Bearwalker

by Joseph Bruchac

  I’m dialing the phone. The call goes through. I’m talking to the 911 operator. It’s almost as if I’m in a dream now. I’m not even sure what I’m saying, but I must be making sense because the operator asks me first one question and then another as I answer her. My voice is calm. I think that helps convince her I’m telling the truth. Another voice comes on the line.

  “Young man,” it says, “this is the sheriff.”

  I tell him about Mr. Mack and the others holding the students and teachers at gunpoint in the main cabin at Camp Chuckamuck and how I got away and climbed up here on the mountain to make my call for help.

  “Son,” the sheriff says. “Just sit tight. We’re sending help.”

  I sit there for a moment after closing the phone and putting it into my pocket. A red-tailed hawk is circling right there in front of me and the sun feels warm on my face. It’s going to be all right. Help is on the way.

  Suddenly the hawk gives a loud whistle, folds its wings, and dives out of sight. I shake myself. It’s not over yet. I have to go back and tell Mr. Osgood that I’ve gotten through, and then help him get back down the trail.

  But when I reach the trailhead, he’s not there. He’d been hiding under this fallen cedar. He said he’d wait for me. This doesn’t make any sense. All of the elation I’d been feeling is gone now, replaced with a sense of foreboding. This isn’t good.

  Calm down, Baron, I tell myself. Think. Do you have the wrong place?

  I look around, trying to shake the confusion that has settled over me like a thick cloud. There are the two trail markers, right where I saw them before, nailed head high onto the pine tree a few yards away. But there is something different. I see something resting on the bare rock of the trail just past that pine. It’s red. I walk over, and bend to pick it up with numb fingers. It’s a kerchief stained with blood.

  23

  Stones

  How does a human being turn into a bearwalker? One who can put on the skin of an animal? Maybe it’s not the how that is as important as the why. Why would someone want to walk away from being human? I know there’s no easy answer to this. There’s probably more than one answer. To get something or to get away from something. Power and pain.

  I’m not a trained tracker. Even though I’m Mohawk I’ve spent less time in the woods than the average Boy Scout. And just because I was born Indian doesn’t mean I have the instinctual knowledge, like a spider that knows how to spin a web just because it’s a spider. But I do have the things that my elders have been teaching me—two things in particular that I’ve been told by my parents, by great-uncle Jules, and by Grama Kateri. Look and Listen. Simple enough, it seems, but hard to do and do right.

  I started looking and listening as soon as I found Mr. Osgood’s bloody kerchief. I knew he hadn’t dropped it by accident. It was weighed down by a stone so it would stay where it was out in plain sight. A marker. A decoy to draw away from my trail the one Mr. Osgood must have seen approaching up the mountain. When a person or an animal comes upon a flock of baby grouse, fluffy, vulnerable little things, the first thing that happens is that the mother grouse will hop out in plain sight. She’ll be dragging one wing, which seems to be broken. And that person or hungry animal will concentrate on her because she seems such easy prey as she flops along, just barely keeping ahead of that predator. But it’s all an act. When she’s far enough away and the chicks have had time to escape, she’ll leap up into flight.

  Mr. Osgood, though, wasn’t pretending to be hurt. I couldn’t run away and leave him. That stone on his handkerchief had given me an idea. Off to the side of the trail was a scatter of other stones that had broken off a ledge. I searched through them, hefting them until I found several that fit my hand easily, all about the size of a lacrosse ball, but twice as heavy. I loaded my pockets, then I followed the trail that Mr. Osgood had left. I didn’t know what I could do to help, but I had to try.

  And now that I’ve found the first place on a muddy section of the trail where a big footprint overlays Mr. Osgood’s smaller boot print, I’m heartened just a little by what I see. Even though Walker White Bear’s heart and spirit are twisted, his aims those of a pitiless predator, his footprints are still those of a human being.

  I look around. I know this place well, a little too well. It’s where the mother bear picked me up and tossed me aside like an unruly cub. I put a hand up to my aching shoulder. She hadn’t meant to hurt me. If she’d wanted to do that, I wouldn’t be standing here now. In a strange way, that pain in my shoulder felt reassuring, like a connection. If only it was. I could use the strength and size of a mother bear right now. Instead, all I have is the determination to do what I can to protect an old man I hardly know, but who already feels like an uncle to me.

  I know that the mother bear and her two cubs should be miles from here by now. No way would they stick around with all the human activity. Although, on the other hand, bears are curious creatures and sometimes watch us humans as we stumble about in their forest, probably with amusement. I put my hand into my pocket and feel the little wooden bear. I don’t bring it out. I just trace its outline with my thumb and forefinger.

  “My relative,” I say in a quiet voice, “take pity on me again. Help me if you can.”

  Do I see something dark and furry off to the side of my vision among the trees? I’m not sure, but I don’t turn to look. I start down the trail. Somehow, despite his bad leg, Mr. Osgood has kept ahead so far. But I know it’s just a matter of time before his bloodthirsty pursuer catches up to him. I have to hurry.

  As it is, I almost hurry too much. Luckily, though, my ears save me.

  “You can’t escape me!”

  At the sound of that voice so deep and growling it barely seems human, I stop myself just in time before I blunder around the turn in the steep trail just ahead. I drop low and look around the rock face. Just below me is a chilling scene. Mr. Osgood has fallen, his bad leg twisted under him. He’s holding up a stick that he must have been using as a cane. It’s not going to be much help against the wide-shouldered, hulking figure that is taking one slow step after another toward him.

  “You’re mine,” the bearwalker growls again. His voice shakes the air around him like a rumble of thunder. He raises the saw-edged knife high in one hand, ready to slash down. It is as dramatic and terrifying as any scene from a horror film.

  Until my first stone thwacking him in the back of his head spoils the effect. He doesn’t fall, though. Goliath he might be, but I’m not doing as well in the part of David as I’d hoped. I’ve surprised him, but he’s not even stunned. He whips his head around to stare up at me. His mouth gapes open to show those sharp teeth of his. His glare is so evil that it almost paralyzes me.

  Not quite, though. I wing my second stone. He ducks to the side but it still glances off his cheek, drawing blood.

  “Aaaargghhh,” he roars.

  But I refuse to be scared.

  “Onyatgah!” I yell back in Mohawk. “Rancid meat!” It’s an old insult that Grama Kateri taught me. I put all the scorn and contempt that I possibly can into my voice, knowing that will be even more insulting to one whose aim is to cause terror.

  His leap in my direction is even faster than I expect. Only the fact that I am uphill keeps him from reaching me, and the loose stones that he slips on are all that stop him from catching up to me. I turn and scramble back up the slope as fast as I can, the bearwalker close behind me, my death in his enraged eyes.

  24

  A Real Bear

  Fast Runner. That is the name of one of the heroes in the old-time tales that Grama Kateri told me. His feet fly as he outdistances all those who would destroy him and catches up to those who would escape him.

  Just staying ahead of the one who is after my blood is enough for me right now. I don’t need to look back. I can hear him behind me. He’s breathing hard, cursing like a human one moment and snarling like a wild creature the next. The fact that the trail is rough and twisting is helping me,
but not as much as I’d hoped. As if I actually had that much of a plan when I started this. I’m not really climbing as fast as I can. I want him to stay close, not give up and then head back to finish off Mr. Osgood. But I don’t want him to get close enough to grab me.

  The trail is going to get wider soon, and level out more as it enters a small stretch of forest—hemlocks, birch trees, and a few maples. I hear him stumble behind me and fall back. I can’t let him stop. I turn and look down at him. He’s less than a stone’s throw below. His shirt tore open against the rough edge of the cliff as he fell. Blood is trickling down his cheek from the place where my stone hit. I risk goading him on.

  “Nyah-gwaheh?” I call back at the bearwalker. “Monster bear? Hunh. You’re not a bear. You are a woodchuck.”

  He surges up from his knees after me. I wait for a heartbeat, then I turn and climb faster. Up and up. As I circle a broad shoulder of the mountain, I risk another glance back over my shoulders. I don’t see him following, but I can hear the rattle of stones being dislodged by his heavy boots as he continues to climb. He’s no more than fifty yards behind me.

  I step up onto a shelf where enough earth has been cupped by the mountain for larger trees to grow. The way is wider now through this stretch of forest. I sprint forward—but only for a few steps before I stumble and barely right myself. Whatever energy I got from that power bar I ate and the adrenaline that has been surging through me has almost worn out. My knees are shaking as I rest my hands on them. The sun is already three hands high. I’ve been running all through the night and well into the morning. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep going. And I’m not sure how this race of mine is going to end. I have to stop.

  I can’t stop. I force my legs to move, stumble forward. But I don’t get far. As I start past a huge hemlock something growls, leaps out, grabs at my leg, and knocks me into a roll that ends with me flat on my back.

  A black-furred shape the size of a dog is rocking back and forth on its legs, its mouth open as if it is laughing at me. It’s one of the two bear cubs. This is crazy. Wild bears just aren’t supposed to behave this way. Does it really think I’m its brother now?

  “Hunnrrrhhhh?” The little bear moans and rocks back and forth in front of me, raising up on its hind legs and waving its front paws at me. Come on. Let’s play. It’s so cute that I almost forget where I am for a second.

  Thwomp! Yipe!

  A big boot kicks the bear cub aside. It squeals in a high, loud voice as it lands and then lies there, curls up, and cries like a little baby. I don’t think it’s badly hurt. Bear cubs are tough. I sit up and stare coldly at the one who did this. I’m not afraid now. I can feel a red rage growing and I know now that it is not just in my mind.

  “I’ve got you now, you little squirt,” his deep voice snarls.

  The burly human whose mind is so twisted that he thinks himself as powerful as an evil creature out of an old story leers at me. He’s holding his knife in one hand, his other hand reaching toward me. His eyes are narrowed as he takes a slow step. The grisly necklace of torn-out bear claws rattles against his chest.

  “You have nothing,” I say, “except for her. Time to meet a real bear.”

  I’m not sure he hears those last words of mine because the mother bear’s angry charge hits him just then. He’s hurled down and to the side. He’s struck so hard by her four hundred pounds of muscle and bones, and infuriated teeth and claws, that his knife flies out of his hand. There’s nothing more dangerous than a mother bear defending her cubs.

  Jason Jones screams. His voice is no longer deep and threatening. He’s not a figure of fear, a bearwalker. He’s just a human being who has discovered at last how much less power he has than the natural world. Like most of those who seek to harm the weak, he’s a coward at heart. His terrified voice is calling for help now over the growls of the mother bear, who is determined to make certain he will never kick one of her children again.

  There is pity in my heart for him at this moment. I also know there’s nothing I can do except this: stand up slowly, back away. By the time I reach the place where the trail dives down the rocky slope, the screaming has ended.

  25

  Rescuers

  Mr. Osgood and I hear the pontoon chopper go overhead just before we reach the bottom of the trail. We’ve made pretty good time with him leaning both on his stick and my one good shoulder. The fact that he found a second power bar in his pocket for me to wolf down helped some, too. Defeating monsters does work up an appetite.

  And before we even reach Camp Chuckamuck we are joined by three sheriff’s deputies who have driven their pickup to the place where the road was blocked by the dynamite blast and then walked the rest of the way in. Whatever I said in my phone call must have been convincing. It has brought as much help as any of us might have wished.

  More than we even needed.

  “Stay back,” one of the deputies is saying to us. A figure is starting toward us down the front steps of the main camp building.

  “Shucks, young fella,” Mr. Osgood says. “I’m not that afeared of my wife.”

  The deputy steps aside as Mrs. Osgood throws her arms around her husband and me both and squeezes hard. With our combined injuries it probably hurts him as much as it does me, but neither one of us complains.

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Osgood whispers to me.

  After being greeted by Mrs. Osgood that way I’m only a little surprised at what I find when we follow the deputies into the building. Everyone is there and unharmed—aside from Mr. Mack, Cal, and Marlon, who appear to have suffered a considerable amount of bruising and are tied up in the corner. My midnight escape had provided the opportunity for Mr. Wilbur and Mrs. Osgood to put a couple of good-sized bumps on the heads of the distracted and dim brothers when Mr. Mack ran out after me. Mr. Wilbur had used a chair on Cal, but Mrs. Osgood had found a handier weapon. The fact that Poe-boy was engaged in taking a bite out of Marlon’s leg had made it a bit easier for her to take aim.

  “Dented my bear pan,” Mrs. Osgood complains.

  When Mr. Mack came back in, he found himself confronted by the sight of two incapacitated confederates, a large growling Labrador, and the pearl-handled pistol in the hands of Mr. Philo.

  “I’ve got a shotgun,” he’d said.

  “Filled with rock salt, sonny” had been Mrs. Osgood’s rejoinder from her hiding place behind the door, before she’d used her cast-iron bear pan to punctuate that remark.

  “We looked for you for a good hour by the lake,” Mr. Wilbur says, then explains how they decided—over his protests—to concentrate on keeping the other kids quiet and protected. After all, Jason Jones was still out there and the safest thing for everyone to do was to stay inside where the adults could keep all the doors and windows guarded.

  “Once we heard that helicopter,” Mr. Wilbur says, gesturing toward the rescue craft floating on its pontoons just beyond the dock where I fell into the water, “we knew you’d gotten through.”

  He pauses and looks at me. “Have you gotten taller?” he says. Then he laughs. “Baron, you have been through the mill! Talk about a rite of passage!” He reaches out a friendly hand and squeezes my shoulder. It’s the same shoulder where the bear bit me. The colors around me are fading to gray. I start to sink toward the floor. I can hear voices shouting from far away. Then everything is dark and silent.

  26

  Coming Back

  When I open my eyes, it’s morning. At least I think it is. I feel like I’m coming back from someplace blurry and far away. My eyes don’t want to open all the way. I feel groggy and confused. But I can tell that I’m not in Camp Chuckamuck. Everything around me is too white. No knotty pine paneling or rustic furnishings. Was everything that happened to me just a dream? Getting shot and bitten by a bear and chased by the bearwalker? Was all of that like one of those dreams I used to have when I was a little kid being chased by a monster until I woke up safe in my own bed?

  Except this isn’
t my own bed. I try to push myself up and pain stabs through my shoulder where the mother bear’s teeth sank into muscle and scraped bone. I think I hear someone saying something, but the words are indistinct.

  “Don’t…you’re in…”

  I fall back to the pillow and keep falling.

  The next time I open my eyes, my eyelids don’t stick like they have glue on them. I can see clearly and I’m sitting partway up in the hospital bed. Someone is holding my hand. When I see who it is, I know I’m dreaming.

  “Mom?” I ask.

  “You’re awake,” she says with a smile.

  It’s too good to be true. She leans over and hugs me and I don’t even ask any of the questions that are filling my head right now because it’s enough to just have her here.

  Here, I soon discover, is Lake Placid Hospital. And here is where I have been for the last week, drifting in and out of consciousness. I’d been so beaten up and dehydrated and lost so much blood that the doctors were surprised I’d been able to walk, much less run, for miles along that mountain trail. Plus, in addition to the puncture wounds in my shoulder, which had been partially dislocated, I also got a roaring infection in the wounds on my back. Although I don’t remember much at all, since I’ve been knocked out by the pain killers and the other stuff they had to pump into me.

  The Army contacted my mother, and she’s been given family leave and flown back home to be with me. She arrived two days ago and has been at my bed every since. She won’t be going back to Iraq. She’s been reassigned to a training job at Camp Drum here in upstate New York.

  “You’ll still be staying with Grama Kateri,” she says. “It’ll be a while before I can go back full-time to civilian life.”

  ‘That’s okay,” I say. “Grama Kateri is great.”

  “Plus you’ll be able to stay at Pioneer Junior High where you’ve got all your friends,” Mom adds.