Blood Lite

by Jim Butcher

moment that he would have the gun, that he could turn the tables, at least make the bear turn back toward Denver, let him out downtown.

  "See any gum in there?" the bear asked. "Maybe he's got some gum. After that whore's head, I feel like my mouth has a pair of shitty shorts in it. Anything in there?"

  Jim shook his head. "Nothing."

  "Well, shit," the bear said.

  The car roared on through the snowy night, the windshield wipers beating time, throwing snow wads left and right like drunk children tossing cotton balls.

  The heater was on. It was warm. Jim felt a second wave of the alcohol blues; it wrapped around him like a warm blanket, and without really meaning to, he slept.

  "I should be hibernating," the bear said, as if Jim were listening. "That's why I'm so goddamn grumpy. The work. No hibernation. Paid poon and cheap liquor. That's no way to live."

  The bear was a good driver in treacherous weather. He drove on through the night and made good time.

  When Jim awoke it was just light and the light was red and it came through the window and filled the car like bloodstained streams of heavenly piss.

  Jim turned his head. The bear had his hat cocked back on his head and he looked tired. He turned his head slightly toward Jim, showed some teeth at the corner of his mouth, then glared back at the snowy road.

  "We got a ways to go yet, but we're almost to Yellowstone. You been asleep two days."

  "Two days."

  "Yeah. I stopped for gas once, and you woke up once and you took a piss." "I did."

  "Yeah. But you went right back to sleep." "Good grief. I've never been that drunk in my life." "Probably the pills you popped." "What?"

  "Pills. You took them with the alcohol, when we were with the whores."

  "Oh, hell."

  "It's all right. Every now and again you got to cut the tiger loose, you know? Don't worry. I got a cabin. That's where we're going. Don't worry. I'll take care of you. I mean, hell, what are friends for?"

  The bear didn't actually have a cabin, he had a fire tower, and it rose up high into the sky overlooking very tall trees. They had to climb a ladder up there, and the bear, sticking the automatic in his belt, sent Jim up first, said, "Got to watch those rungs. They get wet, iced over, your hand can slip. Forest ranger I knew slipped right near the top. We had to dig what was left of him out of the ground. One of his legs went missing. I found it about a month later. It was cold when he fell so it kept pretty good. Wasn't bad, had it with some beans. Waste not, want not. Go on, man. Climb."

  Inside the fire tower it was very nice, though cold. The bear turned on the electric heater and it wasn't long before the place was toasty.

  The bear said, "There's food in the fridge. Shitter is

  over there. I'll sleep in my bed, and you sleep on the couch. This'll be great. We can hang. I got all kinds of movies, and as you can see, that TV is big enough for a drive-in theater. We ain't got no bitches, but hell, they're just trouble anyway. We'll just pull each other's wieners."

  Jim said, "What now?"

  "I don't stutter, boy. It ain't so bad. You just grease a fellow up and go to work."

  "I don't know."

  "Nah, you'll like it."

  As night neared, the light that came through the tower's wraparound windows darkened and died, and Jim could already imagine grease on his hands.

  But by then, the bear had whetted his whistle pretty good, drinking straight from a big bottle of Jack Daniel's. He wasn't as wiped-out as before, not stumbling drunk, and his tongue still worked, but fortunately the greased weenie pull had slipped from the bear's mind. He sat on the couch with his bottle and Jim sat on the other end, and the bear said:

  "Once upon a goddamn time the bears roamed these forests and we were the biggest, baddest, meanest motherfuckers in the woods. That's no shit. You know that?"

  Jim nodded.

  "But, along come civilization. We had fires before that, I'm sure. You know, natural stuff. Lightning. Too dry. Natural combustion. But when man arrived, it was doo-doo time for the bears and everything else. I mean, don't take me wrong. I like a good meal and a beer"—he held up the bottle—"and some Jack, and hanging out in this

  warm tower, but something has been sapped out of me. Some sort of savage beast that was in me has been tapped and run off into the ground ... I was an orphan. Did you know that?"

  "I've heard the stories," Jim said. "Yeah, well, who hasn't? It was a big fire. I was young. Some arsonists. Damn fire raged through the forest and I got separated from my mom. Dad, he'd run off. But, you know, no biggie. That's how bears do. Well, anyway, I climbed a tree like a numb nuts cause my feet got burned, and I just clung and clung to that tree. And then I seen her, my mother. She was on fire. She ran this way and that, back and forth, and I'm yelling, 'Mama,' but she's not paying attention, had her own concerns. And pretty soon she goes down and the fire licks her all over and her fur is gone and there ain't nothing but a blackened hunk of smoking bear crap left. You know what it is to see a thing like that, me being a cub?" "I can't imagine."

  "No, you can't. You can't. No one can. I had a big fall, too. I don't really remember it, but it left a knot on the back of my head, just over the right ear. . . . Come here. Feel that."

  Jim dutifully complied.

  The bear said, "Not too hard now. That knot, that's like my Achilles' heel. I'm weak there. Got to make sure I don't bump my head too good. That's no thing to live with and that's why I'm not too fond of arsonists. There are several of them, what's left of them, buried not far from here. I roam these forests and I'll tell you, I don't just report them. Now and again, I'm not doing that. Just take care of busi

  ness myself. Let me tell you, slick, there's a bunch of them that'll never squat over a commode again. They're out there, their gnawed bones buried deep. You know what it's like to be on duty all the time, not to be able to hibernate, just nap? It makes a bear testy. Want a cigar?"

  "Beg your pardon?"

  "A cigar. I know its funny coming from me, and after what I just told you, but we'll be careful here in my little nest."

  Jim didn't answer. The bear got up and came back with two fat black cigars. He had boxed matches with him. He gave Jim a cigar and Jim put it in his mouth, and the bear said, "Puff gently."

  Jim did and the bear lit the end with a wooden match. The bear lit his own cigar. He tossed the box of matches to Jim. "If it goes out, you can light up again. Thing about a cigar is you take your time, just enjoy it, don't get into it like a whore sucking a dick. It's done casual. Pucker your mouth like you're kissing a baby."

  Jim puffed on the cigar but didn't inhale. The action of it made him feel high, and not too good, a little sick even. They sat and smoked. After a long while, the bear got up and opened one of the windows, said, "Come here."

  Jim went. The woods were alive with sounds, crickets, night birds, howling.

  "That's as it should be. Born in the forest, living there, taking game there, dying there, becoming one with the soil. But look at me. What the fuck have I become? I'm like a goddamn circus bear." "You do a lot of good." "For who, though? The best good I've done was catch-

  ing those arsonists that are buried out there. That was some good. I'll be straight with you, Jim. I'm happy you're going to be living here. I need a buddy, and, well, tag, you're it."

  "Buddy."

  "You heard me. Oh, the door, it's locked, and you can't work the lock from inside, 'cause it's keyed, and I got the key. So don't think about going anywhere."

  "That's not very buddy-like," Jim said.

  The bear studied Jim for a long moment, and Jim felt himself going weak. It was as if he could see the bear's psychosis move from one eye to the other, like it was changing rooms. "But, you're still my buddy, aren't you, Jim?"

  Jim nodded.

  "Well, I'm sort of bushed, so I think I'll turn in early. Tomorrow night we'll catch up on that weenie pull."

  When the bear went to the bedroom and lay down, Jim lay on the
couch with the blanket and pillow the bear had left for him, and listened. The bear had left the bedroom door open, and after a while he could hear the bear snoring like a lumberjack working a saw on a log.

  Jim got up and eased around the tower and found that he could open windows, but there was nowhere to go from there except straight down, and that was one booger of a drop. Jim thought of how easily the bear had killed the whore and how he admitted to killing others, and then he thought about tomorrow night's weenie pull, and he became even more nervous.

  After an hour of walking about and looking, he realized there was no way out. He thought about the key, but

  had no idea where the bear kept it. He feared if he went in the bear's room to look, he could startle the bear and that might result in getting his head chewed off. He decided to let it go. For now. Ultimately, pulling a greased bear weenie couldn't be as bad as being headless.

  Jim went back to the couch, pulled the blanket over him, and almost slept.

  Next morning, Jim, who thought he would never sleep, had finally drifted off, and what awoke him was not a noise, but the smell of food cooking. Waffles.

  Jim got up slowly. A faint pink light was coming through the window. The kitchenette area of the tower was open to view, part of the bigger room, and the bear was in there wearing an apron and a big chef's hat. The bear turned, saw him. The apron had a slogan on it: if

  MOMMA AIN'T HAPPY, Ain't NOBODY HAPPY.

  The bear spotted him, gave Jim a big-fanged, wet smile. "Hey, brother, how are you? Come on in here and sit your big ass down and have one of Mr. Bear's waffles. It's so good you'll want to slap your momma."

  Jim went into the kitchenette, sat at the table where the bear instructed. The bear seemed in a light and cheery mood. Coffee was on the table, a plate stacked with waffles, big strips of bacon, pats of butter, and a bottle of syrup in a plastic bear modeled after Mr. Bear himself.

  "Now you wrap your lips around some of this stuff, see

  what you think."

  While Jim ate, the bear regaled him with all manner of stories about his life, and most were in fact interesting, but

  all Jim could think about was the bear biting the head off that hooker, and then slashing the other with a strike of his mighty paw. As Jim ate, the tasty waffles with thick syrup became wads of blood and flesh in his mouth, and he felt as if he were eating of Mr. Bear's wine and wafer, his symbolic blood and flesh, and it made Jim's skin crawl.

  All it would take to end up like the whores was a misstep. Say something wrong. Perhaps a misinterpreted look. A hesitation at tonight's weenie pull. . . . Oh, damn, Jim thought. The weenie pull.

  "What I thought we'd do is we'd go for a drive, dump the car. There's a ravine I know where we can run it off, and no one will see it again. Won't even know it's missing. Excuse me while I go to the shitter. I think I just got word there's been a waffle delivery called."

  The bear laughed at his own joke and left the room. Jim ate a bit more of the waffle and all the bacon. He didn't want the bear to think he wasn't grateful. The beast Was clearly psychotic. Anything could set him off.

  Jim got up and washed his hands at the sink, and just as he was passing into the living room, he saw the gun they had found in the car, lying on a big fluffy chair. Part of it, the barrel, had slipped into the crack in the cushions. Maybe the bear had forgotten all about it, or at least didn't have it at the forefront of his mind. That was it. He'd been drunker than a Shriners' convention. He probably didn't even remember having the gun.

  Jim eased over and picked up the weapon and put it under his shirt, in the small of his back. He hoped he would know how to use it. He had seen them used before. If he could get up close enough—

  "Now, that was some delivery. That motherfucker probably came with a fortune cookie and six-pack of Coke. I feel ten pounds lighter. You ready, Jimbo?"

  In the early morning, the forests were dark and beautiful and there was a slight mist, and with the window of the car rolled down, it was cool and damp and the world seemed newborn. But all Jim could think about was performing a greased weenie pull and then getting his head chewed off.

  Jim said, "You get rid of the car, how do we get back?"

  The bear laughed. "Just like a citizen. We walk, of course."

  "We've gone quite a distance."

  "It'll do you good. Blow out the soot. You'll like it. Great scenery. I'm gonna show you the graves where I buried what was left of them fellows, the arsonists."

  "That's all right," Jim said. "I don't need to see that."

  "I want you to. It's not like I can show everyone, but my bestest bud, that's a different matter, now ain't it?"

  "Well, I don't..."Jim said.

  "We're going to see it."

  "Sure. Okay."

  Jim had a sudden revelation. Maybe there never was going to be a weenie pull, and as joyful as that perception was, the alternative was worse. The bear was going to get rid of him. Didn't want to do it in his tower. You don't shit where you eat. . . . Well, the bear might. But the idea was you kept your place clean of problems. This wasn't just a trip to dump the car, this was a death ride. The bear was

  going to kill him and leave him where the arsonists were. Jim felt his butthole clench on the car seat.

  They drove up higher and the woods grew thicker and the road turned off and onto a trail. The car bumped along for some miles until the trees overwhelmed everything but the trail, and the tree limbs were so thickly connected they acted as a kind of canopy overhead. They drove in deep shadow and there were spots where the shadows were broken by light and the light played across the trail in speckles and spots, and birds shot across their view like feathered bullets, and twice there were deer in sight, bounding into the forest and disappearing like wraiths as the car passed.

  They came to a curve and then a sharp rise and the bear drove up the rise. The trail played out, and still he drove. He came to a spot, near the peak of the hill, where the sun broke through, stopped the car, and got out. Jim got out. They walked to the highest rise of the hill, and where they stood was a clean, wide swath in the trees. Weeds and grass grew there. The grass was tall and mostly yellow but brown in places.

  "Spring comes," the bear said. "There will be flowers, all along that path, on up to this hill, bursting all over it. This is my forest, Jim. All the dry world used to be a forest, or nearly was, but man has cut most of it down and that's done things to all of us and I don't think in the long run much of it is good. Before man, things had a balance, know what I mean? But man ... oh, boy. He sucks. Like that fire that burned me. Arson. Just for the fun of it. Burned down my goddamn home, Jim. I was just a cub. Little. My mother dying like that... I always feel two to three berries short of a pie." "I'm sorry."

  "Aren't they all? Sorry. Boy, that sure makes it better, don't it. Shit." The bear paused and looked over the swath of meadow. He said, "Even with there having been snow, it's dry, and when it's dry, someone starts a fire, it'll burn. The snow don't mean a thing after it melts and the thirsty ground sucks it up, considering it's mostly been dry all year. That one little snow, it ain't nothing more than whipped cream on dry cake." The bear pointed down the hill. "That swath there, it would burn like gasoline on a shag carpet. I keep an eye out for those things. I try to keep this forest safe. It's a thankless

  and continuous job___Sometimes I have to leave, get a bit of

  recreation ... like the motel room ... time with a friend."

  "I see."

  "Do you? The graves I told you about. They're just down the hill. You see, they were bad people, but sometimes, even good people end up down there, if they know things they shouldn't, and there have been a few."

  "Oh," Jim said, as if he had no idea what the bear was talking about.

  "I don't make friends easily, and I may seem a little insincere. Species problems, all that. Sometimes even people I like, well... it doesn't turn out so well for them. Know what I'm saying?"

  "I... I don't think
so."

  "I think you do. That motel room back there, those whores. I been at this for years. I'm not a serial killer or anything. Ones I kill deserve it. The people I work for. They know how I am. They protect me. How's it gonna be an icon goes to jail? That's what I am. A fuckin' icon. So I kinda get a free ride, someone goes missing, you know. Guys in black, ones got the helicopters and the black cars.

  They clean up after me. They're my homies, know what I'm saying?" "Not exactly."

  "Let me nutshell it for you: I'm pretty much immune to prosecution. But you, well... kind of a loose end. There's a patch down there with your name on it, Jimbo. I put a shovel in the car early this morning while you were sleeping. It isn't personal, Jim. I like you. I do. I know that's cold comfort, but that's how it is."

  The bear paused, took off his hat and removed a small cigar from the inside hat band, then struck a match and took a puff, said, "Thing is, though, I can't get to liking someone too good, 'cause—"

  The snapping sound made the bear straighten up. He was still holding his hat in his paw, and he dropped it. He almost made a turn to look at Jim, who was now standing right by him, holding the automatic to the bump on the bear's noggin. The bear's legs went out. He stumbled and fell forward and went sliding down the hill on his face and chest, a bullet snuggling in his brain.

  Jim took a deep breath. He went down the hill and turned the bear's head using both hands, took a good look at him. He thought the bear didn't really look like any of the cartoon versions of him, and when he was on TV he didn't look so old. Of course, he had never looked dead before. The eyes had already gone flat and he could see his dim reflection in one of them. The bear's cigar was flattened against his mouth, like a coiled worm. Jim found the bear's box of matches and was careful to use a handkerchief from the bear's paw to handle it. He struck the match and set the dry grass on fire, then stuck the match between the bear's claws

  on his left paw. The fire gnawed patiently at the grass, whipping up enthusiasm as the wind rose. Jim wiped down the automatic with his shirt tail and put it in the bear's right paw using the handkerchief, and pushed the bear's claw through the trigger guard, closing the bear's paw around the weapon so it looked like he had shot himself.