Bearwalker (10 page)

I
look back at the bear. I know that staring into the eyes of a wild animal isn't a good idea. That animal might take it as a challenge. But I can't seem to make myself look away. Ever since I can remember I've wanted to see a bear in the wild. I know how risky it might be to get this close to a bear, so close it could be on top of me in only a few steps. But compared to the humans not far from here who would gladly kill me, this bear seems positively benevolent. I don't feel threatened.

But, then again, maybe I should. Because of the way that bear is sitting, like a person might sit, leaning back against a big birch tree with her hind legs thrust out in front of her and her front paws held up to her chest, I can see she is a female bear. She's so close I can see not only the dugs on her belly where her little ones would nurse, but also that the thin hair around them
seems wet. Maybe I should talk to her in a low, reassuring voice. Tell her I mean no harm. Greet her as a relative because I belong to the Bear Clan.

Something growls near me. Then I feel a tug on the toe of my right boot. I don't move my head, but I look down with my eyes and see what I thought I would. I am in deep doo-doo, I think. There, chewing on the toe of my shoe, is a baby bear. A chirping sound comes from behind me and something nudges my back. I don't have to look this time to know that it's the first little bear's brother or sister. I'd better not look back. Moving right now is the worst thing I can do. I'm in the most dangerous place a human being can be in the wild—directly between a mother bear and her cubs.

These are not tiny bears. After all, they were born last February as hairless, blind little creatures during their mother's hibernation. They've had a whole spring and summer of being fed and protected by their mother, demanding little brats that have run her ragged as they get into everything in sight. Now, in October, they probably weigh about sixty pounds each and they're strong little buggers.

Just as I think that, the bear cub behind me
thrusts both of its front feet hard against my back at the same time as the first cub yanks hard on my boot. I go sprawling down the slope. As I roll, closing my eyes and covering my face with my hands, a thought goes through my mind.
Be careful not to wish too hard for anything, otherwise you just might get it.
I hadn't understood what Grama Kateri meant when she said that to me one day. Now I do. I wanted to see bears, but not like this, where seeing them might be the last thing I'll ever see!

Whomp!
My rolling is stopped, but not gently, by the trunk of a hemlock as my back, torn and bruised by the rock salt, hits hard against it. It hurts so much that I have to bite my lip to keep from shouting. My eyes are still closed. If I don't open them, maybe the mother bear won't see me. That is what I'm thinking. Smart, eh? But at least I'm no longer between the mother and her babies so I have to be safer. Right?

Wrong. This game is too interesting for them to quit now. I hear the thumping of their feet just before they land on top of me. They're chuckling, woofing, chirping, almost singing as they maul me, batting at me with their paws, pulling at my shirt and my baggy pants with their teeth. I'm being bruised, but they're not
trying to hurt me. They aren't biting hard enough to draw blood, and although their claws are scratching me, it's in fun. I keep pushing them away from my face to keep their sharp little teeth away from my nose and cheeks, which seem particularly attractive to them. I can smell their sweet milk breath, which is almost like that of nursing puppies. I keep my hands open, pushing, not grabbing. I try to sit up against their playful onslaught. They are so comical that even though I am getting bounced around like a rag doll I have to laugh out loud. I can't help it.

Huh-wooof!
That sound between a cough and a roar is so loud that it stuns me, but it has the exact opposite effect on the two cubs. They know the sound of a mother bear warning her cubs to seek shelter. The two of them yelp and claw their way up the trunk of the nearest tree. Naturally, it is the hemlock I am propped up against. And once again I am in between them and their mother with one significant difference. Rather than being twenty feet away, the large, very imposing mother bear is now standing right over me. I should have used my tree-climbing skills and scuttled up after them. But it's too late for that now.

Hnnnnrrrhhh.
The sound she makes isn't a growl. Even though her paws are on either side of me and I can feel the heat of her body, I'm not afraid anymore.

“My relative,” I say to her in Mohawk. “Take pity on me.”

Almost in slow motion, she opens her mouth and bites me on the shoulder. Her sharp teeth spear through the cloth of both shirts and into the flesh of my shoulder. It hurts, but I don't cry out. She lifts me up, shakes me once—not as hard as she might—and tosses me off to the side. Away from the tree where her cubs have sought refuge.

But she doesn't do what a bear should do then. She doesn't follow up with a mauling attack. She just stands there, swaying her head from side to side.

Unnh-unnn, unnh-unnn,
she says.

I stand up slowly, moving backward as best I can up the slope. Maybe I should repeat that sound, move my head back and forth the way she's doing. It's what Mr. Fadden told me to do when a bear greets you. But if I tried it right now I'd probably fall and roll back down the slope. My legs are shaky and I'm feeling as if I don't know whether to laugh or cry. For some
reason there are tears in my eyes. I'm a victim of assault and battery at the paws and claws and teeth of three bears. But I feel on the one hand as if I have been blessed and on the other as if I should turn, go back down the slope, and wander off into the forest with them like the little orphan boy in that old Mohawk story. I keep moving.

The mother bear stays there, watching me as I climb farther up the trail. Her two cubs scoot down from the tree to stand next to her. One of them takes a step as if to go up the trail after me and she quickly cuffs him back behind her.

Finally I come to a place where the way is so steep that I have to grasp at a tree branch and pull myself up. I have to turn my gaze away from them only for a second, but when I turn back to look, the bears are gone. It's so sudden that I wonder for a moment if I've imagined it all. Then I feel the throb in my left shoulder. It is beginning to ache from the puncture wounds made by the mother bear's canine teeth. My clothing is torn, my hands and arms are bleeding from a dozen scratches. Yet, beaten up as I might be, I feel as if I have been given a gift at the start of this strange day. I turn and keep climbing toward the place where the light com
ing from the east is making the exposed rock slope glow as gold as the sun.

I'm still following the silver trail markers. The Bear Seat isn't far from here. There's a branch in the trail I have to find to get to it. Then a thought comes to me. The phone. Did I lose it when I had my encounter with the bears? I slap my hand against my pocket in a moment of panic. It's still there.

I flick it open and press a key.
Beep!
And a light comes on. Great! A series of musical notes plays as a pattern of circles forms, expanding in waves. Then the digital display appears.

And my heart sinks.

LOW BATTERY
, it reads.

M
y heart sinks. I haven't yet reached the place where the trail turns off to the Bear Seat. I can't leave this phone turned on, draining what little charge is left. I quickly press the off key on the phone. That series of musical notes accompanies the appearance of the word
GOODBYE
in the center of those concentric circles before the screen goes blank.

This time it crosses my mind that here in the quiet of the woods the sound of that cell phone melody is awfully loud. It is so unlike any natural sound that it would immediately call attention to itself. And it could be heard from a long way away. As I'm thinking that, I hear a noise coming from above me. It's not another cell phone. It's the thumping sound of heavy feet on the bedrock of the trail. Someone or something large is coming down the trail in
my direction. It's coming fast, drawn by the sound of the cell phone.

I can't see yet who or what is making that sound. The narrow hiking trail dips and rises, moving back and forth between the trees and boulders. That means, though, that I haven't been seen yet. I shove the phone back into my pocket and move off the trail as quickly and quietly as I can, keeping low. I see a big dead pine that has fallen and is angled down the slope. I quickly decide to crawl over it and then slide beneath, burying myself in the deep pine needles, twigs, and leaf litter to lay flat. I think I'm hidden from sight. I just hope I haven't made too much noise digging down into the dry debris that gravity and the mountain winds have gathered up against this log.

I realize that there's a very small open space in front of my face, under the fallen trunk. I may be able to look through it and see the part of the trail where I was sitting before. I just have to press myself down a little. Pine needles and broken pieces of pine cone stick into the wound on my cheek that was made by the gun barrel and reopened during my encounter with the bears. My bitten shoulder aches as I flatten even more against the ground.

It's so painful to do this, but it's worth it. Just as I'd hoped, through one eye, I can see the trail through the screen of fallen debris. But what I see almost makes me gasp in dismay. There, crouched on the trail on all fours, looking more like an animal than a human being, is Jason Jones. He sees something on the ground that makes his mouth widen into a grin, showing his sharp teeth. He reaches down with one hand and picks up a yellow beech leaf. I'm close enough to see the yellow of that leaf is blotched with red. Oh, no. The red on that leaf is blood from the cut on my cheek. He holds the leaf up to his mouth and licks it with his tongue.

Then he turns in my direction with a quickness that is so uncanny, so threatening, that I close my eyes. I don't want to see him. But I still hear what he growls in a low voice that is so calm and cold that I shiver involuntarily.

“I've tasted you,” he says. “You can't escape me.”

I don't move. He hasn't seen me. Stillness is my salvation. He's using his voice the way an owl calls at night, hoping to spook some small hidden prey animal into panicked flight. I'm small, too, buried deep in the leaves and brush under this log. But I won't run like some foolish deer
mouse. I'll keep still. So still.

There's a thump against the log. I open my eye just a crack and see his legs through the screen of brush. He's right next to the log now, leaning over it. I can hear his heavy breathing above me. My heart is thumping so hard in my chest that I'm afraid he'll hear it. But I don't move.

I can't be seen, I think. I can't be seen.

The log rocks as he presses down on it and then moves back. His legs vanish from sight.

“You're not far from here,” he says. But I can hear that he's farther away when he says it. “I'm going to get you.”

No, you're not, I think.

His voice is moving downslope, down the trail, where there are more drops of blood that mark where I'd been. He's no longer following me. He's backtracking.

He may think he's a bear, but he's not as quiet as one. His feet are breaking twigs and dislodging small stones that rattle down the slopes below. I wait until I can no longer hear his voice or any sounds of his passage.

I slide out from beneath the log and rise up slowly, a finger's width at a time, into a crouch. I'm alone again. I can feel it as much as see it.
He may turn and come back, but I have a little time, maybe enough to get to the Bear Seat.

I make very little noise as I get back onto the trail and start to climb. I'm extra careful not to dislodge any loose rocks that might roll down. It's easier to be quiet now because as I rise in elevation and the trees get smaller there's less brush and the trail is worn down to smooth stone.

I pause when I get to the top of the trail where it widens into an expanse of ledge. I lean against a big boulder. My legs feel shaky and my calves are cramping up. I'm breathing hard and my stomach hurts. I press my hand against it and it makes a growling sound. All of a sudden I realize how hungry I feel. It's been twelve hours since I ate anything and I've expended so much energy.

I can't stop now, though. There're two trail markers on the cedar tree ahead of me. One is silver, the other is red. I remember the conversation around the table before Mr. Mack picked up the shotgun. The red marker indicates the start of the short trail to the Bear Seat.

I look back down the mountain along the way I just came. A blue jay is sitting in a tree fifty yards below me. A red squirrel is digging at
the base of a pine farther down. It's reassuring to see them. They wouldn't be so calm if something was approaching from below them. A soft wind blows across my face. The sun that is now a hand's width above the horizon shines through a gap in the clouds. It's beautiful at this moment and I draw in a slow, grateful breath for these few seconds of peace. I wish I could just sit down, lean against this tree, close my eyes, and sleep.

But I can't stop. I have to keep going. I take a few steps onto the trail to the Bear Seat. Suddenly, a figure rises up and looms above me. A bloody hand grasps my arm.