by E H Davis
Teddy peered over his shoulder, trying to decipher what the fire hadn’t completely eradicated.
“’D’... ‘a’” he read with difficulty. He looked closer. “The last name has no first letter, but the second is an ‘o’; then there’s an ‘m’ followed by more letters, but I can’t make them out.”
Jens nodded, swiveled his head around, all the while expecting the peculiar man from the convenience store, Dr. Red Bull, to charge out of the woods and do what? Attack?
Given what they’d found, it seemed to Jens that anything was possible. He felt like one of his fictional protagonists sorting through the clues at the scene of a crime, only this was real. What kind of man destroys his identification?
“Shouldn’t we call the police? You brought your cell phone, right?”
Jens shook his head. “No signal up here.” He opened the wallet again, looking for another form of identification. Plastic credit cards had melded together in a wad, leaving no trace of a name.
He pulled open all the compartments. Stuck to the lining of one was a black and white passport photo of a young woman, early twenties. Pretty, her short light-colored hair worn in a style long out of fashion — perm-curls piled on top. Her blouse was high-collared, prim. Jens handed it to Teddy.
He gave it back with a smirk. “Looks like from your time.”
Jens put it in his jacket pocket along with the charred license.
“I’ll keep that in mind the next time you ask to play Xbox.”
________
The bear charged uphill through the dense woods, forepaws clawing, hind legs springing. She grunted as she ran, making a mewling sound as she called out to her cubs, warning them of danger, assuring them she was coming. Her paws landed heavily, pulverizing dead limbs in her path, snapping them with a loud kerak. She had to get back to her cubs.
________
Father and son mounted the same trail as the doctor had earlier, the path ascending steeply within a few yards. Teddy, wearing the prized Dunham hiking boots Vivian had bought for him, bounded ahead, seemingly liberated by the woods.
Jens trudged after, conserving his strength.
“You and Mom — you’re getting along okay, aren’t you?”
Jens caught up with him
“No better or worse than usual. Maybe even better than usual,” he added, recalling their lovemaking. “Why do you ask?”
“Ah, no particular reason.” He shrugged.
Jens glanced at him, trying to read between the lines.
“You worried we’re going to split up?”
“Nah ... it’s just that a lot of kids at school, their parents are divorced or getting divorced.” He smiled reassuringly. “It’s a trend.”
Jens thought about what to say. He didn’t want to say something that would deny or discredit Teddy’s intuition. They trudged on, the sound of their boots blending with the encompassing hush of the woods.
Teddy picked up a sturdy fallen tree limb, splintered at one end where it had broken from a tree.
“Take it.” He held it out to Jens.
Jens shook his head. Was this a peace offering? he wondered. For what?
“You’re kidding, right?”
“You’ll need it soon, old man.” He flashed Jens his gamin grin. “For when the going gets tough —”
Jens finished their ritual with a smile: “The tough get going.”
He caught the limb Teddy tossed him, swung it under his arm like a baton, and decided to keep it. They trekked on, the incline ever steeper, forcing them to lean forward, nearly perpendicular. Teddy chattered away, about the beauty of the woods and how much he liked the peace and quiet — unaware, noted his father, of the irony.
Jens climbed on silently, enjoying the workout. With each step, the cane Teddy gave him bit into the web of his hand, soon blistering the skin. He gripped it firmly, trudging on, letting it bite: uncomplaining, unwilling to show weakness, the mystique of his identity wrapped up in stoicism, learned by default. From the father he’d loved but had not loved him back, and had decked him at the dinner table for accidentally saying the f-word. Young as he was at the time, Jens, dry-eyed, had picked himself off the floor and glared at his father until his father, exasperated, had left the table.
Kerak.
Something large — Jens couldn’t say what — was crashing through the woods. Turning reflexively, he saw a dark form, low to the ground, knifing through the trees.
What the —? At first, he thought it was a man on all fours, dressed in black, scrambling up the ridge. How absurd. The hackles on Jens’ neck stood up.
Bear! Shit.
He watched it pounce uphill, mewling ferociously. Keeping an eye on the beast’s progress, he picked up a rock, ready to do battle. In the other hand was his knobby staff.
________
The old man winced with pain as he climbed the last few feet of the path to the lookout. He grabbed an overhanging tree branch to steady himself. Heaving, out of breath, he took in the view, a spectacular one-hundred-eighty-degree panorama. It was just as he remembered it. Miles to the north across the steppes lay the Black Mountains, smoky-blue in the afternoon sun, beasts at rest. South, to his dismay, the forested ridges were desecrated with a sprawl of red-roofed developments, clinging to the hillsides, sprung up in his absence. Exhausted, he drew in the crisp mountain air, fighting to clear his head.
He collapsed onto the weathered granite outcropping that capped the trail, perspiring and heaving with exhaustion. He lay still, looking up at the vast sheltering sky, thinking of his wife, Leah, whom he’d be joining shortly.
He patted the gun in his pocket, confirming that it hadn’t fallen out during the climb. All his life he had played God with the lives of his patients; now it was his turn.
A noise in the thicket below the ledge caught his attention. It sounded like growling dogs, though higher pitched, more primitive.
He got up from the rock and peered over the edge, holding onto a sapling, careful of his footing.
He jerked back as though struck — then risked another look.
Below, three cubs cavorted behind a barrier of bracken and tree limbs, trapped against a hollow in the granite wall. He smiled as they paused in their play, sniffing the air tentatively because of him. They soon lost interest and returned to their ritual of dominance: pouncing, rearing, surrendering.
Back on the ledge, the old man made his peace with himself and the world. He had no need of last-minute declarations of love — he was ready. Leah was waiting.
With hands accustomed to healing, he put the gun to his temple without hesitation, placed his finger on the trigger, and squeezed.
________
Teddy was farther along on the trail, leaping like a mountain bock, oblivious to any danger. Jens glanced warily in his direction, told himself that black bears rarely attack humans. For all the good it did. His primitive brain had taken over; he was ready for fight or flight. He scrambled to catch up with Teddy.
“Teddy — bear.”
Shooshing, he pointed in the direction of where he’d seen her disappear into the woods.
“Where? Don’t see him.” Teddy sidled up to his father, scanning the woods. “You seeing things, old man?” He slung his arm around Jens.
Jens gave him a gentle elbow in the ribs. “I saw what I saw.”
________
Nothing happened outside of an impotent click. The old man lowered the gun and studied it. Shaking his head at his stupidity, he fumbled with the gun until he figured out how to pull back the slide and drop a round into the firing chamber.
This time, though it was a difficult angle, he raised the pistol to a point between his eyes, confident that the .44 caliber bullet would punch through his skull and cerebral cortex, destroy his autonomic nervous system, and kill him instantly.
He tightened his finger on the trigger and — squeezed.
At the exact same instant, there was a roar.
He barely registered a dark flur
ry of movement out of the corner of his eye, hurtling toward him.
Bear.
She was on him, claws extended, teeth bared.
Roaring.
Time stopped. He heard the plaintive yips of the cubs calling to their mother; a cloud cluster spoke to him of eternity; a glimpse of blue sky disappeared behind the bulk of the bear, as she bore down on him with all her terrifying certitude of muscle, bone, gristle, and pelt.
The shot rang out — BOOM — reverberating loudly in the thin mountain air.
Coveys of birds darted out from under the ledges and trees, arching in different directions, as though pointing the way to the beyond.
_________
Back on the trail, Jens exchanged a wary glance with Teddy. Did Red Bull have a gun, wondered Jens? With the sound of gunshot, the mystifying evidence back in the parking lot jelled into certainty. Red Bull shot himself.
“Hope that’s not what I think it is.” Teddy lurched up the trail before Jens could react.
“Wait!” Jens scrambled after him.
“Don’t shoot!” Jens turned the blind bend onto the ledge.
Teddy, first to arrive, stood frozen, speechless.
The bear had the old man’s head in her jaws and was shaking him violently from side to side, his body limp as a rag doll, the whites of his eyes showing. As she clawed his flesh with her talons, her drool slathered her jaws and spilled onto her prey, mixing with blood from the gashes.
Trembling, Teddy inched forward, reaching behind him for Jen’s cane. “Give!” he hissed.
Jens pushed in front of him and jabbed the stick at the bear’s head as she crunched down on the old man’s skull with a bone-splintering snap of her jaws.
Jens gripped the stick and let loose a terrified bellow.
“Hey, you — you son of a bitch!”
Panting furiously, the bear looked up, showing bloodied yellow fangs and feverish red eyes. She roared and jawed down on her captive.
Stepping in like a batter meeting a pitch, Jens swung the thick staff with all his might, landing it with a resounding thwack on the enormous head. She ignored him.
He rained down blow after blow, striking her all over, but she continued to ignore him, caught in a frenzy of destruction meant only for the old man. Jens readied to make another assault on her while Teddy groped for the pistol in the grass.
“Don’t!” Jens lunged for the gun.
The bear looked up, seeing — as though for the first time — Jens then Teddy. She dropped her victim and launched herself at Teddy, scrambling on all fours. She was nearly on him.
Jens fired a shot into the air. Boom! She was still going for Teddy. He fired again, Boom. The bullet creased her furred scalp.
As though recovering a buried memory — of man and his cunning weapons — she stopped, rose up on her hinds, and roared and roared.
Terrified, Jens stepped back, his arm extended rigidly, his finger on the trigger, aiming at her head. He didn’t want to kill her, but he would, cubs or not.
They glared at each other, the beast heaving with fury; the man shivering with resolve.
The barking of the cubs furled up from the ledge below. Mewling loudly, the sow dropped onto all fours with a grunt and scrambled off the ledge toward her children.
Later, when Jens sat down to write about this moment, he would wonder at the mysterious understanding that seemingly had passed between them, man and beast, parent to parent.
Awed, Teddy stumbled over to him, halted.
“Hey. You okay?”
Jens wondered why he was whispering. He shook his head, not sure what he was feeling. He gripped the gun, fist white-knuckled, his look turned inward.
Again, softly: “Dad, Dad, we gotta get help.”
Jens stooped beside Daniel. Blood was pooling from the gashes on his head; there was a raw wound behind his ear, the edges singed with gunpowder.
He felt his neck for a pulse.
“He’s alive!”
Chapter Thirteen
He’d sent Teddy tearing down to the cottage at the foot of the trail, where telephone lines confirmed the existence of a landline, to call the police and send an ambulance.
Jens stood watching the medics as they carried the injured man to the trail on a stretcher. He was strapped down, an oxygen mask over his face, a plastic bag of vital fluids attached to an arm drip. Jens’ makeshift bandage had been replaced with sterile pads and gauze. The medics had loaned him a green scrub top to replace the bloodied shirt he’d used to wrap around the old man’s head.
Still pumped on adrenalin from his second confrontation with death in the same day, Jens breathed deeply, trying to regain his balance. His thoughts racing ahead, he found himself silently giving thanks for the safety of his son and that of the man whose life he’d saved.
It had been his turn to save a life. The image of his deceased brother Nils, lurking always at the feathery edge of consciousness, fluttered back into the depths. Was Nils trying to tell him something? An unconscious shiver passed through him as he seemed to sense the proximity of the world of the dead with that of the living.
He was ready to go down the mountain, to resume his routine duties and responsibilities as a father and husband, and reclaim the rarer joys of his work as a writer. Nearing fifty, his own father’s age at the time of his death, Jens felt a sharp twinge of mortality. Would he be here next year to welcome the golden days of Indian summer? To watch his boy grow into a man?
He gave the granite rock on the ledge a final scan, to impress it in his mind for future use as the scene of ordinary miracles, in a story. His reverie was interrupted by Teddy calling to him from around a bend in the trail below.
“You coming, Dad?”
A flash of gold in the late afternoon sun caught Jens’ eye as he turned to go. Lying in the grass alongside the granite rock was the Rolex he had seen the stranger wearing earlier. Jens scooped it up, marveling it at its dense utility. He turned it over in his hand, admiring the bejeweled face and the elegant gold band. On the back cover was an inscription: “To Daniel, Always, Leah.”
The stranger had a name. Daniel.
________
As they went down the mountain, he reassured Teddy that they would turn the Rolex over to the police. Teddy was all for keeping it, they’d saved Daniel’s life after all. Jens laughed, shook his head.
Teddy gave his father a troubled look.
“Something terrible must have made that man want to take his own life.”
Jens didn’t answer, preoccupied with his concern for the man they now knew as Daniel. But Teddy’s comment lingered. Already his writer’s mind was spinning possible scenarios for the man from Florida: the sad man, the erstwhile doctor, Daniel, who was loved, or had been loved, by a woman named Leah.
_______
At the bottom of the trail they were met by a New Hampshire State Trooper, a woman in her late 20s, early 30s, whose name tag identified her as Sgt. F. Morrison. In Jens’ experience, most “staties” approached the good citizenry under their purview with liberal doses of sarcasm, faux civility, and arrogance. Sgt. Morrison was no exception, female or not.
“Taking in the sights on the way down, gentlemen?”
Her clipped speech reminded Jens that they were in northern New Hampshire, within a hundred miles of the Canadian border.
He held her sharp gaze, noting that even without makeup she was attractive — her eyes piercing blue, long-lashed; pert nose; lips well-formed despite being pulled back in what appeared to be a perpetual grimace. Her sandy hair was shorn military style, fringing the brim of her Smokey the Bear hat; her uniform tight over a sculpted torso.
Something blatantly masculine in the mix. A pose, predicated by the job, or natural, wondered Jens, his writer’s eye instantly registering her as a character of interest. Gender preferences had become the new hot potato in culture and politics, and he was not indifferent. He watched as she pulled down on the brim of her hat, worn full tilt over the eyes to in
timidate. No different from her chauvinist male counterparts.
“I’ve been debating whether or not to go on up and bring you down myself.”
Jens gestured to the ambulance where the EMTs were loading Daniel’s stretcher onboard. “Is he going to make it, officer?”
“Dad, the SUV is gone.” Teddy pointed to the place in the parking lot where the Escalade had been parked.
“Maybe the police towed it.” Jens turned back to Sgt. F. Morrison.
The trooper cleared her throat. “Tell you what, Mr.—?”
“Corbin, Jens Corbin. This is my son, Teddy. Mind telling me what hospital they’re taking the injured man to?”
“May I see some identification, Mr. Corbin, sir?” she said with feigned civility, eyes taut, hands on her Sam Browne belt. She wore her holstered gun high on her right hip. Making her right-handed, noted Jens. He also noted the gun was not standard issue, it was a revolver of some kind, and he knew from his book research that most troopers carried an automatic pistol. He observed everyone as if they might be a character in his next book.
He rewarded her with the look of a tolerant parent.
Something clicked in her. She nodded to herself, inhaled, exhaled, took her hands off the Sam Browne belt. Away from her gun.
Jens produced a thin billfold he used when hiking. He fished around inside, purposely taking his time. Finally, he handed his driver’s license to F. Morrison, who glanced at it, matching the picture with the man standing before her.
“And the boy?”
“My son.”
Jens pulled out a student ID card for Teddy, issued by his school in the event he went missing.
Sgt. Morrison put Teddy through the same scrutiny, though gentler.
“Mind stepping over to the cruiser, Mr. Corbin?”
They waited while she ran Jens’ license through the DMV.
She handed back their IDs.
“You want to tell me what happened up there on the ledge? Got part of the story from the medics. Something about a bear.”
“What’s the man’s condition?” asked Jens.
