On Bear Mountain

by Deborah Smith

  Quentin crooked a finger at him. “Arthur, come down. I want you to move slow, and be careful. If you do that — and don’t fall — I’ll show you how to get rid of a bad Tween.”

  My brother hopped up and crept from sight, placing every footstep with melodramatic care. Quentin and I walked to the front of the barn and waited as he picked his way down the loft ladder and then through the piles of beams and debris. Quentin grasped him by one arm, helping him crawl nimbly over the last beam.

  Arthur faced us with electrified energy. “Okay, now you get rid of the bad Tween. I gotta understand how they think, so I can decide what to do about Mama Bear. I don’t want the bad Tweens to get mad at her.” He shifted from one foot to the other, wringing his hands. “Chase it off!”

  I reached for him. “Sweetie, sssh, calm down — ”

  He jerked away. “The Tween’s right in front of you!”

  Quentin faced me. He took me by the shoulders. “Trust me on this,” he said, and before I realized what he intended, he kissed me lightly on the mouth. Dazed, I simply stood there. He had eaten an orange at some point in the day, and his lips were still flavored with it. I knew, at that moment, that when I was an old woman I would lift a wedge of orange to my mouth and still remember him.

  “You kissed my sister,” Arthur said in an awed voice.

  He nodded. “I chased off the bad Tween.”

  Arthur gasped and scrutinized some spot in the air before us. “You did!”

  Quentin gave me a half-smile that mocked us all. I stared at him, not yet capable of registering anger at the intrusion or resistance to the sensations that swept through me like nothing I’d ever felt before. “You’re about to find yourself between a rock and a hard place.” I warned.

  “I’ve been there more often than I care to remember. I don’t mind the pressure, and I don’t think you minded the kiss.” There was the slightest touch of ruddy color in his cheeks, beneath the shadow of fine, afternoon beard stubble. He frowned and rubbed his jaw as if the softness of my face had polished his. A mistake, a goddamned reckless mistake, he was thinking.

  “I have to go off and think about the Tweens and Mama Bear,” Arthur announced, then headed for the woods at a lope.

  I looked at Quentin, then away. “He thinks slowly. He ponders important questions for hours, or even days. The color of a bird’s wing, the shape of a snail’s shell. What to name a squirrel. You’ve asked him to make a decision that changes his entire universe. Don’t expect an answer right away. And don’t expect the answer you want. He’ll think and he’ll agonize, but in the end, he’ll never decide that his Mama Bear wants to go with you.”

  “I’ll take that bet,” Quentin said.

  In the spaces between our lives, the Tweens were gaining control.

  CHAPTER 13

  Get Arthur’s answer and settle this negotiation before the situation falls down around us all. Quentin’s plan for the day was simple when he left his motel room the next morning. At the Tiberville Diner, just off the square, he parked in the midst of muddy pickup trucks and service vans. His Explorer’s New York tag drew curious glances from the blue-collar men striding inside for a quick breakfast. The men nodded to him, even though he was a stranger, and said, Mornin’, there, how you doin’? There was no choice but to nod back and answer.

  He rolled the Explorer’s windows down and locked Hammer in the back compartment. Hammer slurped happily over a bowl of dry dog food and a bowl of water, after uttering one deep, ferocious bark at a large, rust-red hounddog sitting majestically among the ladders in the bed of a painter’s truck nearby. The hound merely wagged its tail. Mornin’, there. How you doin’?

  Quentin took a corner booth where he drew less attention. He spread out a collection of local history books and tourists’ pamphlets he’d purchased, and after placing an order for waffles, sipped black coffee, and continued methodically working his way through the information. It was a crash course in Powell and Tiber history, including the story of Erim and the lost Annie, which he read twice. In the more recent pamphlets, which detailed notable events and milestones, there was not one mention of the Iron Bear. That fact began to gnaw at him, even as he dismissed it.

  “Gawd, you’re just like Ursula,” the waitress said, grinning a gold-toothed grin when she delivered the waffles. “Got your nose stuck in a book all the time. What you reading?” She pecked a long fake fingernail on a tome of Tiber County stories, and snorted. “That’s Tiber tall tales, right there. You read that, you’ll think Tibers walk on water and the rest of us can’t even swim.”

  “Can’t even go wading,” a man at the counter amended, and others guffawed. And before Quentin could inject even a word or question, his fellow diners began to tell him their own version of the county’s history. He heard the news of my family in colorful detail, including the story of the Bear’s arrival, and how my father defended the sculpture from that day forward. By the time they finished with the night of Miss Betty’s death and the confrontation between Daddy and Mr. John, Quentin had let his food go cold and forgotten, his hands quiet around his empty coffee mug.

  He went to the cash register to pay his bill, and a stocky older man swiveled on a counter stool to study him with narrowed eyes. “Hear you and Ursula Powell set John Tiber’s ass in a crack the other day,” he said. The man wore a Tiber Poultry work shirt. The other diners grew very still and quiet, watching.

  Quentin looked from the logo to the man’s eyes, expecting trouble. “That could be.” Amused respect spread over the man’s face. “Then you fit right in with the Powells, mister. They been dogging Tibers since God was a youngun’. Keepin’ ’em as straight as anybody could. Glad to see you takin’ up the cause.”

  “Well, Albert, after all, his daddy did build the Bear,” a trucker in overalls commented. “It’s in his blood to stand up for what he believes in.”

  Quentin laid his check and money on the cash register. The waitress handed it back. The diner’s owner swiveled from a sizzling griddle. He held a long spatula in one hand and a determined expression in his eyes. “Your breakfast is on the house, Mr. Riconni,” he said. “It’d be an honor.”

  Quentin thanked him, nodded to the others, and walked outside in warm, flower-scented air. Beyond the end of the parking lot, the land fell in great forested swoops into a valley dotted with houses and tiny roads. In the distance, green mountains shimmered in shadows and sunlight. The sky was the bluest he’d ever seen. Paradise was an easy illusion, some days.

  He took a deep, troubled breath, and exhaled.

  • • •

  I was in town that morning, too, minding my own business, trying to concentrate on the simple task of filling a grocery cart at the Piggly Wiggly. Almost every mountain town had a Piggly Wiggly, and ours was little different from the rest — small, modest, and no-nonsense. You couldn’t buy wine or beer there, or the makings for sushi, or even a fancy spinach salad. It was a meat-and-potatoes grocery store, and I was debating the price on a two-pound package of cheap ground chuck when Janine Tiber pushed her way through the swinging metal doors from the store’s warehouse area.

  She carried a mahogany-veneered clipboard with a stack of notes clamped to it. A half-dozen exquisitely business-suited men and women followed her. I glimpsed Rolexes, Gucci scarves, and diamond cuff links. Janine looked sleek and autocratic in a handsome linen suit and matching pumps. Her blond hair, as always for business, was pulled back in a gold clasp at the nape of her neck.

  I cursed silently. I wore leather sandals, faded cargo shorts, and a Faulkner T-shirt I’d won in a raffle at a booksellers’ trade show. William Faulkner stared somberly from the background of my breasts. My hair still smelled of Udder Balm.

  “Piggly Wiggly is one of Tiber Poultry’s major customers in this region,” she was saying, as she walked. She was leading a tour of investors. Rumor had spread that when Mr. John retired in a year or two she intended to expand the company. Janine halted when she and her small army came down m
y narrow aisle. I stood next to the Tiber section of the meat coolers, blocking the entrance with my cart. Her eyes glittered. “Good morning.”

  “Morning.” I nodded to the group, which stared back. “Give me a second and I’ll move out of your way.” I began maneuvering the cart to avoid a display of beef jerky on the opposite side of the aisle. I bumped the jerky. A wheel jammed. I shook the cart and nudged the wheel with my foot. Janine said nothing, but her mouth puckered with impatience. My face burned. I bumped the jerky display again. Several vacuum-sealed packets of Spicy Joe Jerked Beef toppled to the floor. I squatted and began gathering the damned packets.

  “Are you a regular customer of Piggly Wiggly?” a woman in a red-silk powersuit asked.

  “All my life.” And in this hellish parallel universe, too. I stood, grasping handfuls of jerky. I began putting the packets back on their holders. No one, especially Janine, lifted a finger to help.

  “Let’s do a quick customer interview,” the red-silk woman announced to the others. She stepped closer to my cart. “Do you purchase Tiber Poultry products here?”

  I put the last beef jerky on the display. I’d had enough. I looked at Janine, then at Red Silk. I said bluntly, and honestly, “I don’t eat chicken.”

  Janine’s eyes flared. Red Silk arched a brow. “Oh? Why?”

  “My father was a Tiber contract farmer. I grew up shoveling chicken manure and burying dead chicks. We ate chicken because it was all we could afford. The annual income for Tiber contract farmers runs just above minimum wage after you factor in feed, utilities, and labor. Of course the farmer usually has little choice, because his chicken houses are built with loans from the Bank of Tiber, which is, of course, controlled by Tibers. He’s got mortgages to pay, so he can’t complain too much. It’s a government-sanctioned form of indentured servitude.” I smiled. “I swore that once I was set free, I’d never eat chicken again.”

  The group gazed at me with stony-faced resentment. I hadn’t told them anything they didn’t know, I’d just embarrassed them. Across the aisle, a gaggle of women, including Mrs. Greene, Juanita, and Liza, stood listening behind the frozen-foods case, with their carts nosed together like metal cows communing at a water trough. Liza applauded. “Be strong and stay inside the light,” she called softly.

  Why am I asking for trouble? I have so much already. I had lost my mind. Quentin had taken it. The Tweens had helped him. This news would spread.

  Janine was furious. “I apologize for inadvertently subjecting you to our local politics,” she said to her group in a voice that could have cut a buffalo wing. “I assure you this is a matter of personal disagreements, not a serious issue that causes any ill will or controversy in our dealings with our contract farmers. In fact, Tiber Poultry is considered a beloved part of the community, and we treat our employees like family.”

  “That’s right. I’m her cousin, and she treats me like an employee,” I said.

  After that remark, I saw war in Janine’s eyes. She could have strangled me. “Let’s move on,” she announced smoothly, then detoured her group around me and led them to the store manager, who hustled them down a distant aisle. Five seconds later she strode back to me. She tossed her clipboard into the meat bin and put her hands on her hips.

  “First you publicly insult my father, and now me. Oh, I’ve heard all about your visitor, your knife-wielding New York thug who’s waving money around and claiming the Bear is valuable art. He’s obviously convinced you that you’re going to get rich off that piece of junk. Is that what this is all about? Poor white trash Ursula, still trying to prove she’s not a Nobody and certain she’s found a sugardaddy to fund the effort. You couldn’t gain anyone’s respect with an Emory scholarship or a master’s in business. You failed as an entrepreneur, your publishing company is a joke, you came home broke, your brother’s going to end up in an institution, so all you can hope for now is a lucrative handout from a gangster. Congratulations. You’re continuing the Powell family tradition of no-accounts and n’er-do-wells.”

  I put my open hand on her face, and pushed. She staggered back and hit the Spicy Joe display. It careened on its cardboard side. She tripped and sat down on it.

  Beef jerky went everywhere.

  * * *

  Quentin studied me through the bars of the holding cell, where I sat on the metal bench with my hands in my lap and my back very straight. “Do you mud wrestle, too?”

  “Only with my cousins. You didn’t have to come here. I can get myself out.”

  “Not this time. I had to pay the store for the damage to the Spicy Joe display.”

  I stared straight ahead. “Thank you.”

  He leaned against the bars with one foot crossed over the other and his hands lounged in the pockets of his trousers. His nonchalance was feigned for my sake, I believe. “You’re welcome.”

  The deputy, Mrs. Dixon, shook her gray head as she unlocked the door and swung it open. “I think I’ll just give y’all the key.” She wandered back down the hall and left us alone. Quentin crooked a finger at me. “Come out, Xena, Warrior Princess. You’re free. No bail. Charges were dropped. Your Tibers obviously like to have their cousins arrested and then turn them loose as a show of family kinship.”

  I stood up. “It’s a southern tradition.”

  As I walked out the cell, Quentin straightened, and his expression grew serious. “This happened because of me, I hear.”

  “In part.”

  “I’m sorry. People will forget once I’m gone. That’ll happen as soon as Arthur lets me have the sculpture.”

  “I have bills to pay and tenants who depend on me and a brother who’s more like a child than a grown man. I have to make the future safe for him. But that doesn’t mean I like what I have to do. And I don’t enjoy being charged with assault and going to jail! People won’t forget!”

  He listened without any outward reaction, his somber gaze never leaving my face. “I’m going to make it worth your while,” he said. “When you’re rich, people won’t give a damn about today.”

  “You don’t know this town, and you don’t know me. So please, save your shitty promises.”

  The air froze. If Arthur’s bad Tweens existed, they were trapped in the crystal layers of ice we generated. “I don’t make promises I can’t keep,” he said quietly.

  “Don’t make me any promises at all.”

  The door at the end of the hall clanged open. “Y’all coming, or you plan to set up housekeeping?” Mrs. Dixon called.

  We walked out of the small, utilitarian brick building in tense silence. When we stepped outside, we met a small crowd. My tenants rushed forward. Arthur was with them, clutching Liza’s hand. He stopped, breathing hard, his eyes wild with fear as he looked from me to Quentin.

  “He thought you’d be locked up forever,” Liza whispered. “He was afraid you’d died and no one would tell him.”

  I tried to touch him, but he pulled back. “I’m fine, sweetie,” I said wearily.

  Arthur bounded to Quentin. “Brother Bear.” His voice cracked. “You wouldn’t let anything bad happen to my sister, would you?”

  “Your sister can take care of herself.”

  “No, the Tweens almost got her, yesterday and again today! Just like they’ll get Mama Bear if I do the wrong thing. But you won’t let anything bad happen. I just know it. As long as you’re here we don’t have any big empty spaces!” He threw his arms around Quentin and gave him a hug. Quentin stood there with grim reserve, finally raising a hand to clasp my brother’s shoulder and gently pry him away. My heart sank.

  Arthur had found a hero, and he thought Quentin would stay forever.

  Hospitality demanded I offer Quentin a place at Bear Creek. To my dismay, he accepted. “The closer I stay to Arthur, the sooner he’ll make up his mind,” he said.

  • • •

  He phoned the old sergeant to tell him about the delay. Popeye was the only person who knew Quentin had found the sculpture. Since Quentin often spent
time on long jaunts out of state to buy and dismantle properties, no one else yet thought his absence was peculiar. But there would be questions, soon.

  “What the hell are you doing down there?” Popeye growled. “Making time with that mountain gal?”

  “Negotiating.”

  “She pretty?”

  “Sarge, stop digging.”

  “Not married or anything?”

  “Stop.”

  “Lemme warn you, son, you let a mountain woman get hold of you and she’ll squeeze your soul out. Women in those mountains grow up tough and hungry.”

  Quentin brushed off the sarge’s typical bluster and revealed nothing about the situation. I’m the one who’s hungry around her, he thought.

  He refused Ursula’s offer to stay in the farmhouse — she would have given him her father’s bedroom — and bunked in a shabby, half-furnished apartment at one end of the second chicken house, where the tenants had cordoned off space for their studios. Dust sifted through the wall vents from the Ledbetters’ pottery wheels and kilns. The added heat from Liza’s glass furnace made the apartment’s two tiny rooms swelter. The window air conditioner was broken, only one burner worked on the small stove, and the toilet tank leaked.

  This is a test, he thought grimly. He opened the door and one small window, set up an electric fan Ursula had given him, and spent as little time there as possible. It was all he could do to resist working on the place. And on her. She hates me being here. She watches me all the time.

  Arthur followed him like a puppy, often silent, simply studying him with sorrowful adoration, pondering the Tweens that Quentin had revealed to him and the decision he’d been asked to make. He paced and huddled, polished the sculpture with his bare hands, couldn’t eat, grew quieter. He turned pale any time Quentin tried to draw him into a discussion about the future.