Fear Mountain

by Mike Dellosso

  Blankly, I stared up at him. I knew the words—beautiful, poetic, melodic—but couldn’t place them.

  “Isaiah the prophet,” he said, as if I should have known that, and I probably should have. I’d read through the entire Bible five times. “Beautiful words prophesied by a devout man. A wonderfully humble and caring man.”

  He then breathed deeply and surveyed the area. “We’ll bed down here for the night. And tomorrow . . .” He paused, and I noticed a shadow darken his countenance. “Well, tomorrow will bring what it brings.”

  29

  While I gathered sticks, Peter built a small lean-to against the side of a protruding boulder. He said it would keep the rain out and, from the look of the foreboding sky, we were going to need shelter for the night. When the frame of the lean-to was assembled we wove green twigs through the skeleton of the roof to form a thatched covering. Peter then piled clumps of moss on the thatch, further waterproofing our makeshift refuge.

  When he placed the final mossy shingle on our roof, he wiped his hands on his trousers and said, “Shall we make a fire?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Are you gonna do your fire thing with your hands again?”

  Peter laughed and dug into his pocket. Retrieving three matches, he smiled wide and held them in the air.

  “Where’d you get them?” I wondered if he’d really started the previous fire with the matches using slight of hand. Simple magic. If so, I’d proved P.T. Barnum correct. I was the sucker who occupied the minute I came into the world.

  “In the kitchen, at the house. When you were upstairs.”

  Relieved that I wasn’t as much a sucker as I thought and happy to be one of the non-suckers born the minute I came into this world, I said, “I’ll get some dry leaves and kindling.”

  I headed off into the twilight-dimmed woods, whistling a Glenn Miller tune. At the foot of a teen-aged maple I stopped to gather some dry sticks when I heard heavy footsteps, crunching leaves, deep breathing behind me.

  I froze, a tingling sensation, like ants crawling over my skin, tightened my scalp. Oddly, my teeth ached and jaw muscles cramped.

  Behind me, something loomed, and by the sound of the footfalls and wind-like respirations, something big.

  Slowly, I turned. There’s nothing worse than getting surprised from behind. If I was going to have to go head to head with a Goliathesque Nazi or forest ogre I at least wanted to see when the blows came. I didn’t want to be blindsided.

  When my head swiveled around far enough that I could see my unwanted guest, my heart stuttered behind my sternum, and I understood why Goldilocks was in no mood to stay and chit-chat once the porridge-eating owners of the quaint cottage in the forest returned. Standing before me, on its hind legs as if it were asking me to dance, was the largest black bear I’d ever seen. And I wanted no part of whatever wicked dance it had in mind.

  Ursus Americanus, the American Black Bear, is the smallest and most common of the three bear species in North America (and the species for which Bear Mountain is so appropriately named). Males usually reach heights of six or seven feet and can weigh as much as 600 pounds. The beast before me was no lightweight. He’d eaten his fair share of skunk cabbage, tree bark, and rodents. Standing at over six feet tall, he had to be on the top end of the scale. Most black bears are true to their name and have black fur, but some just need to be different and the color can vary. My challenger was a non-conformist. His thick body, long neck, and small head were covered with a burnished cinnamon-brown coat. His muzzle was light brown, tipped with a shiny black nose, and there was a pronounced white V on his chest. V for victor, vanquisher. Vlad the Impaler.

  As if it wasn’t enough to be abducted, beat, spanked, then bound to a table leg in a forgotten cellar and left to find “freedom” with the aid of a psychopathic Nazi, I now had to face down a very nosy and agitated Papa Bear.

  Balancing on his hind legs, the bear jutted his nose into the air and pulled in my scent. I’d done some reading on bear behavior and knew that the two-appendage position was not a sign of aggression in and of itself. But what happened next was. The bear dropped to all fours, barked, coughed, and popped his jaws two consecutive times. He had gathered my aroma and apparently found it unpleasant enough to warn me to leave. Immediately, I broke eye contact (showing my submission) and slowly began to back away. Any sudden movement on my part could trigger the charge reaction and that would only end in an unpleasant experience.

  Still displeased at my presence, the bear moaned and coughed, swept at the leaves with his paw, and continued popping his jaws. I knew if I didn’t get out of there soon, he would consider my presence ruder than merely eating his porridge and charge me.

  Then, before I had time to react, the bear rushed me like a runaway caboose. I froze and braced myself for the impact. He closed the gap of twenty or so feet between us in less time than it took me to even think about wetting my pants. But when the barreling bundle of irate fur was only feet from me, he pulled up and let out a loud bark. It was a bluff. Bears will usually bluff several times before actually attacking. But I didn’t want to take my chances that this beast would bluff again. For all I knew the next charge would end with him on top of me, his teeth impaling my scalp.

  Regaining my composure, my heart kick-drumming in my chest, sweat beading on my forehead, I resumed my slow backward retreat, watching the ground in front of Papa Bear. When I was about fifteen feet from the bear and starting to think I may escape with my scalp still attached to my skull, Papa charged again. He lumbered toward me in that way only bears lumber, flat-footed, both clumsy and graceful at the same time, mouth ajar, ears back, coal-black eyes burning with hate. The way he moved, I was sure this attack was no bluff, and I was more sure that I would perish than I ever was while at the mercy of the Nazis. Papa Bear was going to set me free from the sin-shackles of this world and Coyote would miss the whole exhilarating event.

  But my survival instinct wasn’t ready to let go. I put my arms in front of me, waved them and hollered, hoping to surprise the bear and stun him out of attack mode. But he kept coming.

  Ten feet.

  Five feet.

  I bent me knees and lowered my shoulder, bracing myself for the impact, when at the last possible moment Peter jumped between the bear and me.

  I let out a scream.

  The bear skidded to a stop.

  Peter held his ground. Didn’t even flinch.

  Papa Bear backed up a few feet, moaned a little, then wagged his head from side to side. I knew that meant he was no longer in a fighting mood and was now looking for a way out of the situation.

  Peter raised his hands to the bear and said something I didn’t understand, maybe in German.

  As if he understood exactly what was said, and as if the whole thing was some most-unfortunate misunderstanding, the bear turned and sauntered away, looking back once as if to bid us farewell, have a nice evening.

  After swallowing my heart and making sure it was still beating in my chest where it belonged, I stuttered, “Wha—what just happened? That bear was going to have me for an evening snack.”

  Peter turned and looked at me. “Are you still going to collect some kindling for the fire or would you rather I did it?”

  “What? Peter, you—the bear. What did you do?”

  With a shrug as nonchalant as if I’d told him he has nice teeth, Peter said, “You have to know their language. How they communicate.”

  “And he speaks German?”

  “She.”

  “What?”

  “She. It was a female. She was probably just looking for food and you scared her. You may be the first human she’s ever seen.”

  “I scared her? She would have eaten me and you . . . .”

  “You’re welcome,” Peter said, then bent down and collected a handful of twigs and branches. “Let’s get the fire going.”

  30

  Minutes later we were sitting around a snapping and crackling flame, watching as it danced us i
nto a hypnotic trance. There’s something about watching the arrhythmic undulation of a fire that captivates the attention and causes even the casual observer to sit transfixed. Gather around any open fire and the cluster of observers circled around it, basking in its warmth, will no doubt all be staring wide-eyed at the dancing flames as if it were some exotic troupe of dwarves from a faraway land performing a once-in-a-lifetime routine before they keeled over dead and the alien art form was lost forever.

  Keeping my eyes glued to the fiery tendrils as they licked at the night air and spit sparks into the atmosphere, I spoke in a soft voice as if to speak too loudly would disturb the dancing dwarves and cause them to lose their concentration. “Thank you.”

  Peter lifted his eyes away from the fire and looked at me. Shadows and light from the flame played tricks with the angles of his face, making him look much older. “For what?”

  I tipped my head in the direction of the woods behind Peter. “The bear. I was so scared I almost wet my pants. I thought I was a goner.”

  Without smiling, Peter said, “You were. She was in a really bad mood and I think you gave her a good scare.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that so I just nodded and went back to my trance.

  After a long moment of silence had passed between Peter and me, I broke a stick in two and tossed half of it into the fire, then said, “Will we catch up to them tomorrow?”

  Peter poked at the hot red embers beneath the fire with a long, twisted stick. “Yes.” His voice was tight, like he was being strangled, or strangling himself.

  He stopped poking and the sudden abruptness of the act coupled with the tight quality of his voice caused me to pull my eyes away from the flames and fix them on his face. There were tears in his eyes.

  “What’s the matter? What’s going on?” I knew enough by now to know that Peter was not just the teary-eyed, blubbery type. When his eyes leaked, it was for a reason: something ominous was about to happen. I felt a weight as heavy as an anvil descend from the morose sky and settle on my chest. The air seemed to thicken to the consistency of mom’s rice pudding. And I was certain the flames grew angrier, snapping with more ferocity than before. “What is it, Peter?”

  Peter sat quietly for a minute or so, eyes staring blankly at the fire as if he would find an answer, the answer to the oppressive problem that had found us. When no answer materialized, he looked up at me and our eyes met. There was no sadness in his gaze, but fear. Not scream-in-the-night, boogeyman-under-your-bed fear, nor was it kissed-by-your-300-pound-mustached-Aunt-Louise fear, but it was a subtle fear that came from the deepest, darkest, catacombs of the unknown where nightmares are birthed and phobias find their fangs.

  His Adam’s apple jerked in his throat, and he wiped a tear from the corner of his mouth. “Tomorrow . . . Billy, are you capable of trusting? I mean, really trusting?” He said it like it was the last thing he would say on this earth and his and my eternal future depended on my ability to trust.

  “Yes,” I said before even thinking about my answer.

  Peter studied me as one would study a Van Gogh masterpiece, picking up every brush stroke, every tint of color, every subtlety in shading and shadowing. Finally, he said, “Trust, Billy. You have to trust.”

  I didn’t know what he was getting at. I consider myself a fairly intelligent person. I love to read all sorts of books and fill my head with knowledge for which I’ll probably never have any practical use, but one thing I lack is discernment, especially when it pertains to the emotions and affections of others. I know my family members well enough, but when it comes to strangers I’m as lost and blind as a moose in the Mojave. “I trust you,” I said to Peter with a hint of annoyance in my voice.

  “Not just me,” he snapped, showing as close to anger as he’d shown thus far. Something had him wound tight. Something serious. “Oh please don’t place all your trust in me alone.”

  “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Peter? If not you, then who?”

  “Him,” he said and by the way he said it I knew who he was talking about. God. Peter was asking me if I could trust, really trust, God. “Can you place your hopes and dreams, your convictions and passions, your sense of reality, in His hands?”

  “I think I can.” It was the best I could do. I’d always thought I could place all my trust in God alone, I believed in Him and had given my life to Him. I believed He was sovereign and good and holy and always had my best interest in mind, but I’d never really had my mettle, my faith, tested to the fullest. Not like it was being tested now. “Yes, I can.”

  Peter didn’t look satisfied at my answer. He turned his eyes toward the flame, studied their gyrations for a few seconds until a fresh stream of tears slipped down his cheek, then looked at me again. “You’ll have to trust tomorrow. Trust me, yes, but most of all trust God, Billy. No matter what happens, trust God. For your sake and for the sake of your dad and brother and grandfather.”

  I knew he was getting at something, knew something I didn’t, and in his cryptic, mysterious way was warning me about whatever it was. I also knew I didn’t like being in the dark, either literally or figuratively. “What are you getting at? What’s going to happen tomorrow?”

  More tears poured from Peter’s eyes, and he let them flow uninhibited. The man I saw sitting across the fire from me, his face aglow from the flames, rivulets of tears glistening like wet glass, was not the same man who rescued me from the cellar and sure death, nor was he the same man who led me through the woods to the safety of a secret hiding place. This wasn’t even the same man who’d just faced down Mama Bear and declined a spot on her dance card. He was a tortured soul, wrestling with knowledge he wished he didn’t possess, grappling with a future that looked as dark as the sky above us.

  His red-rimmed, puffy eyes met mine; his chin quivered. “Billy, no matter what happens tomorrow, trust. Trust God. He will show you.” He then unfolded his legs and stood, looking down at the fire as if to say goodbye to a long-lost friend after a brief but very emotional reunion. “He will see you through.”

  I watched as Peter left the soft glow of the fire and retreated to the lean-to where he reclined on the leafy ground and clasped his hands behind his head. I said no more, questioned no further. I still didn’t understand what he was getting at but had accepted that I never would, at least not until morning brought tomorrow. And I would have to trust.

  I sat by the fire, basking in its soft blush and penetrating warmth, letting my mind off its leash so it could roam free. My thoughts went to Dad and Henry and Pop. Were they still alive? Or was all this for nothing? I wondered if I would hunt down the Nazi invaders, come upon them tomorrow, only to find my loved ones already dead and disposed of. I wondered if I was walking in to my own execution, setting the stage for my final moments here on earth. Maybe that’s what Peter meant about trust, maybe he knew, deep inside where truth isn’t hidden and tact and politeness don’t matter, that I was no match for the Nazis, that if I continued on my determined trek my fate was sealed, and he wanted to make sure I was ready to meet my Maker.

  The flames silently clawed and bit at the air, engaged in a dance that appeared primitive and carnal, like something you’d find in the darkest jungles of Africa long after the setting sun had bidden its farewell and darkness, both atmospheric and spiritual, had descended. They were mesmerizing, transfixing, as if two individual tongues of fire had reached out and wrapped my mind in foreboding gloom. I thought of death and the various ways the Germans could have tortured and killed Dad and Henry. I thought of them toying with Pop, inflicting pain for the shear enjoyment of watching a senile old man writhe in agony.

  Above me, a stiff breeze kicked up, rustling through the tops of the trees. Branches creaked like doors on rusty hinges. Rain was coming. I hoped the moss would do its job and keep us dry through the night.

  Again, I thought of my dad. If he was still alive, would he be dry through the night? Or would he pass the hours in a semi-conscious state, tormen
ted by unimaginable pain. Despite our differences and his harshness, I loved him and hoped he truly felt the same way about me. I wondered when he had changed? He hadn’t always been so antagonistic toward me. Not that long ago he was different, happy, content.

  Tears pooled in my eyes. I longed for those days again, when I felt like I belonged, when I was certain about my place in our family, when I was my dad’s son, Billy Harding.

  Pushing the thoughts from my mind, burying them back wherever my sub-conscious mind had dug them up, I stood and stretched my knees. I didn’t bother extinguishing the fire, the forthcoming rain would take care of that. Besides, the fire would ward off any curious wildlife that may wander into our area looking for a late night snack.

  Reclining on the earthen floor of the makeshift shelter I expected to hear the steady rhythm of Peter’s sleep-breathing. Instead I heard the almost-inaudible hiss of a man deep in whispery prayer. My curiosity getting the better of me, I held my breath and tried to focus on the sound of Peter’s voice. But the rustle of the leaves above and the thumping of my own pulse in my ears made it impossible. I closed my eyes and allowed the gentle rhythms of both voice and nature to sooth my mind as if I was an infant and they a gentle lullaby.

  When sleep had almost overtaken me and my body felt weightless, I was suddenly awakened by, “He does love you, you know.”

  Not sure if Peter was addressing me or God or some other being, I lay silently, waiting to see if his conversation with the unseen continued. When it didn’t I said, “Who?”

  “You’re father. He does love you.”

  Heat spread up the back of my neck and across my cheeks. How did Peter know the very thing with which I wrestled most feverishly and most ineffectively? Knowing my probing would only produce more cryptic answers, I chose not to question his other-worldly knowledge and decided to see how far it went. “Why doesn’t he show it? If he loves me, why am I such a disappointment?”