by Pam Withers
Loosening the snare a little, Mom and Dad bend over and examine their patient.
“Broken paw,” Mom diagnoses, and administers an intramuscular injection of painkiller into the yearling’s hind end. Then they push the animal into the dog cage as casually as if it’s a long-time pet. In fact, it probably weighs more than a hundred pounds.
It bawls like crazy. I can’t help frowning. “Why do you have a noose pole and cage in your Jeep?”
Granddad shrugs. “Never know what you might need up here in the mountains, grandson. Though, personally, I’d have let this thing fend for itself.” He shoots a disapproving look at my mom.
“A newly orphaned cub with a broken paw fend for itself in the wild?” my mother challenges.
“Yearling, not cub,” Granddad informs her, like he’s speaking to a child. He pulls his phone from his pocket. “I’ll call Evan Anderson, the conservation officer, to come deal with the sow’s carcass. Maybe he’ll give me the head to mount.”
“And the one that ran away?” I dare to ask.
“Half-grown and old enough to survive on its own,” Granddad says. I’m not convinced.
“Thank goodness Dad got there in time and was armed. So lucky you weren’t hurt,” my father says when we reach the Jeep. I climb mutely into the front passenger seat. The caged yearling bangs around in the back. It smells ripe. Putrid. But I don’t care. A part of me wants to climb into the back and comfort it.
“Did you really have to kill the mother?” I ask Granddad, still shaken.
I mean, I’ve lived most of my life in New York City, where there are random homicides every hour. But I’ve never seen a murder up close and personal.
“Saints preserve us! It was you or it,” Granddad says as he hoists himself into the driver’s seat.
“For sure,” says Dad.
I turn around in time to see Mom shake her head before she climbs into the back seat, well away from Dad.
Granddad shoves the key into the ignition. “You, boy, learned up a good lesson after going arseways. Next time use the bear spray.”
Like Mom, I can never do anything right when it comes to Granddad. But reminding myself that he’s ill, I don’t respond to his biting words.
“It was especially dangerous being distracted by flying your drone,” Dad weighs in, clutching my confiscated Bug.
“Lucky? Lesson? He was almost killed!” Mom bursts out as she presses herself against the passenger door. I turn back to stare out the front windshield. “I told you this place was dangerous. It was a crazy idea bringing us up here. We almost just lost our son, Sean. Does that mean anything to you?”
“Almost lost yer son? Don’t be stupid, woman,” Granddad says.
“It was Ray or the bear,” Dad says, trying to soothe her as Granddad starts up the Jeep and pulls away from our campsite. “And Ray actually handled it pretty well, considering. Anyway, bear encounters are part of life here. But, hmm, does that thing ever stink.”
“It’s scared.” I defend it, breathing through my mouth.
“Well, I hate it here,” Mom says. “Now I’ve said it! Please, Sean, I want to move back to Manhattan. And so does Ray.”
I open my mouth to protest, but stay silent when my granddad gives me a curt headshake. The old man then careens around a curve on this poor excuse for a logging road.
It is not 100 percent true I want to move back to New York City after only a month in Bella Coola, the three-block town we can see in the long, green valley below us as the Jeep moves along the mountainside road. Several tiny towns and many green farms line the river that flows between heavily forested, snow-capped mountains. I shade my eyes to try to spot the farm where, I’m told, a moose guards the cows from mountain lions. I have to admit the valley is picturesque, even if it is entirely capable of giving a New Yorker a serious case of boredom and culture shock. I’m still angry Dad forced the move on us. I’ve yelled at him a lot for it. I miss my city friends and school so much it hurts. I still text or talk with my friends every few nights. Plus, Mom and Dad never fought back there, only here, thanks to the Granddad factor. But despite all that, I’m trying not to be as stubborn and closed-minded as Mom. I’m afraid if I agree with her, my parents’ arguing will get worse. And, sometimes, I actually enjoy hanging out with Granddad.
“New York’s not home anymore, Leah. You agreed to move but you haven’t even given it a chance. Ray’s trying. He’s at least trying. And there’s my father to consider.”
Do my parents even know Granddad and I are sitting right in front of them? Do they care how I feel about Mom’s chilling pronouncement or my near-death experience in the stupid woods? Am I invisible to them these days? Doesn’t anyone feel bad about the mother bear, the runaway cub, or the injured orphan? And, just for once, can’t they stop fighting about the move?
“Ray survived,” Granddad says offhandedly. “And he’ll pull up his socks here eventually.” He glances at me. “Yer just like yer dad,” he says, “a bit of a jackass. But I reckon he knew more than you before he took off to the big city, married him a city girl, and got too much poodle hair up his nose.”
I stifle a grin as my side-view mirror reveals Dad rolling his eyes. I turn around and catch Mom biting her lip. My dad, after growing up in Bella Coola, got a scholarship to attend veterinary school in New York City; married Mom, a fellow veterinarian; and ran a dog clinic in a posh part of the “city that never sleeps” before upending our family’s life to move back here. In Granddad’s eyes, dogs are way, way down the food chain from, say, cattle, horses, and the occasional moose calf.
Granddad hits the brakes and we all lurch forward. “Sorry, gotta piss,” he says, swinging the door open and hopping out.
“Really, Daniel. Language,” Mom says.
A minute later, Granddad shouts, “Bollocks!”
“What’s up, Dad?” My father slips out of the vehicle to join his father, who is studying tracks in a patch of mud. Dad’s a good son, I reflect. Patient and attentive to Granddad, and so at home here in the West. At home like Mom and I aren’t. I tumble out and walk over to where they’re standing.
“Plott hounds,” the old man mumbles, his sharp green eyes following the tracks until they disappear into the brush. “Pack-hunting devil of a beast. Used by cheating hunter types.”
“You’re right. We need to report this to Evan Anderson,” Dad says.
“Why, is it illegal for hunters to use dogs?” Mom asks, stepping out of the Jeep. “Are there hunters around here? Ray, get back in the Jeep.”
“Poachers,” Granddad replies. “Killing before the season starts, without licences.”
I glance about uneasily, newly alert to the possibility of gun barrels pointed at the four of us from behind devil’s-club shrubs. “What kind of poachers?”
Granddad turns his large, somewhat emaciated frame and points a calloused finger at me. “Ever seen a naked bear, grandson?” he demands.
“Uh, no.” Like, what else would I answer?
“A bear stripped o’ his skin, paws, and gallbladder and left on the mountainsides for the vultures looks eerily like a man,” he says.
My stomach goes sour and I just stare at my granddad.
CHAPTER THREE
BACK ON THE ROAD, Granddad is breathing a little raggedly, so I decide to try to distract him.
“So, you know drones aren’t just toys. They help search-and-rescue teams find lost hikers, and border patrollers use them to catch undocumented immigrants. In Africa, they’re using them to stop elephant poachers.”
“Grand,” Granddad says.
“They can deliver emergency supplies to disaster zones,” Mom contributes. I love that my parents totally support my drone thing.
“Those wee wannabe planes?” Granddad hurls back.
“They help loggers; real estate agents; and oil, gas, and mining companies with surveying,” I inform him.
“Damn loggers.” Granddad grunts. “Damn real estate agents. Damn oil, gas, and mining
bastards. But maybe yer onto something, Ray. Yer a smart boy like yer dad, I know that.”
I grin and, glancing in the side-view mirror, catch my dad winking at me.
It has been dark for a couple of hours by the time Mom and Dad have put a cast on the bear’s paw, tried and failed to coax him to eat some fruit that Mom mashed up, and finally staked him in the backyard on a chain beside his cage. We’ve eaten our own supper here in Granddad’s log cabin, which we’ve moved into to help him with what he needs day-to-day. Dad is stoking up the wood stove. Granddad, his shrunken body in droopy green pyjamas, is headed into his bedroom when the phone rings.
Minutes later, Granddad reports, “Evan went up to remove the dead sow and found her body messed with. Paws and gallbladder removed for the black market. They’ll investigate more tomorrow.”
“What’s a gallbladder and why would anyone want that?” I ask, feeding another log onto the fire.
“It’s a small organ — a sac the shape of a pear — on the right side of your abdomen, in between your liver and small intestine,” Mom explains in effortless vet-speak. “The liver releases bile into the gallbladder for storage before the bile goes on to the small intestine, where it helps with digestion. Some people believe the myth that bear bile is a cure-all for almost anything.”
“Myth?” I say.
“Scientists using a Western approach have found no evidence that it works any better than herbs or synthetic bile. Meanwhile, there are evil people who cage young bears and milk it out of them, and kill the older ones to cut it out of them, all for profit.” She shakes her head, looking troubled.
“Gross,” I say.
“Agreed. When you vomit on an empty stomach, that’s bile coming up.”
“Seriously TMI, Mom. What about the second cub, Granddad?”
“Gone. No trace. Evan says it’s okay to keep this yearling for now, you two being vets,” Granddad says, but his tone is disapproving.
“He doesn’t know you specialize in poodles,” I tease Mom and Dad.
“Shhh.” Dad half grins.
“If the cub doesn’t eat, he’ll weaken and die,” Mom says worriedly.
“Yearling, not cub, you stupid city woman,” Granddad says.
I’m relieved when Mom ignores him. “Ray, don’t you have homework to do?”
“Yeah.”
“No letting that bear in to sleep on your bed tonight,” Dad instructs with a smile.
“Got it,” I say, heading to my room. But later, long after I’ve done my homework and as soon as the cabin goes quiet, I lean my face against my bedroom’s cool windowpane to watch the small grizzly limp to the garage wall, swaying back and forth in the pale moonlight. Guilt twists my gut. He’s suffering because of me. I should’ve just waited things out, not shouted for my trigger-happy granddad.
Tiptoeing into the kitchen, I grab the bowl of mashed fruit Mom brought inside to prevent attracting other animals. Then I take two blankets from the living room sofa before stepping outside.
“Hey, little fellow,” I whisper softly, lowering myself into the ratty hammock on our backyard patio, just out of the chain’s reach.
The grizzly’s ears prick up and his dark eyes turn toward me, searching, considering. His swaying slows. He bawls again.
“I’m sorry you’ve lost your family. I know how you feel. I’m losing my granddad to cancer. Want some food?” I raise the bowl. The small bear presses his back into the garage wall. I sigh. You, too, I think. I can’t save Granddad, or my parents’ marriage, or you. It’s hard to please Granddad. And I haven’t made any friends here yet. I’m invisible, useless.
“Well, the bowl is here if you want it.” I set it on the edge of the patio, wrap myself in the blankets, and settle into the holey hammock. It’s definitely not comfy, but the camping trip has clearly tired me, because I’m soon out.
I dream I’m a toddler and my granddad is rocking me to sleep in a hammock in the frigid valley air. Then the old man leans over and grunts like he does, and nuzzles me in the neck. My nose scrunches up at an overpoweringly pungent smell.
Fully awake, I bolt upright.
The bear, dragging his chain, is grunting and snuffling in the weak morning light, sniffing the bowl of food on the patio from afar like an anteater.
Happiness shoots through me.
“Hank,” I say softly — on impulse naming him after the puppy in My Talking Hank, a mobile game I used to like. The shadow sits up and looks at me warily. “Good boy. Let me help you with that.”
Slowly, cautiously, I climb out of my sling, place my hands on either side of the bowl, and crouch there, dead still. I should be scared, and this might be foolish, but he’s just a large baby, I remind myself. Besides, I’m the animal whisperer.
My heart skips a beat when the little bear half limps, half waddles over, sticks his nose into the bowl, and slurps up everything in it.
“Good boy. Go to sleep now.” I point to his cage, which we’ve lined with soft rags.
Backing up to the safety of my hammock, I pull my blankets over me again and settle in for another few hours’ sleep. My parents won’t really care if they find me here in the morning.
What? Hank limps over and rests his nose on my chest, almost overturning the hammock. I completely misjudged the length of that chain! I should be freaked, but I want to cry out with joy. The pressure against my ribs and the watchful, curious eyes warm me. I read no intent of harm in him. He’s just lonely, confused. In fact, as he sucks his tongue to the accompaniment of a rumbling sound in his chest, I know instinctively he’s purring.
He’s going to mend and live!
“You’ll be all right,” I tell him, battling my nervousness about having a frisky bear so close. Someone who trusts me, sees me, accepts me for who I am. I’ve finally got a buddy in Bella Coola.
Having grown up learning to read dogs’ pain and trauma, I’m fond of animals. Hey, they’re easier to relate to than human beings. I begin to hum. Hank closes his eyes. Morning birds break into song. Seated on his haunches, casted paw in his lap, he nestles his muzzle into my neck.
“What? I’m supposed to burp you or tell you a bedtime story? Thought you were a yearling. That’s like four and a half in people years, right?”
“Talk to him respectful-like,” I remember Granddad saying on the camping trip.
“It’s good that you ate, Hank. Let’s see. What else can we talk about? Hey, want to hear about the drone models I’m building in my workshop? One is a perfect spying machine the size of a butterfly. The other is my masterpiece: waterproof with thermal capabilities, perfect for flying at night.”
“But what are the drones for?” a voice demands.
I sit up, prompting Hank to lift his head off me and drag himself across the patio to his cage.
My next-door neighbour and classmate, Min-jun Kim, is leaning on the half-rotted picket fence between our yards, wearing a worn white terrycloth bathrobe over white pyjamas and rubber boots. He’s the short, fit-looking son of a couple that runs a small Korean café in town.
“Yo, Min-jun. Wasn’t exactly talking to you. What’re you doing up, anyway?”
“Listening to you talk to a bear … who was seriously in the hammock with you?”
I smirk. “He’s an orphan with a broken paw. I’m trying to calm him.”
“How do you know it’s a him?”
“My parents are vets, duh.”
Min-jun shivers as a breeze ruffles the legs of his pyjama bottoms.
“How’s your grandfather?” he asks.
“He’s doing okay.”
“Good. Dad’s dropping over later to bring some of his special tea. Mr. McLellan needs lots of rest, you know. Helps prevent anxiety and irritation in cancer patients.”
“Granddad’s been irritable all his life.”
Min-jun laughs. “True that. Hey, can I check out your drones sometime?”
“Min—” Crap. My neighbour heard every word I said. “Maybe, but can you just kee
p that to yourself? No one’s supposed to know what I’m making in the workshop.”
The Kims moved in two years ago. I don’t know them half as well as Granddad does. Can I trust this guy?
“Min-jun Kim!” comes a deep, fiery voice, followed by a mouthful of Korean. A short, muscular man with his shoulders back and chest pushed out appears in Min-jun’s backyard, jabbing his finger at my classmate.
Min-jun gives a quick wave and bolts for the back door of his small clapboard house. His glowering father rests beefy arms on the fence top.
“Why is bear in backyard? Is dangerous, yes?”
“Hi, Mr. Kim,” I say. “Granddad shot its mother when he thought I was in danger on our camping trip. It has a broken paw, and we’re feeding it till it’s ready to go back to the wild.” Already, I can’t imagine parting with the furry creature who rested his head on my chest.
“Hmm,” Mr. Kim says with a frown as he studies the sleeping bear. “Be careful, Ray. I come later with tea, like Min-jun say.”
Great. Another eavesdropper. I nod. “Thanks.”
“Good night.”
CHAPTER FOUR
I’M WOLFING DOWN a bowl of oatmeal and telling my parents about my nighttime feeding success (without mentioning that Hank reached the hammock) when the sound of a truck backfiring in our alley makes all three of us jump. I poke my head out to see if Hank might need calming, then freeze at seeing the back gate open, no bear in sight, and the tail end of a dented red pickup truck gunning it down the alley.
“Mom! Dad!” I shout, staring at the still-swinging gate. “Someone just stole Hank!”
I race out and hold up one cut end of his chain. Whoever it was had bolt cutters for sure. I want to scream with panic and anger.
“We have no proof he was actually stolen,” Mom insists. “Someone may have cut the chain for a joke, and then he wandered off.”
“It’s just as well,” Granddad says, shrugging. “Wouldn’t have lived much longer, here or in the wild, with a no-good paw.”
I open my mouth to protest, but Dad says, “You’re already late for school, son. We’ll keep an eye out, but it’s time for you to get gone.”
