A true story...mid-sixties, Western Colorado

IS THAT ALL THERE IS?

The man was from back east…a city man. I never knew his name.  He was deer hunting on Colorado’s sparsely populated western slope. They came every year.  Different, but all the same.  The anticipated big game hunt in the mountains of Colorado had been planned and fantasized over for many months.  The season had finally arrived.

Deer hunting, but not really a hunter…a business man more suited to a subway ride than an uphill hike on a frosty morning at seven thousand feet elevation.

What must have been running through his mind that morning…his last, though he would never have dreamed it. He was anxious to get moving.  He took off up the hill, to be followed in a few minutes by his hunting companion…also a city man.  No doubt he was excited to be hunting big game. It was invigorating spending a few minutes alone in the cold, fresh mountain air. How different this was from the city.  The sounds and smells were of another world than what he experienced on a daily basis. Perhaps his thoughts were partially on his family back home…his wife and his children, thinking; “I wish they could see me now.”

Banging on the door. We were almost ready for school. The cow had been milked, the animals had been fed.  I was cramming down a bowl of oatmeal that had to last until lunchtime at school. My brother and I were the only ones at home.  He was three years my senior, so when the frantic banging came, he answered the door.

“Quick, my friend has collapsed.  Call the ambulance.  Please come help us.”  My brother ran out of the house well ahead of me. There was no 911 in those days, so I looked up the number in a real phone book, and made the call to get help on the way.

As is often the case in small western towns, emergency services do not normally occupy different offices.  In our town, a call to the local law enforcement officer, the ambulance, and the acting coroner were all the same call.

By the time I arrived at the scene, which was only a few hundred yards from our house, the outcome had already been determined. Whatever this man’s final destination was to be, it had suddenly been reached.  His inexperienced deer rifle lay askew on the ground beside him.  His eyes were fixed and his lips were blue.  He was dead. A fatal heart attack. My brother, kneeling beside the body, was a whiteish color, and he did not look well.  His amateur attempts at CPR had not been successful, and as happens, dying bodies often emit sounds and fluids that are not pleasant.  He was trying to recover from these realities.  It wasn’t working.  In a few hours, he would come home from school in the middle of the day, because the trauma of the morning would not leave him alone.

Years later, while watching the movie, Deliverance, this experience came vividly to my mind.  Though the details of the movie were vastly different, the underlying plot was similar.  These men were trying to find adventure and excitement apart from the mundane routine of a somewhat meaningless life. The haunting lyrics from Peggy Lee’s song seem to fit;

If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is

The Gatekeeper (and his older brother)