University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 1977 Last Jumping Off Clay Morgan The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Morgan, Clay, "Last Jumping Off" (1977). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 2812. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/2812 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE LAST JUMPING OFF By Clayton M. Morgan B.A., Stanford University, 1972 Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA 1977 Approved byi Chairman, Board of Examiners ^ / A Dean, Gradate School Ja (97^ Date UMI Number: EP35058 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMT OisMTtation PuUiAhing UMI EP35058 Published by ProQuest LLC (2012). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest' ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 I. SOUTH FORK JUMP This is the country. He is down there somewhere in the bewildering canyons, in the geographic confusion of the Salmon River Mountains. He wanders among granite and spruce, lava and sage, thunder and snow. He searches along this bloodline, this river that opens and empties the broken heart of a continent. Emmett Stone stood in the doorway of the jump plane and watched for his grandfather. He is down there some­ where, crazy old galoot. Would he hide if he is alive? Yes, goddamn him. If he is dead, is he buried? Yes. The bastard would bury himself if he had to. Emmett leaned out the door and watched the great river. The Salmon 1 2 surged swollen through the narrow defile, boiled white over the Devil's Teeth rapids, and then slowed past the caves of the Indian's paintings to rekindle its power in a series of eddies and turns. Eimnett watched it. This river. This goddamn Salmon. He checked for more landmarks but was lost again. The country was confusion to more than himself. To his grandfather Jack, the Salmon had been a catastrophe, a permanent calamity of mile-deep canyon that would jerk a man halfway off just to lead him through a hundred miles of forest and rimrock, rapids and dare-nots, smack into his own ass-end. Oh glory. Ah, pilgrim! This was country with the hair still on. Wild and woolly. Jack had said, wicked and worried, she is a big horn ewe in season that will witch a man in two, turn him into a pair of mountain rams and leave him butting heads with himself for the rest of his life. She is a horny country, a very she-wolf; she is a coyote bitch in heat, howling, whining, wooing the old farm dog out to death and wild dreaming. She is trouble. Trouble. The Sheepeater Indians called her the big place of the last jumping off. To white men, she was the river of no return. That was the problem. Grandfather Jack had not returned. The plane banked left and began to circle a forested knob that stood thousands of feet above the river. The pilot had spotted a fire. Emmett squinted against the eastern morning light. He watched a bear lumber over the ridgeline. He saw the fire, over the cliff, on the west side, and the plume of smoke rising from the blaze in a narrow column of dark gray. The smoke flattened, encountering the inversion 3 layer at the level of the ridgetop; it spread evenly against the light blue morning air, mixing with the thin white haze from other fires that were already socking in the canyon. The fire was small. It burned in a patch of pine reproduction near the top of the ridge and Emmett knew it was doomed to an early death. The patch of young pines continued up the slope above the fire for another twenty yards before giving way to bunchgrass and buckbrush. Above this, the solid wall of lava rimrock crawled along the spine of the ridge and into the subalpine forest of fir and engleman spruce. With the cool weather and no wind, the fire would have crept through the reproduction until late afternoon, occasionally flaring as it crowned out in the top of a small tree. It would have lain low, smoldering until it hit the grass, and then, finding fuels, it would have flashed crackling up to the base of the rimrock and been stopped cold, smoking quietly there in the moss and lichen until the dew of the night put it out. It was a doomed and harmless little fire, and of course they would jump it. Emmett checked his gear one more time. Capewells, har­ ness, chest pack, static line, what if I fall out of this thing? Wrist-Rocket slingshot, fishing gear, cards, what if my parachute disappears? Jack Daniel's, Copenhagen, toilet paper, what if it's been attacked and feasted upon by a colony of nylon hungry caterpillars and all that pops out of my D-bag is a cloud of South American killer moths? The smell of pine smoke and kerosene exhaust came in 4 through the open door of the plane as the pilot banked the DeHaviland TwinOtter up and over the rim of the canyon. Emmett was thrown off balance and he had to steady himself by grab­ bing onto Jorgensen's arm. Jorgensen pulled himself clumsily back through the doorway, his bright red beard sticking through the wire mesh of his face mask. He peered at Emmett. "What?" he asked, but the roar of the propjets covered his voice and Emmett couldn't hear. Emmett smiled at Jorgensen. "Pardon?" he said. They stood in their bulky white jump suits and orange football helmets and smiled at each other. Jorgensen raised his face mask. His small eyes were blue and ice cold, his face flushed the color of his beard by the heat of his suit. "What'd you say?" he asked again. "I asked you first," Emmett shouted, but Jorgensen only smiled at him blankly. Christ and communication. "South American killer moths!" Emmett shouted. Revolutionaries! Anarchy! Jorgensen nodded and pointed at the fire. "Are they attracted to the flames?" he asked, and turned back to the doorway. Emmett checked his gear again. Shit, oh dear, yes, they're attracted to the flames. What do you expect of moths? He looked up towards the pilot's campartment. The pilot was looking back over his shoulder, face contorted in grinning insanity. Emmett shuddered. The pilot's gone mad. Emmett looked about himself for support, but it was no use. Smoke- jumpers number seven and eight, Uresti and Yonson, were 5 shooting craps against a five-gallon cubitainer of drinking water. Two five-dollar bills were pinned to the cubitainer by a knife. Jumper number six, Eldon Wells, was pretending not to notice jumper five as he searched the morning Idaho Statesman for news of Nepal. His girlfriend was there in the Peace Corps and the Yeti had been sighted again. Jumper five, Moses Rely, was quietly putting his breakfast into a discomfort bag. Discomfort was a touchy subject with Moses and people had to pretend they didn't see. Larson and Martinez, jumpers three and four, were sitting on elephant bags of food and fire gear, arguing with each other. "That fire's a four-manner." "What fire? I can't even see it anymore." "But look at the potential." "What potential? Rocks and rattlesnakes?" "You don't think snakes will burn?" Emmett looked down at the fire. It seemed to have gone out, but the plane was still circling and the spotter dropped the crepe paper streamers to gauge the wind drift. Emmett thought of all the possibilities, all the malfunctions, par­ tial and total, public and private. He thought of the jumper who went out the door with the static line wrapped around his neck. Ah. The jumper who forgot to hook up. Yes. The jumper who disappeared down the mining shaft. He checked his gear again. Cramps always had his feet on the ground. Indians never jumped out of airplanes. Jorgensen turned to him. "Fire's playing dead. The scalawag!" 6 Sweet Jesus. Emmett looked over Jorgensen's shoulder. The plume had folded itself up and disappeared, but bits of smoke still clung like cotton to the reproduction. "Naw," he said. "There it is. Look there. See?" "Oh, hey . Yeah, sure. There she is, all righty." There she is. Emmett zipped up his protective collar and the compounded smell of a month's sweat curdled into his nostrils. Oh, my rank and bloody Mary. "Come on," he shouted. "Let's go. Get out of here!" The spotter pulled his head back in through the door­ way. "What you say?" Emmett smiled at him: never mind.