Bearstone

by Will Hobbs

  Dawn was coming on fast. Rusty probably reached the radio sometime in the evening. The helicopter could be coming anytime now; there was already enough daylight for them to fly. He could take Blueboy and head for the bear and hope to make it in time, but if he didn’t—maybe he should ride all the way down the Pine to the trailhead and hitch to a phone and call for a helicopter. He had to choose, and it had to be the right decision. He went back to the old man. Walter was hurt so bad, and he was so fragile. There wasn’t time enough to ride all the way down the Pine River, Cloyd decided. There just wasn’t enough time.

  He left drinking water by the old man’s shoulder, in case he came to, and then he saddled the roan. Cloyd walked him to the creek, where he took a long drink, and then a second. “Now we’re gonna ride, Blueboy, we’re gonna run. I want you to run like you’ve never run before.”

  He mounted the horse and took off flying. They galloped down Snowslide Creek and then up the Pine, until they were slowed by the steep Rincon trail. Was there time? Was he doing the right thing?

  The roan was climbing, climbing. His gray coat was soaked with sweat, and in the morning light it shone a royal blue. He drank from the Rincon stream when they reached the meadow, and then he broke into a canter when the trail leveled out in the long upper basin. “Atta Blue,” Cloyd encouraged him. “Atta Blueboy. Do it for me.”

  The climb out of the Rincon slowed them to a walk again, and it seemed to take forever. The sun was climbing fast. Noon wasn’t that far off. When they were still in the thick mountain willows, he heard the chop-chop-chop of a helicopter and then looked up and saw it for a moment. He waved frantically, but he knew there was no way it could have seen him. At least the copter is heading toward the bear, he thought. It couldn’t be on its way out.

  The last pitch up the Divide was steep and slow, and the precious minutes were flying by. Finally they topped out. The roan’s mouth was all covered with foam, and his sides were heaving. Cloyd urged his horse down the other side. “Run, Blue—it’s going to take off! We’re not going to make it!”

  They came charging off the Divide. The helicopter came in sight, with its whirring blades and the awful noise and commotion they stirred. It was still on the ground. Cloyd couldn’t see the bear—it was already loaded. Four men were walking back toward their horses and holding onto their hats. The roan pitched up to a stop and wouldn’t budge, not with the chopping and the scent of the bear all around. Cloyd leaped off and ran down the mountainside, and then the men saw him coming. He ran straight for the red-haired man and screamed in his ear. Rusty turned and sprinted, dived low under the whirling blades, and hollered for the pilot to shut the helicopter down.

  Six men crowded around him. He told them about the old man, told them to hurry. One of the brothers said, “Hey, how’d you know about this helicopter? How’d you know to come up here?” The red-haired man was watching him closely, and so was the game warden. Cloyd didn’t answer. He yelled at them, pleaded for them to hurry. They dragged the bear out of the helicopter. It was enormous.

  “You get in with me,” the man in uniform said. “You and me and the pilot. Rusty’ll take care of your horse.”

  “Tell Walter,” said the outfitter, “tell him I’ll bring all of his horses and his stuff out. Tell him not to worry about a thing.”

  Cloyd looked up and saw the red-haired man’s eyes. They were full of concern for his friend; they were even kind for once. The man leaned forward and said, “You done good, boy. However you done it, you done awful good.”

  Cloyd looked away. He saw the bear all in a heap, with its teeth showing and the tongue caught between them. Flies were buzzing all around, walking in its mouth and on its eyes.

  “Let’s get moving!” the game warden yelled. He gave Cloyd a push and a boost, then climbed in himself, using the bear for a step.

  The copter started up, and then they lifted off. The men and the bear shrank below, and Cloyd caught sight of Blueboy on the mountain. Then they cleared the Divide and headed down the Rincon toward the old man. “So how did you know that helicopter would be coming?” the game warden asked him. “Do you know something about that bear?”

  Cloyd knew what Rusty would have told the game warden. Something like what he told his brothers. That the bear charged, and he had to defend himself. He thought about how it really happened. How the bear stood up to sniff the wind, and took the arrow through its neck. He knew this was his chance to get back at the red-haired man, to really show him. His chance to get revenge.

  And then Cloyd remembered the peach trees, and his awful revenge with the chain saw. He didn’t want any more of that poison. He wouldn’t say a thing. What was done was done. Rusty would figure out he’d been right there when it happened—that was enough.

  The game warden was waiting for his answer. Cloyd shrugged and looked away, in so final a way that the man could tell he was going to have to wait forever. You might as well wait for a rock to speak.

  Cloyd wasn’t allowed in to see the old man. He came to the hospital every day and waited, but they wouldn’t let him in yet. He took the bearstone out of his pocket and asked the nurse to put it by Walter. She said she would put it right on his nightstand where he would see it. Walter’s brother was there, from his ranch down at Aztec, and so was his sister-in-law from Missouri. They got to see him first. Finally Cloyd was allowed in. Half of Walter’s face was bandaged, and his leg was in a cast that was held off the bed a little with a pulley. He smiled painfully when he saw Cloyd and beckoned him over. “I’m gonna make it, Cloyd,” he said. “They can’t kill this old hoss.”

  Cloyd didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say. He just stood by the old man. Walter rolled his eyes toward the nightstand. “I sure appreciated seeing that blue bear of yours.”

  Cloyd looked at the bearstone in a new way. He’d been wishing, ever since he’d been to the top of the mountain, that he could find a way to show the old man how he felt about him. Now Cloyd knew what to do. He would give the old man his greatest treasure. “I want you to have it,” Cloyd said, pointing to the bearstone with a twist of his lips.

  The old man tried to hitch himself up in his bed. “Now wait a minute here, that’s—”

  Cloyd’s eyes met Walter’s. He wanted the old man to understand how grateful he was. “I want you to keep it,” he said.

  Walter saw into Cloyd’s dark eyes and felt the strength and conviction of a man, not a boy. He was greatly humbled to receive such a token of affection. And at his age. This was a particular sort of joy he’d never felt in his whole life. He reached over to the nightstand and took the turquoise bear in his fingers. “I’ll always treasure this piece, I surely will.”

  A tear escaped the old man’s eye. “I’ll think of you every time I see it.” For a while Walter couldn’t speak. “Now then,” he said finally, “you and me have a lot of catchin’ up to do. I heard about what you did, how you rode that blue horse up the Divide and got me that helicopter. Nobody else could’ve done as much, Cloyd.”

  With a quick smile, Cloyd said, “You would’ve done the same for me.”

  And then it was time to go. Walter could only have short visits. It was September, and school was starting. Cloyd came after school to see the old man and talk for a little while, and then the nurses let him come early in the morning as well. Walter was going to be in the hospital a long time. Cloyd could see he really needed company. He told Walter about how school was much better than before, how he was going to learn how to read. His housemother got the school to give him a teacher all to himself for one period a day, since he was going to try.

  A few weeks passed, and the old man seemed to be getting worse instead of better. Cloyd didn’t know why. He was there when Walter’s sister-in-law was saying good-bye, and then he found out something the old man had known for a while, but hadn’t told him. “You won’t mind it so bad, Walter,” she said kindly. “You just can’t manage on your own. If I could come and live at the farm, that would be
another thing, but you know I have my own family back home….”

  “I wouldn’t ask you to, Etta,” Walter said.

  “Well, I know you wouldn’t have that. And Tom has his own ranch to keep up with….”

  The old man looked away through the window at the yellow leaves blowing from the trees, and he sighed.

  His sister-in-law took his hand. “It’s time to come in from the farm, Walter. Lots of folks have to face that. The nursing home’s not going to be so bad, really, Walter. And I’ll know you’re getting good care.”

  The old man reached with his other hand and held fast. “I miss the farm awful bad, Etta. I could get my strength back on the farm.”

  “The doctor said it’s going to be a long, slow process, Walter. You can’t afford a live-in nurse. These bills have drawn you down too bad. Now, we already talked about all that, Walter.”

  And then she said good-bye. She had to catch a plane back to Missouri. Cloyd sat awhile with the old man. “What’s going to happen to the farm?” he asked.

  “Have to sell it to pay my board at the nursing home. But now, let’s change the subject. Tell me what you did today….”

  The reading teacher was talking, and Cloyd wasn’t even listening to her. He was thinking about Walter, about how he was getting worse instead of better. Pretty soon they would move him out of the hospital, and then he would wither away. It wouldn’t take long. If he couldn’t get back to his farm, he was going to wither away.

  “Cloyd, I thought you wanted to work with me,” the teacher said.

  “I’m sorry. I was thinking.”

  It came to him in the group home, when all the kids were watching television, and he was looking at it but not seeing anything. The next day, in front of the school, Cloyd asked around among the bus drivers and found the one who came in from the east, a burly man in grease-stained overalls. “Does your bus come in from the Piedra?” he asked the driver.

  The man shook his head. “Not nearly. Starts this side of Bayfield.”

  The boy’s disappointment showed. “How come you’re askin’?” the driver asked.

  “I need to come in to school from there.”

  “Oh? Whereabouts?”

  “A farm north of the highway.”

  “Ain’t that the Landis place?”

  “You know him?”

  “I live out that way. You must be the kid helped out with him in the summer. Hey, I heard about you. Name’s Wilson,” he said, extending his grimy hand. “Wilson Webb. ’Scuse the grease—I work at a garage in between drivin’ the bus. You see, I drive my pickup over to Bayfield and park it where the bus run starts. I’d be happy to bring you in from the Piedra if that’s what you’re askin’—wouldn’t mind the company a bit.”

  Cloyd hurried back to the group home to tell his housemother. She wasn’t there. He went to his room. A boy he’d never met before was unpacking a duffel bag and hanging up his clothes in Cloyd’s closet. An army cot was set up between the beds. After a long moment of surprise, Cloyd asked him what was going on.

  The boy shrugged. “Heard somebody was moving out. You, I guess.”

  “I didn’t hear anything about it.”

  Cloyd fretted awhile in the living room, then saw Susan James driving up in the van and hurried out to see her. He stood quietly on the lawn and tried to read her face as she walked up. She knew something important.

  “Have I got some news for you, Cloyd,” she said excitedly.

  Cloyd held his breath. He was always afraid of things dropped on him like this.

  “The tribe says you can come home now, Cloyd.”

  “Home,” he mumbled.

  “White Mesa! They called this morning, Cloyd, and said everything looks a whole lot better at home, so—”

  “How do you mean?” he asked guardedly.

  “Well, the tribe heard about how hard you’ve been trying. They want to give you another chance at going to school right there in Blanding. Your grandmother’s new job is working out, and your sister’s on her way back from Salt Lake. Maybe your grandmother will get her goats back. Everybody’s ready for you to come home, Cloyd.”

  He didn’t know what to say. It was everything he’d hoped for all winter. “When?” he asked blankly.

  “Right away! Well, tomorrow morning. Did you meet Charlie—in your room?”

  Cloyd nodded.

  “Sorry about that. When the people down at Towaoc heard about the vacancy, they sent Charlie up even though they were supposed to wait until tomorrow. But you know, there’s a waiting list, and they’ve been desperately trying to find a place for him…. Why don’t we go over to the hospital so you can say goodbye to Walter?”

  Say good-bye to Walter? How could he do that, he asked himself, when the old man was slipping downhill? If he deserted Walter now … As much as he wanted to go back to White Mesa, it wouldn’t be right. It was his turn to pay back some of what he’d been given. “I can’t go now,” he told her. “Maybe after the winter …”

  “Why not?”

  “Walter needs me. He can’t go back to the farm unless someone’s there to do the chores and take care of—”

  “But it’s all arranged for him to go to the nursing home as soon as he—”

  “He’ll die there,” Cloyd declared. “He’s starting to die now.”

  She knew as much from visiting Walter herself. She’d been worrying terribly for him, knowing how badly he missed his farm. He’d been there so long he was like an old tree too deeply rooted for transplanting. “Tell me how it would all work, Cloyd. I guess you’ve got it all figured out.”

  Cloyd told her about the bus driver. He told her she’d have to get permission from the tribe for him to leave the group home and live with Walter.

  “And permission from two school districts,” she added. “You’d be out of boundaries. I don’t know, Cloyd—it all sounds pretty tricky to me. I don’t have any idea if the tribe would ever allow something like that. But then again, they might be able to see what kind of sacrifice you’d be making and why. Are you really sure about it yourself?”

  Before he could answer, she told him, “Take a long walk and really think it over. Here’s your chance to go home, Cloyd. Then come back and let me know what you’ve decided. If you want to stay with Walter until he’s better, I’ll do my best to make it happen.”

  Cloyd walked down to the river to think, crouched on the bank, and turned it all over in his mind. He saw himself standing at the door to a hospital room, discovering the shell of his father hooked up to a machine, and realizing finally that he didn’t have a father. He saw himself finding the bearstone and killing the peach trees and following the old man up the Pine River to the mine. He saw himself standing alone atop the Rio Grande Pyramid and realizing a father had come into his life after all. He remembered the look in Blueboy’s eye right before he tumbled down the mountain, and he recalled the bear. He’d never forget the bear…. The hurt you get over makes you stronger. It was all moving in a direction, he decided, making a pattern. And he had to know where it was all leading. If he went home now, he’d never know. It was all part of learning what it meant to live in a good way.

  It was the second Saturday in November, and they were repairing the foundation under the house. They’d started the weekend before. The project wasn’t Walter’s idea; Cloyd had remembered him worrying about it during the summer and reminded him of it. Walter had to admit it was a bad situation and getting worse. Walls, roof, and all would start to give before long.

  Walter still had the cast on his leg, and he knew he couldn’t negotiate the basement stairs. Wrapped up in a blanket, he sat in a chair at the top of the landing, where he could see the boy down below. He had to content himself with lending know-how and moral support.

  Cloyd was mixing concrete. He’d carried the hundred-pound bags of cement downstairs himself, as well as countless buckets of sand and gravel, and now he was making concrete. It was chilly in the basement, but as long as he was workin
g, he was warm enough in his denim jacket. He was happy taking care of the old man. He’d grown so used to wandering alone in the canyons, wandering alone in the school corridors, having his own private world. Now he wasn’t alone anymore.

  Cloyd felt strong. He could do whatever he set his mind to. He was never going to give up—he had a life to live. “Maybe it’s all you’ve got,” the old man had said. “Might as well make the most of it.”

  If he ever had any children, he was going to care about them, the way Walter cared. If he ever had a son, he was going to name him Walter. The old man would be dead and buried by then, he realized. It wouldn’t matter. He would show them Walter’s picture, and one day he would take them up to the meadows of the Pine River.

  Cloyd checked the batch of concrete he was mixing. It was just about right. More water would weaken it. He hoped the weather would give them a few days. The snow from the October storm had thawed, leaving the ground unprotected. With the cold air moving in, he worried that the earth was freezing solid at this very moment. They needed the soil outside that broken wall to have some give in it, so there’d be room for the wall to move over. Cloyd had another reason, too, for hoping the ground would keep a few days and he could dig in it. Thinking about his secret reason made him feel good. He wished for a snowstorm that would blanket the ground and keep it warm. Maybe they’d get one—after breakfast he’d seen a thick layer of high clouds advance from the west and cover the sun. A good storm could be on its way. This time, Walter had said, the snow would stick, and winter would have come to stay.

  Cloyd poured his concrete into the holes he had dug in the crawl space. Then he troweled the new footers smooth. The work went well, and he was pleased.

  So was the old man. “Tomorrow we’ll cut those railroad ties so’s they fit between our concrete footers and that good wall. Then we’ll build a framework between the two walls and jack it tight. With the railroad ties behind it, you know that good wall ain’t gonna give. That other’n’s gonna have to move over where it belongs.”