Sacrament

I am a man, and men are animals who tell stories. This is a gift from God, who spoke our species into being,
but left the end of our story untold. That mystery is troubling to us. How could it be otherwise? Without the final
part, we think, how are we to make sense of all that went before; which is to say, our lives?
So we make stories of our own, in fevered and envious imitation of our Maker, hoping that we'll tell, by
chance, what God left untold. And finishing our tale, come to understand why we were born.

He Stands Before An
Unopened Door

To every hour, its mystery.

At dawn, the riddles of life and light. At noon, the conundrums of solidity. At three, in the hum and heat of the
day, a phantom moon, already high. At dusk, memory. And at midnight? Oh then the enigma of time itself; of a
day that will never come again passing into history while we sleep.

It had been Saturday when Will Rabjohns arrived at the weather-bullied wooden shack on the outskirts of
Balthazar. Now it was Sunday morning, two-seventeen by the scored face of Will's watch. He had emptied his
brandy flask an hour before, raising it to toast the Borealis, which shimmered and billowed far beyond Hudson
Bay, upon the shores of which Balthazar stood. He had knocked on the door of the shack countless times,
calling out for Guthrie to give him just a few minutes of his time. On two or three occasions it had seemed the
man was going to do so; Will had heard him grumbling something incoherent on the other side of the door, and
once the handle had been turned. But Guthrie had not appeared.

Will was neither deterred nor particularly surprised. The old man had been universally described as crazy: this
by men and women who had chosen as their place of residence one of the bleaker corners of the planet. If
anyone knew crazy, Will thought, they did. What besides a certain lunacy inspired people to build a community
- even one as small as Balthazar (population: thirty-one) - on a treeless wind-battered stretch of tidal flats which
was buried half the year beneath ice and snow, and was for two of the remaining months besieged by the polar
bears who came through the region in late autumn waiting for the Bay to freeze? That these people would
characterize Guthrie as insane was quite a testament to how crazy he really was.

But Will knew how to wait. He'd spent much of his professional life waiting, sitting in hides and dugouts and
wadis and trees, his cameras loaded, his ears pricked, watching for the object of his pursuit to appear. How
many of those animals had been, like Guthrie, crazed and despairing? Most, of course.Creatures who'd
attempted to outrun the weeping
tide of humankind, and failed; whose lives and habitats were in extremis. His patience was not always
rewarded. Sometimes, having sweated or shivered for hours and days he would have to give up and move on,
the species he was seeking, for all its hopelessness, preserving its despair from his lens.

But Guthrie was a human animal. Though he had holed himself up behind his walls of weather-beaten boards,
and had made it his business to see his neighbours (if such they could be called; the nearest house was half a
mile away) as seldom as possible, he was surely curious about the man on his doorstep, who had waited for five
hours in the bitter cold. This was Will's hope, at least; that the longer he could stay awake and upright the
likelier it became that the lunatic would surrender to curiosity and open the door.

He glanced at his watch again. It was almost three. Though he had told his assistant Adrianna not to stay up for
him, he knew her too well to think she would not by now be a little concerned. There were bears out there in the
dark: eight hundred, nine hundred pounds some of them, with indiscriminate appetites and unpredictable
behaviour patterns. In a fortnight, they'd be out on the ice floes hunting seal and whale. But right now they were
in scavenging mode; come to befoul themselves in the stinking rubbish heaps of Churchill and Balthazar, and -
as had occasionally happened - to take a human life. There was every likelihood that they were wandering
within sniffing distance of him right now, beyond the throw of Guthrie's jaundiced porch-light, studying Will,
perhaps, as he waited on the doorstep. The notion didn't alarm him. Quite the reverse, in fact. It faintly excited
him that some visitor from the wilderness might at this very moment be assessing his palatability. For most of
his adult life he'd made photographs of the untamed world, reporting to the human tribe the tragedies that
occurred in contested territories. They were seldom human tragedies. It was the populace of the other world that
withered and perished daily. And as he witnessed the steady erosion of the wilderness, the hunger in him grew
to leap the fences and be part of it, before it was gone.

He tugged off one of his fur-lined gloves and plucked his cigarettes out of his anorak pocket. There was only
one left. He put it to his numbed lips, and lit up, the emptiness of the pack a greater goad than either the
temperature or the bears.

'Hey, Guthrie,' he said, rapping on the blizzard-heater door, 'how about letting me in, huh? I only want a couple
of minutes with you. Give me a break.'

He waited, drawing deep on the cigarette, and glancing back out into the darkness. There was a group of rocks
twenty or thirty yards beyond his jeep; an ideal place, he knew, for bears to be lurking. Did something move
amongst them? He suspected so. Canny bastards, he thought. They were biding their time; waiting for him to
head back to the vehicle.

'Fuck this!' he growled to himself. He'd waited long enough. He was going to give up on Guthrie, at least for
tonight; head back to the warmth of the rented house on Balthazar's Main (and only) Street; brew himself some
coffee, cook himself an early breakfast, then catch a few hours' sleep. Resisting the temptation to knock on the
door one final time, he left the doorstep, digging for the keys as he strode back over the squeaking snow to the
jeep.

At the very back of his mind, he'd wondered if Guthrie was the kind of perverse old bastard who'd wait for his
visitor to give up before opening the door. He was. Will had no sooner vacated the comfort of the lamplight
when he heard the door grinding across the frosted steps behind him. He slowed his departure but didn't turn,
suspecting that if he did so Guthrie would simply slam the door again. There was a long silence. Time enough
for Will to wonder what the bears might be making of this peculiar ritual. Then, in a worn voice, Guthrie said: 'I
know who you are and I know what you want.'

'Do you?' Will said, chancing a backward glance.

'I don't let anybody take pictures of me or my place,' Guthrie said, as though there was an unceasing parade of
photographers at his door.

Will turned now, slowly. Guthrie was standing back from the step, and the porchlight threw very little
illumination upon him. All Will could make out was a very tall man silhouetted against the murky interior of the
shack. 'I don't blame you,' Will said, 'not wanting to be photographed. You've got a perfect right to your
privacy.'

'Well then what the fuck do you want?'

'Like I said: I just want to talk.'

Guthrie had apparently seen enough of his visitor to satisfy his curiosity, because he now stepped back a pace
and started to push the door closed. Will knew better than to rush the step. He stayed put and played the only
card he had. Two names, spoken very softly. 'I want to talk about Jacob Steep and Rosa McGee.'

The silhouette flinched, and for a moment it seemed certain the man would simply slam the door, and that
would be an end to it. But no. Instead, Guthrie stepped back out onto the step. 'Do you know them?' he said.

'I met them once,' Will replied, 'a very long time ago. You knew them too, didn't you?'

'Him, a little. Even that was too much. What's your name again?'

'Will - William - Rabjohns.'

'Well ... you'd better come inside, before you freeze your balls off.

Unlike the comfortable, well-appointed houses in the rest of the tiny township, Guthrie's dwelling was so
primitive it barely seemed habitable, given how bitter the winters up here could be. There was a vintage electric
fire heating its single room (a small sink and stove served as a kitchen; the great outdoors was presumably his
toilet) while the furniture seemed to have been culled from the dump. Its collector was scarcely in better
condition. Dressed in several layers of grimy clothes, Guthrie was plainly in need of nourishment and
medication. Though Will had heard that he was no more than sixty, he looked a good decade older, his skin red-
raw in patches and sallow in others, his hair, what little he had, white where it was cleanest. He smelt of
sickness and fish.

'How did you find me?' he asked Will as he closed and triple-bolted the door.

'A woman in Mauritius spoke to me about you.'

'You want something to warm you up a bit?'

'No, I'm fine.'

'What woman's this?'

'I don't know if you'll remember her. Sister Ruth Buchanan?'

'Ruth? Christ. You met Ruth. Well, well. That woman had a mouth on her...' He poured a shot of whisky into a
well-beaten enamel mug, and downed it in one. 'Nuns talk too much. Ever noticed that?'

'I think that's why there are vows of silence.'

The reply pleased Guthrie. He loosed a short, barking laugh, which he followed with another shot of whisky.
'So what did she say about me?' he asked, peering at the whisky bottle as if to calculate how much solace it had
left to offer.

'Just that you'd talked about extinction. About how you'd seen the last of some animals.'

'I never said anything to her about Rosa and Jacob.'

'No. I just assumed if you'd seen one you might have seen the other.'

'Huh.' Guthrie's face knitted up as he thought this through. Rather than be seen to be studying him - this was not
a man who took kindly to scrutiny - Will crossed to the table to look at the books that were piled upon it. His
approach brought a warning growl from under the table. 'Shut up, Lucy!' Guthrie snapped. The dog hushed its
growl, and came out of hiding to ingratiate herself. She was a sizeable mongrel, with strains of German
Shepherd and Chow in her bloodline, better fed and groomed than her master. She'd brought her bone out with
her, and dutifully carried it to her master's feet.

'Are you English?' Guthrie said, still not looking at Will.

'Born in Manchester. But I was brought up in the Yorkshire Dales.'

'England's always been a little too cosy for me.'

'I wouldn't call the moors cosy,' Will said. 'I mean, it's not wild like this, but when the mists come down and
you're out on the hills-'

'That's where you met them then.'

'Yes. That's where I met them.'

'English bastard,' Guthrie said. Then, finally looking at Will: 'Not you. Steep. Chilly, English bastard.' He spoke
the three words as if cursing the man, wherever he was. 'You know what he called himself?' Will knew. But it
would serve him better, he suspected, if he let his host have the moment. 'The Killer of Last Things,' Guthrie
said. 'He was proud of it. I swear. Proud of it.' He emptied the remnants of the whisky into his mug but didn't
drink. 'So you met Ruth in Mauritius, huh? What were you doing there?'

'Taking pictures. There's a kestrel there looks like it's going to be extinct some time soon.'

'I'm sure it was grateful for your attention,' Guthrie said dryly. 'So what do you want from me? I can't tell you
anything about Steep or McGee. I don't know anything, and if I ever did I put it out of my head. I'm an old man
and I don't want the pain.' He looked at Will. 'How old are you? Forty?'

'Good guess. Forty-one.'

'Married?'

'No.'

'Don't. It's a rat-trap.'

'It's not likely, believe me.'

'Are you queer then?' Guthrie said, with a little tilt of his head.

'As it happens, yes.'

'A queer Englishman. Surprise, surprise. No wonder you got on so well with Sister Ruth - She Who Must Not
Be Touched. And you came all this way to see me?'

'Yes and no. I'm here to photograph the bears.'

'Of course, the fucking bears.' What little trace of warmth or humour his voice had contained had suddenly
vanished. 'Most people just go to Churchill, don't they? Aren't there tours now, so you can watch them
performing?' He shook his head. 'Degrading themselves.'

'They just go where they can find a free meal,' Will said.

Guthrie looked down at the dog, who had not moved from his side since her reprimand. Her bone was still in
her mouth. 'That's what you do, isn't it?' The dog, happy she was being addressed, whatever the subject,
thumped her tail on the bare floor. 'Little brown-noser.' Guthrie reached down as if to take the bone. The dog's
ragged black lips curled back in warning. 'She's too bright to bite me and too stupid not to growl. Give it to me,
you mutt.' Guthrie tugged the bone from her jaws. She let him take it. He scratched her behind her ear and
tossed the bone back on the floor in front of her. 'I expect dogs to be sycophants,' he said, 'we made 'em that
way. But bears - Jesus, bears shouldn't be fucking nosing around in our garbage. They should stay out there- he
vaguely waved in the direction of the Bay '-where they can be whatever God intended them to be.'

'Is that why you're here?'

'What, to admire the animal life? Christ no. I'm here because being with people makes me vomit. I don't like
'em. I never did.'

'Not even Steep?' Will said.

Guthrie shot him a poisonous look. 'What in Christ's name kind of question is that?'

'Just asking.'

'Fucking stupid question,' Guthrie muttered. Then, softening somewhat, he said: 'They were something to look
at, both of them, and that's the truth. I mean, Christ, Rosa was beautiful. I only put up with talking to Steep to
get to her. But he said once I was too old for her.'

'How old were you?' Will asked him, thinking as he did so that Guthrie's story was changing slightly. He'd
claimed only to know Steep; but apparently he'd known them both.

'I was thirty. Way too old for Rosa. She liked 'em real young. And of course she liked Steep. I mean the two of
them, they were like husband and wife and brother and sister and fuck knows what else all rolled into one. I
didn't stand a chance with her.' He let the subject trail away, and picked up another. 'You want to do some good
for these bears?' he said. 'Get out there on the dump and poison 'em. Teach 'em not to come back. Maybe it'll
take five seasons, and that'll be a lot of dead bears, but they'll get the message sooner or later.' Finally he
downed the contents of his glass, and while the liquor still burned his throat said: 'I try not to think about them,
but I do-' He wasn't talking about the bears now, Will knew. 'I can see both of them, like it was yesterday.' He
shook his head. 'Both of them so beautiful. So ... pure.' His lip curled at the word, as though he meant its
antithesis. 'It must be terrible for them.'

'What must be terrible?'

'Living in this filthy world.' He looked up at Will. 'That's the worst part for me,' he said. 'That the older I get, the
more I understand 'em.' Were those tears in his eyes, Will wondered, or simply rheum? 'And I hate myself for it
so fucking much.' He put down his empty glass, and with sudden determination announced: 'That's all you're
getting from me.' He crossed to the door and unbolted it. 'So you may as well just get the hell out of here.'

'Well, thank you for your time,' Will said, stepping past the old man and into the freezing air.

Guthrie waved the courtesy away. 'If you see Sister Ruth again……'

'I won't,' Will said. 'She died last February.'

'What of?'

'Ovarian cancer.'

'Huh. That's what you get for not using what God gave you,' Guthrie said.

The dog had joined them at the threshold now, and was growling loudly. Not at Will this time, but at whatever
lay out there in the night. Guthrie didn't hush her, but stared out at the darkness. 'She smells bears. You'd better
not hang around.'

'I won't,' Will said, offering his hand to Guthrie. The man looked down at it in puzzlement for a moment, as
though he'd forgotten this simple ritual. Then he took it.

'You should think about what I told you,' he said. 'About poisoning the bears. You'd be doing them a favour.'

'I'd be doing Jacob's work for him,' Will replied. 'That's not what I was put on the planet to do.'

'We're all doing his work just being alive,' Guthrie replied. 'Adding to the trash-heap.'

'Well at least I won't be adding to the population,' Will said, and started from the threshold towards his jeep.

'You and Sister Ruth both,' Guthrie called after him. There was a sudden eruption of fresh barking from his dog,
a shrillness in its din which Will knew all too well. He'd heard camp dogs raise a similar row at the approach of
lions. There was warning in it, and Will took heed. Scanning the darkness to left and right of him he was at the
jeep in half a dozen quickened heartbeats.

On the step behind him, Guthrie was yelling something - whether he was summoning his guest back inside or
urging him to pick up his pace Will couldn't make out; the dog was too loud. He blocked out the sound of both
voices, man and animal, and concentrated on making his fingers perform the simple function of slipping the key
into the lock. They played the fool. He fumbled, and the key slipped out of his hand. He went down on his
haunches, the dog's barking shriller by the moment, to pluck it out of the snow. Something moved at the limit of
his vision. He looked around, his fingers digging blindly for the key. He could see only the rocks, but that was
little comfort. The animal could be in hiding now and on him in five seconds. He'd seen them attack, and they
were fast when they needed to be, moving like locomotives to take their quarry. He knew the drill if a bear
elected to charge him: drop to his knees, arms over his head, face to ground. Present as small a target as
possible, and on no account make eye contact with the animal. Don't speak. Don't move. The less alive you
were, the better chance you had of living. There was probably a lesson in that somewhere, though it was a bitter
one. Live like a stone and death might pass you by.

His fingers had found the dropped key. He stood up, chancing a backward glance as he did so. Guthrie was still
in the doorway, his dog, her hackles raised, now silenced at his side. Will hadn't heard Guthrie hush her; she'd
simply given up on this damn fool man who couldn't come out of the snow when he was told.

On the third time of trying, the key went into the lock. Will hauled open the door. As he did so he heard the
bear's roar for the first time. And there it was, barrelling out between the rocks. There was no doubting its
intention. It had him in its sights. He flung himself into the driver's seat, horribly aware of how vulnerable his
legs were, and reached back to slam the door behind him.

The roar came again, very close. He locked the door, put the key into the ignition and turned it. The headlamps
came on instantly, flooding the icy ground as far as the rocks, which looked as flat as stage scenery in their
glare. Of the bear there was no sign. He glanced back towards Guthrie's shack. Man and dog had retreated
behind the locked door. He put the jeep in gear and started to swing it round. As he did so he heard the roar
again, followed by a thump. The bear had charged the vehicle in its frustration, and was rising up on its hind
legs to strike it a second time. Will caught only a glimpse of its shaggy white bulk from the corner of his eye. It
was a huge animal, no doubt of that: nine hundred pounds and counting. If it damaged the jeep badly enough to
halt his escape, he'd be in trouble. The bear wanted him, and it had the means to get him if he didn't outpace it.
Claws and teeth enough to pry the vehicle open like a can of human meat.

He put his foot on the accelerator, and swung the vehicle around to head it back down the street. As he did so
the bear changed tactics and direction, dropping back onto all fours to overtake the jeep, then cutting in front of
it.

For an instant the animal was there in the sear of the headlamps, its wedgesnouted head pointing directly at the
vehicle. It was not one of the pitiful clan Guthrie had described, their ferality dimmed by their addiction to
human refuse. It was a piece of the wilderness still; defying the blaze and speed of the vehicle in whose path it
had put itself. In the instant before it was struck, it was gone, disappearing with such speed that its departure
seemed almost miraculous; as though it had been a vision conjured by the cold, then snatched away.

As he drove back to the house, he felt for the first time the poverty of his craft. He had taken tens of thousands
of photographs in his professional lifetime, in some of the wildest regions of the planet: the Tomes de Paine, the
plateaus of Tibet, the Gunung Leuser in Indonesia. There he had photographed species that were in their last
desperate days, rogues and man-eaters. But he had never come close to capturing what he had seen in the jeep's
headlamps minutes before: the power and the glory of the bear, risking death to defy him. Perhaps it was
beyond his talents to do so; in which case it was probably beyond anybody's talents. He was, by general
consensus, the best of the best. But the wild was better. Just as it was his genius to wait upon his subject until it
revealed itself, so it was the genius of the wild to make that revelation less than complete. The rogues and man-
eaters were dying out, one by one, but the mystery continued, undisclosed. And would continue, Will suspected,
until the end of the rogues and mysteries and the men who were fools for them both.