Touching Spirit Bear (10 page)

B
EFORE THEY WENT
to sleep, Edwin showed Cole how to suspend the coolers of fresh food from high branches in case bears visited during the night. “Tomorrow night we’ll dance,” he said.

“What do you mean, dance?” Cole said.

“We’ll build a fire and dance our feelings.”

Edwin offered no more explanation, so Cole didn’t ask. But long after Edwin and Garvey fell asleep, Cole lay awake in the tent listening to their deep regular breathing. The hard ground made his hip and arm ache. Outside the wind strained through the treetops, and deep in the trees, a branch broke. Memory of the Spirit Bear flashed into Cole’s mind. Was the bear still out there, and was it angry? Or was it only curious?

Cole tried to fall asleep, but troubled thoughts hounded him. What was his mother doing right now? Was she thinking about him, too? And what about his father? Did he care
about anything other than himself? Cole thought about his own troubles with the law and about all his troubles at school. He thought about Edwin, about Garvey, and about Peter. He truly did hope Peter would be okay.

As he tossed and turned, Cole found himself growing angry again. He tried to fight back the familiar rage with his memory of touching the Spirit Bear, but nothing seemed to ward off the bitterness and frustration that flooded his mind. Edwin had been right when he said that anger was never forgotten.

Cole thought about his past, and also about his future. Tomorrow he would begin building a shelter under the watchful eyes of Edwin and Garvey. Even with his bum arm, he’d probably do all the work while they sat around on their butts like they had today. And then what? What would happen after they left? Cole imagined the cold, the rain, carrying water, keeping a fire going, doing schoolwork, and long, long hours of being alone and bored. That wasn’t much to celebrate.

Cole’s angry thoughts repeated themselves like a stuck record until finally he slipped into a troubled sleep. Almost immediately a hand shook him awake. “Get up and come with me,” grunted Edwin.

“What time is it?” Cole grumbled, his head
still numb with fatigue. “Where are we going?”

“Hurry!” Edwin ordered. “It’s almost morning.”

Cole clawed his way out of the sleeping bag and fumbled into his shirt and pants. The icy air had made his clothes stiff, and he shivered. He heard Garvey still snoring loudly as he crawled out into the brisk air. The faint glow of dawn showed over the trees and dimmed the stars as Cole started to pull on his tennis shoes. Edwin stopped him. “Put these on,” he said, holding out a pair of knee-high rubber boots. “Tennis shoes aren’t much good up here except around camp.”

Cole was still pulling on the second rubber boot when Edwin headed out. “Let’s go, before the sun comes up,” Edwin said, setting off at a brisk pace. He had a small pack slung over his shoulder.

“What’s the big deal?” asked Cole. His stiff joints ached as he hobbled to catch up.

“Morning shouldn’t be wasted.”

By the time they reached the stream, Edwin breathed heavily. His potbelly definitely wasn’t from too much hiking. Without stopping, he waded into the water and used the edge of the stream as a pathway to avoid the heavy underbrush. He picked his footing deliberately along the slippery bottom, working his way upstream.
Cole followed, splashing along stiffly in the gathering daylight.

“You tossed and turned half the night,” Edwin said.

“Yeah, I couldn’t sleep.”

“Any reason?”

Cole didn’t answer right away. “Just thinking,” he said. When Edwin didn’t reply, he added, “My mind gets to thinking and won’t quit. Like it’s chewing on tough meat. It won’t swallow a thought, and it won’t spit it out. It just keeps chewing it over and over.”

“And the thinking makes you mad, right?”

Cole nodded. “It’s like my mind wants to be mad at something and it won’t quit. Even now, I’m mad.”

Edwin stopped beside a long rocky slope that rose several hundred feet to their right above the shallow valley. On their left the stream flattened out into a large, calm, crystal-clear pond. Upstream about a hundred yards, the stream gushed through a rock gorge, calming as it flowed into the still pool.

“We’re going swimming,” said Edwin, dropping his small pack to the ground. He slipped off his jacket and shirt.

“Are you nuts?” exclaimed Cole. “It’s freezing!”

“Trust me,” said Edwin.

“To do what? Kill ourselves?”

Edwin kept stripping. “Half of being trusted is to trust.” He reached down and picked up a thin stick.

Cole eyed the stick warily as Edwin waded out into the clear pond. Hesitantly, he removed his clothes, glancing again at Edwin, who had already swum over and seated himself chest-deep on a rock ledge across the pond. Edwin’s eyes were closed, and he held the small stick against his shoulder patiently. He breathed deliberately as if unaware of the cold.

Slowly, Cole waded in, gasping as the icy water rose around his chest. He held his breath as he pushed off the bottom and swam the last twenty feet. “Cripes, it’s cold!” he exclaimed as he pulled himself up beside Edwin on the underwater rocks.

Edwin remained still, eyes closed.

Cole hugged his arms to his chest, but couldn’t stop his teeth from chattering. The water nearly covered his shoulders. He felt stupid and vulnerable. What was he doing a million miles from nowhere, sitting in a freezing pond beside a bizarre Tlingit Indian with a stick? “What’s the stick for?” he asked loudly.

Edwin opened his eyes as if coming out of a
sleep. Calmly, he held up the stick. “The right end of this stick is your happiness, the left end is your anger,” Edwin said. He handed the stick to Cole. “Break off the left end and get rid of your anger.”

Shivering, Cole took the stick in his fists and broke off one side.

Edwin shook his head. “You broke off the left end, but a left end still exists. Go ahead, break it off again.”

Again, Cole broke the stick, and again Edwin shook his head. “Why did you leave the left end on the stick when I asked you to break it off?”

“That’s stupid,” Cole muttered. “The left end will always be there.”

Edwin nodded. “People spend lifetimes breaking their stick to get rid of anger. But always anger remains, and they think they’ve failed.”

“So if I can’t ever get rid of my anger, why even try?” Cole asked.

Edwin reached and took the remaining piece of stick from Cole’s hand. His fingers toyed with the wood as he looked up at the sunrise that had begun to glow warmly over the trees. Then he glanced over his shoulder at the dark storm clouds that hung menacingly on the opposite horizon. He waved the stick. “Is the sky sunny, or is it stormy?” he asked.

Cole looked both ways and shrugged.
“Depends on which way you look.”

“If you looked only at the clouds, what would you say?”

“Stormy.”

“Yes, and what would you say if you looked only at the sunrise?”

Cole’s body had grown numb from the icy water, and his teeth chattered uncontrollably. “Sunny,” he grunted impatiently.

Edwin waved the stick in a circle. “The sky, this stick, hot dogs, life, it’s all the same. It’s what you make of it. What you focus on becomes reality. Everybody carries anger inside. But also happiness. Those who focus on anger will always be angry. Those who focus on happiness will—”

“I don’t have a choice,” Cole interrupted, speaking almost desperately. “I can’t help it. I don’t go to bed and decide I’m going to stay awake tonight and be mad.”

“Have you been angry since you entered this pool today?”

“No,” said Cole. “’Cause I’m freezing my butt off.”

Edwin smiled. “When I was banished to this island, I came to this pond to get rid of my anger. It gave—”

“You just said you can’t get rid of anger,” Cole argued.

“This pond gave me a choice. I could focus on the left end or the right end of the stick. I could focus on the sunrise or the dark clouds. It was my choice.”

“So, unless I go somewhere and freeze every morning, I’ll keep getting mad, huh?”

Edwin smiled but shook his head. “You only look at the left end of the stick and at the cloudy sky now because your experiences in life have made that a habit. Happiness, like anger, is also a habit. You learn to be happy one day at a time. But habits change hard. This pond will help you.”

“What do I do in the winter?” Cole asked.

Edwin wrinkled his forehead. “Winter will be the hardest. Weather is bad, days short, the fire warm, and the stream too bitter to soak. You’ll find yourself wanting to stay inside beside the fire where it’s easy for your anger to fester like a Devil’s Club thorn. You’ll stare into the flames and remember bad times. In the winter, you’ll need to find other ways of looking at the right end of the stick.”

Cole felt himself growing dizzy from the cold and was about to protest when Edwin stood and headed to shore. Gladly, Cole followed. On shore, Edwin pulled out towels for each of them, and they dressed in silence. Cole noticed that much of the stiffness and pain had left his joints. Even his
arm felt better. He turned to Edwin. “You know, the stuff you just told me makes more sense than all the weird things the counselors and psychologist have told me in school and at the detention center.”

Edwin tapped Cole’s shoulder with the broken stick. “That’s because those people still think you can get rid of the left end of the stick.”

B
Y THE TIME
Cole and Edwin returned to camp, Garvey was up and had a fire burning. He sat on a stump of driftwood, sipping coffee and looking out over the bay. As they approached, he turned and pointed. “Look at the whales out there breaching.”

Edwin nodded. “Those are the humpbacks after herring. They’re following their instincts.

Every spring they migrate up from calving grounds in Hawaii.”

“I’ve never seen whales before,” Cole said.

“Except on TV.”

“We’ll dance the whale dance tonight,”

Edwin said.

“Is anybody hungry?” Cole said, lowering a cooler from the tree. He dug through the food for a box of cold cereal, retrieved a jug of water, then mixed some powdered milk and began to eat.

Edwin eyed Cole wolfing down the cereal.
“You might want something more than cold cereal to work on.”

“That’s all I usually eat for breakfast. If you guys want something different, fix it yourself.”

Edwin and Garvey both helped themselves to bowls of the cereal. “Suit yourself. You’re the one working, Champ,” Garvey said.

“Aren’t you helping at all?”

“We’ll show you what to do,” said Edwin. “But every ounce of work is going to be yours.”

“But I can’t nail with my bad arm.”

“Then learn to use the other arm,” Edwin said. “If you build the cabin well, you’ll stay dry and comfortable. Build it poorly, and…” Edwin shrugged. “It’ll be a long winter. I built the last shelter for you, and I built it well. I still feel hurt from what you did. If you burn this cabin, you hurt only yourself.” Edwin handed Cole a pair of leather gloves. “Here, these will keep you from getting blisters.”

“I might have a bum arm, but I’m not a wimp,” Cole said, setting the gloves aside.

“Your choice,” said Edwin, as he began showing Cole how to lay out the frame for the cabin.

By midmorning, Cole had connected four squared beams and set them on large rocks that served as a foundation. He nailed planks to the square frame. These he covered with plywood
flooring, making a large, rectangular platform, roughly the size of his room at home. Each nail he drove took about ten swings using his left hand, but gradually his swings got better. As he worked, his stomach growled for food, but he wouldn’t admit he was hungry, not in front of Edwin and Garvey. The two sat around the fire watching and offering suggestions. Everything had to be just right.

The sun was almost overhead when Cole finally had to stop for lunch. He was starved and felt half dead as he built up the fire and dug out spaghetti noodles and a can of sauce. He put them into a pan, which he balanced on a rock in the fire. “How come everything has to be so tight and exact on the cabin?” he asked. “I’m not living here my whole life.”

“About ten thousand mice are hoping you build it loose,” Garvey said.

Edwin motioned to the north. “When the first winter storm comes with fifty-mile-an-hour winds, you’ll know why.”

After their meal, Garvey showed Cole how to lay out wall panels on the ground. By now, big blisters had formed on Cole’s hands, and, with a sheepish grin at Edwin, he pulled on the leather gloves. “Go ahead, say ‘I told you so,’” he said.

“Pride has no place on this island,” Edwin answered.

By late that evening, when Garvey suggested he stop work for the day, Cole’s hunger again gnawed at his belly.

“How about some more cold cereal?” Garvey said.

“Real funny,” Cole said, pulling out hamburger from the cooler. “Some of us have been working.” The smile on Garvey’s face irritated Cole as he pulled the gloves off his sore and blistered hands. He examined his work. All four wall panels lay ready to be lifted into place. There was space for a door and one small window facing out toward the bay.

It still bugged Cole that Edwin and Garvey wouldn’t help with anything. He made up three hamburgers but deliberately put only one in the pan to cook. Edwin and Garvey watched him as he ate his burger. When Cole finished, he yawned. “I’m beat,” he said. “There’s the hamburger if you guys want some. I’m going to bed.”

“You’ll cook for everyone,” Edwin said. “And then we all dance.”

“Do you need your shoelaces tied, too?” Cole mumbled as he returned to the fire and began cooking again.

“Make us a feast,” Garvey said. “Not just food.”

Grudgingly, Cole cooked the last two hamburgers, covering them with mushrooms, onions, and cheese. He walked out away from camp while Edwin and Garvey ate.

After supper, Cole washed the dishes at the water’s edge, gingerly rubbing gravel on the plates to clean them. The raw blisters on his hands stung like fire. It was dark when he returned to the fire and flopped down wearily on a stump.

Edwin had stoked the flames into a bright blaze. “Now we dance,” he said. He stood and walked close to the fire. “All around us there are powers. There are animals like the whale, the bear, the wolf, and the eagle. There are powers like the sun and moon and seasons. And there are the powers inside of us like happiness and anger. We can feel all of these and dance to them. They all have much to teach us. Today, we saw the whale, so tonight we’ll dance the whale dance. Each of us will tell what we learned from watching the whale.”

Edwin curled his arms over his head imitating a whale’s head and began to pace around the fire, dipping his head up and down as if breaking through the waves. He exaggerated his motions, ducking and diving, lost in his make-believe
world. After ten minutes of moving around the fire, he slowed to a stop, then sat down.

Next, Garvey stood. In his own way, he began moving around the fire, jumping up and to the side to imitate a whale breaching. He made exaggerated expressions with his face. Around and around the fire he moved, finally slowing until he sat down and rested peacefully on a log near the flames. He looked up at Cole. “Your turn.”

“I don’t know how to dance,” Cole said.

“It’s not something you learn,” Edwin said. “Feel it. Become a whale and learn what it has to teach you.”

Self-conscious but also aware of the warning in Edwin’s tone, Cole stood and began circling the fire. He bent at the waist and moved with jerky motions, trying to pretend he was gliding through water the way whales in the bay had. He kept looking over at Edwin and Garvey, imagining how stupid he must look circling the flames. He was glad nobody from school could see him.

Gradually he moved faster, trying to imagine a whale migrating thousands of miles, being led by instinct. Lowering and rising, Cole wandered off away from the fire, then pretended the fire was the goal of his long migration. On his way to the fire, he leaped back and forth, chasing schools of
fish. Nearing the flames, he closed his eyes and leaped high into the air to breach. He landed on his hands and feet. For a few moments he stared into the flames, then sat down. He held his blistered hands tightly to his stomach.

After a time of silence, Edwin said, “The whale is graceful and gentle. Tonight, I learned those things.”

Garvey nodded and said, “The whale is also smart and powerful. That is what I learned from my dance.”

After several long minutes, Garvey said, “Cole, what did you learn from your dance?”

Cole had been thinking. “A whale migrates but it doesn’t have a home.” He picked up a small stick and traced in the dirt. “I feel like the whales,” he said softly.

When nobody spoke for several minutes, Garvey stood. “This has been a good day,” he said. “
Now
it’s time to hit the sack.” He turned and handed Cole a tube of ointment. “Use this on your blisters before going to sleep. And make sure you put a tarp over the firewood or it will be waterlogged by morning.”

“Thanks,” said Cole. He turned to Edwin. “What would a dance of anger be like?”

“That’s the hardest dance of all, because you face your anger and release it.”

“Will we do that dance some night?” Cole asked.

“You’ll do that dance alone after Garvey and I leave. You’ll do that dance only when you’re ready.”

Unlike the night before, Cole had no trouble falling asleep. He slept hard, waking only to shift positions on the rocky ground. With first light, Edwin again woke him by shaking his shoulder. “It’s time to go to the water again,” he whispered.

Cole rolled away from Edwin’s hand. “Can’t we skip just one day?” he groaned.

Edwin shook his shoulder again. “Not until your anger skips a day.”

“Why doesn’t Garvey join us?” Cole argued.

“Maybe he’s not angry.”

“Does that mean you’re angry if you’re going?”

“It means I’m going to
get
angry if you don’t get your butt up.”

Grumbling, Cole crawled stiffly from his warm sleeping bag. This morning his hip and arm hurt so badly he almost cried out. It felt as if cement had hardened in his joints. Cole looked out into the gathering light and the steady drizzle. The last time he saw this kind of steady drizzle, he had been fighting for his life. Now he was going swimming in a freezing
pond. He couldn’t believe this was real.

As Cole stepped from the tent, Edwin handed him a rain jacket. Without speaking, the two left camp and hiked to the stream in the shadowy dawn. From there, they once again entered the water and waded up the edge of the stream until they reached the pond. Edwin crawled under a large spruce tree and stripped off his clothes. “Place your clothes near the trunk to keep them dry,” he said.

“They would stay dryer if I left them on and stayed out of the water,” said Cole as he began undressing. Soon he and Edwin sat together on the rocky ledge. Edwin made no effort to speak.

“How long do we sit here?” Cole asked impatiently.

“Until your mind is clear and you have a choice between anger and happiness.”

“I’m not mad today,” said Cole. “My head’s clear, and I feel like I have a choice right now.”

“Then sit here until you’re numb,” Edwin said, his voice edgy. “Each time it gets easier. Someday you’ll
want
to get up and come here.”

“That’ll be the day,” Cole grumped, shivering. He felt his skin growing numb and his breath cooling. Finally, Edwin stood, as if some invisible timer had gone off in his head. Without rushing, he returned to shore.

Cole followed gladly. “I can’t wait to get back and start a big bonfire,” he said as they toweled off.

“This morning, you’ll take time to meet your ancestors first,” Edwin said in his matter-of-fact voice.

“Do what?”

Edwin didn’t answer. He finished dressing, then walked toward the rocky slope beside the pond. As he angled along the bottom, he searched the ground. Suddenly he stooped over and picked up a round rock the size of a bowling ball. He ran his fingers fondly across the rough surface as if he had touched the rock before.

“What are you doing?” Cole asked.

“Touching my ancestors.”

“You’re too weird,” Cole said.

Edwin handed the rock to Cole.

“What do I do with this?” asked Cole.

“Just follow me; I’ll explain.” Edwin started up the rocky slope. “Trust me.”

“How far are we going?” Cole asked.

Edwin continued up the long slope.

Grumbling, Cole followed. As they walked, Edwin spoke. “Your life isn’t an accident. Many generations of your ancestors struggled through life, learning lessons, making mistakes, just as you have. Each generation passed on to the next what they learned and all that they became.”

After several hundred feet, Cole’s right arm ached from carrying the heavy stone. He stopped and looked back. They were barely halfway up the slope.

“Pretend that rock is your ancestors,” said Edwin. “Climbing this hill is your life. With each step, you carry your ancestors with you, in your mind, in your heart, and in your soul. If you listen, your ancestors reach out from the rock and teach you the lessons of their struggles. Hear your ancestors. Someday, you’ll pass those lessons on to others.”

Cole acknowledged Edwin’s words with a weary grunt and struggled on without complaining. By the time they reached the top, he breathed heavily. He was about to drop the rock to the ground when Edwin reached out, took the heavy stone, and set it down carefully. “Treat your ancestors gently,” he said.

Cole shrugged. “What are they, wimps?”

Edwin ignored Cole’s comment. “I’ve carried that stone up this hill hundreds of times,” he said.

“This very same rock?”

Edwin nodded.

“You mean you carry it back down again, too?”

Edwin smiled. “There’s a better way. Once the rock is set down, it changes meaning. Now it
becomes your anger. Go ahead, roll the rock down the hill. Roll away your anger.”

Cole crouched and gave the rock a shove. He watched as it crashed back down the slope. “That should make the ancestors dizzy,” he laughed.

“Imagine your anger rolling away,” Edwin said patiently.

Cole was still chuckling about his dizzy ancestors. He couldn’t believe he had carried a rock all the way up here just to shove it back down again.

“Each time you do this, you’ll find more meaning,” Edwin said. “And you’ll learn respect.”

“What do you mean, each time I do this? I’m not going to carry that stupid rock up this hill every day.”

“Stay angry if you want—it’s up to you. When I was here at your age, I found it was good to carry the rock every morning after my swim.”

Cole turned to Edwin. “What makes you think you know everything that’s good for me?”

Edwin drew in a long deep breath. “I don’t. Nobody does. We all search for answers, the same as you.”

“Then why do you keep telling
me
what to do?”

Edwin smiled. “That’s the first intelligent question I’ve heard you ask all morning.” He
shrugged. “Maybe Garvey and I want redemption for our own mistakes in life. We were never able to help those we hurt.”

“Well, it’s my life,” Cole said. “Not yours.”

“We should have stayed in the water longer,” said Edwin, heading down the hill toward camp.