside you rises up and you
either let it get out somehow or you become the guy who sits in the dark
polishing an AK-47, and for me, the way out was to first read magazines
about hunting, then buying rifles and learning how to use them, and then,
meeting Clyde one day, setting up with him to go on this trip. He said he'd
introduce me to Pete who really knew the wilderness. And here Pete was.
     Pete. Silent, large, competent. I watched him when we got to camp and
turned our backpacks into a tent and supplies. Pete knelt on one knee in
the short grass at the camp (you can see why I now had learned to
appreciate short grass), hammering a stake into the ground, pulling the
tent taut with one hand, tying it down. I got the feeling that, in the
wilderness at least, Pete could do anything.
     He looked over at me, his face still expressionless, and then turned
back to his job, he didn't care if I was watching him or not. "Can you make
a fire?" he asked.
     "Uh, sure." I said.
     "We need a fire to cook on tonight, and enough firewood to keep it
going for a while."
     "Sure, Pete, I'll take care of it." Gratified that I could be of some
use to this man, I diligently set out in search of firewood. I was working
on trying to start a fire, a bundle of dried sticks beside me, when Pete
came up.
     "You're doing it wrong." he said. "Watch." I watched as he took some
dried moss and used the match to strike it alight. Smaller sticks went on
top of the moss, and leaves with them, until they were a fair-sized blaze,
then the sticks I had brought him. I was aware of Pete beside me, how big
and warm he seemed, not friendly, just...warm, like he was radiating power
and heat of his own.
     "That's how you do it." Pete said when he stood up. "You need to
remember that." he told me opaquely. And turned away. "Cook us what you
have." he said. "Tomorrow we'll eat what we kill."
     "Sure thing, Pete." I fumbled for my backpack, and its supplies of
canned goods and ready-made food. I didn't bother trying to ration it, I
believed Pete when he said from now on, we'd live off the forest.
     As I warmed up the canned stew and pork-and-beans over the fire, I
watched Pete build us a hanging rack, a place where we would string up the
deer we killed to butcher and clean them. Then he took his knife and with
no other tool but that and the saplings and vines around, he built a
stretching rack so we could cure the hide for turning it into buckskin
cloth. Clyde said that Pete had a relative who used the hides to make a
fair living for himself and his family. Pete would also take any of the
meat we weren't going to use ourselves and pack it away and take it home
with him. Little of the deer was going to be wasted, with Pete around, we
weren't allowed to be sport hunters, we would hunt for meat.
     That night, as I lay on my bedroll with a quilt on top of that,
knowing that Pete had lay out on the bare ground beside the fire to sleep,
without even a covering, I thought over what had brought me here. What was
I trying to do with my life that I would come to these woods to hunt?
     And I decided that I would learn from Pete and become as much like him
as I could.
     I awoke early the next morning, the result of the cawing of a nearby
flock of crows. A raoucous, frightening sound, but far away, it made a
tolerable alarm clock buzzer like that.
     I staggered groggily to my feet, wearing only my boxers and the quilt
I carried with me, intending to find a bush to take care of my business and
get back in bed, but that plan got stopped when I saw Pete.
     In that chilly October morning, Pete was stripped to the waist, on his
knees, chanting softly. His long hair was rumpled looking and sleek, his
body was a deep brown color. And I knew without asking that I was watching
him at his meditation.
     Softly as I could, I scampered over behind the tent to take a leak,
then came back. Pete hadn't moved, was still chanting softly. I moved up to
him quietly, his eyes opened and darted over to note me, then closed again,
and he chanted on without pause or hesitation.
     I settled down by the embers of the fire, used a few sticks to build
up a blaze, watching Pete. From here, he was in front of me, a
three-quarters profile. I saw how his chest moved with slow ease and grace,
as he breathed his mantra; saw the strength imbedded in his arms, quiescent
but powerful in repose, saw the way his hairs made a diamond in the center
of his chest, not pretty-boy clean or hirsute beast. He was a man.
     Pete was a man's man, I saw that now. He lived his life on his own
terms, in his own way and didn't seek confirmation of the validity of that
existence from anyone. He hunted but used all the meat, took nothing from
the land that he didn't specifically need right then, used the minimum of
everything in his life.
     Yep, my decision repeated itself, if I wanted to remake my life, I
should set out to become just like Pete.
     I hesitated, then shucked the quilt. I cheated this much, I stayed
near the fire, but I struck Pete's pose in his chant, on my knees, my
buttocks resting on my heels, my hands with palms uppermost on my thighs,
head slightly elevated. I closed my eyes, tried to think of a mantra that
would work. All I could think of was the "Om mani padme hm" mantra, so I
did that, determined to ask Pete what he did. As I chanted, breathing the
way I'd heard once on an early-morning television show, breathe in, chant
the phrase, breathe out, chant the phrase. I entered an internal peace I
hadn't touched for many months.
     "Hey, Pete! Hey, Kevin!" Clyde said as he came out of the tent. It was
a large tent, he and I had shared the burden of carrying it up the side of
the mountain and through the woods. Almost like a small room, big enough
for both our cots, and could have managed a third if Pete had had
one. Clyde regarded me curiously, wearing only a pair of blue boxers and
shivering somewhat from the cold. "Kevin, I didn't know you were into that
stuff." He said.
     "Never mind." I said as I got to my feet. "Who's ready for breakfast?"
     "No breakfast." Pete said as he got up. "Time to go hunting now."
     "Huh?" I looked, the sun was well down below the trees still, though
we now had full light in the sky.
     "The deer like to eat in the morning. We'll find some...that way." He
pointed with his chin. "There's a meadow of grass that is still soft and
green."
     As I got hurriedly dressed, I wondered if his meditation had told him
where the deer were. Or if he had scouted out the place ahead of
time. Whichever it was, he was right. A small herd of five deer were there,
one a beautiful buck with a fine rack on his head. Trembling, I raised my
rifle up to my shoulder. My scope let me see the deer perfectly; I wanted a
clean kill so I sighted his head in the crosshairs and pulled the trigger,
and the rifle made a cracking sound like a slender branch breaking in
Pete's hands.
     ********************
     The big buck dropped like a stone. Clyde whooped like a maniac, and
the other deer went running. Not that I cared; I had paid for one buck and
that was what I'd gotten. First day, too. Now, I could play back up to
Clyde and his three-deer license, and spend the rest of my time studying
Pete, how he behaved.
     He loped to the buck I had shot easily, not hurriedly. When he got
there, he reached down and checked the buck, nodded approvingly. "Dead." he
said. "Clean kill. Very good."
     My chest swelled with pride. I looked down at the buck, clean and
neat, with only a small hole in the side of his head, a thin gutter of
blood, bright red, trickling out of it onto the leaves. I knew that some
people had to pump a deer full of bullets, and even then the guide had to
use a knife to finish off the poor beast. Or the hunter had to chase after
his kill and find and finish it off, if he could even find the animal. But
I hadn't done that, a quick, clean kill. The buck had probably never known
what hit it.
     Pete pulled out his knife and, rolling the buck onto its back in one
practiced motion, made a single, deep cut along its midsection and
belly. The deer's stomach bulged out as he cut it and then the insides
almost spit themselves out. I caught a whiff of the innards of the deer,
surprised how its smell wasn't at all repulsive, it smelled hot, wild,
strong...but not sickening at all.
     Pete rolled his sleeves back and dug into the buck, emptying out the
organs of the buck onto the ground. He retained the heart and liver, but
the rest went onto the ground. I had expected a lot more blood than there
was, but it was more like dumping out a load of soft plastic-looking tubes
and bags onto the ground.
     "Sixteen-point buck. Head's no good with that bullet, but do you want
the rack for a souvenir?" He asked me.
     "Yeah." I said.
     He cut the deers head and neck from the animal. "Then you carry it
back to camp." he informed me.
     I did, lugging the massive weight by the horns, surprised how heavy it
all was. Pete threw the rest of the carcass over his shoulders, and carried
it like that back to the camp.
     **************************
     Back at camp, we had our belated breakfast, fresh deer meat of course,
and at Pete's insistence, I ate the heart. I half-expected him to do some
sick thing like ask me to drink the animal's blood, but this was his
compromise, or his custom, the meat was well-cooked before I took a
bite. It was tough and rather stringy, but I ate it anyway, it was my first
kill, I was eating meat I'd brought in, and there was a hell of a lot more
when I got hungry again. It makes a man feel, sort of, self-sufficient when
he can say that.
     Then we finished butchering out the beast. Now there was blood, but
Pete had dug a trench under the rack for that, what we got on our hands was
easy enough to wash off.
     That finished the hunting for the day. We had a week and only Clyde's
three deer to go, so there was no hurry. We played poker, which surprised
me, but I've always done okay with cards, we stayed pretty much even
throughout the afternoon, winning some, losing some, three evenly matched
players. You know, that kind of takes the fun out of it!
     And we talked, Pete keeping his words slow and dignified, like an
elder lion with two playful cubs nearby, ignoring their ruckus. When he
talked, Pete kept to one subject, the animals of the forest and their
habits, what they ate, how they behaved at different times of the
year. Listening to him, I again felt that sense of peace, that oneness with
the entire world, he understood not only the practicalities of the world,
but also had a sense of its beauty, the poetry of a songbird, the
brushstrokes of mist on the hills, the songs of the wind.
     When Pete left to tend to some business of his own for a half hour or
so, I grilled Clyde about Pete and his behavior here in the wild. "Oh, Pete
knows all about the wilderness." Clyde said. "I've known him for years,
he's always been like this."
     "I can't believe I've actually met someone like him." I
enthused. "It's like he's everything I ever wanted to be. Strong, handsome,
quiet, wise. I wish I could be just like him."
     Clyde looked up and I turned around, Pete had quietly walked up behind
me. He looked at me with a face neither angry nor amused, just still and
appraising, as always.
     But he had heard. From that time onward, he was less a guide and more
a teacher. He showed me how to sharpen a knife using just a small
pocket-sized whetstone, and the next morning, I felt his hand on my
shoulder, he was there, bare-chested, and at a nod from him, I went out and
he showed me how to do his morning meditation.
     We went back to that meadow, I guess deer don't have much sense, or
maybe it was a different set of four deer we saw. Clyde banged away three
times, but none of them dropped. Pete ran out to where the deer had been,
pointed to a spot of red on the ground, and others nearby. "You wounded one
of them. We'll have to chase it down."
     "Aw, let's just forget it!" Clyde said. "Plenty of other deer out
here."
     "No." Pete said and he took off after the deer, and I was right with
him. Clyde stood there sneering at us. I determined that Clyde was going to
get a good look at that deer when we ran it down.
     **************
     After a time, there was no time for anything but running. The deer had
curved around, and we ended up near our own camp before we found it, a
timid hurt doe lurking behind a bush. It was snorting heavily, blood
pouring from its nose, it was choking, drowning in its own blood. When I'd
killed the buck it had been clean and nearly bloodless, but here was blood
aplenty, it poured down the doe's side, it pooled on the ground by it, the
creature looked up at us in fear and tried to stand, but its legs no longer
obeyed it, it simply began to thrash as it tried to run even while lying on
its side. I felt awful, looking at that suffering; it was a mercy when Pete
drove the blade into its throat and slashed it wide and fast, giving it
relief from pain at last.
     **************
     "I'm going to chew Clyde's ears off but good the rest of this week." I
griped as we carried the deer back to camp. "He had no business leaving
this animal to suffer and die from its wounds. That's not the hunter's
way."
     "No, it isn't." Pete agreed. "The animal's spirit cries out to the
Earth, and it rejects the man who has failed to finish his kill."
     "Yeah." I said. Looked at the doe's bloody nostrils and felt sick like
I hadn't when we had brought down my buck, thinking how it had
suffered. "It's not the hunter's way." I said again.
     I felt a hand on my shoulder. "No, it isn't." Pete agreed, and now
there was some emotion in his voice. Tenderness.
     I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye, feeling foolish. "Damn it!"
I groused. "I came out here to be a man, not a crybaby."
     "Don't worry about it." Pete said. "I won't tell."
     I looked up into his face, and then I reached up for it with my
own. Somehow, I knew that he wouldn't mind one bit. And he didn't. His lips
were soft, his body's aroma caressed my face as we kissed, a muskily male
smell. His arms as they went around me felt just as good as I had imagined
they would. Strong, warm, comforting. I felt so safe within
them. Safe...and alive!
     I pressed my hips up against Pete's, pushed my hard-on into his leg,
let him feel it while I brushed his own basket with the front of my
thigh. It was like a soft rag inside, but then it got bigger, and swelled
up and then it wasn't nearly as soft as it had been.
     "Oh, God, Pete." I groaned. "Make love to me, please! Here, now! I
never felt as close to any man as I do to you, it's like I have to be with
you, all the way with you. Please!"
     His response was a small smile touching his lips, and then his hand
gripping my hair at the back of my head and pulling my head back and my
mouth opened as I was pulled backwards, and he dived onto my mouth like
that, his tongue drove into me like a spear, like the knife that dove into
the doe's body, and in the same way, it ended my pain entirely.
     His hands cupped my buttocks and he ground against me as we kissed
again. I can't describe how it felt to be held, to be loved, by this man,
this powerful, strong, all-knowing man of the mountain. It wasn't a kiss of
equals, it was more like he was claiming me, like I was letting myself be
claimed, grateful for being claimed by him, ready, eager, willing to be
owned by him, always and forever.
     Timidly, looking up at him time and again for permission, I unbuttoned
his shirt, to touch that broad, muscled chest, feel it, run my fingers
through the tangle of hair in the hollow of his breast, feel the heart
beating beneath, feel the rib cage expand and rise as he breathed in. The
sighs of his breath were like strokes against my face as I looked up into
him, his eyes were no longer opaque and unreadable, they were now soft,
vulnerable things.
     I had touched something inside of him. Something basic. Something he
didn't show to many people. It was like receiving a gift, that look in his
eyes that he was giving to me.
     I lowered my head and buried my face in that chest hair of his, it was
like pressing my face between a pair of pillows, soft warmth pressed on me
on both sides, while the coiled masses of hair tickled me in a hundred
places at once.
     My tongue reached out to taste that hairy morass, salty, musky, rich,
redolent, fuming, cascading, uproarious delights of flavor assailed my
taste buds in rapid succession. There was no one taste to him, there were
an abundance of tastes, changing, moving, supplanting each other. The rich
round button of his nipple beckoned to me, I pressed it to my lips and felt
that thick nub on my tongue, wishing that I could suckle at this breast,
take in this man who was everything to me, all I wanted, all I dreamed of,
it was in him and I could get it out of him if I could figure out how.
     A vampirish-like lust took me over, I began to run my lips and tongue
over his body, drinking and savoring him, until he was panting, gasping,
until he was groaning and nearly whimpering in my grasp.
     "Damn, but you're hot." He said to me when his big paws pulled my head
away from his succulent body for a time. "Let's go into the tent."
     I broke away from him and raced into the tent, inside I pulled and
tugged at my clothes, hard, not caring if they ripped or burst or simply
came undone, as long as they got off of me.
     Pete entered the tent almost shyly, as if he were calling upon me
somehow, his bare chest shone from his opened shirt, giving him an air that
was piratical, adventuresome, dashing and swashbuckling. Yet he only walked
into the tent, and his hands moved up to coyly finish removing the shirt,
while I stood on the ground in sock-covered feet and my pants were yanked
down into a pile around my ankles, and I was bare but for those socks, that
ankle-high wad of denim.
     I got the pants off and then sat on the bed to get the socks, while
Pete sat on Clyde's bunk to unlace and remove his shoes. I couldn't recall
how I'd gotten my own shoes off, but I was nude now, I dove to my knees and
at his feet, I grasped his shoe and yanked at it, got it off, leaving a
gray sock with a red top behind, then the other shoe, it was laced up
still, but I fought the laces free, grasped and held that shoe against my
chest, and then heaved...and his other foot was free, Pete
laughed...laughed!...and I went back for the socks, they were loose things
and easily pulled free.
     Pete stood up and I didn't let him unzip his own pants, I got hold of
the zipper myself and shshshshsh'ed it down in an instant, and then my
hands grabbed a double handful of blue jeans at the waist band and I ripped
it down from his large body.
     Looked up at majesty, his erection, big, tall, powerful, beautiful,
glorious, impressive...and I caught it and scarfed it down, my head was
bobbing on his prick by the time he realized that I had hold of it for him.
     Hungrily I crammed that huge rod into me, thirstily I sucked on it,
wrenching from the proud prick its juices, until salty precome poured out
onto my winsome tongue, and I relished that flavor, craved that taste, my
mouth was a demon on his pud, and I was sucking him hard, hard and fast, I
wanted him, all of him, inside of me, and by God, this would get me his
essence! I knew it, I just knew it!
     Grunting, gasping, groaning, roaring, his hands caught and manhandled
me free from him. "Damn!" He panted. "Take it easy!
     "No!" I said. "I have to have it, I have to! Give it back!"
     "Lie down on your cot, face-down." He ordered. And with that order, he
was the master here once again. Meekly, submissively, I obeyed him, and on
all fours, I pressed my face down onto my pillow. I presented my buttocks
to him, sobbing with my need, God, he had to get it into me, soon, soon,
now!
     I felt the cot shift as he climbed on, and I sighed in relief. "God,
Pete, shove it in me, all the way in, hurry, man, hurry!" I groaned.
     Silently, strongly, I felt his massive manhood press against my
sphincter and I groaned, tried to shove back against it, but his hands, his
powerful hands, prevented me for they held my buttocks hostage. They held
me in place, kept me still, as he pushed his tower, his citadel of
maleness, into me, in a dignified, stately progression, and I groaned as
that magnificent dong of his slid into me, impaling me, splitting me open,
breaking me wide! Then he was done in pushing inside me, now his cock
turned into a fat sausage imbedded in me, and I groaned, for wrapped around
that fat dick was me, all of me, I felt like I was nothing but a thin
sheath around him.
     And with lithe, slow movements, he began to fuck me, my body exploded
with delight and ignited with ecstasy as he thrust his hips and his
powerful tool slid in and out of me.
     "Oh, God!" I groaned. "Oh, God, oh, God, more, more!" I gasped.
     But with slow, deliberate strokes he fucked himself on me, and I
grunted, my breath caught, and I was wracked with ejaculation, I sprayed my
seed onto the cot beneath me, and still he fucked me, slowly, stately,
calmly regal in his movements.
     Panting, sweating beneath him, him continuing to fuck me in methodical
deliberation, I trembled and felt my body take on a certain numbness. I
could feel still the wonderfully commanding pillar of his manhood as it
plunged into me, as it withdrew for the next assault, but that was overlaid
with a certain detachment. I realized what I'd attained in a thought of
glory, now I was like Pete, I had become a part of him, taken on his
abilities, his attributes. By some process of osmosis, our lovemaking at
his steady, sustained pace had brought out that part of me I had sought
from him.
     I raised up onto my elbows and knees and enjoyed the calmness and
serenity of this place, even as I was enjoying as well the turgid prong
that dove in and out of my bowels. I felt like this could go on forever,
and realized that this was what Pete was trying to do, to make love to me
all day long, that was why he wasn't hurrying, he was taking his time for
there was no reason to hurry, we could fuck like this for days if we
wanted, for the world was outside somewhere, not in here with us, and we
could suit ourselves.
     So long, slow and sweetly, Pete fucked me in that way, I felt climax
rise up in me again and this time as I panted, as I clenched with my
buttocks on his prick, I felt Pete responding, his cock swelling and
hardening, heating up, and with a staid, dignified manner, in this way,
calmly and sensibly, Pete and I reached our climax together. I felt his
sperm pouring into me, a hard, steady flow that seethed and surged inside
of me, I felt as well the dangling/tingling/bursting lights of ejaculation
in my brain, yet again, as I said, there was a sense of detachment and
mastery over this, I was having an orgasm because I permitted it to happen,
and even in my joy I was in control. I don't mean that it felt any less
wonderful, it did, but its basic nature was different somehow, like I could
participate in this life-spasming moment and still be uniquely me.
     Done, Pete sighed, his cock still inside of me, and his breathing was
rapid but not frenetic, he was in control, he was in charge.
     "Keep it in me." I begged him. "Do that again, please."
     "I will." He assured me. We were like that, joined but unmoving, me on
my arms and knees, Pete on his knees behind me, one hand resting on my
back, when Clyde returned and opened the tent.
     "Hey, guys, I see you found the deer...oh!" he said.
     "Get out of here." Pete said simply, without heat, and Clyde
disappeared. I found out later he gathered his stuff and left, at that
moment, I only knew that he was gone again, and Pete and my lovemaking, the
dignified embrace of two men of the mountain, continued.
     I spent the rest of my vacation with Pete. We didn't do any more
hunting, not needing to since we had the deer meat to feed us, but Pete
taught me the ways of the forest in detail. Before the end of that week, I
was ready to set out into the wilderness on my own with every confidence of
surviving that way indefinitely. In between lessons, we made love, again
and again. Pete began to show some emotion as he and I fucked, until he was
honoring me by groaning his pleasure as I rode his cock, grunting in desire
as I sucked his prick, it was like I was siphoning off a bit of himself
after all, or maybe, now that he knew me, he was more ready to let go of
his stoic nature and show himself a human being. I didn't see this as
weakness, but as the highest praise a man could get, that he would reveal
his weakness to me.
     When the time of parting came, I bundled up my gear and gave Pete a
simple kiss good-bye, turned around and strode off, alone and unafraid,
into the forest. I didn't know the exact route back to my car, but I wasn't
worried; I could handle myself.
     Back in the city, back to the grind, I found that I could take the
stresses with more equilibrium, and more, that the men I dealt with reacted
to my new-found dignity and rewarded me with more consideration and
respect.
     I didn't know if I'd ever see Clyde again, but we frequented the same
places, one day some three months later, I saw him at a bar. I thought
about avoiding him, but decided to simply treat him as someone I knew if
not respected.
     "Hey, Kevin." Clyde said. "Nice to see you again."
     "Good to see you." I said carefully.
     "You and Pete really hit it off." Clyde said after a long pause.
     "Yep." I agreed cautiously.
     "You seen him lately?"
     "No." I said. "But I'll return to the mountain one day and look him
up."
     "Huh?" Clyde said. "What do you mean?"
     "Pete." I said. "I'll find him on the mountain one day."
     "Why don't you just call him up?"
     "How could I do that?" I said, thinking of that lone figure on the
mountain, living off his wits, taking from the earth only what he needed.
     "You don't know?" Clyde said. I shook my head, and Clyde continued
"Pete's a cost accountant out of Cincinnati."

				  THE END
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