Keith T. Bishop
A Hateful World
A Hateful World
A Hateful World
Lighthouse Trail; Palo Duro Canyon State Park; Monday, November 12, 2012; Dusk
Distraught, Kenny and Lance could hardly look at their bikes. Every component on them was destroyed. The whole scene had both men scrambled. Lance began unlocking one of the bikes. Perplexed why Lance would take his bike, Kenny assumed he must have been mistaken and grabbed the second. Instantly, he realized he had Lance’s because there was no Lambda sticker on the seat post. He asked to get a closer look at the bike Lance was trying to unlock, only to get an abrupt response.
“No, I don’t have your bike!”
“But this one doesn’t have my sticker on it,” Kenny said.
“Neither does this one,” Lance responded bitterly as the key failed to open the lock.
As they examined the bikes more carefully, Lance noticed a few gummy remnants left on the seat post. Even in the fading light, he could see the scratches. He did indeed have Kenny’s bike, not his. When Kenny realized what had been done, he became even more distraught. It took Lance several minutes to console him.
Complete darkness had fallen, and it felt like the canyon was swallowing them whole. Clouds filled the sky, minimizing the moon and star’s illumination of the canyon. With their bike lights in ruins and no flashlights, Kenny and Lance hoisted the remains of their bikes onto their shoulders and set off down the path toward camp.
They had hiked about a half-mile and were still two miles from the path’s entrance, with another three miles along the park’s scenic drive to reach the campground. Lance attempted to remain strong, but even his emotions surfaced now and then. Periodically he heard Kenny crying, but it was his whimpering that raised Lance’s anxiety.
“I’d like to stop at the next shelter, Kenny. We can share my water bottle,” Lance suggested, since Kenny’s bottle had been so badly damaged that no water remained.
“OK,” Kenny quietly agreed.
They gravely trudged on for a few more minutes before approaching one of the many shelters strategically located along the path. Constructed using the natural surroundings, four cedar trunks served as posts and supported another half-dozen or so smaller ones. The smaller trunks created a roof, shading a bench large enough to seat three to four people. The crudely made structures were highly effective, providing relief for visitors from the blistering summer sun while not taking away from the rugged aspect of the canyon.
The bench where Kenny and Lance sat was approximately forty feet off the main path. In daylight, this location presented a perfectly clear view of the Lighthouse Rock Formation. A few feet from the shelter was a sign displaying a photograph of the Lighthouse and Castle Peak formations. It also contained information regarding how the resistant sandstone beds, interlayered with the easily eroded shale, molded the canyon’s sculptures.
The two disheartened souls wearily sat down on the bench and were talking quietly when they heard a rustling in the brush. They froze, intensely listening for any further noise. There was none.
“Think it’s a coyote?” asked Kenny.
“Could be, not sure,” responded Lance.
They both stood up to gain a better view. Just like the calm before a storm, the air was still and quiet. Neither of them saw anything, but they continued to stand motionless, breathing silently; only their eyes shifted around their surroundings. A half-minute later, the calm turned to horrific mayhem.
Bursting through the dense shrub, a pack of eight boars took dead aim at the two hikers, and before either of them could react, the wild beasts struck, upending both men. Kenny let out a bloodcurdling scream, rattling the canyon walls. The animals’ tusks simultaneously punctured Lance in the front and back of his torso, wedging him between the ugly faces of the creatures. Within seconds, his kidneys were shredded, his right lung collapsed, and blood poured from his wounds.
Lying on his side, Kenny curled into a fetal position, arms folded over his face. He could not watch the slaughtering of his partner. The boars plowed into his back, hindquarters, and legs, effortlessly piercing the human flesh. With each penetration, the boars thrust their heads skyward, inflicting gaping wounds into the defenseless body. The fatal blow for Kenny came from a boar’s tusk entering the back of his neck, severing his spinal cord. His body went limp as the boars began to devour him, ripping at his fleshy inner thighs and gut.
Lance died only seconds after Kenny had succumbed, but those seconds seemed like hours as the vermin’s teeth gashed Lance’s skin; their jaws clamping down on bone, mutilating the muscle and tendons of his body. The boars began consuming his flesh as he gasped for his last breath.
Skirmishing amongst themselves to savor the final remains, the wild hogs ingested everything, including the men’s clothes and shoes to get to the flesh and bone of their victims’ feet. They even slopped up the last pools of splattered blood that blended with the red claystone. The annihilation was now complete. Other than the battered bikes, the only things left were the two helmets Kenny and Lance had set on the bench beside them. And a small piece of gypsum.
Establishing their equal status at the top of the food chain, the pack stormed off, grunting and squealing—wanting to be heard, wanting to wreak havoc on anything in its path; unlike moments before when they had silently stalked the two anguished mountain bikers trying to make sense of a hateful world.
Once again, the trail was calm. A small cast of vultures silently settled to the ground, scrounging for any remaining fragments.
Later that night a brief, yet hard, rain fell. It was the first in weeks. It pounded the parched earth so quickly flash floods ensued. By the next morning, the trail’s red dirt bore new weather-related scars, but no signs of the brutal massacre that occurred just hours before.