—Thanks, I will. I’m almost done.
—Wouldn’t wait, I’s you. Want me to, I’ll take you in.
—Thanks, but I’ve got a compass.
The man cackles at that.
—Suit yourself. I jest hope the panther don’t git ya.
He then turns and continues walking in the direction Remington has just come from.
Remington stands and watches the man until he crosses the small pine flatwoods plain and disappears into the hardwoods on the other side.
Unsettled by the encounter, he tries to determine why. Would he feel the same way had Heather not called and told him about her undeveloped feeling?
I would, he thinks. Though he can’t quite identify what, there was something menacing about the man. Threatening. He’s up to something illegal—and not just trespassing. It could be poaching or over-the-limit hunting, but it’s far more likely that he’s the grower.
Remington’s great-grandfather, Henry Clay Cole, a turpentiner who moved his family over from Mississippi, buying thousands of acres for less than a dollar each, had to contend with moonshiners—ridge runners as he often referred to them. Over eighty years had passed, and his family was dealing with the same issues. Different contraband. Same situation.
He considers walking out of the woods right now, but is determined not to be scared off his own land. Besides, he’s on a mission, and knows how depressed he’ll be tonight if he goes in without accomplishing it.
Looking up, examining the quality and quantity of daylight left, he decides all he really has time to do now is check his traps, which is at least something. Something he can live with. But as he turns to enter the hardwoods, an indentation in the ground catches his eye, and he stops.
There in the soggy, sandy soil, as if in plaster, is a perfect paw print. And a little ways further another. And then another. And another.
He’s fairly certain the tracks are those of an adult Florida black bear, but searches the nearby trees for confirmation. He smiles as he sees the territorial scratch marks that Florida black bears make in the tree trunks. His smile broadens when he realizes that the marks are nearly seven feet high.
Bounding. Loping. Barreling.
Black as the void.
Buckskin muzzle bursting out of a forest of fur, chest ablaze.
Shy eyes.
The Florida black bear, the smallest of all North American bears, has been endangered for over three decades, its population having dwindled down from twelve thousand to fifteen hundred.
Rarely seen in the wild, the solitary bear hides in areas of verdant vegetation, avoiding interaction with other animals—especially humans.
Convinced there’s no better weapon to combat the threats facing the Florida black bear than artistic images of the magnificent creature in its natural habitat, Remington has wanted to capture such photographs since the moment he picked up a camera again.
Stillness.
The hardwood hammock he’s entering is serene and motionless, the only sounds the swish and crackle of the dead leaves he’s trudging through, the damp, brown coverage so thick he can’t see his boots.
Somewhere in the distance, a woodpecker taps out his mating morse code on the resonant bole of a hollow tree, and when a gentle breeze sways the tops of oaks, cypresses, magnolias, and gums, the falling leaves around him sound like the start of a soft rainfall.
The blanket of downed leaves is so thick, he can’t believe there are any left on the trees, but the ancient timbers are far from barren. In fact, the area has yet to experience a hard freeze this year, which has not only left leaves on trees, but petals on flowers, blooms on branches, pastel highlights among the dominant rusts, reds, golds, and browns.
With ranges up to eleven square miles for females and sixty-six square miles for males, the chances of actually finding a bear are slight, but the tracks are fresh and his excitement makes him hopeful. This is the closest he’s ever come.
Pressing past palmettos, hanging vines, fallen trees, and jagged limbs, Remington adventures into untouched undergrowth, unspoiled woodlands.
He doesn’t have to go far.
Climbing a low ridge with the help of hanging vines, he makes his way down a short slope to a narrow slough. The small body of water is green-black, covered with floating plants and algae, and still—except for the tiny ripples emanating from the light brown snout of a huge black bear taking a leisurely drink.
Disbelief.
Excitement.
He thinks of how many hours, days, weeks, he’s spent wandering these woods without encountering a single species, and today the first animal he sees is one near the top of his list.
Awe.
Exhilaration.
With one quick motion, Remington tugs on the strap, swinging his Tamrac pack around to the front of his body, and withdraws his new Cannon camera.
Lens cap.
Focus.
Aperture.
Exposure.
Click. Click. Click.
The new SLR snaps as fast as he can press the button.
Click. Click. Click.
Looking up from the water, the bear, which is less than ten feet away, turns its head toward the sound of the camera.
Click. Click. Click.
Glancing at Remington, the bear looks away, then raises up on its hind legs, exposing a diamond shape blaze of white fur on its chest, and begins to sniff the air.
The black mass of endangered species stands nearly six feet tall, weighs almost two hundred pounds, its massive body imposing, intimidating, irrational making.
Reminding himself to remain calm, Remington continues to snap pictures rapidly, checking the display to confirm image quality only once during the process.
Click. Click. Click.
She’s not gonna kill you. Glancing away from you and avoiding eye contact is a threat-averting action.
No human’s ever been killed by a Florida black bear.
In preparation for this moment, Remington had read a great deal about these animals, learning how gentle most of them are, how they eat mostly fruit and insects. This time of year, her diet consists primarily of the fruits of saw palmetto, cabbage palm, tupelo, and oaks.
Overdevelopment and the resulting loss of inhabitable land has the black bear’s vast, original, heavily forested hardwood habitats fractured into tiny green slivers between urban and suburban sprawl, unable to sustain the beautiful, magnificent creature standing so majestically before him right now.
The number one killer of the Florida black bear is automobiles.
More cars. More houses. More goddam malls. Like a controlling, possessive lover, we’re destroying the very thing we claim to love, carving parts off piece by piece.
An important part of Florida’s ecosystem, the black bear is what’s known as an umbrella species—with their broad ecological range and requirements, including a variety of habitats over a large geographic area, they are umbrellas for a wide range of other protected, threatened, and endangered animals, including the gopher tortoise, Eastern Indigo snake, and the Florida scrub jay.
Protect the Florida black bear and its habitat, and we protect countless other species.
Click. Click. Click.
When the bear begins to grunt, Remington knows it’s most likely because she has a cub close by, and he searches for it through the viewfinder of his camera.
There, just above the upright bear, in the fork of two small oak branches, a cub looks down at Remington with only mild interest.
Dropping to the ground to shoot up at an angle that frames both bears—standing mother, branch-lying cub—Remington frames his shot, adjusts his focus, and begins to capture images he’s only imagined before this moment.
Click. Click. Click.
Ordinarily, Remington would expect the bear to ignore him and eventually walk away, but with a cub up in the tree to protect, she can’t very well do that, and though there are no documented attacks in Florida, black bears have attacked people
in other states over the years, so he decides it’s best to finish quickly and ease away.
When the bear’s enormous paws fall back down onto the leaf-covered ground and she starts to moan and grunt as she lumbers toward him, he begins to back away in an awkward three-legged crab crawl, clicking pictures of the approaching animal as he does.
Capable of running at speeds of nearly thirty miles per hour, the Florida black bear is much faster than it appears. Even if he weren’t wearing boots and the ground wasn’t covered with slick leaves to slide on and fallen trees to trip over, Remington knows he probably couldn’t outrun the protective mother, and given the current conditions he knows he can’t.
The bear lets out a guttural sound somewhere between a grunt and a growl, and Remington quickly stows his camera and begins to back away more rapidly, remaining low to the ground with his eyes locked on the angry animal in pursuit of him.
Time to make your escape attempt in earnest.
Betting—serious bodily injury or extinction—that the mother will not venture far from her cub, Remington continues his backward crawl, hoping his hands don’t land in a nest of cottonmouths.
Though the bear isn’t running, its steady advancement is continuous, and Remington begins to back away even faster, the heels of his boots kicking up dirt and leaves.
He’s starting to put a little more distance between himself and the bear—until his retreat ends abruptly in the gnarled nest of roots in the base of an upturned oak tree.
Stuck.
The huge clump of dirt and roots in the tip-up mound is too wide to back around and too tall to back over. With the bear closing in on him, he decides his only play is to stand up and run around the mound, which he does, glancing back over his shoulder to see if the bear decides to run as well.
As soon as he’s around the mound, he drops to the ground and rolls under the fallen tree and pops up on the other side.
If the bear continues to give chase, he’ll have the barrier of the tree for protection.
When he glanced back at the bear before ducking under the tree, he couldn’t tell if it was running or not. Now, with his vision obstructed by the oak, he strains to hear.
The bear lets out a loud growl from behind the tip-up mound and begins its return back to its cub.
Stepping over and peeking out around the left side of the mound to be sure, his eyes confirm what his ears have just heard.
Pulse pounding.
World spinning around him.
Adrenaline jitters.
Only now does he realize how frightened he has been.
Take deep breaths, he tells himself. Think of Heather. Calm down. It’s over.
Dropping to the ground, Remington removes his camera from the case and turns it on. Pressing the display button, the most recent picture he took fills the small screen on the back of the camera. Thumbing the right curser button, he moves to the earliest image taken when he had first stumbled onto the bear and her cub.
Clicking through the images, a bloom of joy expands outward from what feels like his inmost sentience—that indescribable thing inside that has him out here to begin with.
Even on the small screen in low resolution, he can tell that the images he captured are far better than he had even hoped they would be.
Singular.
Spectacular.
Some photographers wait a lifetime for the opportunity he happened on today.
Thank you.
He wants to call Heather, to share with her the nirvana he feels, but knows he’s a couple of miles from signal.
Not all of the images are good or even usable, but he’s got at least twenty extraordinary shots—maybe more. Shots of an endangered species in its natural habitat: a mother and cub together; a standing mother, the white blaze on her chest showing; a protective mother chasing him away from her cub, growling mouth, threatening teeth exposed.
He thinks of the land and river warriors who work so hard to conserve and protect this area, particularly the quarter Creek woman known as Mother Earth. What he’s done here today will make them so happy and help in their cause—his cause, too, especially now—that he can’t wait to show them the pictures.
Excitement fades into a profound sense of fulfillment.
Calling.
Purpose.
Zen.
This is it. Heather was right. He finally knows what he’s meant to do. Who he is.
What was it Ansel Adams said? He said, Sometimes I get to places when God is ready to have someone click the shutter. That happened to me today.
Today, without harming or much disturbing the ecosystem of this place he so loves, he captured images that will help the efforts to save an endangered species. Today made all his other days out here meaningful.
Heather knew long before he did.
The conversation from the night of their breakup replays in his mind as it has so many times, but it sounds different to him now that his perspective has changed.
—We don’t have a problem, she says.
—You’re right. We have several.
—I can’t believe you can’t see it. You’re so good with your eyes, with envisioning—
—I can’t believe how condescending you can be, he says, but please enlighten me. What can’t I see?
—You’re such a prick sometimes.
—This isn’t what I signed up for.
—I’ve heard.
—This doesn’t bother you?
—What?
—The constant conflict. The—
—It’s not constant.
—The arguing, the unhappiness.
—Of course it does.
—But not enough to want to end it?
—You think ending our marriage will end your misery? she asks.
—You don’t?
—Your misery has nothing to do with our marriage.
—My misery? Then why’re you as miserable as I am?
—I’m not.
—You damn sure don’t look happy.
—It hurts me to see you like this.
—Like what?
—Miserable.
—But not enough to put me out of it.
She shakes her head.
—I can’t believe you don’t get it, she adds, twisting her lips into a deep frown.
—So you’ve said.
—No, before I said I couldn’t believe you couldn’t see it.
—So tell me what I can’t see and don’t get.
—You’ve got a great job that pays good money, and you’re living the good life.
In five short years, Remington had worked his way up to the top of one of Orlando’s premiere ad agencies, handling regional accounts for the Orlando Magic, Universal Studios theme park, and Coke, and national accounts for Florida Citrus Growers, and the state’s commission on tourism.
—You don’t think I get how good I’ve got it?
—No. That’s not it.
—You think I’m a sellout, that I’ve sold my soul to the devil?
—You’re good at it, she says, and it’s a creative outlet, but you know you’re not supposed to be doing it.
—Supposed? Like there’s some big plan for my life somebody forgot to tell me about?
—You’re miserable because you’re not taking pictures, she says. It’s what makes you depressed, drink too much, and resent me and our marriage.
—It’s not our marriage, it’s me? he says.
—You’re unhappy ‘cause you’re not shooting.
—Guess the only way to test your theory is to separate. If you’re right, I’ll still be miserable.
—Fine. You can leave tonight.
More screams.
Animal?
Doesn’t sound like one, but the Sandersons, a family who lived near the state park when he was growing up here—God, hadn’t thought of them in years—said that the panther that lived in the park often sounded like a woman screaming, especially at night.
Is it the elusive cat h
e’s been looking for? Will he finally encounter the infamous feline he keeps being told is a figment of his imagination?
Colder.
Darker.
Deeper.
Remington’s not exactly sure where he is.
Lost.
Leaving the tip-up mound in the soft pink glow of sunset, he begins to walk in the direction of his inmost camera trap. Or so he thinks.
Searching for bearings.
Nothing looks familiar, yet everything looks the same.
Someone’s following me.
He gets the sense that he’s not alone, that someone is—
He hears a twig snap and spins around.
Scanning. Searching. Peering.
No one is there. At least no one he can see. He still feels some unseen person is following him, watching him, waiting for him to move again.
He wonders if it’s the gray, grizzled man he encountered earlier.
Eventually, he stops looking.
Quickening pulse.
Tense muscles.
Heightened awareness.
Pulling out a compass and small penlight from his bag, he locates north and begins to walk east, deeper into the woods, toward the Chipola River. The river is still miles away, but his trap should only be about a half-mile from where he is now.
Removing a small bottle of water from his pack, he takes a couple of quick sips, then returns the bottle to its compartment. Placing the compass in his pocket, knowing he will need it again, he retains the services of the penlight.
As he begins to move again, he sees a tall hollowed-out cypress tree several feet away. Through a two-foot long hole on this side, he can see beyond the tree to the other side. Hollowed-out trees, especially cypresses, are not rare. In fact, this far back in the swamp they’re plentiful, but this one is unique because, unlike the others, it’s not just a hollowed-out base, but an entire forty-foot tree with branches and leaves and a large hole clear through its center.
He stops and studies it a moment—how it’s still standing, he has no idea—the beam of his penlight moving around the opening, until something on the other side catches his eye.
Stepping past the tree, he shines the light on the unmoving black mass, careful to keep his distance.
It’s another black bear, this one even bigger than the mother he encountered earlier, a male from the size of it. Most likely the one responsible for the marks on the tree he had seen earlier.
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