Bearstone

by Will Hobbs

  The sun was dropping fast. They had to turn around and head back for the farm. He did a lot of thinking on the way. He would work hard for the old man, harder than the old man could ever have dreamed, and then he would ask the old man to take him to the mountains.

  “Blueboy,” he whispered, naming the horse. “You and me, Blue. Well get to the mountains. Blueboy and Lone Bear.”

  It was dusk. They were back down on river level, not far from the farm. Blueboy reared, and then Cloyd saw a black form ahead lope across the trail with an unusual gait, followed by another, smaller black shape. “A bear!” he said, his voice filled with amazement. “A bear with a cub, isn’t it?”

  “Black bear,” Walter said. “Sure enough.”

  “I’ve never seen one before. There aren’t any bears back home.”

  “Somethin’ else, ain’t they? They live here, sure enough, but you don’t see ’em that often. Born for the wild.”

  Cloyd woke feeling good all over. As he yawned and stretched himself awake, he remembered his fleeting glimpse of the bear and the cub. What an amazing sight they were, he thought, and how lucky he’d been to see them. Or was it luck? He took the bearstone from under the pillow and turned it in his fingers. Lone Bear, he thought, that’s the name I gave myself. These things were too wonderful to be accidents. His grandmother would understand. He recalled the feel of the powerful roan under him, and he heard the music in the old man’s chuckle. He felt good, he felt strong. Now he wanted to prove himself.

  “What’s that job you were going to tell me about?” Cloyd asked at breakfast.

  “Well, I’ll need your help come haying time, bucking bales and putting up the hay, but of course that won’t be until July. But I do have a project you could make a start on for me—I’ve been putting it off for a couple years now. Need to build a fence. Fm so busy irrigating the field, haying, fixing tractors and whatnot, I can’t seem to get around to it.”

  “Show me about the fence. I can do that.”

  After breakfast, Cloyd followed Walter to a shed, where Walter picked out a posthole digger and a long steel bar. Cloyd grabbed the bar. It was six feet long and heavy, and he thought he could carry it better than the old man could. They walked through the lower field to the peach orchard and Walter’s property line beyond it.

  Walter set the tools down on the riverbank and led Cloyd along his line of short wooden survey stakes, one for each posthole that had to be dug, all the way across the end of the field from the river to the distant ditchbank at the base of the mountain. Then they walked back to the starting point. “What’s this fence for?” Cloyd asked.

  Walter’s face went red suddenly as he looked away. Cloyd watched him closely.

  “Well, Cloyd, I need to fence off a fellow that’s been takin’ advantage of me. This fellow—lives across the highway—he moves in from California a few years ago, buys himself a farm, and starts going broke, because he’s no kind of farmer and won’t listen if you try to help him, so he gets the idea he’ll set himself up as a big-game guide—”

  The old man ran short of breath, sputtered. Veins stood out on his forehead.

  “He advertises in the big-city newspapers in Texas like he’s an outfitter, which he ain’t licensed for, then he drives his hunters across my place in their four-wheel drives, tearin’ up the field so bad you can’t hay for the ruts. I only drive on the field myself when it’s bone-dry. Then they park their trucks and horsetrailers right by the headgate where the trail takes out. He tells them I live on a county road with public access! The sheriff and the game warden, they’ve warned this fellow, but come fall he’ll try it again. The sheriff says what I really need is a fence to go with my gate, and I guess he’s right.”

  Walter’s color returned, his breathing came easier. “You see, Cloyd, I’ve got the only access to a big piece of country up the Piedra here. There’s no gov’ment trailhead anywhere near. So to get up the river to public land, folks have always had to come through my place. I don’t mind when they ask beforehand and park downriver and walk or ride through, but this fellow doesn’t know the meaning of courtesy. He’s only out for himself.”

  Cloyd had watched with interest as Walter’s anger rose. He could picture the neighbor from the other side of the highway driving up in the fall with his hunters and finding a new fence and a locked gate. The man would get out of his truck, walk along the fenceline, and see there was no way to get around it. Then he would have to turn around, and Walter would have won.

  “Of course it’s a two-year project, anyway,” Walter said. “But we can make a start.”

  “I could finish this fence,” Cloyd insisted.

  “I don’t think so. There’s a lot of work in a fence like that. First off, since it’s river bottom, you’ll run into rocks sometimes, and to go deep enough to hold a post you’ll have to break the rock with that bar and pull it out in pieces. Then there’s all the posts to log out of the woods, wire to run—there’s a lot of work in it. You’ll be a help to me if you get some of the holes dug.”

  Walter dug the first hole to get Cloyd started. “No rocks in this’un,” he said. “Lucked out.”

  Cloyd took the posthole digger from the old man, pulled out the next stake, and started to dig.

  “Say,” Walter said, “Whyn’t you hold off until I can fetch a pair of gloves for you and a jug of ice water. And a cap, too. I always wear one when I’m standin’ out in the sun irrigatin’.”

  “I never wear a hat.”

  “There probably won’t be much cloud cover until later in the month … usually doesn’t start raining until the Fourth of July.”

  Cloyd shook his head. “I don’t like hats.”

  “Suit yourself,” Walter answered cheerfully. “Well, I better let the water into the field, or the grass is gonna burn up.”

  Cloyd let the old man disappear through the orchard, then started digging with all of his strength and determination. If he was going to get finished, he’d better get started. He could tell Walter had already forgotten he was going to bring back some gloves, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t like to use gloves.

  The June days and Cloyd’s line of completed postholes advanced steadily. His blisters healed, his hands grew callused. The white stubble on the old man’s face lengthened into thick white whiskers. He said he was having a lark: he had never grown a beard in his whole life, and now he was going to. Cloyd liked the way it made him look. Like an old miner. He would look perfect, Cloyd thought, with a pick over his shoulder and leading a donkey.

  Even though he didn’t work with Walter during the day, Cloyd wasn’t lonely. His mind was brimful of thinking as he worked the rhythm of the posthole digger. He thought about Blueboy and where they would ride that evening, and wondered if he would see another bear. The mountains he thought about, too, all the time. He’d made a promise to himself not to mention his plans to Walter until he had the fence finished, until he had proven himself, until he’d earned the mountains.

  Every so often the blades of his posthole digger would strike a rock, and then Cloyd was in for a battle. First he’d try to dig another hole, but often he’d strike the same rock. Then there was no choice but to break it with the bar, and he would slam the bar down with all his might. He found a fierce satisfaction in breaking rock. And he knew the sound carried up to Walter in the field. The old man was surprised with how hard he could work and how many holes he had dug. Cloyd had never worked this hard before; he was surprising himself. In the early afternoon Walter would ring the porch bell, and they would eat a big meal. Then he’d go back to his postholes and work until Walter called him for supper.

  In the evenings Cloyd would hurry out to saddle up the roan and take him for a ride. Blueboy could run like anything. The horse liked him, and he knew it. Cloyd felt good streaming along the river road with the wind in his hair. He talked to the horse all the time. The horse was the only one who knew his secret name and his secret plans.

  Late in the evenings, Walt
er would read his mining journals. Cloyd liked to ask him what it was like in the high country. “Tell me about the mountains up real high,” he’d say, “like where your mine is.”

  Walter would stroke his whiskers. “Oh, there’s nothin’ like it. Most beautiful country I’ve ever seen.”

  “Is there much water?”

  “Oh, there’s water everywhere. Little trickles runnin’ off snowbanks, ponds, lakes, creeks, streams, baby rivers…. Some places the ground’s so wet it’s like walkin’ on a sponge. It’s as green as can be, and there’s wildflowers everywhere you look.”

  “How high are the tops of the mountains?”

  “Punch holes in the sky.”

  “Can you climb to the top?”

  “If you got wings.”

  “What happens to the animals when winter comes?”

  “Freeze solid,” said the old man, with his tongue in his cheek. “Wouldn’t you?”

  It was a good time, talking about the mountains in the parlor. Walter would set his mining journal aside, the tiredness would leave his eyes, and a faraway look would come over him as he spoke. Cloyd liked to see him scratch his whiskers. He liked this old man, Walter Landis.

  The days were scorching. Weeks passed with no cloud cover at all. Cloyd kept working. The shade of the nearby timber beckoned, but he resisted. He was getting closer all the time to digging that last posthole. In the evenings he’d sneak looks at the calendar; he kept trying to guess how long it would take him to build the fence. Day by day he was realizing it was a much bigger project than he’d thought at first, just as the old man had said.

  Sundays were something to look forward to, the only break in the routine. Walter would go into Durango for groceries and supplies, and Cloyd would spend the day with Blueboy.

  At breakfast, Walter was all dressed up for town and working on a shopping list. It was another Sunday, but Cloyd wasn’t feeling very good about it. He woke up feeling bad, and he didn’t know why. He only knew he wasn’t very happy.

  They hardly spoke over breakfast. The talk between them was dying out little by little. There was only the work.

  He knew Walter could tell he was feeling bad. The old man was a long time buttering his toast. At last he said, trying to sound cheerful, “Gonna take Blueboy out today, Cloyd?”

  Cloyd shrugged.

  “I sure hope so. Say, I’ve been wondering if you might like to give that fenceline a rest. Maybe do a little of this and a little of that, take some more time with the horse.”

  “I don’t want to,” Cloyd said stubbornly.

  Walter left for Durango. Cloyd knew he didn’t want to ride Blueboy. He didn’t feel good enough. There was a little flame of anger in him that was starting to grow. The old man was saying he should give up. Walter didn’t really expect anything from him. Walter had heard all about school, how he’d failed everything. Now Walter expected him to fail here too. Well, they were all wrong about him, wrong to say he was lazy. He wanted to show the old man.

  Cloyd shouldered the posthole digger and dragged the bar along behind. He didn’t have that many holes to go. He wanted to get the posts in the ground before Walter needed his help with the hay. Then that would leave only stringing the wire.

  Concentrating on his welding, Walter was startled to notice Cloyd standing beside him. Removing his mask, Walter switched off the arc welder. “How’s it going, Cloyd?” he asked cheerfully.

  “I finished those holes.”

  Walter beamed. “Well, Cloyd, that’s downright amazin’, is what it is. I never seen the like.”

  “We should finish the fence. So you’ll have it before hunting season.”

  “I’d sure like to see it finished, too, Cloyd, but there’s a lot of work left in it, fallin’ junipers for posts and whatnot.”

  “I can start cutting the posts tomorrow.”

  The old man cast his eyes to the ground, removed his cap, ran his hand slowly over the top of his head and back. “Cloyd,” he said finally, “I wish you’d let me cut the posts. After we get the hay in and it gets to rainin’, I won’t have to irrigate so much. I’ll take out some junipers on the hill, clean ‘em up so you can set ‘em, then we’ll string the wire together.”

  “You don’t think I can do this job?”

  “It’s the chain saw I’m worried about. They’re dangerous, Cloyd. I’ve used one for years, and Fm still scared of it. You see, sometimes a tree has a mind of its own, and there’s plenty of ways you can make a mistake. Have you ever handled one?”

  “You can show me,” Cloyd insisted.

  Walter saw how much it meant. At last he had to say, “Cloyd, I believe you can do just about anything you set your mind to.”

  Cloyd felt good as he walked up the field through the glowing late light to the barn. He took the bearstone out and turned it in his fingers, held it against his cheek. There was just enough evening left for him to visit the roan. “Hey-a, hey-a,” he called, and the horse nickered back.

  The roan was waiting by the pasture gate. Cloyd fed him a little grain and then curried him, thinking aloud all the while. “You and me, Blue, we’re gonna go to the mountains. I’m gonna finish it, finish everything; then we can go to the mountains, you and me.”

  In the morning Walter poked around the machine shed and collected the saw, an axe, a plastic bottle of bar-and-chain oil, a pint can of engine oil, an empty gas can, and a leather bag of tools. He told Cloyd all about the saw, and it seemed to Cloyd to take forever. Two or three times Walter cautioned Cloyd to mix the engine oil in with gas. “Straight gas’ll ruin her,” he said. Cloyd didn’t ask questions, and Walter didn’t ask if he understood.

  Walter knew the Utes weren’t big talkers. He’d lived his whole life near the Colorado Utes, and his occasional contacts with them had taught him how to take things. The way Cloyd pointed with his lips—only the old Utes did that anymore, something about it being rude to point with the hand or finger. And like the old-time Utes, Cloyd looked away when he talked or was spoken to.

  Yet for all the time they’d spent together, Walter wished he understood Cloyd better. In the evenings Cloyd no longer asked about the mountains; he was bone-weary from working too hard. The boy would fall asleep watching the television. He himself was tiring, too, even questioning the need to set the farm back to rights. He was back to the old routines again, standing in the hot sun all day long and tediously moving dirt and routing water. And Cloyd was working relentlessly, harder every day, for reasons of his own. To whatever end, their course was set. Cloyd couldn’t be turned now. The only time he’d take for himself was a short visit mornings and evenings with the big roan. He’d work the currycomb and talk, talk, talk with the horse. If I could inverview that horse, Walter mused, I’d know the boy a whole lot better.

  Cloyd thought it would take only a few days to log out the posts he needed. He soon found out it wasn’t going to be that easy. The junipers grew only here and there on the mountain. He wished he could use the jack pines or the straight young firs. But he knew why the old man wanted junipers—they’d never rot.

  He had to range the hillside the length of the farm, hundreds of feet up the slope, to find his trees. If anything, the work was harder than digging the postholes. The saw was heavy and noisy; his ears were always ringing. He burned his thumb on the exhaust and cut the heel of his hand sharpening the chain. After he felled a juniper, he had to top it to a seven-foot length, trim it, then drag it down the hillside to the ditch. The heavy posts often snagged in the oakbrush and brought him tumbling down. Even though he had only fifty-seven posts cut, he knew he had to get off the hillside for a while. He decided to set the posts he had.

  Placing a rock at the bottom of each hole the way the old man had suggested, Cloyd set the posts. He kept his eye on the tractor up the field as the old man drove around cutting the hay. Walter would need his help in a few days to buck the bales onto the trailer and stack them in the barn.

  Cloyd set the fifty-seventh post as the sun
was setting on the next-to-last day of June. The posts reached less than halfway to the ditchbank. He wanted to go back up the hillside the next day and cut more posts, until he had all he needed, but he knew he’d lost. He could go back to the fenceline after haying, but it wouldn’t be the same. He had wanted to get through with it before haying, and he’d lost. Now there would be too much work on the fence after haying. The work would be hot and endless, and there wouldn’t be time left for him and Blueboy to go to the mountains. He’d been fooling himself about the mountains all along. The old man would never have let him go anyway.

  The sun was down, the air was cooling fast. Exhausted, Cloyd leaned on the last post. He felt chilled one minute, burning up the next. He feared he might have fever from the ticks in the oakbrush. When he looked down the line of fenceposts, it seemed senseless, what he’d done. The day before, he’d received a letter from his sister, and he didn’t even know what it said. He could read a few words, but that was all. He was too embarrassed to ask the old man to read it to him. He longed for White Mesa. All he wanted was to go home. Looking across the field to the gray farmhouse in the trees, he wondered what had made him think he could belong here.

  Walter was in the house, fixing a special supper for Cloyd. He’d been planning it all week: a Thanksgiving-style dinner with turkey and all the extras. He’d taken the day off to prepare the meal, but he hadn’t been able to talk Cloyd out of working on the fenceline. When Cloyd finally came in, later than usual, he hadn’t even a nod for the old man. Walter could see how gloomy he was. Cloyd shoved his plate away after picking at the turkey. Walter, who never ate much, began to put away the mountain of leftovers.