I glanced up again. He was still gazing into the flames, the mug in his hand apparently forgotten. I realized he was in a distant memory and put down my book. “You were collecting firewood,” I prompted.
He started, as if just remembering I was there. “The area had been picked pretty clean, so I kept wandering farther and farther away from our camp, finding a dead branch here, another there, until I finally had an armload. The light was fading fast, like now, and I needed to get back. But when I turned around, I couldn’t see our camper or tent, or recognize any landmark. I’d wandered so far, in so many directions, that I didn’t know where I was.”
The night was moving quickly upon us, shouldering the pale daylight aside. The fire glowed brighter against the encroaching darkness, as if rising in our defense.
“I called out for my father and brothers. But the plains were so vast, so endless, they seemed to swallow my shouts.” He paused. “They seemed to have swallowed me.” He again fell silent, lost in the memory.
“What happened then?”
“I just kept wandering, in one direction, then another, carrying my load of wood and calling for somebody. Anybody. But no sounds came back. I was wearing only walking shorts and sweatshirt, and it was getting cold. I knew I’d be without light soon. And out here by myself.”
I studied his sharp, flame-lit profile as he gazed into the fire.
“Just as I was starting to panic, I saw a figure in the dusk. A man walking over the plains. Thank God! I’d never been so glad to see anyone in all my life. I dropped the wood and began running after him, yelling as I went. But he didn’t seem to hear and kept walking. I tripped over some roots and fell. Got back on my feet, and he was farther away. I was running as fast as I could— and screaming by then— and still he didn’t stop, didn’t even turn around. So, I kept running and yelling. As I drew closer, I saw he was dressed oddly for this time of year. Autumn, but he was wearing winter clothing, a heavy coat, cap and mask with eye goggles, snow leggings— ”
I closed my book. He had my full attention.
“I kept yelling, ‘Stop! Stop!,’ but he didn’t. I was almost out of breath when I tripped again. Just lay there in the dust, panting. And when I got to my feet . . . he was gone. I scanned the horizon in every direction, but there was no sign of him. It was as if he’d vanished into the dusk.”
There was a chill, but no longer from the oncoming night. I had an idea where this story was heading.
“I was just about to start some serious crying when, in the direction he’d been heading, I saw it: the top of our camper poking above the heath.”
A smile came over his face. “At that point I almost began crying from joy, and I quickly hurried through the brush to our camp, back to my father and brothers.” Still smiling, he shook his head. “At the time, it seemed just my dumb luck that, in following that man, I’d found our camp. I figured he must be camping somewhere nearby.”
The crackle of the fire became magnified in the silence; the cold evening hunkered down between us, brushing my face. I remained quiet. I sensed the story wasn’t finished. It wasn’t.
“Several years later— I was at Geelong Grammar, so probably thirteen or fourteen by then— reading for my Australian history class, I came across the 1936 skiing disaster on Mount Bogong. At the end of the account there was this toss-off sentence. I memorized it: ‘Over the years, there have been reports of seeing a man, dressed in winter garb, wandering alone on the high plains. Local lore says that it’s Cleve Cole’s spirit.’ I remember going cold reading those words.”
I went cold listening to them.
After another silence, I said, “That’s . . . well, that’s some story. How have people reacted when you’ve told them?”
He turned to me. “I never told anyone . . . until tonight.”
I nodded. “I can understand why.”
“I know it sounds far-fetched. But I swear, that time I was lost out here I’d never heard of Cleve Cole. I just saw an oddly dressed man walking over the plains and knew he was my only hope. But now I’m sure.”
“Of what?”
He turned back to the fire. “That, like some guardian angel, he was leading me, showing me the way back to my camp.”
“Interesting,” I said, and I returned to my book on Australia’s European beginnings with the transportation of convicts. But I was unnerved by Gray’s story, as if it held some special meaning or significance I couldn’t yet grasp.
And I was right. It would not be the last time Gray saw the ghost of Cleve Cole.
Chapter Eight
Oregon Pioneers
[Portland, Oregon, March 1994]
It was bold. It was daring. It had never been done before.
At the beginning of my second month with CAP, Steve spelled out the challenge at a prevention team meeting: Gay men in Portland were not showing up to test for HIV at the public health sites. “The county wants us to get more guys to test,” he said. Since the county’s grant paid a big chunk of the agency’s prevention budget, we understood this “request” was to be taken seriously.
“It’s not going to happen,” said Chad. “We’re not going to convince guys to go into the health department and get tested.”
“Chad’s right,” Lionel said. “They don’t trust the health department. It’s government.”
“But, my God,” exclaimed Steve, “half the nurses there are gay men!”
“Doesn’t matter,” Chad said. “It’s an image problem.”
Steve tossed the memo into the center of the table. “Well, they’re building it into our contract, so we better find a way to deliver. The feds are pressuring the state, the state’s pressuring the county, and the county’s pressuring us.”
“Great, so what do we do?” said Chad. “Go home and yell at our dog?”
“I didn’t know you had a dog,” said Lionel.
“Shut up, will you? It’s like a metaphor or something.”
“No, this is important,” Steve said. “We need to know how the epidemic is playing out here in Oregon. We’ve only got anecdotal information and the numbers of those who’ve already advanced to full-blown AIDS. And guys need to know their status so they don’t infect their brothers.” Brothers. That was Steve-talk. Coming from anyone else, it might sound corny or phony, but in Steve’s world we were all brothers. Personally, I didn’t believe the fractious political groups making up the so-called gay so-called community were brothers, but I appreciated that he did.
There were five of us on the prevention team. Each member had specific responsibilities. Chad, a psychology major at Portland State University, coordinated the men’s discussion groups. Puppy dog cute, he was one of those people who exudes sexuality. He had introduced himself to me as the “Prevention Team slut.” Like Steve, he was HIV-positive but, unlike Steve, had begun to show symptoms and was now taking eighty-plus pills a day. Nonetheless, he didn’t let that slow him down from being the poster boy for safer sex (“I give lots of demonstrations”), emphasizing that one can be HIV-positive and still have a fulfilling sex life. “Very fulfilling,” Lionel always added. African American, six foot two, of which 98 percent was muscle, Lionel coordinated the bar outreach program. Andie was the program assistant(“the token woman,” she called herself). Super organized, she kept the team on task and timelines. Still in her early twenties and pretty, she was forever falling in and out of love. “I’m in love with Chad,” she confided to me when we first met.
“Chad? Isn’t he— ”
“Yeah.