A Bear Tale
Page 5
The Kitsap Sun reporter had to park out on Berry Road behind the sheriff and a Fish and Wildlife Department car, which he recognized. He stepped over fallen tree debris, and then walked up the O’Neils’ driveway, past a wheelbarrow which held a dead golden retriever, up the back stairs and into the crowded kitchen. The sheriff sat at the kitchen table with a young black man. A middle-aged man with a ponytail and two crying women, the owners, stood at the kitchen sink. The reporter went to stand by the woodstove with the Wildlife woman who he had met at the last bear attack.
The sheriff had requested that the other two eye-witnesses attend this bear inquest as well, so Greg Harvey had cancelled his meeting and hovered at the back door. Grandma Dean had just settled the three Dean children – Elden, 6; Lula, 4; and Lyle, 2 – on the couch. The children’s mother did not want them playing outside at all today, and Grandma Dean was wondering how that was going to work. Garfield hid at the top of the stairs and looked down on the proceedings.
Jonah recounted the events and Diana sobbed. Tears kept forming and falling. She listened to every word Jonah said, wishing she could turn back the clock. The body blow of Jake’s death transported her to another place where there was no switch to flip, no nurse mode and its perspective available to her. She called in sick. So had Jonah.
“Mr. Harvey was layin’ on his horn,” Jonah was saying.
“I was trying to scare the bear away!” Greg Harvey said. He stood like a sumo wrestler, feet wide apart, pot belly prominent.
“Let’s just let Jonah tell the story, okay?” Janie O’Neil said in a pleading tone, and with a smile. She would not have this sacred moment besmirched with old road rancor over paving.
Greg Harvey ignored her. “He’s told the story already. It’s not that complicated. The dog was unleashed, it attacked the bear, and paid the price for its owner’s negligence. End of story.”
Grandma Dean gasped at this insensitivity to the O’Neils, and picked up her squirming grandchild. She couldn’t stop herself. “You do not speak for all of us, Sir. You’re just louder.”
Jonah locked eyes with Diana across the room and realized he was seeing the same outraged expression his mother had any time Greg Harvey’s name was mentioned.
Diana clung to Jonah emotionally, otherwise she might have killed the creep with her bare hands.
“Is Jakie hurt?” Lula whispered loudly. Elden, her older brother, was humiliated, not that his sister had spoken up, but that she had missed the whole point. He slapped his forehead and shushed her.
“Is there a leash law in rural areas?” It was the reporter, and everyone turned to look at him. “I mean, is this a county road? Is it privately maintained?”
It was an accurate measure of Diana’s shock that she hadn’t even registered a new boy in the room. Now she did.
Her stepdad cleared his throat. “To your question about who maintains this road, it is indeed privately maintained. It is not a county road. As to any leash law, there is none. Greg Harvey knows that. He’s mad about completely unrelated stuff.”
“Are we finished here?” Greg asked the sheriff. “Common sense and common courtesy continue to be a challenge for this household.”
The reporter was taking notes furiously. All the voices smoldering low in the room were growing. Jonah’s cell phone went off, and the sheriff asked for quiet.
“Road maintenance,” the heavy-set sheriff said slowly, “is not our concern here and now this morning. We’ve got us a scary bear out here that might have attacked twice in three days.” He leaned back in the chair and it squeaked. “What is Fish and Wildlife saying now?” He looked at the woman who was in her thirties and had a crew cut.
“The story here of course is the menace to our community, and efforts to trap the bear will continue,” she said to the assemblage. “My deepest sympathies to the dog’s owners on the loss of their pet, by the way.” She nodded to Diana and her parents.
“Will you kill the bear if you catch it?” Diana addressed the Wildlife woman directly. “Because Jake charged it, like Jonah said.”
Greg Harvey hooted. “Self-defense!” he said. “That’s a good one.”
“Jakie was protecting us all,” Grandma Dean said and patted Lula’s head.
“Actually,” the Wildlife woman said, “Ms. O’Neil, is it?”
Diana nodded.
“Actually, Ms. O’Neil, a Save the Bear campaign was launched just last night by concerned Gig Harbor residents. Our reporter here is covering that story as well. We at the Department have gotten a lot of bear commentary. Forty emails last I checked. People have strong feelings about the whole thing.”
Diana felt her face flushing. She was one with strong feelings. Even now. Even more so now, somehow. “Like how do you know it’s the right bear?” Diana said. “And why can’t it be trapped and relocated?”
“Yes, those are the questions. Bears are territorial and it’s difficult to find an unclaimed area. To the euthanasia issue, the Department maintains that once a bear has attacked a human, it will be more inclined to do so again. Plus it must be tested for rabies, which can only be done after death. The attacked woman needs this information.”
“And again,” Jonah asked, “how do you know it’s the right bear?”
“Saliva.”
“Am I free to leave?” Greg Harvey said to the sheriff.
The sheriff looked at Greg and then around at everyone else and finally asked the Wildlife woman if she had any other questions for Mr. Harvey. She did not, although she warned everyone that there would be dog teams out here today, as well as traps set.
“Well, then,” the sheriff said, “the hunt is on.” Greg Harvey was out the door.
The house emptied quickly, leaving the family to their grief and burial work. The reporter and Wildlife woman had to arrange a photographer and traps respectively, and Grandma Dean had had an idea to keep the children busy and was excited about the project herself. The children were sorry that a big bad bear had got Jakie. They had never seen a bear except in books, but Elden knew he was supposed to sing and yell in the woods, which he enjoyed doing anyway.
Diana listened to the Dean children as they raced each other down the long easement singing and yelling at the top of their lungs. Then she’d had another crying jag and went to her room to lie down while Alan and Jonah dug Jake’s grave. Janie smudged the house with sage, a cleansing ritual she’d learned when they lived in Suquamish. Greg Harvey’s energy be gone! she whispered as she swished the smoking bundle of herbs in every nook.
Upstairs, Garfield lay against Diana’s broken heart. His deep wild purr soothed the ache, which she had to otherwise groan or even yelp to get relief from. Garfield had come to her of his own accord, an expert in not only giving comfort but also of finding it – the warmest, the softest, the best.
Jonah was a comfort, too. He pushed the heavy wheelbarrow up the tractor trail and then through the woods. He dug most of the grave, and then he and Alan, together, as Diana and Janie watched, lowered Jake’s cold, stiff body into the earth. Janie thanked Jake for his exuberant personality and life and Diana sobbed. Jonah said he was a good dog and then he pulled one of Jake’s tennis balls out of his pocket, stepped down into the grave beside the body, and wedged the ball under Jake’s chin.
By the time the Kitsap Sun photographer left Berry Road at dusk, the Dean children had installed their handmade white cross in the roadside gravel where Jake had died. Six-year-old Elden Dean had done the lettering – JAKE – on the cross. He knew about crosses and funerals.
Chapter 6